Chapter XI 



THE GOLDEN AGE 

 II 



1842-1859 



THE next season, 1843-44, was an extraordinary one for 

 sport, but the centre of interest changes from the 

 kennel to the Castle, where the Duke with his usual magni- 

 ficent hospitality was entertaining the Queen and the Prince 

 Consort. This event reminds us that the period was not 

 without its troubles for all classes, and the much-hated income 

 tax was but the precursor of many other imposts, which have 

 each had the effect of lessening and even crippling the spend- 

 ing power of the great noblemen. A still darker cloud was 

 gathering over the landowners and farmers, for the Corn 

 Laws were even now looked on as doomed. The Duke and 

 Lord Granby both saw clearly the injury the repeal of these 

 laws would do to the farming interests, of which they were 

 the natural leaders, and we know that Lord Granby, after- 

 wards the sixth Duke, never swerved in his opinion of the 

 mischief that free trade in corn would do to English farming. 

 Probably neither he nor his father foresaw the utter ruin and 

 the national danger involved in the depths of agricultural 

 depression. On this point I express no opinion, but the 

 history of the Belvoir Hunt was destined to be greatly 

 affected by these changes, which have in our time issued in 

 the partial separation of the hunt from the house of Manners. 

 The country too was unsettled, and Chartism was one result 

 of the disappointment felt at the failure of reform to bring 

 about the prosperity which some of its advocates had so 



169 



