THE ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY. 27 



the same time fox-hunting began to be looked upon with 

 favour by English country gentlemen, and foxes regarded 

 as likely to show more sport than hares. The earliest record 

 of fox-hunting on anything like the same lines as it is at 

 present conducted took place in Yorkshire, and within the 

 Royal Forest of Pickering, so early as the year 1495. In 

 December of that year, one Roger Hastings, a squire who 

 lived within the Manor of Pickering, and who seems to 

 have been a somewhat self-assertive gentleman, got into 

 trouble through slaying the king's deer. Squire Hastings, 

 who lived at Kingthorpe, had unmistakably slain his lord's 

 venison, but he seems to have got off pretty easily, and we 

 frequently hear of him afterwards. It seems that he went 

 out ostensibly to hunt foxes, and there is something quaint 

 and almost pathetic in the account of his misdemeanour in 

 the old records. ' Item idem Rogerus Hastynges, Armiger 

 xv]"" die Decembris anno clomini Regis nunc x™. In 

 Standall infra Forestam juxta Pykeryng venavit ad vulpes, 

 et sub colore illo venavit ad ferinas domini Regis.' A fine 

 subject for a painter would this turbulent sportsman and 

 his retainers make, and it is quite likely that he may have 

 been one of the first men to hunt the fox in what we 

 would now call the legitimate manner. The covert in 

 which he went to hunt foxes still exists in Capt. Johnstone's 

 hunt, and it forms an interesting link between the past and 

 present order of things in the fox-hunting world. What 

 seems of most importance in connection with the raid of 

 Roger Hastings was that his going out to hunt the king's 

 deer, under the colour of going fox-hunting, marks the fact that 

 in his day fox-hunting was becoming recognised as a country 

 gentleman's recreation, though many years were to elapse 

 before it came to the front as the one winter sport preferred 

 above all others. Had Roger Hastinos grone with nets as 

 fox-hunters in the earlier days were wont to, he would not 



