i6 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 



the end of the seventeenth century, a supplementary salary for 

 the Master, amounting on the average to 50/. a year, charged 

 on the revenues of Surrey and Sussex, and payable by warrant 

 under the Privy Seal addressed to the sheriff of those coun- 

 ties. So serious are the delays of payment of this salary 

 after the Lancastrian accession to the throne, so great is the 

 risk of its not being paid at all, that pubHc records and the 

 Brocas papers are full of piteous appeals from successive 

 Masters, such as that of the year 1449, in which ' To the 

 Kyng and Sovain Lorde bisecheth mekely your humble 

 servaunt William Brocas Squyer, Maistre of your Buk- 

 hounds. Forasmuche that he holdith of you and alle his 

 Auncestres of tyme that no mynde is have holden to your 

 noble progenitours, the Manior of Lityll Weldon in the Counte 

 of North' by Graunte Sergeaunte that is to witte to be 

 Maistre of your Bukhoundes, and to kepe xxiiij reunyng 

 houndes and vi grehoundes, and to find a yeoman Veautrer 

 and two yomen Berners, which Office was of old tyme or- 

 deyned for the pleasir and disporte of your noble progenitours 

 and their successours. . . . AYherefore please hit unto your 

 Highnesse as well tenderly to consider these premisses as the 

 trewe contynuell service that your said Bisecher hath doon 

 unto your noble progenitours as to your Highnesse ... to 

 graunte unto y^nv said Bisecher the said wages and 



fees. ... 



' llesponsio 



Soit fait connne il est desire juxst le continue d'un 

 Cedule a ycest Peticion annexe.' 



So alike are these petitions and so unchanged are the 

 general conditions of the manor and service during the 

 centuries of its hereditary transmission, that we may well 

 turn in search of more interesting matter to such personal 

 details of certain Masters as concern tht>ir tenuiv of the office. 

 Of the romantic career of the first and most illustrious 



