HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH HORSE. 61 



in those days, and produced the kind of horse which was then alone compara- 

 tively useful, and whose strength and noble bearing and good action were the 

 foundation of something better in after days. 



The civil dissensions were at an end, there was no fear of foreign invasions 



no numerous cavalry were needed — the labours of agriculture were performed 

 chiefly by oxen, or by the smaller and inferior breeds of horses, — races were not 

 established — the chase had not begun to be pursued with the ardour and speed 

 of modern days — nothing, in fact, was now wanted or sought for, but an animal 

 more for occasional exhibition than for sterling use, or if useful, principally or 

 solely with reference to the heavy carnages and bad roads and tedious travelling 

 through the country. If this is rightly considered, it.will be acknowledged that, 

 with all his faults, and with the confession that he was ever more actuated by 

 the determinations of his own ungovernable passions than the advantage of his 

 people or of posterity, we still owe him thanks for the preservation of that breed 

 of horses from which in after times sprung those that were the glory of our 

 country and the envy of every other. 



The following extract from a manuscript dated 1512, in the third year of the 

 reign of Henry VIII., and entitled the Regulations and Establishment of the 

 household of Algernon Percy, the fifth Earl of Northumberland, may give the 

 reader a sufficient knowledge of the different kinds of horses then in use. 



" This is the ordre of the chequir roul of the nombre of all the horsys of my 

 lordis and my ladys that are apoynted to be in the charge of the hous yerely, as 

 to say, gentil hors*, palfreys t, hobys $, naggis§, cloth-sek hors ||, male- 

 hors IT. First, gentil-hors, to stand in my lordis stable, six. Item. Palfreys of 

 my lady's, to wit, one for my lady, and two for her gentil- women, and oone for 

 her chamberer. Four hobys and naggis for my lordis oone saddill, viz., oone for 

 my lorde to ride, oone to lede for my lorde, and oone to stay at home for my 

 lorde. Item. Chariot hors to stond in my lorde's stable yerely. Seven great 

 trottynge hors to draw in the chariott **, and a nagg for the chariott-man to 

 ride ; eight. Again, hors for lorde Percy, his lordship's son and heir. A grete 

 doble trottynge horse ++, for my lorde Percy to travel on in winter. Item. 



* The gentil horse was one of superior ^ Male, or mail, was equivalent to port- 

 breed, in distinction from the ordinary race, manteau. Thus, in Chaucer, " I have relics 

 The same term is at present applied to Italian and pardons in my male." 

 horses of the best breeds. •* The chariot or car was the vehicle in 



f Palfreys were smaller horses of an inferior various forms, but far inferior to the chariot 



breed. The best of them, distinguished for or coach in common use, in which the furni- 



their gentleness and pleasant paces, were set ture or moveables were conveyed, or, per- 



apart for the females of the family: — "The chance, the inferior females of the family, 



bard that tells of palfried dames." Others The lord and the lady usually rode on horsc- 



of inferior value were ridden by the domestics back. They were slow-paced, heavy horses, 



or servants of every kind. Thus Dryden says, perhaps not much unlike the carriage-horses 



"The smiths and armourers on palfreys ride." a century ago, which ploughed all the week, 



% Hobys. — Hobbies were strong and active and took the family to church on Sunday. It 



horses of rather small size, and said to have must not be forgotten, as marking the charac- 



becn originally of Irish extraction. Thus ter of the vehicle and its contents, that the 



Davies, in his account of Ireland, says : — chariot-man, or coachman, rode by the side 



" For twenty hobblers armed — Irish horse- of the horses, and so conducted them and the 



soldiers so called because they served on carriage. 



hobbies ; they had 6d. per diem." ft ' A grete doble or double trottynge horse,' 



§ The naggis, or nags, so called from their means a large and broad-backed horse, the de- 

 supposed propensity to neigh, Tcnegga. They pression along whose back gives almost the 

 were small, and not much valued, but active appearance of two horses joined together, 

 horses : — " Thy nags," says Prior, Thus the French speak of le double bidet; and 

 " The leanest things alive, Virgil, referring to the horse, sayB, " At duplex 

 So very hard thou lov'st to drive." agitur per lumbos spina " (fiearg. III.) 



|| The cloth-sek was the horse that carried 

 the cloak-bag. 



