26 
their legal obligation, and appointed suitable 
persons to see that her commands were 
carried out. One of these documents, issued 
in 1580, announces that the number of 
horsemen in the country shown by the 
returns is ‘‘much less than she looked for.” 
She made some changes in the existing 
laws, notably that passed in the thirty-second 
year of Henry VIII.’s reign, concerning the 
stature of horses in specified shires. That 
law applied among other counties to Cam- 
bridgeshire, Huntingdon, Northampton, Lin- 
colnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk; 8 Eliz., c. 8, 
passed in 1566, exempted the Isle of Ely 
and “other moors, marshes and fens of 
Cambridgeshire,” and the above-mentioned 
counties from operation of the Act because 
“the said moors, of their unfirmness, moys- 
ture and wateryshnes” could not bear such 
big horses without danger of their ‘‘ mireyng, 
drowning and peryshinge.” 
She also (31 Eliz. 12) passed another 
‘‘Acte to avoyde horse stealinge,” the chief 
feature of which was to forbid anyone un- 
known to the toll-taker to sell a horse in 
the market unless the would-be seller could 
produce ‘one sufficient and credible” wit- 
ness to vouch for his respectability. The 
evil had grown to the proportions of a 
