26 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



Richmond Lodge, ' where,' says Walpole, ' the most promis- 

 ing of the young gentlemen of the party, and the prettiest 

 and hvehest of the young ladies, formed the new Court.' 



George II., soon after his accession, appointed Colonel 

 Francis Negus Master of the Buckhounds. The colonel 

 was to defray all expenses on a yearly salary of 2,341Z., and 

 this stipend appears to have continued till 1782. The 

 accounts as compared with the present day are chiefly 

 remarkable for their variety. The responsibility of the 

 Master of the Buckhounds covered, as Mr. Hore says, a 

 wide field of action. Colonel Francis Negus had all sorts of 

 things to do besides looking after the hounds and hunt- 

 horses. He distributed King's Plates at race-meetings, fed 

 the wild turkeys in Bushey Park, and managed the royal 

 menagerie in Hyde Park, where the king's tiger accounted 

 for six pounds of boiled beef and mutton daily. Extracts 

 from other sources of information appal one by the number 

 of hunting and other accidents. Thus we have the Duke of 

 Grafton, at that time Lord Chamberlain, thrown into a mill- 

 race near Datchet and very nearly drowned ; and pages of 

 honour, hunt servants, ladies of the bedchamber, physicians, 

 and gentlemen and gentlewomen of all sorts and condi- 

 tions are always coming to grief and having to be bled. One 

 day a stableman was riding an over-fresh horse which 

 took fright at a swan which flew out at it from the canal 

 in Bushey Park. The horse ran away, impaled itself on 

 some iron spikes, and had to be destroyed. Lady Suffolk 

 said it was lucky the man was not hurt, on which the 

 king snapped her up very short. ' Yes, I am very lucky, 

 truly ; pray where is the luck '? I have lost a good horse, 

 and I have got a booby of a groom still to keep.' Lord 

 Hervey instances this as an example of George II. 's rudeness 

 and want of feeling, but even kings are human. 



On one occasion. Sir Eobert Walpole's horse fell just in 



