TURFITES ON THE GRAND SCALE 9 



in Vincent's well-known work he is styled, with less courtesy 

 but perhaps more truth, " pirate or privateer." 



Now sailors, as a rule, are not supposed to have much 

 knowledge of horses, though Admiral Rous was a notable 

 exception. But in the Elizabethan age sailors were am- 

 phibious creatures, and my Lord of Cumberland was as 

 passionate a lover of racing as any landsman. His personal 

 appearance was enough to have made him a noteworthy 

 personage in any company. His singularly handsome face, 

 his powerful figure, his haughty carriage, his magnificent 

 dress, must have made him conspicuous even among the host 

 of " tall and proper men " whom the virgin queen loved 

 to gather round her; and he was indeed high in favour with 

 Her Majesty, whose passion for stalwart and good-looking 

 gentlemen was of a nature to create much scandal. 



He distinguished himself in the great fight against the 

 Spanish Armada, as commander of the Bonaventura, and 

 had the honour of carrying the news of victory to Elizabeth 

 at Tilbury. 



He was a born gambler, and when he found that neither 

 plundering Spanish galleons nor the less noble pastimes of 

 dice and cards satisfied his craving for excitement and 

 speculation, he took to horse-racing, and on the Turf he 

 was able to gratify to the full his passion for gambling. 

 One after another his estates were sold to pay his racing 

 debts and the expenses of the enormous stud he maintained. 

 And there would soon have been nothing left for his heirs 

 had not a fatal sickness struck him down and put an end 

 to his plunging. He died, I learn from a contemporary 

 record, " a very penitent man in the duchy house called 

 the Savoy, October 30, 1605, aged 47 years." 



Of a very different and far more common type was the 

 next "plunger" of whom I find any record in the annals of 

 the Turf, to wit, Sir Richard Gargrave, Bart., of Nostal and 

 Kinsley in Yorkshire. He succeeded to the title and 

 estates in 1605, the year in which George Clifford, Earl of 

 Cumberland, died ; and the vastness of his possessions may 

 be gathered from the fact that he could ride from Wakefield 

 to Doncaster without leaving his own land. But the fabled 

 purse of Fortunatus would have failed to meet the demands 



