17 
his horse afterwards for a sum equal to 
420,000 in modern money. 
For nearly a hundred years after the 
deposition of Richard II., the available 
records throw little or no light upon our 
subject. The Wars of the Roses (1450- 
1471) were productive of results injurious 
alike to agriculture, stock breeding, and 
commerce. During a period when horses 
for military service were in constant demand, 
and were liable, unless the property of some 
powerful noble, to seizure by men of either 
of the contending factions, it was not worth 
any man’s while to breed horses, still less 
to try to improve them. The fifteenth 
century, therefore, or at least a considerable 
portion of it, saw retrogression rather than 
progress in English horse-breeding. 
HENRY VII. (1485-1509). 
Henry VII., in 1495, found the horse 
supply of the country so deficient, and the 
prices so high, that he passed an Act for- 
bidding the export of any horse without 
Royal permission, on pain of forfeiture, and 
of any mare whose value exceeded six 
shillings and eightpence; no mare under 
three years old might be sent out of the 
2 
