THE HISTORY OF THE BELVOIR HUNT 



has never once been scattered. In our own day the Brockles- 

 by dog pack has been sold, and the Badminton has received 

 large infusions of foreign blood by the purchase of Lord 

 Portsmouth's and Mr. Austen Mackenzie's dog hounds, but 

 the Belvoir and Lord Fitzhardinge's remain — the latter a 

 most useful pack, yet its owners have not striven for the 

 symmetry of appearance of the Belvoir, which thus stands 

 absolutely alone in its perfection as a pack, as well as in the 

 excellence of its individual hounds. 



There is another peculiar feature in the history of the 

 Belvoir Hunt which must attract the notice of any one who 

 studies the matter. Almost every man who has had to do with 

 the management of the pack has been a person of marked 

 character and ability. 



The third Duke, who after the death of his Duchess lived 

 a life of retirement at Belvoir, is in many respects an interest- 

 ing figure, though much overshadowed by the more striking 

 personality of his son, the Lord Granby, whose fame might 

 perhaps have lived to our own day if he had not destroyed by 

 his political career the renown he had so hardly and so justly 

 won as a soldier. Lord Granby's son, the fourth Duke, was 

 no sportsman, as Crabbe tells us, though a hunting establish- 

 ment and race-horses were then considered the necessary ap- 

 panage of a great nobleman. So far as the hunt was managed 

 at all during this Duke's time, the reins were held by Mr. 

 Thoroton, a relative of the family. During the Duke's absence 

 and the minority of his son came the deputy masters, Lord 

 George Cavendish and Sir Carnaby Haggerston. With the 

 latter of these, Mr. G. Marriott, the sporting draper of Melton, 

 used to hunt, whose advent in the hunting field shows that 

 even before the end of the eighteenth century the sport had 

 begun to take hold of the middle class in the country towns. 

 And last, but not least of these deputy masters, came Mr. 

 Perceval, a brother of the Prime Minister, who was, as we 

 shall see later, a first-rate hound man and to whom is due the 

 timely introduction of the Badminton blood into the Belvoir 

 pack, which through the female line helped to found the best 

 families now in kennel. To Mr. Perceval indeed belongs the 



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