-^ Its Makers, Past and Present 



special favour of their sovereigns, and whose occupation of 

 the Mastership attests the honour and dignity of that office. 

 As the scope of our history does not require an account 

 of the Hereditary Masters, we shall content ourselves with 

 remarking that in the reign of Queen Anne, after a long 

 period of diminishing importance, the division of the Royal 

 Buckhounds over which they presided, was abolished. From 

 that period there has been one principal official only. 



The connection which so long existed between the 

 Mastership and the Ascot Race Meetings may be traced 

 to the important part which was taken by the Royal Hunting 

 Establishment at their inception. The earlier Race Meetings 

 were, in a large degree, competitions for supremacy in horse- 

 manship between the servants of the Royal Hunt. Sir 

 William Wyndham, who was Master in 1711, the year of 

 the first Ascot Meeting, supervised the preparation of the 

 course, and was the directing genius of the event, both in 

 its sporting and ceremonial aspects. 



VVe have already described the enthusiasm with which 

 the Culloden Duke of Cumberland directed the influence of 

 his great position to the development of the Race Meetings ; 

 and so successfully were his energies employed, that he may 

 be justly denominated the " Father of Ascot." A bio- 

 graphical account of His Royal Highness will be found in 

 the following pages ; wherein we have also furnished short 

 memoirs of the Masters of the Buckhounds, from the early 

 years of the eighteenth century to the last of the r(f^iine, 

 Lord Chesham. Biographical notices of the Trustees of 

 the Grand Stand, the Officials of the Race Course, and the 

 Royal Huntsmen are also supplied ; and these likewise are 

 both retrospective and contemporary in their application. 



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