226 THE MASTER OF HOUNDS 



Privy Pack in 1528, the first Master being George 

 Boleyne, Viscount Rochester. It is a curious coin- 

 cidence that George Boleyne was born at Hever Castle, 

 in Kent, the former residence of Sir Oliver Brocas, when 

 Edward III, started the hereditary pack. 



Few people would regard George IV. as having been 

 a keen sportsman, so far as field sports were concerned. 

 Still, at all events, stag-hunters of the first fifty years of 

 the nineteenth century owed much to George IV. He 

 made Charles Davis Huntsman of the Royal Pack, who 

 only relinquished the horn in 1867, having carried it 

 for more than forty seasons. His retirement was but 

 short, for he died at Ascot on October 26, 1867, of 

 bronchitis, in his seventy-ninth year. Lord Ribbles- 

 dale has devoted an entire chapter to this remarkable 

 Huntsman, beneath the inscription : 



" Non omnis moriar, multaque pars mei 

 Vitabit Libitinam." 



Some of the sayings of Davis are worthy of repetition. 

 Thus, writing of hounds, he says, " Speak not harshly, 

 but kindly, and even yoiir countenance must bear the 

 impress oi friendship." But there can be no doubt, as 

 Lord Ribblesdale remarks, that he took himself a little 

 too seriously. I could not help smiling when I read 

 one sentence about him penned by Lord Ribblesdale — 

 the italics are my own. " I feel confident that he was 

 never in anything like a scrape — this is of itself quite a 

 misfortune — and I question whether he ever had much to 

 do with the scrapes and shifts of others." I have always 

 thought that Charles Davis was an over-rated man ; and 



