The Life of Fred Archer 53 
of the Turf, and his old friend the Admiral frequently consulted 
him on all knotty points in connection with the sport they both 
loved. He was the father of the late Mr. Wyndham Portman 
and Mr. Seymour Portman Dalton, so well known in racing 
circles, and the former of whom found his true vocation as a 
brilliant and authentic writer on sport. He was a walking 
stud-book, a most genial man and capital company, and was 
nearly always at Tattersall's Sales. His obituary notice of 
Archer is one of the best bits of writing about the great jockey, 
written by one who knew him and the jockeys of a former 
generation. 
His son, Mr. Arthur Portman, the owner of Horse and 
Hound and a well-known writer on racing subjects, has, 
together with the late Sir Willoughby Maycock, shown the 
greatest kindness in helping with the preparation of this book. 
Newmarket first appears in history in the year 1227, but 
there is evidence that the vicinity of the town and Heath was 
inhabited by the ancient Britons in almost prehistoric times. 
The Rev. Dr. Dibdin mentions that in this year a plague broke 
out in Exning, and the market was removed to the adjoining 
village, which thereafter received the name of Newmarket. 
The Devil's Dyke on the Heath is mentioned in the year 
908. In the Norman period it was called St. Edmund's 
Dyke. 
In 1453, Margaret of Anjou, Queen of Henry VI., was at 
headquarters, when she gave to two men whose stable was 
burnt down £3 6s. 8d. 
In March, 1613, the King, the Prince of Wales, Princess 
EHzabeth, and her fiance, Frederick Prince Palatine of the 
Rhine (the White King of Bohemia), came to Newmarket, and 
the Princess chose hunters and hounds to take away with her 
to her new home. 
In 1609, James I. was here, hunting and hawking with 
the Earl of Dunbar, who had married Catherine, daughter of 
Sir Alexander Gordon of Gicht. (Byron's mother was the 
