THE HISTORY OF THE BELVOIR HUNT 



what older than his cousin, the Duke of Rutland, and was as 

 enthusiastic a sportsman as his father. It is more than 

 likely that even before he came of age the young Duke of 

 Rutland began to exercise some influence on the manage- 

 ment of the pack ; and in 1798, the year before his marriage 

 to the Lady Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the fifth Earl of 

 Carlisle, we find ten and a half couples of hounds in the 

 Belvoir kennels from Lord Carlisle's pack. 



This nobleman, who has drawn for us his own portrait in 

 the letters he wrote to his friend George Selwyn, is perhaps 

 best remembered as the guardian of Lord Byron. He was a 

 man of a many-sided character, and of much charm, though 

 of no very great strength. As a sportsman, he had formed 

 one of a triumvirate, with Mr. Willoughby and Mr. Compton, 

 to hunt the country now known as Lord Middleton's ; and 

 I imagine that during a vacancy in that country, which 

 occurred after Mr. Legard resigned in 1792-94, he hunted 

 some part of the country round Castle Howard with a pack 

 of his own. When Mr. Duncombe became master in 1799, 

 those hounds, or the greater part of them, seem to have been 

 transferred to the Belvoir kennels, but to have been kept 

 separate from the pack. In the diary which Newman began 

 to keep in the season 1799- 1800, we find that there were 

 forty-six couples of hounds in kennel, of which ten and a half 

 are noted as Lord Carlisle's. 



From the number of hounds kept I infer that the Belvoir 

 began hunting three days a week, being enabled to do so 

 by the loan of Lord Carlisle's hounds. They hunted the 

 Leicestershire side at this time from Croxton Park, and then, 

 when they could find no more foxes, transferred hounds to 

 the old Wilsford kennels. The latter was a convenient place 

 for hunting the Lincolnshire side of the country. In 1799- 

 1800 they had a hundred days' hunting, beginning on 

 August loth and killing a May fox. More than one-third 

 of the total number (seventy-seven) of foxes killed were slain 

 in cub-hunting. The sport of this season was nothing extra- 

 ordinary, but the pack was hardly yet in form. On Feb- 

 ruary 24th, 1800, Mr. Meynell had the run which Mr. 



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