SIXTEENTH CENTURY 149 
quarry by one of the falconers. Elizabeth, active by 
nature and a good horsewoman, had inherited a taste for 
hunting and hawking from her father, Henry VIII. Like 
him, she was at home in the saddle, and when bent on 
pleasure was often to be seen at the head of a brave retinue 
in the field. 
On some occasions her royal parent appears to have 
been over-bold in his adventures. It is related that once 
when leaping a dyke with his hawking pole, the staff broke 
with his weight, and the King would have been in no small 
danger of being smothered in the mud had not one of the 
royal falconers been there to drag him out. Another time 
the house in which he was lodging caught fire, which, says 
the chronicler of events, put the King in great fear, but 
fortunately in no jeopardy.* On a third occasion Henry 
shot a tame buck by mistake, at least we may presume 
it was not done on purpose, for which seven and sixpence 
had to be paid by way of compensation. 
Modern enthusiasts for the sport of falconry think them- 
selves fortunate to possess one at least of Henry VIII.’s 
Household books, which has escaped destruction; although 
it only runs from 1529 to 1532,¢ there are quite a number of 
allusions to the King’s hawks in it. The best falconers were 
Flemings, a reputation long maintained, and Sir N. Nicolas 
considers that the king employed ten at least, each of whom 
had a livery costing twenty-two shillings and sixpence.{ One 
Nicholas Clamp received ten pounds a year,§ while others 
had a groat (fourpence) a day, and a penny for the food of 
each hawk. 
Brought up with falconers, and probably himself no 
mean judge of the points of a good hawk, Henry VIII. was 
partial to one species in particular. This was the Goshawk, 
if we may so argue from the circumstance of its being 
brought into these curious old accounts by name nine times. 
On one occasion the King, when he had sallied forth for an 
* “ Hall’s Chronicle,” edn. 1809, pp. 50, 697. 
+ “The Privy Purse Expenses of King Henry VIII.,’’ edited by Sir 
Nicholas H. Nicolas (1827). 
t T.c., pp. 142, 198. 
§ Preface, xxxix. 
