3o7 
WEA PORTE. 
[ Fed. 3, 1870 
ENGLISH SPORT IN THE FIFTEENTH 
CENTURY 
The Debate between the Heralds of France and England. 
Translated and edited by Henry Pyne. (London: 
Longmans and Co. 1870.) 
i is not easy to obtain an accurate knowledge of the 
fauna of England before the sixteenth century, or to 
ascertain with anything like precision the distribution of 
wild animals throughout our country. Contemporary 
authorities are few, and allusions in them to the facts of 
Natural History are vague and scanty: vague enough to 
whet our curiosity, and rare enough to augment the interest 
attaching to them. We are, therefore, grateful when we 
can derive from any fresh and well-accredited source a 
side-light upon this obscure subject, and such we seem 
to have found in a few incidental remarks that occur in a 
very early tract, bearing the unsuggestive title of “A 
Debate between the Heralds of France and England.” 
This debate, now for the first time translated into English, 
appears from internal evidence to have been written by 
Charles, Duke of Orleans, about the year 1460, and to 
have been first published in Paris in 1500, Its author, 
taken prisoner at the battle of Agincourt, was detained in 
England for some five-and-twenty years, dividing the 
period of his captivity between London and the Castles 
of Windsor, Pontefract, Ampthill, Bolingbroke, and Wing- 
field. To a man of quick observation, as the Duke un- 
doubtedly was, this lengthened exile gave ample oppor- 
tunity of forming a tolerably correct opinion of the 
relative merits of the land of his birth and the land of 
his captivity. Patriotism has, of course, occasionally 
coloured his views, but on the whole his judgments are 
wonderfully impartial, and his statements may be accepted 
with very little qualification. It must, however, be borne 
in mind that the Duke’s acquaintance with England was 
almost wholly confined to the eastern side, which has 
very little in common with the rest of the country, and 
has probably undergone far fewer changes in later times. 
Thus, in his estimate of the capabilities of our country 
for sporting purposes, he makes the English Herald say: 
“England is a level country, well cultivated, and not 
covered with trees or bushes, which might hinder the 
game from being easily found and caught; and it has 
also many partridges, quails, and other birds, as well as 
hares in great abundance. And with regard to the sport 
of fowling, no one can imagine a more delightful country, 
for there are numerous little streams which flow into the 
great rivers, where it is a fine thing, during the season, to 
see what a profusion there is of wild fowl.” This description 
is true enoughof the eastern counties, especially if we under- 
stand the term “ wild fowl” to include snipes, plovers, bit- 
terns, and other fen-haunting birds. But, in lauding the 
superior merits of French sport, the Duke gives some further 
details, which are not without their value, as illustrating 
what we may call the antiquarian side of Natural History. 
“Tn France,” he remarks, “we have not only all the wild 
animals which you (English) have, as stags, roes, and 
deer, but we have many other animals for the chase 
besides these : for we have wild boars or wild black swine, 
and we have also wolves and foxes, while you have none.” 
Now, it is hardly necessary to observe that the popular 
story of the extermination of wolves in England by 
Edward I. must be received with some reservation. 
There seems some ground to believe that in the valley of 
the Findhorn, in Scotland, wolves have bred as late as the 
seventeenth century, and that even in the wilder parts of 
England—the fells of Yorkshire, and the forest of 
Dartmoor—they have existed in the fifteenth, and perhaps 
in the sixteenth century, if we are to give any credence 
to local traditions. Certain it is that in 1280, John 
Giffard, the Baron of Brimsfield, had license from King 
Edward to hunt wolves with dogs and nets in all forests 
in England; we have also little doubt that a diligent 
search through the public records would disclose similar 
grants of later date. Some ten years ago a young wolf 
was caught in a vermin-trap at Ongar, in Essex, but its 
occurrence was explained by the fact that the master of a 
neighbouring hunt had recently imported some fox-cubs 
from France, and that the wolf had been included in the 
hamper by mistake. The comparatively small amount of 
woodland and covert in the East of England would render 
the breeding of wolves, to any extent, an impossibility, and 
in a less degree the same remark applies to foxes also. 
Fox-hunting, in the modern sense of that term, is a sport 
of recent growth, and such a thing as the preservation of 
foxes for hunting purposes cannot boast of any antiquity 
at all. Gervase Markham, indeed, classes the hunting of 
the fox and the badger together, and describes them as 
“chases of a great deal lesse use or cunning than stag 
and hare-hunting, because they are of a much hotter 
scent, and are not so much desired as the rest,’—an 
observation which may be balanced by the French 
Herald’s remark, that wolves and foxes “are blood- 
thirsty animals, so that it requires persons of great 
courage to overcome them.” Wild swine in England 
were either destroyed or domesticated at a very early 
period. Pannage was too valuable a privilege to be other- 
wise than jealously guarded against such unwelcome 
intruders. Charles I. turned out in the New Forest some 
boars and sows which he had imported from Germany, 
and fifty years ago their descendants might be recognised 
by the smallness of their hind-quarters and greater 
development of sinew. 
The next position asserted by the French Herald in the 
Debate, if true at the time, has since been curiously 
reversed, He claims precedence for his country, not only 
in respect of hares and game-birds generally, but especially 
or exclusively for the great red-legged or Grecian 
partridges, and an abundance of pheasants. Hares have 
always been common in England, but the prevalence of 
red-legged partridges throughout the stubbles has not 
been a long-standing grievance to the Suffolk sportsman, 
for, if Pennant be right, they were introduced from France, 
as late as the year 1770, and, perhaps from their dislike to 
a humid soil and atmosphere, have never spread themselves 
far inland. 
With regard to English pheasants, the Duke’s experience 
must, we think, have been exceptionally unfortunate. 
The bills of fare, in olden times, invariably make mention 
of them, and Mr, Pyne refers to a statute passed in 1494, 
prohibiting their destruction by unlicensed persons, and 
clearly implying that they were common enough. Gos- 
hawks and tercelets for hawking purposes were, no doubt, 
imported from France in the fifteenth century—the 
accuracy of the French Herald’s statement on this point 
being confirmed by several passages in the Paston Letters. 
