THE COTSWOLD BREED. 187 



tain Coteswold Sheepe to be transported into the country of 

 Spaine, which have there since mightily increased and multi- 

 plied to the Spanish profit, as it is said." The worthy writer 

 is not so well satisfied as some of his countrymen, that the 

 Spaniards owed all their Sheep to England; for, adds he, "true 

 it is, that long ere this were Sheepe in Spaine, as may appear by 

 a patent of King Henry the Second, granting to the weavers 

 of London, that if any cloth were found to be made of Spanish 

 wool, mixed with English wool, the maior of London should see 

 it brent. 55 Adam Speed, who wrote in 1629, describes the 

 wool of the Cotswold Sheep as similar to that of the Ryeland. 

 " In Herefordshire, especially about Lempster, and on those 

 famous hills called Cotswold Hills, sheep are fed that pro- 

 duce a singular good wool, which, for fineness, comes very 

 near to that of Spain, for from it a thread may be drawn as 

 fine as silk.' 5 The precise character of the Sheep which pro- 

 duced this wool is now unknown. They were probably simi- 

 lar to the large fine-woolled breeds of the adjoining counties 

 of Wilts and Berks, a supposition which agrees with the 

 locality of the districts, and with " the long necks and square 

 of bulk and bone" ascribed to the Cotswold Sheep by Camden, 

 and explains the distinction of Drayton between the wealthy 

 locks of Cotswold, and the^ less abundant ore of Lemster. 

 Markham, indeed, a writer of the time of Elizabeth, speaks of 

 the Cotswold Sheep as having long wool, but this testimony 

 cannot weigh against the direct authority of Speed in a later 

 age ; and it may be believed, that the term long, as used by 

 Markham, is merely relative, as applied to the two kinds of 

 wool. 



The Sheep, however, which now possess the same country, 

 and have inhabited it beyond the memory of the living gene- 

 ration, are a Long-woolled race, and thus entirely distinct 

 from the Sheep of the ancient forests, wolds, and downs, which 

 produced the former fine wool of England. They are of the 

 larger class of British Sheep, and all their characters denote 

 them to be a breed of the plains and richer country. The 



