HAWKS AND HAWKING. 279 
Their value may be inferred from the fact that in this romance 
twenty shillings is staked in a game of chess against one hawk; 
and a further testimony of their value is given by Olaus Magnus, 
who states that the white ones were never shot at by the 
inhabitants, but were considered sacred, unless they did too much 
hurt and rapine.* 
The practice of sending presents of hawks to the English 
court was continued during many reigns. John Chamberlain, in 
a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton, dated 15th November, 1617, 
relates how the Muscovian ambassador had an audience of the 
king, and brought divers presents of furs, estimated at better than 
£6000, and divers hawks with coats or coverings of ermison satin 
and other colours, embroidered with pearl.t 
Again, Pepys, describing the entry into London of the Russian 
ambassador, 22nd November, 1662, writes:—‘‘I could not see 
the ambassador in his coach; but his attendants in their habits 
and fur caps very handsome comely men, and most of them with 
hawks upon their fists to present to the King. . . . The 
King took two or three hawks upon his fist, having a glove 
on wrought with gold, given him for the purpose.” 
The King of Denmark sent Iceland Falcons to the court of 
Great Britain between the years 1699 and 1703, and to the Prince 
of Wales from 1741 to 1745. 
Did space permit, a long account might be furnished of the 
doings of many of our kings in the hawking-field; but it must 
suffice if we select only a few illustrations. 
In October, 1172, Henry II. was at Pembroke, South Wales, 
en route for Ireland, where, says Giraldus Cambrensis, he amused 
himself with the sport of hawking. He chanced to espy a noble 
falcon perched on a crag, and, making a circuit round the rock, 
he let loose upon it a large high-bred Norway hawk, which 
he carried on his left wrist. The falcon, though its flight was at 
first slower than the other bird’s, having at last mounted above it, 
became in turn the assailant, and, stooping from aloft with great 
fury on the Norway hawk, laid it dead at the king’s feet. From 
that time, it is said, the king used to send every year, in the proper 
season, for young falcons from the cliffs of South Wales, for in all 
his lands he could not find better or more noble hawks. 
* Ol. Mag. Hist. Goth. Angl. 1658, p. 200. 
+ ‘Court and Times of James I.’ vol. ii. p. 54. 
