112 HORSE LA WS PASSED B V HENR V VI I I. 



English. Even at as late a date as the reign of 

 Elizabeth the exportation of English horses into Scot- 

 land was forbidden, and the infringement of this law 

 was treated as a felony. In the time of Richard II. 

 the horse-dealers demanded such exorbitant prices for 

 horses that his Majesty was forced to interfere, and he 

 therefore ruled that the prices of horses should be the 

 same as they had been during the previous reigns. This 

 proclamation was ordered to be posted in the principal 

 horse-breeding districts of Lincolnshire, Cambridge- 

 shire, and the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire. 



When Henry VI I, came to the throne he further 

 altered the law by prohibiting the exportation of 

 stallions, but allowing that of mares over two years 

 old, the latter being under the value of 6s. 6d. 



Henry VIII. fixed a certain standard, below which 

 no horse should be kept. The lowest height for a 

 stallion was 15 hands; for a mare 13 hands; and no 

 stallion over two years of age or under 14 hands 

 2 inches was permitted to run in any forest, moor, or 

 common where there were mares. The magistrates 

 were ordered to drive all the forests and commons 

 every year at Michaelmas, and to destroy all stallions 

 and mares which they considered useless for breeding 

 purposes. He further ordered that every deer-park 

 should be stocked with a certain proportion of pony 

 mares of 13 hands; and that all his prelates and 

 nobles, and those whose wives wore velvet bonnets, 

 should keep stallions, suitable for getting saddle- 

 horses, of at least 1 5 hands. 



Sir A. Fitzherbert, Judge of the Court of Common 

 Pleas, wrote a work entitled ' A Boke of Husbandry.' 

 This work being now very rare, an extract from it 



