59 



was demanded and for which " not a penny- 

 less would be taken." The Berneys of 

 Norfolk were a good county family, and the 

 value set upon this trotting horse may be 

 measured by the fact that eight years earlier, 

 in 1462, Lord Howard paid only £1 i6s. 8d. 

 for a " grey nag to send to the French 

 King," as a gift. 



Margaret Paston, writing to her husband 

 Sir John, about the year 1465, from their 

 home at Haylesdon, near Norwich, says : 

 " There be bought for you three horses at 

 Saint Faith's fair, and all be trotters, right 

 fair horses, God save them, and they be 

 well keeped." St. Faith's, which is about 

 three miles from the county town, was long 

 famous for its annual stock fair. 



Thomas Blundeville, who lived at Newton 

 Flotman in Norfolk, also bears witness to 

 the merits of the local breed of horses in 

 his time — the i6th century. 



He says : — 



" I have known some carriers that go with carts, 

 to be so exquisite in their choice of horses as, unless 

 they had been as comely to the eye as good in their 

 work, they would not buy them, insomuch as I have 

 seen sometimes drawing in their carts better pro- 

 portioned horses than I have known to be finely kept 

 in stables, as jewels for the saddle." 



Nearly a hundred and fifty years after 



