INTRODUCTION. xv 



One of the most interesting pieces of documentary evidence 

 on this part of the subject is deposited in the MS. Depart- 

 ment of the British Museum. I refer to the Colloquy of 

 Archbishop ^Elfric, a composition of the tenth century. The 

 object of this and similar colloquies and vocabularies compiled 

 about the same period was to interpret Latin to the Anglo- 

 Saxon student, and furnish him with the Latin words for 

 the common objects of life. In this MS. we find a dialogue 

 between a scholar and a falconer, in which the latter imparts 

 some interesting details on the • subject of his art as then 

 practised.* 



Hawking was pursued by many of our early kings with the 

 greatest enthusiasm, and some reference to their doings will 

 be found in No. 79 of this Catalogue, which contains (pp. 

 71-85) many details of interest serving to illustrate the his- 

 tory of Falconry in England. 



Henry VHL's love of Hawking may be inferred from the 

 anecdote related of him in Hall's " Chronicle," to the effect that, 

 being one day out hawking at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, he 

 was leaping a dyke with a hawking-pole, when it suddenly 

 broke, and the king was immersed in mud and water, and 

 might have lost his life had not Edmund Moody, one of the at- 

 tendants, come to his assistance. (Chronicle 1 548, fol. 1 30 verso.) 

 A portrait of his chief falconer, Robert Cheseman, from the 

 painting by Holbein in the Royal Gallery at The Hague, will 

 be found amongst the illustrations to the present work.t 



A representation is also given (see the frontispiece) of 

 Sir Ralph Sadler, the Grand Falconer to Queen Elizabeth, in 

 whose reign Hawking was much in vogue. It is reproduced 

 from an old panel-portrait by Gerhardt which hangs in the 

 Manor House at Everley, Wilts, the former residence of 



* This dialogue will be found printed in the Introduction to No. 81. 



t It was in the reign of Henry VIII. that the royal hawks were removed from 

 the Mews at Charing Cross (where they had been kept during many reigns), and 

 the place was converted into stables. The name, however, confirmed by long 

 usage, remained to the building, although after the hawks were withdrawn it 

 became inapplicable. But what is more curious still, in later times, when the 

 people of London began to build stabling at the back of their houses, they 

 christened those places "mews " after the old stabling at Charing Cross. 



