CHAPTER V. 

 ASCOT— ITS MAKERS, PAST AND PRESENT. 



THE Royal Buckhounds, after an existence of over 

 seven centuries, have been abolished, and an insti- 

 tution which has endured since the days of the Plantagenets 

 has ceased to exist. 



The dignity and importance that surrounded the person 

 of the Master of the Buckhounds are fully supported by 

 a history of great interest and antiquity. The office had 

 its origin in the time of Edward HI., in the domestic 

 chronicles of whose reign it is recorded that Sir Bernard 

 Brocas was Master from 1362 to 1395. For many genera- 

 tions successive members of the Brocas family exercised 

 the duties of Master, which for a period of considerable 

 length continued to be an hereditary office. At a later era 

 there existed concurrently with this hereditary officer a 

 second, or Household Master of the Buckhounds, whose 

 business it was to control the hunting establishment belonging 

 to the Royal Palace. Among the earlier Masters of the 

 Household branch of the Buckhounds are found George 

 Boleyne, Viscount Rochford ; John Dudley, Earl of 

 Warwick ; and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester ; noblemen 

 who at certain periods of their lives were the objects of the 



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