Horses Past and Present

EDWARD VI. (1547-1553) AND QUEEN MARY (1553-1558)

The brief reign of Edward VI. was productive of little legislation that had reference to horse-breeding. An Act was passed to sanction the export of mares worth not more than ten shillings, and another to remove some ambiguity in Henry VIII.’s law concerning the death penalty, without benefit of clergy, for horse-stealers.

If nothing was done to promote the breeding industry during this reign, the King’s advisers took measures to raise the English standard of horsemanship. The Duke of Newcastle informs us that he “engaged Regnatelle to teach, and invited two Italians who had been his scholars, into England. The King had an Italian farrier named Hemnibale, who taught more than had been known before.” The farrier of old times was the veterinary surgeon – as the barber was the surgeon – and the invitations so given show that the Royal advisers were conscious of English shortcomings. Horsemanship and the principles of stable management perhaps stood at a higher level in Italy than in any other European country at this period; whence the choice of Italians as riding-masters.

The crime of horse-theft was so rife at this period that one of the first Acts of Queen Mary (2 & 3 Phil. & Mary, 7), passed in 1555, aimed at its suppression. A place was to be appointed in every fair for the sale of horses, and there the market toll-gatherer was to call the seller and buyer before him and register their names and addresses, with a description of the horse changing hands. Under this law the property in a stolen horse was not diverted from the lawful owner unless the horse had been publicly shown in the market for one hour; if it had not been so exposed, the owner might seize and retain it if he discovered the horse in possession of another afterwards.

Queen Mary, by the Statute known as 4 Phil. & Mary, considerably extended the obligation to keep horses which Henry VIII. had laid upon persons of the upper and middle class; but the object of this law was to provide for the defences of the kingdom, and there is nothing in its clauses that would indicate desire to promote horse-breeding; on the contrary, geldings are frequently mentioned as alternative to horses.

ELIZABETH (1558-1603)

Queen Elizabeth, herself an admirable horsewoman, was as fully imbued with the necessity for encouraging the breeding of horses as her father, Henry VIII., and she lost little time in dealing with the whole subject after her accession. Energetic measures were evidently much needed, if we may accept the statements made by Sir Thomas Chaloner, in a Latin poem written when he was ambassador at Madrid, in 1579. He observes that if Englishmen chose to devote attention to breeding, with all the advantages their country offered, they could rear better horses than they could import. England, he averred, had none but “vile and ordinary horses,” which were suffered to run at large with the mares.

In the first year of her reign Elizabeth renewed Henry VIII.’s Act forbidding the export of horses to Scotland. Her next important step was taken in the fourth year of her reign; she issued a Proclamation in which she reminded her subjects that various laws had been made and that the penalties for disobedience would be enforced. The Proclamation announced the creation of machinery to see that her father’s statute requiring nobles of prescribed degree to keep a stallion was being obeyed; that his laws6 concerning the height of mares in parks and enclosed lands, and requiring chases, forests and moors, to be periodically driven, and worthless mares, fillies and geldings found thereon destroyed, should be vigorously enforced. The law of Philip and Mary which obliged people to keep horses or geldings in conformity with the scheme for national defence, was recapitulated at length, and obedience within three months enjoined on penalty of fine.

The Queen evidently considered the laws she found on the statute book all that were necessary to ensure attention to the interests of horse-breeding; for she refrained for many years from fresh legislation, contenting herself with Royal Proclamations in which she prescribed limits of time for her subjects to supply themselves with horses according to 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 Cambridgeshire, Huntingdon, Northampton, Lincolnshire, 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, moysture 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 unknown to the toll-taker to sell a horse in the market unless the would-be seller could produce “one sufficient and credible” witness to vouch for his respectability. The evil had grown to the proportions of a national scandal at this time: Holinshed’s account, published eleven years before this Act was passed, shows us that no horse in pasture or stable was safe.

Queen Elizabeth’s reign saw important changes. The application of gunpowder to hand-firearms destroyed the protective value of heavy armour, and with heavy armour gradually went the horse required to carry it. The disappearance of the Great Horse as a charger was very slow, however. In 1685 the Duke of Newcastle published his famous work, The Manner of Feeding, Dressing and Training of Horses for the Great Saddle, and fitting them for the Service of the Field in time of War. The book was probably of little use to posterity, for by that time the day of the Great Horse as a charger was very near its close, if not quite at an end. The introduction of coaches was another mark of social progress; and light horses, Arab, Barb and Spanish, were in demand to improve our native breeds.

Until 1580, when carriages came into use in England, saddle horses were used by all of whatever degree. Though the side saddle had been introduced in Richard II.’s time, ladies still rode frequently on a pillion behind a gentleman or man-servant. Queen Elizabeth rode on a pillion behind her Master of the Horse when she went in state to St. Paul’s; but when hunting or hawking she seems to have ridden her own palfrey. Coaches increased so rapidly towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign that a bill was brought into the House of Lords (1601) to check their use. The measure was lost, the Lords directing the Attorney-General to frame a new bill to secure more attention to horse-breeding instead, but if this was done the bill never passed into law.

The Queen was an ardent supporter of the Turf and kept racehorses at Greenwich, Waltham, St. Albans, Eaton, Hampton Court, Richmond, Windsor and Charing Cross. Racing had become a popular amusement in the earlier years of Elizabeth’s reign, and her participation in the sport was probably due in great measure to her conviction that it must prove beneficial to the breeding industry. The Roodee at Chester appears to have been one of the first public racecourses; the townspeople gave a silver bell to be run for. Racing was well established in Scotland at an earlier date; in 1552, during Edward VI.’s reign, there were races with bells as prizes.

There were races at Salisbury in 1585, when the Earl of Cumberland won “the golden bell.” In 1599, the Corporation of Carlisle took the sport under its patronage and gave silver bells. According to Comminius, who wrote about the year 1590, racing had grown out of fashion at that period; the old sport of tilting at the quintain had been revived and was apparently a more popular spectacle. It is probable that suspension of public interest in racing was of a very temporary character, for Bishop Hall, in one of his Satires, published in 1599, refers to the esteem in which racehorses were then held.

Queen Elizabeth retained her love of sport and the physical ability to indulge it to an advanced age. It is said that in April, 1602, being then in her sixty-ninth year, she rode ten miles on horseback and hunted the same day.

Following the example set in Edward VI.’s reign, Sir Philip Sydney engaged two Italian experts named Prospero and Romano, to teach riding; the Earl of Leicester, the Queen’s Master of the Horse, also had among his suite an Italian horseman, named Claudio Corte, who wrote a book on the art of riding, which was published in London, in 1584. Thomas Blundeville, of Newton Hotman, in Norfolk, ere this date, had published a curious little black-letter volume, entitled “The Art of Ryding and Breaking Great Horses” (1566), which was sold by William Seres, at “The Sygne of the Hedgehogge,” in St. Paul’s Churchyard. Some extracts from this very interesting little work have been given in a previous book.7

JAMES I. (1603-1625)

The feature of King James’s reign was the formation of a racecourse at Newmarket, which had previously been a favourite hunting-ground of Royalty, and continued to be so, at least till James II.’s time.

Mr. J. P. Hore8 says that the King probably resided at an inn known as “The Griffin,” and held court there during his early visits, and that this inn subsequently became the King’s own property. It is quite certain that Newmarket as a Turf centre dates from the time of James I.; he spent some days there in the year 1605, and appears to have paid very frequent visits to the place to enjoy the sport he was anxious to encourage. He kept racehorses, and in his purchase of the Markham Arabian9 we have evidence that he did not spare endeavour to procure the best. It is true that this horse proved a failure on the Turf; that his indifferent performance did something to discredit the Arab in the eyes of Englishmen, and no doubt contributed to check the importation of Eastern sires for racing; but his failure does not affect the fact that his purchase goes for proof of King James’s desire to improve the breed of racehorses. Many foreign horses were imported into England during this reign. The Spanish horse still held its high reputation; in 1623, the Duke of Buckingham, then at Madrid, shipped from St. Sebastian thirty-five horses, a present from the Court of Spain to the Prince of Wales. Whether these were racehorses or not records omit to tell us.

Under royal encouragement and patronage the Turf soon took its place as a national institution. Races were held at Croydon, Theobalds on Enfield Chase, and Garterly in Yorkshire, among other places, and of each of the meetings named the King was the President. James’s most important studs were stabled at Newmarket, Middle Park, Eltham, Malmesbury, Nutbury and Tetbury. During this reign a silver bell and bowl were among the prizes offered at the Chester Races; the races for these were now run on St. George’s Day, and the trophies then came to be known by the name of England’s patron saint. Horses were regularly trained and prepared for these “bell courses;” the usual weight carried was 10 stone, and riders went to scale before starting.

In Scotland it would appear that betting on races was carried on to an extent that called for legislative interference; for in 1621 the Parliament at Edinburgh passed an Act which required any man who might win over 100 marks in twenty-four hours “at cards, dice, or wagering on horse races,” to make over the surplus to the kirk for the benefit of the poor.

Apart from the fostering care James I. bestowed upon the Turf, the only proceedings that require mention are: his Proclamation issued in 1608, which notified that the laws against the export of horses were not being obeyed, and would thenceforward be enforced; and his repeal in 1624 of Henry VIII.’s law obliging every person whose wife wore “any French hood or bonnet of velvet” to keep a stallion. He also repealed 32 Henry VIII., so far as it applied to Cornwall (21 Jac. I., c. 28), even as Queen Elizabeth had relieved some Eastern and Midland counties from operation of that law, in view of their unsuitability to breed heavy horses.

CHARLES I. (1625, Behd. 1649)

Charles I. inherited, to some extent, his father’s taste for the Turf, and combined therewith a love of the manége, due to his own accomplished horsemanship. The interest in racing was now so general, and the inducement to breed light and swift horses for the purpose so great, that other classes of horse were neglected, to the alarm of the more far-seeing among the King’s subjects. So seriously was the tendency to breed only light horses regarded, that Sir Edward Harwood presented a memorial to Charles, in which it was pointed out that there was a great deficiency in the kingdom of horses of a useful type, and praying that steps should be taken to encourage the breeding of horses for service, and racing discouraged. Charles would seem to have been conscious that excessive attention to breeding light horses was a national question; at all events, that animals of a more generally useful stamp were scarce; for in 1641 he granted licenses for the importation of horses, enjoining the licensees to import coach horses, mares, and geldings not under 14 hands, and between the ages of three and seven years.

In November, 1627, Charles issued his Proclamation forbidding the use of snaffles, except for hunting and hawking (“in times of Disport”), and requiring all riders to use bits. His motive was, no doubt, a desire to encourage the manége, which was then considered the highest form of horsemanship. The King and the Queen had separate establishments, and each kept a large number of horses, including racehorses. The English system of stable management had made such advances at this time that Marshal Bassompierre, the French Ambassador in London, refers to it in his memoirs, and recommends that English methods be followed in France. The same writer speaks, too, of the superiority of English horses.

The hackney-coach question came up again in this reign, and Charles issued a Proclamation dealing with the subject in January, 1636. He forbade the use of coaches in London and Westminster unless they were about to make a journey of at least three miles; and he required every owner of a coach to keep four horses for the King’s service. We may conjecture that his prohibition of hackney coaches was not the outcome of a desire to encourage horsemanship; for about eighteen months later he granted to his Master of the Horse, James, Marquis of Hamilton, power to license fifty hackney coachmen in London and the suburbs and convenient places in other parts of the realm. This license, granted by Proclamation in July, 1637, suggests favouritism, as according to a contemporary publication10 there were in 1636 over 6,000 coaches, private and public, in London and the suburbs: surely more than were needed, as some 10,000 odd hansoms and four-wheelers meet London’s normal requirements to-day.

Thomas D’Urfey’s song,11 “Newmarket,” which is thought to have been written in the reign of Charles I., shows that Newmarket was then, as now, regarded as the headquarters of the Turf.

THE COMMONWEALTH (1649-1659)

Mr. Christie Whyte, in his History of the English Turf, says: – “Oliver Cromwell, with his accustomed sagacity, perceiving the vast benefit derived to the nation by the improvement of its breed of horses, the natural consequence of racing, patronised this peculiarly national amusement, and we find accordingly that he kept a racing stud.” If Cromwell kept a racing stable it was before he took the style of “Lord Protector,” in December, 1653; for in February, 1654, he issued his first Proclamation against racing, in the shape of a prohibition for six months, which prohibition was repeated in July. In subsequent years, by the same means, he made racing, cock-fighting, bear-baiting, and gambling, illegal.

Owing what he did to his cavalry, it was only to be expected that he should devote attention to the matter of remounts. He imported many Arabs, Barbs, and other horses suitable for the lightly armoured troops which had now replaced the knighthood of former days; he also took measures to encourage the breeding of horses for hunting and hawking, sports in which he himself indulged.

At what date stage-coaches began to supersede the old waggons, which (apart from saddle and pack horses) were the only means of journeying in England in Queen Elizabeth’s time, is not known. In the year 1610, a Pomeranian speculator was granted a royal patent for fifteen years to run coaches and waggons between Edinburgh and Leith;12 but not until the end of the Commonwealth (May, 1659) do we find definite mention of a stage coach in England in the diary of a Yorkshire clergyman.13 This diary shows that stage coaches and waggons were then plying between London and Coventry, London and Aylesbury, London and Bedford, and on other roads.

It is highly improbable that there existed any horses of the coaching stamp at this period; on the contrary, the wretched condition of the roads until late in the eighteenth century,14 and the time occupied on a journey, indicates that animals of the Great Horse breed were used to drag the ponderous vehicles through the mud.

CHARLES II. (1660-1685)

After the gloom of the Commonwealth the nation was ripe for such changes in its social life as came in with the Restoration. Newmarket, which had been deserted during the civil war and the rule of Cromwell, recovered its former position as the headquarters of racing under the patronage of Charles II. The King entered his horses in his own name, and came to see them run, residing at the King’s House when he visited Newmarket. He did away with the bell as a prize, substituting a bowl or cup of the value of a hundred guineas, upon which the name and pedigree of the winner was engraved. He also devoted considerable attention to improving the English racehorse; he sent his Master of Horse abroad to purchase stallions and brood mares, principally Arabs, Barbs and Turkish horses. To these “King’s mares,” as they were entitled, our modern racehorse traces his descent on the dam’s side.

Charles II.’s love of racing was not satisfied by the meetings at Newmarket, which was not readily accessible from Windsor, and he instituted races on Datchet Mead, within sight of the castle, across the Thames. Here, as at Newmarket, he encouraged the sport by the presentation of cups and bowls. Burford Races owed the prestige they long enjoyed to the encouragement of Charles II. in 1681. Political considerations required that public attention should be diverted for the time, if possible, and to secure this end Charles had all his best horses brought from Newmarket for the occasion.

The only piece of legislation that demands notice is the repeal of the laws against export, which had been on the Statute Book since Henry VII.’s reign. The prohibition was cancelled and a duty of 5s. per head imposed on every horse sent over sea.

As proving the wide interest now taken in racing, the publication in 1680 of a curious little book called The Compleat Gamester, may be mentioned. This gives very full and minute instructions for the preparation and training of racehorses.

Stage coaches and waggons increased in number during Charles II.’s reign. There is among the Harleian Miscellany (vol. viii.) a tract dated 1673, in which the writer adduces several reasons for the suppression of coaches, “especially those within 40, 50, or 60 miles off London.” His first reason for objecting to the coach is that it works harm to the nation “by destroying the breed of good horses, the strength of the nation, and making men careless of attaining to good horsemanship, a thing so useful and commendable in a gentleman.” Charles apparently did not share this opinion; at all events, he gave countenance to the coach-building industry by founding, in 1677, the Company of Coach and Coach Harness Makers.15

We may pass over the brief reign of James II. (1685-1688), as it was marked by nothing of importance bearing on our subject.

WILLIAM III. (1689-1702)

The first year of this reign saw the importation of the first of the Eastern sires which contributed to found the modern breed of racehorses – the Byerley Turk. The Oglethorpe Arabian arrived about the same time. The Turf was growing in importance and popularity; and we find that a gold bowl was one of the prizes offered at the Newmarket meeting of 1689. King William took personal interest in racing, and kept a stud under the charge of the famous Tregonwell Frampton, who filled the office of Keeper of the Running Horses under Queen Anne, George I. and George II. The King seems often to have visited Newmarket, and he encouraged other meetings – Burford, for example – by his presence.

He was keenly alive to the importance of encouraging horsemanship; sharing, perhaps, the view held by many persons at this period that the general use of stage coaches and carriages was likely to lead to loss of proficiency in the saddle. He established a riding school, placing in charge Major Foubert, a French officer, whom he invited to England for the purpose. At the same time he recognised that travelling on wheels would increase in popularity, and took such measures as he might to prevent the breed of horses from degenerating. His Act of 1694 (5 and 6 Wm. and M., c. 22), granting licenses to 700 hackney coaches, four-wheel carriages, now called cabs, in London and Westminster, contains a clause forbidding the use of any horse, gelding or mare under 14 hands in hackney or stage coach.

The increasing numbers of people who travelled by stage coach had brought the highwayman into flourishing existence, and 4 of Wm. and M. c. 8, to encourage the apprehension of these gentry, gave the taker of a highwayman the horse, arms, and other property of the thief. In the tenth year of his reign another Act was passed (10 Wm. III., c. 12) which made horse stealers liable to the penalty of branding on the cheek; this enactment, however, was repealed in 1706 by Queen Anne (6 Anne, 9), who substituted burning in the hand for a penalty which declared the sufferer’s character to all who saw him.

William, by legislation, endeavoured to procure improvements in the public highways, whose condition in many parts had become dangerous “by reason of the great and many loads which are weekly drawn through the same.” The records of subsequent years, however, showed that the state of the roads continued to leave much to be desired.

QUEEN ANNE (1702-1714)

The arrival in England of the Darley Arabian in 1706 was a fit opening of the era of prosperity on the Turf which dawned in Anne’s time. The Queen, from the beginning of her reign, evinced her desire to promote racing, and added several royal plates to those already in existence – at the instance, says Berenger,16 of her consort, Prince George of Denmark, who is said to have been exceedingly fond of the Turf. A writer in the Sporting Magazine of 1810 gives the following account of the circumstances under which the royal plates were given: —