THE KING CHARLES SPANIELS. 
Charles (black and tan), Prince Charles or 
Tricolour (white, black and tan), Blenheim 
(white and red), and Ruby (all red). 
At the time of the formation of the Toy 
Spaniel Club, in 1886, the foreign varieties 
of miniature Spaniels, Pekinese and Japan- 
ese, were then practically unknown in this 
country, and therefore the name of Toy 
Spaniel had belonged exclusively to the 
King Charles varieties. 
It would undoubtedly have been a very 
great pity for the loving little faithful 
friends, playmates, and pets of King Charles 
II. to have been deprived of their name. 
In the fourth chapter of Macaulay’s 
“History of England’ we read of this 
monarch that “he might be seen before 
the dew was off the grass in St. James’s 
Park, striding among the trees, playing 
with his Spaniels and flinging corn to his 
ducks, and these exhibitions endeared him 
to the common people, who always like 
to see the great unbend.” 
Dr. John Caius referred to the breed 
thus :— 
{ A chamber } 
Spaniel companion gener- 
Sey if ee 3 A pleasant at d 
pues Pe playfellow. i 
Com- called | peer Canis 
forter. eee delicatus. 
| worme. J 
Dr. Caius connected these little Spaniels 
with the Maltese dogs, and wrote: ‘ The 
dogges of this kinde doth Callimachus call 
Melitoeos of the Iseland Melita in the sea 
of Sicily (what at this time is called Malta, 
an Iseland indeede famous and renowned 
with couragious and puissant souldiours 
valliauntly fighting under the banner of 
Christ their unconquerable captaine), where 
this kind of dogges had their principal 
beginning.” 
He described them as “ delicate, neate, 
and pretty kind of dogges, called the 
Spaniel gentle or the comforter,” and 
further said: ‘“‘ These dogges are little, 
pretty, proper, and fyne, and sought for 
to satisfie the delicatenesse of daintie 
dames and wanton women’s wills, instru- 
ments of folly for them to play and dally 
431 
withall, to tryfle away the treasure of 
time, to withdraw their mindes from their 
commendable exercises. These puppies the 
smaller they be, the more pleasure they 
provoke as more meete playfellowes for 
minsing mistrisses to beare in their bosoms, 
to keepe company withal in their chambers, 
to succour with sleepe in bed, and nourishe 
with meate at board, to lie in their lappes, 
and licke their lippes as they ryde in their 
waggons, and good reason it should be so, 
for coursenesse with fynenesse hath no 
fellowship, but featnesse with neatnesse 
hath neighbourhood enough.” 
A strange superstition was in vogue in 
those early days with regard to the little 
Spaniel, and it was believed in by this 
doctor of medicine who, under the heading 
of “the vertue which remaineth in the 
Spaniell Gentle otherwise called the Com- 
forter,” told how these little dogs were able 
to assuage sickness of the stomach in the 
following manner. They were worn as 
plasters by sick and weakly people, and, 
through the intermingling of heat, the 
disease from which the human being was 
suffering changed places, and passed into 
the little dog, when the person became well 
and the dog sometimes died. Dr. Caius 
testified to the efficacy of the cure, and 
men as well as women wore these little 
living plasters. 
The faithfulness of a Spaniel belonging 
to Mary Queen of Scots is recorded in the 
narrative of her execution. “‘ Then one 
of the executioners, pulling off her garters, 
espied her little dogg which was crept 
under her clothes, which could not be gotten 
forth but by force, yet afterwards would 
not departe from the dead corpse, but came 
and lay between her head and her shoulders, 
which being imbued with her bloode, was 
carryed away and washed as all things ells 
were that had any bloode, was either 
burned or clean washed,”* 
There would appear to be much diver- 
gence of opinion as to the origin of this 
breed, and the date of its first appearance 
in England, but it is generally thought 
that it is of Japanese origin, and was 
* Ellis’s Letters, second series, vol. ii. 
