THE QUEEN'S HOUNDS 
 
 AND 
 
 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 

The Queens Hounds 
 
 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUD RIBBLESDALE 
 
 }\ 
 
 Mastek of the Buckhounds fuoji 18'.)2 to 18'.t5 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 ON THE HEREDITAKY MASTERSHIP 
 
 BY EDWARD BURROWS 
 COMPILED FROM THE BROCAS PAPERS IN HIS POSSESSION 
 
 WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LONGMANS, GlIEEN, AND CO. 
 
 39 PATERNOSTEll ROW, LONDON 
 NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 
 
 1897 
 
 All rigrliLs reieivcl 
 
J 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 BY GUACIOUS PEKMISSIUN 
 TO 
 
 IIKR MAJESTY TlIK UrKllX 
 
 BY 
 HEK LOYAL AND FAITHFUL SLiiVAN'T 
 
 THE AUTIIOK 
 

 NOTE 
 
 The Publishers desire to tender their respectful tiumks to 
 Her Majesty the Queen for her gracious permissioi: to 
 select certain pictures from the Eoyal collections for the 
 illustrations of this book. Also to H.E.H. Prince Christian 
 of Schleswig-Holstein, K.G., for his kindness in granting 
 facilities in connection with the pictures at Cumberland 
 Lodge. Similar acknowledgments are due to Colonel Sir 
 A. Cope and Mr. Edmund Tattersall ; also to Colonel 
 Aubrey Maude for his valuable assistance in the reproduc- 
 tion of the pictures. 
 
 ivi3i68i6 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAI'TKK PAfiK 
 
 Introductiox . 1 
 
 I. Georgian SrAct-iiUNTiNo 22 
 
 II. The New School 48 
 
 III. Charles Davis 59 
 
 IV. Debateable Land 82 
 
 V. Deer 92 
 
 VI. The Staghouni) 114 
 
 VII. The Harrow Country 142 
 
 VIII. The Forest 158 
 
 IX. 13anks and Ditches 172 
 
 X. Black and White 189 
 
 XI. Kennels and Stables 200 
 
 XII. Ascot Affairs 213 
 
 XIII. Predecessors 222 
 
 XIV. Venerie and the Valois 244 
 
 XV. The Empire and the Republic 258 
 
 XVI. French Horsemanship 278 
 
 XVII. French Horses 290 
 
 Appendix : List of Meeting Places of Eoval Hunt . oOo 
 
 Index 305 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PLATES 
 
 Charles Davis on The Hermit FronlLsjuecc 
 
 From the jricture by Bijron Wchh, paint r<l (ihaiit l.s:!4. 
 
 Windsor Park To face ]). 38 
 
 Fro7)i the picture by J. Wootton, 1737, in the Quern's 
 collection at Windsor Castle. 
 
 Lady Lade ......... „ 4'2 
 
 From the picture by Stiibbs, in the Queoi's collection 
 at Cumberland Lodge. 
 
 Easter Monday: a View near Windsor— Gentlemen 
 
 Sportsmen endeavouring to lead the Field . . ' „ 48 
 
 Curricle ,. r,i 
 
 From the jiicture by Marshall, in the Queen's collection 
 at CumbcrhDid Lodge. 
 
 II.Il.H. the Prince of Wales's Two Chestnuts . . ,, 52 
 
 Fro7n the 2iicture by Stubbs {IT.hj} in the Queen's collec- 
 tion at Cumberland Lodge. 
 
 Charles Davis on The Traverser .... „ 70 
 
 From the 2iicturc by Barraud. 
 
 Charles Davis . . , ^^ yi 
 
 From a pihotograpli by Hills rl- Saunders. 
 
 Lord Coventry ,^ yy 
 
 The present Master. From a photograph. 
 
 Easter Monday : a View near Epping — The Heroes 
 of the Day, Men of determined Courage, 
 Hiding hard —up to the Hounds ... „ ijjG 
 
 Lord Colville of Culross ,, 152 
 
 From ' Baily's Magazine,' March, 1H('>7. 
 
 ]5uT you squelch and SCRAMRLK O.S .... ,^ 15<J 
 
 By C E. Brork. 
 
xiv LIST 01' ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 A ITuMiLiATiNd Pursuit in tiik Grounds of thk 
 
 IIOYAL IMlLITARY COLLKGE AT SANDHURST . . . To fdCC J)- IGO 
 
 Bi/ G. D. Giles. 
 John Comins ......... „ 16B 
 
 Hinifsntan to the Queen's Hounds, ajtpointed Airril 1, 
 1894. From a pJtotograph bij Hills ti- Saunders. 
 
 More likely to sprain your Ankle than smash your 
 
 Hat 176 
 
 B,/ G. J). Gilrs. 
 
 Mr. Edmund Tattersall on Black Uess ... „ 182 
 
 From the picture hij Bi/roJi Wehli in Mr. TittlcrsalPa 
 possession. 
 
 Lord Cork and Orrery „ 184 
 
 From ' B ally's Mac/azine,' June 1870. 
 
 Lord Ribblesdale ,, 189 
 
 M.B.H. 1892 to 1895. From a photograph by Hills <t- 
 Saunders. 
 The Willows presented a scene of wild confusion „ lOij 
 
 By G. D. Giles. 
 Unkennelling the Royal Hounds .... „ 200 
 
 From the picture by Chalon, 1817, in the Queen's collec- 
 tion at Cumberland Lodge. 
 
 The Prince went at the top of the Hunt ... ,. 206 
 
 By G. D. Giles. 
 Lord Lichfield .. 2H7 
 
 After Count d:Orsay, 1839. 
 
 Earl of Chesterfield, 1832 ., 288 
 
 Frnin 'Baily's Magazine,' November ISOO. 
 Lord Granville ., 240 
 
 After G. Eichmoiid. 
 PiQUEUR DE LA VkNERIE ImPI'.RIALK ., 2()2 
 
 After A. de Drru.r. 
 
 ILLUSTBATIONS IN TEXT 
 
 The Cream Horse 25 
 
 From an oil-paintinff in the Queen's collection at Wind.sor Castle. 
 New Terrors were added by the Highwaymen . . . . 28 
 
 By G. J). Gilrs. 
 
 Turning out the Dkkr for thk Royal Hunt on Windsor 
 
 Forest -10 
 
 From an old print. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xv 
 
 The Accomplished SrouTswoMAN 48 
 
 From ail old print. 
 
 Moonshine, a cklebkated Deer 46 
 
 Frequently hunted by His Majestij Geortje III. From an old jiriiit. 
 
 Chart of the various Meets of the Royal Hounds, 1841 . Gl 
 Frniii the ' Sjiorting Review,' 1,S41. 
 
 Riding unfairly 64 
 
 By G. H. Jalland. 
 
 To ride jealous in a Forest you must be really intrepid . 69 
 By G. n. Giles. 
 
 The Hermit 70 
 
 From the ' Sportintj Bevieiv,' 1810. 
 
 Harry King ultimately stopped them 7S 
 
 By G. H. Jalland. 
 
 The Deer should go right away out of his Cart like the 
 
 ' Lord of the Valley ' 96 
 
 By G. D. Giles. 
 
 Robert Bartlett 97 
 
 First Whip to tJie Queen's Hounds, May IcSyf) to -Tanuary IHr.l. From 
 an old p)Tint. 
 
 ^YINCHELSEA, A FAVOURITE DeER 10:5 
 
 From an old iirint. 
 
 Groves, Deer-Keeper 112 
 
 From a. 2)hotoc)rap)h hy Hills A Saunders. 
 
 Luxury IIH 
 
 From the ' Sporting Beview,' 1841. 
 
 Roman . . . . 119 
 
 By G. D. Giles. 
 
 Rhetoric 119 
 
 By G. D. Giles. 
 
 The Country far and wide is up in Arms A(iAiNsT us . . 146 
 
 By G. D. Giles. 
 
 Harry King 148 
 
 Huntsman to the Queen's Hou)ids, July 1«(J() to December 1871. From 
 a photograph hy Hills £ Saunders. 
 
 Frank Goodall on Crusader 150 
 
 Huntsman to the Queen's Hounds, April 1872 /" May 1888. From 
 a photoyraph by HiUs d- Saunders. 
 
xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 I-A(!E 
 
 The Hidden Prehistoric Ruts IGG 
 
 Bij G. D. Giles. 
 
 Charles Hoare 179 
 
 Second Whipper-in to the Queen's Hounds, appointed Juhj 1, 1894. 
 From a photograph bij Hills & Saunders. 
 You KNOW WHAT IT IS TO BE ReALLY CARRIED . . . . 184 
 
 By G. D. Giles. 
 
 Charles Strickland 185 
 
 First Whipper-in to the Queen's Hounds, appointed July 1, 1894. 
 From a x>hotograph by Hills <& Saunders. 
 The First Whip's Horse subsided with only his Head out of 
 
 Water 3H7 
 
 By G. D. Giles. 
 
 Charles Samways 191 
 
 Second Groom to the Queen's Hounds, appointed July 1, 1894. From 
 a photograph by Hills & Saunders. 
 It was all I could do to get ' William ' home . . . . 198 
 By G. D. Giles. 
 
 The old Kennel at Swinley 201 
 
 From an old print. 
 Plan of the Kennels, Ascot Heath . . . . . . 204 
 
 Plan of the Kennels, Ascot Heath ...... 205 
 
 Josiah Miles 210 
 
 Stud Groo)n to the Queen's Hounds, October 1843 to March 1894. 
 From a pihotograph by A. F. Mackenzie. 
 
 Reuben Matthews 212 
 
 Stud Groom to the Queen's Hounds, appointed April 1, 1894. Fro)a 
 a 2)hotograph by Hills A Saunders. 
 Plan of proposed New Mile Course (189.5), Ascot, ]}erks . . 215 
 Swinley Lodge, the old Residence of the Master of the 
 
 BucKHOUNDS 2;56 
 
 From an old print. 
 T.E Rendezvous 2l")2 
 
 From ' Manuel de Vciierie Franeaise.' 
 Le Relais Volant 272 
 
 From ' Manuel de Venerie Frani;aise.' 
 M. DUTECH CLEARING THE GaTE AT A LeVEL CROSSING UPON 
 
 Papillon 285 
 
 By G. D. Giles. 
 
 MAr 
 
 I'l-ACics OF MiCKTiNCi oi' Till: lloYAi, llcNT {(it cud uj booh). 
 
THE QUEEN'S HOUNDS 
 
 STAG-HUNTING EECOLLECTIONS 
 
 INTKODUCTION 
 
 ^r EDWAED BUREOWS 
 Yixere fortes ante Agamemnonii 
 
 Few of those who share with the writer the memories of an 
 Eton ' wet-bob,' to whom 'The Brocas,' ' ' Brocas Chimp,' 
 ' Brocas Meadow,' and ' Brocas Lane ' are ' famihar in their 
 mouths as household words,' know the origin of the strange 
 un-Enghsh name which thus Hngers on the Eton bank of 
 the Thames just above Windsor Bridge, but has died out on 
 the opposite side where lay the manor, styled, at least until 
 the beginning of the sixteenth century, 'Brocas in Clewer,' 
 or ' Clewer-Brocas,' and where the position of the Brocas 
 Chantry, founded by that notable knight Sir Bernard Brocas, 
 may still be traced in Clewer Church. 
 
 Few of those who ride with her Majesty's Buckhounds are 
 aware that the hereditary Mastership was held by the family 
 
 ' Materials for this Introduction are taken from The Family of Brocas 
 of Beaiirepaire and Roche Court, by Montagu Burrows, Captain R.N., M.A,„ 
 F.S.A., Chichele Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford 
 a work founded on the collection of original Brocas documents now in the 
 writer's jDOSsession. 
 
 B 
 
2 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 of Brocas for nearly three hundred years, from the middle 
 of the fourteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century. 
 
 Fewer still among tliose who ride or row have ever heard 
 of the connection between this long line of hereditary Masters 
 and the ruined castle of Sault and a church and villages in 
 South-Western France, still bearing the name of Brocas, 
 far from the track of the modern traveller, and buried among 
 the woodlands and sand dunes of ancient Gascony. 
 
 A brief account of certain of these Masters of old time 
 may form a becoming introduction to modern incidents of 
 stag-hunting, may bring to light picturesque details of sport 
 closely mingled with war, may show that the Mastership can 
 claim an ancient and romantic past, and add proof that in 
 all ages good sportsmen have been staunch fighting-men and 
 loyal subjects. 
 
 The lands held in ' Clyware, New Windesore, Old 
 Windesore, Eton, Dauneye, Boveneye, Cokeham and Bray ' 
 during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by this family 
 of Gascon knights, transplanted into England by Edward II., 
 were important and extensive. Some ten men of this 
 name and blood occupied notable positions as favoured 
 courtiers and trusted servants of the Crown in the brilliant 
 and romantic period of the reigns of the second and third 
 Edward and the second Eichard, and in successive genera- 
 tions held such offices as those of Master of the Horse, 
 Master of the Buckhounds, Chief Forester of Windsor, 
 Warden of King's Castles, Gaols, and Parks, Captain of 
 Calais, Controller of Calais, Constable of Aquitaine, Con- 
 troller of Bordeaux, Eoyal Ambassador, Chamberlain to the 
 Queen, Chamberlain of the Exchequer, and King's Clerk of 
 the Works. It is, therefore, hard to understand the almost 
 complete oblivion into which has fallen the real origin of the 
 name that still survives under the shadow of Windsor Castle. 
 So fantastic and so far from the truth have been the suggested 
 
INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 derivations that they only prove how completely family tra- 
 ditions disappear amid the building of royal palaces and the 
 founding of royal colleges. Sir John de Brocas acquired 
 these lands before Edward III. began to enlarge Windsor 
 Castle. His descendants had ceased to reside on them 
 before the foundation of Eton College, and entirely relin- 
 quished them soon after that event. So long ago ' the knight 
 was dust, and his good sword rust,' that on the spot where 
 he dwelt not even 
 
 a herald who that way doth pass 
 Finds his cracked name at length in the church glass. 
 
 Yet the swords of these Gascon knights, among whom the 
 most illustrious was the first Brocas Master of the Buck- 
 hounds, were kept bright for many years in the service of 
 their adopted country, for we find them at Cre9y, at the 
 siege of Calais, at Poitiers and at Najara, while others of their 
 kin met death in defence of the Enghsh shores. 
 
 It is singularly unfortunate that the painstaking author 
 of a recent ' History of the Eoyal Buckhounds ' ^ was ignorant 
 of the Gascon origin of the hereditary Masters, or ignored 
 the information that might have been obtained on this 
 matter. It is, moreover, much to be regretted that in a 
 history which shows so much research the foolish tradition 
 is repeated that the ancestor of the hereditary Masters w^as 
 Sir Bernard Brocas, who came into England with William 
 the Conqueror, from whom, in reward for his military services, 
 he received permission to select lands to the value of 400/. ; 
 that he chose these lands in Hampshire, and built thereon 
 a mansion styled ' Beaurepaire,' and that the lives of three 
 successors of the same name sufficed, by a starthng assump- 
 tion of longevity, to cover a period of 280 years from the date 
 of the Conquest to the year when Sir John de Brocas served 
 
 ' History of the Royal Buckhounds, by .J. V. Hore. 
 
4 STAG-HCNTIXG RRCOLLFXTIONS 
 
 with distinction under Edward III. at the siege of Calais.' 
 Such a descent is too incredihlo to be recorded elsewhere 
 than in that storehouse of man}- such apocryphal genea- 
 logies, the College of Anns, where it appears to have stood 
 without question for a long period, and \\hence it emerged 
 to find, unfortunately, place in the inscription, inserted 
 only in the eighteenth century, above the ancient and 
 elaborate tomb of this early Master of the Buckhounds, Sir 
 Bernard Brocas, in St. Edmund's Chapel in Westminster 
 Abbey. In fact, this Gascon origin is a matter of more 
 interest than is generall}' supposed ; for it wasplaiidy in con- 
 sequence of their knowledge of breeding and training horses 
 on the turbulent marches of Gascony that so many members 
 of the family of Brocas were well fitted to have charge, as 
 Masters of the Horse, of the royal studs, and, as Masters of 
 the Buckhounds, of the royal hunting establishment. Thus 
 is furnished an early and significant instance of the obliga- 
 tions under which England has ever lain to France in all 
 matters connected with the chase, and of the striking 
 advantage which during the Middle Ages accrued to the 
 former country from the ancestral possessions derived by 
 her kings from Eleanor of Guienne, not onlj" in the graver 
 matters of state and commerce, but in the improvement of 
 the breed of light horses. 
 
 The cradle of the race whence sprang the hereditary 
 Masters is found on the borders of Gascony, where a con- 
 siderable tract of land was once known as ' the Brocas 
 March,' where villages still bear the name, and where still 
 
 ' Straiififly different from those false lejxends are tlie real facts. For the 
 settlement in England of certain members of the Gascon family of de Brocas 
 did not liegin until the reign of Edward II., and it was not until the year 1358 
 that the uncle of Sir Bernard Brocas purchased Beaurepaire from John 
 Becche, whose ancestors had held it for several generations. The line of the 
 family that remained in Gascony is still represented tliere by the Comte de 
 Brocas. 
 
INTRODrCTION 5 
 
 stands the ruined keep of their ancestral stron.t^liold of Sault, 
 twice styled l^y Froissart 'a strong and good castle.' Here 
 dwelt Sir Peter Arnald de Brocas, foully slain at Bayonne 
 during truce by Earl Simon de Montfort, and here, during 
 many years of incessant border forays, the de Brocas showed 
 with other loyal Gascons their gallant devotion to their 
 ' Eoy Outremer,' by holding their fortress as a bulwark of 
 the English rule in Gascony against the ceaseless attacks of 
 their turbulent neighbours the Vicomtes de Beam, to whose 
 castle of Orthez the road still runs due south across the old 
 border line. Wild tales of flight and hot pursuit, of desperate 
 rally and midnight foray, could that old highway tell in the 
 days when Enghsh and French knights, hard-riding Gascon 
 borderers and swaggering Free Companions, mustered under 
 the rival royal standards and the banners of de Montfort, 
 de Beam and d'Albret, while from the keep above floated 
 the sable pennon of de Brocas. Strangely must old memories 
 have been stirred when along the same road in later days, 
 after the stubborn fight at Orthez, British squadrons pur- 
 sued the flying French and Wellington received his only 
 wound. Euined at length by their loyalty to the English 
 cause during the disasters of Edward II. 's latter years, the 
 children of Arnald de Brocas, ' lately slain in the King's 
 service in Scotland,' possibly at Bannockburn, were taken 
 into the royal household and brought up at the English 
 Court. As no less than three of these young Gascon officers 
 of the King became Masters of the Horse, and by their length 
 of service proved their aptness for the appointment, there 
 are sufficient entries under the name of ' de Brocas ' in the 
 Kecord Office to supply almost a history of Edward III.-'s 
 equestrian organisation. Space only permits the mention of 
 certain facts illustrative of the experience in this matter of 
 the family which had charge for so long a period of the royal 
 hunting establishment. 
 
6 STAG-HUNTIXG RECOLLECTIOXS 
 
 Edward is too often blamed for his large expenditure on 
 horses, but it is forgotten that his mighty conflict with the 
 hosts of France, his contests of chivalry, his ' hastiludes ' 
 and mihtary Orders, which largely operated to ensure his 
 victories, entailed an enormous and special provision for 
 breeding studs, large sums for purchase money, and a great 
 array of persons employed in the business. With the very 
 beginning of this work the de Brocas ' were concerned. 
 Sir John superintended it for a great part of his life, and 
 when the great, war seemed to be over, it was to him and 
 to WilHam of AVykeham that the King entrusted the sale 
 and breaking up of the war establishment. In the long 
 lists which occur in the Exchequer Accounts of the Ward- 
 robe of numerous classes of horses belonging to the King 
 — coursers, palfreys, trotters, hobbies, genets, hengests, 
 and somers — the ' dextrarii ' or ' great horses ' received 
 most attention. Provision was made for 102 of their 
 housings out of 441 ells of canvas and 3G0 ells of cloth, 
 which was to come from Candlewyk Street in London. 
 The boundary between the great cavalry establishments 
 was formed by the Trent, the division to the north of 
 this river having its separate ' custos ' under the Master of 
 the Horse. The studs were distributed among the King's 
 manors, such as Windsor, Guildford, Odiham, Woodstock, 
 and AValtham. The due proportion of expense necessary 
 for corn, shoeing, litter, headstalls and bridles was borne 
 by the sheriffs of the various counties. The keep of thirty 
 horses by one of these sheriffs for sixty days in the year 1338 
 amounted to 40Z. 12s. 6(?., or about 5i<f. per horse per day, while 
 the keep of a hound cost ^d. per day. Special provision was 
 made for a tunic of blue and a cape of \\\\\W Brussels cloth 
 as the attire of ' John Brocaz," styled in these records 
 
 ' The deeds show that the ' dc ' hefoiv I'.iocas is gradually dropped as the 
 family begin to acquire lands in England. 
 
INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 ' Gustos equorum regis ' or ' Gardein de nos grands chevaux.' 
 The j)rices paid for horses in 1330 are shown by the follow- 
 ing sums which passed through the hands of Brocas. ' To 
 Master Thomas de Garton, Keeper of the King's Wardrobe, 
 in money paid to him by the hands of John Brocaz for the 
 purchase of the three undermentioned chargers, to wit, one 
 called Pomcrs, of a grey colour with black head, price 120Z. ; 
 another called Lebryt, a dappled grey, price 70/. ; and a tliird 
 called Bayard, a bright bay with hind fetlocks white, price 
 50/.' ' 
 
 The great cavalry department appears to have been kept- 
 at its full war complement for about twenty years, until the 
 power of France, after the battle of Poitiers, seemed finally 
 broken. Thus in 1357 the King commissions Sir John de 
 Brocas, Edmund Eose, and AYilliam of Wykeham to sell off 
 that portion of the stud kept in Windsor Park, and the next 
 year the horses beyond the Trent which were of no further 
 use were sold ; while in 1360, after the Peace of Bretigny, 
 all the royal studs south of Trent w^ere disposed of and the 
 proceeds handed to William of Wykeham, ' surveyor of the 
 King's work in Windsor Castle.' Too soon were frustrated 
 the fond hopes that it would never again be necessary to 
 sweep over France with English squadrons, and great was the 
 need of this magnificent cavalry before the end of the reign. 
 
 Many and various were the duties of this active Master 
 of the Horse. After employment with his son Sir Oliver 
 in buying horses for the King in Gascony before the great 
 campaign of Creyy, he is found in command of a consider- 
 able company at the siege of Calais, and he w^as chosen 
 as ambassador to congratulate Alfonso XL of Castile on 
 his capture of Algeciras from the Moors, and to negotiate 
 concerning the marriage of Edward III.'s daughter to the 
 
 ' The proper multiple for money of this date, for the sake of comparison 
 with the present daj-, is approximately 20. 
 
8 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Spanish prince known as Pedro the Cruel. After one of 
 these embassies he brought back two Spanish jennets as a 
 gift from Alfonso to Edward. Amid all these pubHc services 
 he found time to add by degrees to his estates at Windsor 
 and in Hampshire with the caution becoming one who was 
 a Gascon and an alien. 
 
 The career of his son Sir Bernard, to whom came by 
 marriage and subsequent direct royal grant the hereditary 
 Mastership, is so full of stirring episodes and knightly deeds 
 that it might well form the subject of an historical romance. 
 
 Certain picturesque points can only be glanced at here. 
 As Chamberlain to the Queen, as King's Warden and 
 Ambassador, as Constable of Aquitaine and Controller of 
 Bordeaux, as Captain of Calais and Master of the Buck- 
 hounds, as a warrior at Cre9y, Poitiers, and Najara, this 
 illustrious Anglo-Gascon trod every stage of the brilliant 
 times in which he lived. Twice was he sunnnoned 
 as a witness on high matters of chivalry. From his 
 evidence given in the famous Scrope and Grosvenor Poll, 
 it appears that he was first armed as esquire on the shore 
 of La Hogue on the day when the Black Prince was 
 knighted, and ' that he had fought in France, in Scotland, 
 in Gascony, in Brittany, and in Spain, in the presence of 
 kings, princes, dukes, counts, barons, and other great lords, 
 knights, and esquires, during forty years.' On another 
 occasion Brocas is found as a witness, with such renowned 
 co-signatories as Oliver de Clisson, the Earl of Salisbury, 
 Sir Bartholomew Burghersh, Eobert Holland, and Thomas 
 de Eos, to the claim that King John of France surrendered 
 to the Gascon Bernard de Trouttes and not to the French 
 knight fighting on the English side, Sir Denis de INIorbeque. 
 The Brocas pennon must therefore have 1h>cii in \\\o tliick 
 of that final furious melee which raged on tlic liloodsiniiu'd 
 field of Poitiers round the spot where the 1^'reneh king luriied 
 
IN 'J ROD rCT ION 9 
 
 at bay, while his gallant stripling son stood at his side warn- 
 ing him of the blows rained on him by the ring of emulous 
 Gascon and English knights. Well might the French 
 chronicle quoted later on describe Sir Bernard as ' ung des 
 hautz hommes et nobles d'Angleterre, tres bon chevalier qui 
 moult grandement avoit servi le Prince.' In boudoir as well 
 as in tented field his fame appears to have stood high. In 
 the court of Venus as well as in that of Mars did the Black 
 Prince befriend him. It has been generally received on the 
 authority of the Metrical Chronicle of Harding that the 
 Prince began his suit not lor himself, but on behalf of some 
 nameless comrade-in-arms, to that beauteous dame of royal 
 blood the Lady Joan Plantagenet, best known as the ' Fair 
 Maid of Kent.' We now learn from the ' Chronique des 
 Quatre Premiers Valois ' that Sir Bernard Brocas was the 
 knight for whom the Prince thus pleaded, and whose fruitless 
 suit became the direct cause of that romantic royal match. 
 
 The narrative is so quaint in language and so charac- 
 teristic in incident that it deserves full quotation below.' 
 
 ' ' Apres le trespassement de son clit Seigneur moult cle nobles chevaliers 
 qui moult avoient servi le Eoy d'Angleterre et le Prince son fils en leurs guerres 
 vindrent requerre au Prince qu'il lui pleust k parler a la Comtesse de HoUande. 
 En especial ung des hautz hommes et nobles d'Angleterre nomme Monseigneur 
 de Brocas tres bon chevalier qui moult grandement avoit servi le Prince et 
 pour lui tant en ses guerres que autrsment avoit moult travaillie, requist le 
 Prince qu'il lui pleust tant faire qu'il eust la dicte Dame et Comtesse pour lui 
 a femme, et qu'il en parlast a la dicte dame. Le Prince pour le dit chevalier 
 parla a la dicte Dame de Hollande par plusieurs fois. Car moult voulentiers 
 aloit pour soy deduire veoir la dicte dame qui estoit sa cousine et souventelioiz 
 regardoit sa tres grande beauts et son tres gracieux contenement qui merveil- 
 leusement lui plaisoit. Et comme une foiz le Prince parloit a la dicte Comtesse 
 pour le dit chevaHer la Comtesse lui respondi que jamais espoux n'auroit. Et 
 elle qui moult estoit soubtille et sage par plusieurs foiz le dit au Prince. " Ha I 
 A! " se dit le Prince "belle cousine en cas que vous ne voulez marier a mez 
 amis mal fut vostre grant beaute dont tant estes plaine. Et sevous etmoy ne 
 nous apartenissons de lignage il n'est dame soubz leciel que j'eusse tant chiere 
 comme vous." Et alors fut le Prince moult supprins de I'amour a la Comtesse. 
 Et lors prinst la Comtesse a plourer comme femme soubtille et plaine d'aguet. 
 Et done le Prince la prinst a conforter et la prinst a baisier moult souvent en 
 prenant ses larmes a grant doulieur et lui dit " Belle cousine j'ay a vous parler 
 
lo STAG-HL'NTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 This episode must have occurred soon after Sir Bernard's 
 divorce from his first wife, Agnes Vavasour, and he rapidly 
 found consolation for the failure of his ambitious attempt 
 to gain the Fair INIaid's hand by marrying an heiress and a 
 King's ward, Mary, daughter of Sir John de Koches and 
 widow of Sir John de Borhunte. With her he acquired 
 not only ' Hunter's Manor ' and the hereditary Mastership, 
 but other lands and manors in Hampshire, one of which, 
 the Manor of Roche Court, still remains after nineteen 
 generations in the possession of his descendants. To these 
 lands he added the lordship of Beaurepaire, near Basingstoke, 
 purchased from its previous lord, John Pecche, in the year 
 1353, which he received licence from the King to empark, 
 and which was destined to be for so many centuries the 
 chief seat of the Brocas Masters. At length, full of years 
 and honours, after making elaborate arrangements for the 
 foundation of the Brocas Chantrv in Clewer Church, this 
 
 pour ungdes preux chevaliers d'Angleterre et avecceil est moult gentilz homs." 
 Madame la Comtesse respond! en plourant au Prince " Ha Sire pour Dieu 
 vueillez vous souffrir de me parler de cettes paroles. Car c'est mon entente que 
 je n'aye jamaiz espoux. Car je me suys de tout donnee au plus preux de 
 dessoubz le firmament. Et pour I'amour d'icellui jamaiz espoux fors Dieu 
 n'aui"ay tant que je vivray. Car c'est chose impossible que je I'aye, et pour la 
 sienne amour me vueil garder de compagnie d'omme, ne jamaiz n'est m'inten- 
 cion de moy marier." Le Prince fut moult en grant desir de scavoir cil qui 
 estoit le plus preux du monde et moult requist la Comtesse qu'elle lui deist. 
 Mais la dicte Comtesse plus Pen veoit eschautfe plus lui prioit qu'il n'en 
 cerchast plus avant et lui disoit : " Pour Dieu tres cher Seigneur, en soy age- 
 nouillant, pour la tres douce Vierge mere vueillez vous en souffrir a tant." 
 
 ' A brief renconter le Prince lui dist que s'elle ne lui disoit qui estoit le plus 
 preux du monde qu'il seroit son mortel ennemy. Et lors lui dit la Comtesse 
 " Tres chier et redoubts Seigneur c'est vous, et pour I'amour de vous jamaiz a 
 mon coste chevalier ne gerra." Le Prince qui moult fut adonc embras 
 d'amour a la Comtesse lui dit " Dame et je voue a Dieu que jamaiz autre femme 
 que vous vivres n'auroy." Et prcsentement la tianva, puis aprez assez brief- 
 ment il I'espousa . . . . De laquelle chose Edouart le Poy d'Angleterre fut 
 merveilleusement marry et dolent et voult qu'elle fust mise a moi't. Car moult 
 plus hautement se fust le Prince mari6 et n'avoitempereur roy ne prince soubz 
 le ciel qui n'eust eu grant joye se le Prince de Galles se fust mist en son 
 lignage.' 
 
IXTRODUCTION ii 
 
 prcux chcvaUer is accorded a magnificent funeral by his 
 grateful master Eichard II., and, in St. Edmund's Chapel in 
 Westminster Abbey, a stately tomb, round which still runs 
 in contracted form the inscription : ' Hie jacet Bernardus 
 Brocas Miles T. T. quondam camerarius Anne Kegine Anglie 
 cujus anime propicietur Deus. Amen.' It is unfortunate that 
 no solid foundation is apparent for the legend that Sir Bernard 
 bore the crest, used by him in seals as early as 1361, and still 
 extant, of a Moor's head wearing an Oriental crown, in con- 
 sequence of vanquishing a Moorish king in battle.' Possibly 
 he fought among those knights of renown who did battle with 
 Moors ' for the good of their souls ' in the open space between 
 the two camps at Algeciras, when besieged by Alfonso of 
 Castile in 1344. At any rate, the tradition was so well 
 known in Addison's time that the attention of Sir Eoger de 
 Coverley was drawn when in the Abbey to the tomb of ' the 
 lord who had cut off the King of Morocco's head.' - 
 
 Thus, with the marriage of Sir Bernard Brocas and Mary, 
 widow of Sir John de Borhunte and daughter of Sir Johnde 
 Roches, begins the long period of the Brocas Mastership 
 of the Buckhounds, and it becomes necessary to refer briefly 
 to the early history of the office as recited in an ancient 
 Brocas document. 
 
 List of tJte hcreditarij Masters of the Royal Bucklwunds bi/ tenure 
 in capita of ' Hunter's Manor,' in Little Weldon, NorthainptousJiire. 
 
 1. Osborne Lovel, Chamberlain to Henry II. 
 
 2. William Lovel. 
 
 3. Hamon le Venour, by grant from Henry III. in 1216. 
 
 4. William Lovel. 
 
 5. John Lovel, oh. 1316. 
 
 6. Thomas de Borhunte, ob. 1340, jure Margaret Lovel. 
 
 7. William Dan vers, ob. 1361, jure Margaret Lovel. 
 
 ' Arras of Brocas : Sable, a lion, ranipant-gardant, or. Crest of Brocas : 
 A Moor's head in profile, crowned. 
 - Spectator, No. 329. 
 
12 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 8. Sir Bernard Brocas (13G3), oh. 1395, jure Mary de Borhunte. 
 
 9. Sir Bernard Brocas, second of the name, executed 1400. 
 
 10. William Brocas (1), ob. 1456. 
 
 11. William Brocas (2), ob. 1484. 
 
 12. John Brocas, ob. 1492. 
 
 13. William Brocas (3), ob. 1506. 
 
 14. John Brocas, 1508 1512.' 
 
 15. George Warham and Ealph Pexall, joint Masters 1512- 
 
 1514, jicre Ann and Edith Brocas. 
 
 16. Ealph Pexall (1514), ob. c. 1540, jure Edith Brocas. 
 
 17. Sir Eichard Pexall, ob. 1571, son of Edith Brocas. 
 
 18. Sir John Savage (till 1584), second husband of Lady 
 
 Pexall, widow of Sir Eichard. 
 
 19. Sir Pexall Brocas, ob. 1630. 
 
 20. Thomas Brocas, who in 1633 sold Hunter's Manor and the 
 
 otKce to Sir Lewis Watson, afterwards LordEockingham. 
 
 From the list of hereditary Masters given above it will 
 be observed that one of the earUest notices of any regular 
 estabHshment for the Buckhounds is the grant of certain 
 lands in Little Weldon, a manor in Northamptonshire, near 
 Eockingham, to Hamon le Venour, in 1216. It is certain, 
 however, that the Lovels had held these lands at an eadier 
 date, for certain territories and the lordship of the Manor of 
 Little Weldon were granted by Henry II. to his Chamberlain, 
 Osborne Lo'vel, from whom they descended to John Lovel, 
 who died in 1316. AVhatever were the original relations of 
 ' Hunter's Manor in Little Weldon ' to the royal manor of 
 that name of which it formed a part, it assumed under the 
 Edwards a position so entirely independent of the larger 
 manor that it is styled in the Brocas deeds and official docu- 
 ments the ' Manor of Little Weldon,' with ' Hunter's Manor ' 
 sometimes prefixed as an alias. To this ' Hunter's Manor ' 
 was attached in Grand Serjeanty for many centuries the 
 Mastership of the Eoyal Buckhounds. For the ingenious at- 
 
 ' The tenureof this Master, omittediii the list given in The Faniilijof Jhvcos, 
 lias been correctly noted in the History of the Royal Jkickhouiuls. 
 
INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 teiii])t luade ]iy till' ;uitli()r of a ' History of the ]>ucl<lioiiii(]s,' 
 to which ahusioii has hccii ah'eady made, to throw douhi on 
 the antiquity of the hereditary transmission of the Mastei'ship 
 \vith ' Hunter's Manor ' — an attempt apparently hased on the 
 fact that the Lovels and de Borhuntes, who held it before Sir 
 Bernard Brocas, were styled custodians instead of masters 
 — needs no further attention than the statement that in the 
 Brocas documents ' magister ' and ' custos ' are frequently 
 used as interchangeable terms of the same meaning, and 
 that in an indenture of Elizabeth's reign the phrase ' Master 
 or Keeper ' of the Buckhounds occurs. Kemote from King and 
 Court the situation of Hunter's Manor may seem at the 
 present day to those who forget the central position and 
 historical importance of Rockingham Forest and Eockingham 
 Castle in Norman and Plantagenet times. Here, within 
 reach of the stronghold of Northampton, was the royal 
 residence, fitted for retirement and the pleasures of the 
 chase, until, with the increasing necessity of moving the 
 Court nearer to London, Eockingham was superseded by 
 the greater convenience and magnificence of Windsor. A 
 vast extent of country was once covered by Eockingham 
 Forest, which, when reduced to the limits retained almost to 
 modern times, was twenty-four miles long from Oxendon 
 Bridge to Stamford, and twelve miles wide from Eocking- 
 ham to Thrapstone. Numerous woodlands, quaint forest 
 names, peculiar customs, and a population that retains its 
 forest character still mark the ancient limits. Local names, 
 such as ' The Lord's AValk ' and ' Harry's Wood,' still recall 
 the memory of some forgotten royal and noble lover of the 
 ' mimic war ' of hound and horn. Though ' Hunter's Coppice,' 
 last relic of the ancient ' Hunter's ^lanor,' was broken up 
 some years ago, there still may be seen in ' Little Weldon ' 
 mounds and foundations of an extensive building surrounded 
 by a quadran'gular moat to which the peasants give the name 
 
14 STAG-HUNTIXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 of ' The Castle ' or ' The Hall,' and which may mark the site 
 of the hunting lodge and kennels of the hereditary Masters. 
 Still do the Pytchley awake the same woodland echoes as 
 were roused by many a princely Plantagenet, and still hounds 
 meet on the border of Farming Woods near an ancient stone 
 three feet high and now fast sinking into the earth, named 
 the ' Bocase Stone,' marking the site of a yet more ancient 
 tree, and bearing still the inscriptions, ' In this place grew 
 Bocase tree,' and, lower down, ' Here stood Bocase tree.' 
 No local tradition of the meaning of this inscription survives, 
 and so quaint and unlikely have been the derivations sug- 
 gested that leave may be taken to hold that here stood the 
 ' Brocas Tree,' and that here, where the old forest tracks, 
 still traceable, met near the ancient kennels, the hereditary 
 Brocas Masters, surrounded by their huntsmen, their 
 ' veutrers,' ' berners,' and hounds, and clad in the livery 
 specially provided from the King's wardrobe, were wont, in 
 successive generations, to await the royal hunting train 
 emerging from Kockingham Castle. 
 
 While there is clear proof from public records and 
 documents of the Brocas family of the chief importance of 
 Eockingham in the early organisation of the Buckhounds, 
 it is strange that no direct evidence of the application of 
 this hunting estabhshment to the New Forest or other royal 
 demesnes has yet been discovered. 
 
 The tenure of the manor and ofdce by the early Lovels 
 and de Borhuntes is so similar in most respects to that of 
 later times, and so interesting from its antiquity, that refer- 
 ence may here be made to an entry dated August 15, 1316, 
 wherein the escheator reported that Lovel had held one 
 messuage and one carucate of land in Weldon Parva of the 
 King in capite by service of keeping and feeding at his own 
 charges fifteen ' canes currentes ' of the King's for the forty 
 days of Lent in each year, and to a later document wherein it 
 
INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 is recited that Thomas Borhunte holds of the King in ca'pite 
 a chain of land in Little Weldon of the inheritance of 
 Margaret his wife, daughter and luur of John Lovel, hy 
 service of being ' Venour le Eoy des deymers ' (Master of the 
 King's Buckhounds) ; that he has charge of twenty-four hounds 
 and six greyhounds of the King's, receiving for the keep of 
 each an obol or \d. a day, and also of two under-hunts- 
 men, whose wages are \\(l. a day, with a cloth coat or a 
 mark of money by the year, and boots ; that he also has 
 charge of a ' veutrer,' or huntsman, at 'Id. a day, who is also 
 to have a coat or a mark of money and 4s. 8cZ. for boots by the 
 year ; that the Master is to keep at Ms own cost for the forty 
 days of Lent, fifteen Buckhounds and one ' berner,' or keeper 
 of the hounds, while the second 'berner,' the ' veutrer,' and 
 the rest of the hounds are to be kept at the King's cost for 
 the whole of the year ; that the Master's salary is to be l^d. 
 a day when at Court and lid. a day when absent on the 
 King's business, with two robes a year or 40,s. ; that the 
 ' seigne en malades ' is to have for daily livery Id. worth of 
 bread, a gallon of beer, a mess of ' groos,' and a mess of roast 
 from the kitchen, and that the livery of the huntsman is to 
 be at the King's will. The most important point in this 
 ancient document is the absolute acknowledgment of the 
 hereditary character of the office and of the power of its 
 transmission through females — a power which in the next 
 century was abolished by restricting the succession to males, 
 but which was revived again under the Tudors in such a 
 manner as to defeat the original object of the Mastership, and 
 to end in its being bought and sold in the seventeenth century 
 as private property, with the final result of the formation 
 of the Privy Buckhounds, the Mastership of which was free 
 from these feudal hindrances. 
 
 To the value of the Manor of Little Weldon, or Hunter's 
 Manor, there was added, from the middle of the fourteenth to 
 
i6 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 the end of the seventeenth century, a supplementary salary for 
 the Master, amounting on the average to 50/. a year, charged 
 on the revenues of Surrey and Sussex, and payable by warrant 
 under the Privy Seal addressed to the sheriff of those coun- 
 ties. So serious are the delays of payment of this salary 
 after the Lancastrian accession to the throne, so great is the 
 risk of its not being paid at all, that pubHc records and the 
 Brocas papers are full of piteous appeals from successive 
 Masters, such as that of the year 1449, in which ' To the 
 Kyng and Sovain Lorde bisecheth mekely your humble 
 servaunt William Brocas Squyer, Maistre of your Buk- 
 hounds. Forasmuche that he holdith of you and alle his 
 Auncestres of tyme that no mynde is have holden to your 
 noble progenitours, the Manior of Lityll Weldon in the Counte 
 of North' by Graunte Sergeaunte that is to witte to be 
 Maistre of your Bukhoundes, and to kepe xxiiij reunyng 
 houndes and vi grehoundes, and to find a yeoman Veautrer 
 and two yomen Berners, which Office was of old tyme or- 
 deyned for the pleasir and disporte of your noble progenitours 
 and their successours. . . . AYherefore please hit unto your 
 Highnesse as well tenderly to consider these premisses as the 
 trewe contynuell service that your said Bisecher hath doon 
 unto your noble progenitours as to your Highnesse ... to 
 graunte unto y^nv said Bisecher the said wages and 
 
 fees. ... 
 
 ' llesponsio 
 
 Soit fait connne il est desire juxst le continue d'un 
 Cedule a ycest Peticion annexe.' 
 
 So alike are these petitions and so unchanged are the 
 general conditions of the manor and service during the 
 centuries of its hereditary transmission, that we may well 
 turn in search of more interesting matter to such personal 
 details of certain Masters as concern tht>ir tenuiv of the office. 
 Of the romantic career of the first and most illustrious 
 
INTRO D UCriON 1 7 
 
 Brocas Master a brief outline has already been given. In 
 the next generation the passionate devotion of the loyal 
 Gascon blood to the failing cause of Eichard the Eedeless, 
 son of the 'Prince of Aquitaine,' brought the rising fortunes 
 of the family to the brink of ruin. For the second Sir 
 Bernard Brocas, in consequence of his share in the desperate 
 plot to seize Henry IV. at Oxford, lost not only many a fair 
 manor, but his head also. Betrayed by the dastardly traitor 
 Rutland, the conspirators made a dash on Windsor, missed 
 Henry there by a few hours, and fled in hot haste to Ciren- 
 cester, where they were forced to surrender. The earls 
 implicated in the rising having been beheaded without trial, 
 the knights were taken to Oxford, where the greater number 
 were barbarously executed, but four, including (according 
 to the statement of the most trustworthy chronicler) ' Sir 
 Bernard Brocas Gascon ' and Sir Thomas Shelley, were sent 
 to London for trial. Thus accuracy can scarcely be allowed 
 to Shakespeare's graphic narrative of the event wherein 
 Fitzwater reports — 
 
 My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London 
 The heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely, 
 Two of the dangerous consorted traitors 
 That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow. 
 
 Richard II. act iv. scene 6. 
 
 At Tyburn Brocas alone of the four was exempted from the 
 degradation of being drawn and hanged, and there they suffered 
 death with the composure becoming knights and gentlemen , 
 refusing to the last to betray their associates. For, as 
 stated in the ' Chronique de la Traison,' to the question, 
 ' Sa}^ amongst you who they were that belonged to your 
 party,' ' la ne respondit nul,' none of them replied a word. 
 
 Although by the clemency of Henry IV. the forfeiture 
 and attainder were with remarkable promptitude reversed, 
 and the family restored in blood and estate, the descen- 
 
 c 
 
1 8 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 dants of the attainted knight, taught by bitter experience, 
 seem to have shunned the dangers of the Court, to have 
 studied woodcraft instead of statecraft, to have followed the 
 buckhounds instead of the ' dogs of war,' and to have 
 devoted tranquil years at Beaurepaire to the service of their 
 county, by acting, during successive generations, as members 
 of Parliament and Sheriffs for Hampshire. After keeping 
 hounds impartially for the Ked and the White Eose, the 
 elder line of the Masters comes, early in the sixteenth 
 century, to be represented by co-heiresses, Anne and Edith 
 Brocas ; and in their favour the power of transmitting the 
 Mastership through females was again expressly granted, to 
 the exclusion of their living uncles and other kinsmen of the 
 name, and in spite of the limitation of the succession to heirs 
 male made in the reign of Henry VI. No explanation of 
 this remarkable transaction is forthcoming, but significance 
 of favour in high places attaches itself to the facts that 
 Ealph Pexall, husband of Edith Brocas, was in Wolsey's 
 retinue, and that Eichard Pexall was the Abbot of Leicester 
 of whom the dying Cardinal on his last journey ' craved a 
 little earth for charity.' 
 
 It is unfortunately impossible to find evidence that either 
 Anne or Edith Brocas carried the horn or exercised in person 
 any duties of their office. They were probably wise to act 
 by deputy in the reign of that amorous sportsman Henry 
 VIII. , whose attentions in the hunting-field were apt to 
 lead to the block. But, had they lived somewhat later, 
 one cannot but think that a Mistress of the Buckhounds 
 would have been in place when Elizabeth, Henry's 
 
 Man-minded offset rose 
 To chase the deer at five. 
 
 In the next generation Sir Eichard Pexall's claim to the 
 Mastership was granted by Queen Mary in letters patent, and 
 the marriaire of his dau<:hter to her kinsman Bernard Brocas 
 
INTRODUCTION 19 
 
 of Horton brought it back to the old name. In their son, Sir 
 Pexall Brocas, there passes across the stage a ruffling spend- 
 thrift and a riotous braggart who seriously encumbered the 
 family estates, and brought the Mastership into such bad 
 repute that the beginning of the end drew nigh. The strange 
 nature and variety of his career, his habits and proclivities, may 
 be gathered from the facts that on January 18, 1603, a pardon 
 was granted by James to Sir Pexall Brocas, Knight, for all 
 riots and unlawful assemblies before March 20 last past ; that 
 six years later Sir Pexall conveyed by deed to trustees the 
 greater part of his estates, including Little Weldon and the 
 Mastership of the Buckhounds, for the purposes (1) of erect- 
 ing a tomb to his honour in Westminster Abbey, near to that 
 of his grandfather. Sir Eichard Pexall ; (2) of founding a 
 college at Oxford, to be called ' Brocas College ' ; and that in 
 little more than three years from the date of this pious con- 
 veyance ' he did open penance at Paul's Cross, where he 
 stood in a white sheet and held a rod in his hand, having 
 been formally convicted before the High Commissioners for 
 secret and notorious adulteries with divers women.' A touch 
 of picturesque assurance is added to this swashbuckler's 
 career by the tradition ' that he was attended by thirty 
 men in scarlet that waited upon him to the Lord Mayor 
 when he went to demand a dinner after doing penance.' It 
 need scarcely be added that on the expiration of his penitent 
 mood the conveyance above mentioned was promptly 
 revoked. This notorious Master entered upon his office and 
 manor without licence from Elizabeth, a trespass which was 
 pardoned ; but it was not until nearly the end of her reign 
 that his claim to the ancient salary of 50Z. per annum from 
 the Sheriffs of Surrey and Sussex was recognised by the 
 judges on appeal. To this petition Sir Pexall soon added 
 another, for among the claims made by hereditary- officers 
 for places at the ceremony and procession at King James's 
 
 c 2 
 
20 STAG-HCNTIXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 coronation, is found one made hy him ' as seised of Little 
 Weldon to be Master of the Buckhounds.' This claim 
 was unsuccessful, as was that made at the coronation of 
 Charles II. by Lord Eockingham, who had b}' that time 
 acquired the Mastership by purchase. 
 
 The merely nominal character now assumed by the 
 liereditarj^ oliice, and the serious difficulty, largely increased 
 under Henry VIII., of obtaining any salary, pointed to an 
 imminent change in the constitution of an establishment 
 that had become unsuitable for modern requirements. That 
 this change had begun under Henry VIII. by the substitu- 
 tion of the Privy Buckhounds as distinct from the hounds 
 kept by the hereditar}' Masters is clearly shown by an 
 indenture, preserved among the Brocas documents, of great 
 value and interest to the subsequent history of the subject. 
 For it is from this Privy Pack, with its Masters, one of the 
 earliest of whom was George Boleyn, holding office at the 
 King's pleasure, and not from the hereditary and feudal 
 organisation, that the present establishment and the modern 
 tenure of the Mastership directly descends. In this impor- 
 tant and decisive indenture, dated July 13, 1598, whereby 
 Sir Pexall Brocas deputes Sir John Stanhope to discharge 
 the duties of the Mastership, it is recited that Sir Bernard 
 Brocas and his heirs became seised of the Mastership, 
 and ' being so seised, the late King of famous memory, 
 Henry VIII., by the sinister persuasions of divers of the 
 then servants of the said King, seeking their own private 
 gain, did erect, make and establish another office called the 
 Master of his Privy Buckhounds, and the same office, together 
 with divers new fees and wages for exercising the same new 
 office, did give and grant to divers x^ersons to the great 
 damage, prejudice and disinheritance of the said Sir Richard 
 Pexall and of his manor aforesaid, and to the great and 
 extraordinary charge and expense of the said King.' It is 
 
INTR OD UC TION 2 1 
 
 further explained in this deed that Queen Mary did revoke, 
 repeal, and make void the said new office, and did confirm 
 Sir Richard Pexall and his heirs in the ancient hereditary 
 office. 
 
 In spite of this strenuous opposition of the hereditary 
 Masters, the Privy Buckhounds were re-established under 
 Elizabeth and James, and for a time the old and the new 
 systems bitterly contended for the mastery, until in the early 
 part of the seventeenth century the hereditar}^ office became 
 practically obsolete. It was in this condition when Thomas 
 Brocas, in the year 1633, sold it to Sir Lewis Watson for 
 3,000/., with the Manor of Little Weldon, held by his 
 ancestors for three centuries. Thus ended at last the long 
 line of hereditary Masters, but not the loyalty of their race. 
 For it appears from contemporary authority that Beaurepaire, 
 their ancient seat, was one of the last houses in Hampshire 
 to hold out for Charles's hopeless cause. Surprised and 
 surrounded at length by a Roundhead force from Abingdon, 
 the Brocas troop, after throwing into their moat the last 
 pieces of plate that had not been melted down for the King, 
 cut their way through to Basing House, to reinforce their 
 neighbour, the gallant old Marquis of Winchester, in his final 
 struggle. There for a few more desperate months the de- 
 scendants of the faithful Masters of the Buckhounds fought 
 on under that Paulet motto which might well have been 
 theirs also, Aimez LoyauU. For not many families can 
 boast, as can that of Brocas, that thrice in their history, 
 once in Gascony and twice in England, their fortunes have 
 been ruined by devoted loyalty to their King. 
 
22 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 CHAPTEK I 
 
 GEORGIAN STAG-HUNTING 
 I summon up remembrance of things past 
 
 I AM afraid that a great deal in this book has little or nothing 
 to do with the Queen's Hounds. Often and often they have, 
 as it were, to be dragged in by the scruff of the neck. I 
 am constantly running out of my course, and at the outset I 
 must plead this as my excuse for the many liberties taken 
 with the unities of time and place in the following pages. 
 
 History, according to the late Master of Balliol, is 
 Biography, and tested by Dr. Jowett's standard, any strictly 
 consd5entious history of the Buckhounds must leave much to 
 be desired. For many long tracts of years they want the 
 breath of life. Like most institutions they are not palpable. 
 Their existence is abundantly vouched for by warrants, 
 salaries, and accounts, but this is a very sinister way of 
 reaching history. Besides, the history of the Eoyal Buck- 
 hounds has been done already, and well done. In his work 
 on this subject, Mr. Hore taps and samples every available 
 source of official information. He has brought a trained 
 and patient industry to bear upon much old English and dog 
 Latin. Pipe Rolls and the penetralia of public offices have 
 been forced to yield their increase and been turned into 
 type and plain figures. But cheerfully as he threads his 
 way through this valley of dry bones and the dust of ages, 
 Mr. Hore laments over and over again the absence of authen- 
 tic records of actual hunting incidents. Where as an inves- 
 tigator he has failed, I am not likely to succeed. Thus the 
 
GEORGIAN STAG-HUNTING 23 
 
 lack of material might account for the short work made of 
 several centm'ies, and be my apology for skipping the trunk- 
 hose periods. I am further relieved from having to touch on 
 the earlier associations of royalty and stag-hunting by the 
 fact that my friend Mr. Burro w^s, who, as a descendant of 
 the hereditary Brocas Masters of the Buckhounds, is the 
 proper person to remind us of these vanished ages, has told 
 us about them in the Introduction. 
 
 Mr. Lecky, in one of his most engaging chapters, com- 
 ments upon the fact that countless Enclosure Acts and the 
 spread of agriculture had led to much less wild stag-hunting. 
 But, on the other hand, it may be noted that these very 
 Enclosure Acts in Bucks and Berks hastened the dawn of 
 civihsation in the shape of the deer cart. Although I cannot 
 fix an Hejira with absolute certainty, the credit of this in- 
 vention belongs as much of right to George III. and his 
 hunting advisers as the credit of hunting at force — that is, of 
 unharbouring and riding to a deer with hounds — belongs of 
 right to Edward III. and his hard-riding Gascon Master, 
 Sir Bernard Brocas. I shall, therefore, without further 
 apology, begin with a short survey of Court and country 
 hunting under the Georges. 
 
 There is really little to be said about stag-hunting under 
 George I. The Buckhounds, Mr. Hore tells us, were not 
 idle— they certainly cost money, and his pages will repay 
 the attention of those who Hke comparing expenditure 
 statistics of the past with the present. But George I., as 
 everybody knows, never settled down in England. As Dr. 
 Johnson explained to Boswell in the course of a panegyric 
 upon Charles II., he 'knew nothing, and desired to know 
 nothing ; did nothing, and desired to do nothing.' The fine 
 company on the Mall, the beauty of St. James's Park, im- 
 pressed him not at all. The oaks of Windsor only made 
 him regret the limes of Herrenhausen. He was over fifty 
 
24 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 years old when he ascended the throne of his ancestors, as 
 he called it in his first speech to Parliament— too old to learn 
 a new language and new hunting ways. He never went out 
 if the weather was bad, hardly realised the Buckhounds, and 
 threw them and the Master of the Horse department into 
 commission and the greedy hands of the Duchess of Kendal. 
 An instance of the German complexion which pervaded every- 
 thing at Windsor occurs in a picture at Windsor of George I. 
 out hunting in the Great Park with his suite, by Gohrde. 
 The names of the fom'teen or fifteen personages are all given 
 on the tablet. With two exceptions they are all German. 
 Even one of these exceptions is Germanised, the huntsman 
 being handed down to posterity as ' Ned Finsch.' In fine 
 weather, however, the King went sporting occasionally. In 
 September, 1717, we hear of his diverting himself with hunt- 
 ing in Bushey Park. After which, ahghting from horseback, 
 his Majesty walked above three miles with a fowling-piece 
 in his hand, and killed several brace of partridges flj'ing. 
 During the summer of 1724 a stud of nice horses was got 
 together and sent to Windsor for the King's stag-hunt- 
 ing, but there is no account of his ever using them. He 
 w^ent out pheasant-shooting in August of the same year, 
 earlier than even the writers of the first of October leading 
 articles begin their pheasant-shooting. From eight in the 
 morning till nearly five that day he only shot tw^o and a 
 half brace, and one and a half brace of partridges. But, 
 besides the gratitude we owe to George I. for the passive 
 respect he paid a free government and a free people, we 
 must, with the picture of the Queen's Jubilee Procession 
 fresh upon our minds' eye, ever be grateful to him for 
 bringing over the cream-coloured horses and their scarlet 
 housings of velvet and morocco.' 
 
 ' For very many years past the cream -colours have all been bred at Hampton 
 Court. The only new blood that has been obtained — at all recently— was in 1(S!)3, 
 
GEORGIAN STAG. If UN TING 25 
 
 According to Mr. Green, George I. liad the manners of 
 a gentleman-usher. Gentlemen-ushers are not clearly defined 
 types of human nature, but I take them to be personages 
 versed in the grave issues and nice points of Court ceremonial. 
 At all events, when he fell out with his son the rupture 
 was so decisive that the servants of the Prince of Wales's 
 
 The Ckeam Horse 
 
 From an oil jjaiiiliiif/ in the Queen's collection at Wimhor Castle 
 
 children were not allowed to wear scarlet liveries, only yellow 
 ones being permitted ' according to precedent.' However, 
 the Prince of AVales and ' cette diablesse Madame la Prin- 
 cesse,' as her father-in-law habitually called her, made the 
 best of it, and set up for themselves at Leicester House and 
 
 when a two-year-old stallion and filly were bought of Prince Schaumberg-Lippe. 
 The Prince's stud was sold by auction in the beginning of this year, and I believe 
 the Queen's and the Hanover stud are the only ones in Europe. Four brood 
 mares are always kept at Hampton Court, and only stallions are used in the 
 State coach. 
 
26 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Kichmond Lodge, ' where,' says Walpole, ' the most promis- 
 ing of the young gentlemen of the party, and the prettiest 
 and Hvehest of the young ladies, formed the new Court.' 
 
 George II., soon after his accession, appointed Colonel 
 Francis Negus Master of the Buckhounds. The colonel 
 was to defray all expenses on a yearly salary of 2,341Z., and 
 this stipend appears to have continued till 1782. The 
 accounts as compared with the present day are chiefly 
 remarkable for their variety. The responsibility of the 
 Master of the Buckhounds covered, as Mr. Hore says, a 
 wide field of action. Colonel Francis Negus had all sorts of 
 things to do besides looking after the hounds and hunt- 
 horses. He distributed King's Plates at race-meetings, fed 
 the wild turkeys in Bushey Park, and managed the royal 
 menagerie in Hyde Park, where the king's tiger accounted 
 for six pounds of boiled beef and mutton daily. Extracts 
 from other sources of information appal one by the number 
 of hunting and other accidents. Thus we have the Duke of 
 Grafton, at that time Lord Chamberlain, thrown into a mill- 
 race near Datchet and very nearly drowned ; and pages of 
 honour, hunt servants, ladies of the bedchamber, physicians, 
 and gentlemen and gentlewomen of all sorts and condi- 
 tions are always coming to grief and having to be bled. One 
 day a stableman was riding an over-fresh horse which 
 took fright at a swan which flew out at it from the canal 
 in Bushey Park. The horse ran away, impaled itself on 
 some iron spikes, and had to be destroyed. Lady Suffolk 
 said it was lucky the man was not hurt, on which the 
 king snapped her up very short. ' Yes, I am very lucky, 
 truly ; pray where is the luck '? I have lost a good horse, 
 and I have got a booby of a groom still to keep.' Lord 
 Hervey instances this as an example of George II. 's rudeness 
 and want of feeling, but even kings are human. 
 
 On one occasion. Sir Eobert Walpole's horse fell just in 
 
GEORGIAN STAG-HUNTING ' 27 
 
 front of Queen Caroline's chaise ; it was on August 14, a hot 
 and dusty day, not the time of year one would choose either 
 for hunting or for falling on a hard road. Sir Robert 
 was not hurt, and soon remounted. The Queen, however, 
 ' ordered him to be bled by way of prevention.' Sir Robert 
 was Ranger of Richmond Park, and hunted a good deal 
 with the Buckhounds in a green suit, sometimes, Mr. Hore 
 tells us, officiating as Field Master. No doubt he did 
 it capitally. The best of hacks will fall, but possibly Sir 
 Robert did not ride very well-bred ones, as Horace Walpole 
 used to relate that his father rode two horses to a standstill 
 between London and Richmond Lodge, on the afternoon of 
 June 14, 1727, when he galloped down to tell the Prince of 
 Wales that his father had died on his way to Hanover. 
 Perhaps they were Norfolk hackneys. 
 
 New terrors were added to hunting at this time by the 
 number of highwaymen who infested the neighbourhood 
 of London. Thus, when Lord Tankerville, Master of the 
 Buckhounds in 1733, sets out from London in June to 
 make arrangements for the hunting season, he takes with 
 him ' a guard of retainers and troops.' Little else is recorded 
 of his Lordship's Mastership, but Sir R. Walpole had a good 
 opinion of Lady Tankerville, and recommended her for the 
 discharge of delicate duties. AVhen in later years he ad- 
 vised the Queen to choose the king a mistress, rather than 
 let him choose one for himself, as he was bound to have 
 one. Sir Robert proposed Lady Tankerville as a decent and 
 obliging sort of woman in preference to Lady Deloraine, who 
 had two dangerous things, a weak head and a pretty face. 
 
 Mr. Ralph Jenison, M.P., appointed Master in 1737 and 
 again in 1746, is the last commoner who has filled the 
 office. As far as I know, Mr. Jenison was the only Master of 
 the Buckhounds who was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 The picture is in the possession of Mr. Adair, who succeeded 
 
»8 
 
 ST A G-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 to it from Lord Waveney. It is a curious thing how few 
 people Sir Joshua Keynolds painted in hunting or even in 
 riding dress. I only remember one lady, a most distinguished 
 and admirable picture of Lady Charles Spencer, in a scarlet 
 habit, deerskin riding-gloves, with — it must be admitted — 
 
 New Terhors were added dy the Highwaymen 
 
 a shocking grey horse. This picture is now at Ferrieres. Of 
 course there must be several others, at all events of men. At 
 the same time Sir J. Keynolds did not look to dress for the 
 breath of life as much as Velasquez and Gainsborough did. 
 He is rather too prone to robe, or rather garb his women, 
 and to pose them as saints or nymphs.^ 
 
 But to get back to hunting : in 1735 the great crowds 
 which came out with the king's hounds led to arrangements 
 by which people could only hunt by ticket, which had to be 
 
 ' Dr. Johnson criticises this : ' I should grieve to see Reynolds transfer to 
 heroes and to goddesses . . . that art which is now employed in diffusing 
 friendship, in renewing tenderness, in (juickening the affections of the absent, 
 and continuing the presence of the dead.' 
 
GEORGIAN STAG-HUNTING 29 
 
 signed by the Kanger of Windsor or his deputy. As the 
 Great Western, one of the motor muscles of the Queen's 
 Hounds, was not available in those days, Londoners could 
 hardly have got as far as Windsor ; but be that as it may, 
 the London merchants and tradesmen have been fond of 
 hunting from old time. A charter of Henry I. entitled the 
 citizens of London to hunt deer ' as freely as their ancestors 
 had done ' in the Chiltern Hundreds, Middlesex, or Surrey, 
 and the wolf in Middlesex and up to the northern gate of 
 the City. The Lord Mayor of London, who is still regarded 
 by many French newspapers and most French people as the 
 head of most of our institutions, including the House of 
 Lords, was the ex-ofiflcio master of the ' Common hunt,' and 
 riding to it was an ancient and cherished civic right. But 
 an ' inundation ' of building, to quote a contemporary writer, 
 spoiled the Common hunt country in the reign of Elizabeth. 
 Deer were getting scarce, for the forest country was shrink- 
 ing away before the needs of population, and the fields 
 of Islington and St. Giles no longer witnessed the once 
 familiar spectacle of a hare or a stag pursued with due 
 solemnity by the sleek pack of some worshipful City com- 
 pany. With less hunting, gout, which was at this time 
 styled ' the enemy,' began to infest the well-to-do City men. 
 They soon became, like George Selwyn's friend, too ' able ' 
 judges of a turtle. In his 'Pills to Purge Melancholy,' 
 D'Urfey makes fun — or what passes for fun in his estima- 
 tion—of the Common hunts, and describes the City notables 
 riding through Cheapside and Fenchurch Street with their 
 spurs put on upside down and their backswords across their 
 rumps. Arrived at the fixture the master gets to business : 
 
 My Lord, he takes a staff in hand to beat the bushes o'er, 
 
 I must confess it was a work he ne'er had done before ; 
 
 A creature bounceth from the bush, which made them all to lau^h. 
 
 My Lord he cried, ' A hare ! a hare ! ' but it proved an Essex calf. 
 
 And so on and so on. 
 
30 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 This is not quite fair; as Mr. Hore tells us that the 
 Common hunt, under the mastership of a Mr. Cuttenden, 
 was showing good sport in 1723. By this time, how- 
 ever, many members of the Common hunt hunted 
 with the Buckhounds, not perhaps at Windsor, but about 
 Bushey and Kichmond and Hampton Court, and Mr. 
 Hore pleasantly describes a celebrated hunting alderman, 
 Humphrey Parsons, twice Lord Mayor of London, and a 
 predecessor of Colonel Thornton, Mr. Chaworth Musters, 
 and ' Jacob Omnium ' in the forests of Chantilly and Fon- 
 tainebleau : 
 
 ' Towards the end of the reign of George L, Humphrey 
 Parsons became very conspicuous through an incident which 
 took place when he was hunting with the staghounds of 
 Louis XV. in the forest of Fontainebleau, in the month of Sep- 
 tember, 1725. On this occasion we are told that Alderman 
 Parsons, " being mounted on a spirited English horse, contrary 
 to the etiquette of the French Court, outstripped the rest of 
 the field, and was first in at the death. The king enquiring 
 who the gentleman was, one of the adulatory attendants 
 indignantly answered that he was ' Un Chevalier de Malte.' 
 The king, however, entering into conversation with Alderman 
 Parsons, asked the price of his horse, upon which the Chevalier, 
 with true politeness, answered that it was beyond any price 
 otherwise than his Majesty's acceptance. The king could 
 not resist the acquisition of so perfect a hunter, even upon 
 such terms ; consequently, it was duly deHvered at the royal 
 stables. As a quid ^ro quo, Louis XV. gave Alderman 
 Parsons — who was a famous brewer— an exclusive monopoly 
 of serving the French nation with his Extract of Malte, 
 yclept in the vernacular * London Stout.' " ' ' 
 
 Somerville, to whom the first Lord Fitzhardinge always 
 
 ' History of the Buckhounds, by J. P. Hore, ch. xii. pp. '20-1-5. 
 
GEORGIAN STAG-HUNTING 31 
 
 declared he owed all his knowledge of hunting, was himself 
 a master of the hounds. He wrote his poem ' The Chase ' in 
 George II. 's reign. It was still the age of elaborate similes, 
 and the poet seizes the opportunity of paying a tribute to the 
 king's military talents in a comparison of a level pack of 
 hounds to a body of troops : 
 
 As some brave captain, curious and exact, 
 
 By his fix'd standard forms in equal ranks 
 
 His gay battalion ; as one man they move. 
 
 Step after step ; their ^ize the same, their arms, 
 
 Far gleaming, dart the same united blaze ; 
 
 Eeviewing generals his merit own. 
 
 How regular ! how just ! And all his cares 
 
 Are well repaid, if mighty George approve. 
 
 So model thou thy pack, if honour touch 
 
 Thy generous soul, and the world's just applause. 
 
 But although he had his fixed hunting days, George II. 
 had very little complaisance for other people who wished 
 to go away from London for their hunting. Lord Hervey 
 tells us that when the king got back from Hanover 
 in November, 1735, nothing English suited him ; no Eng- 
 lish horses were fit to be ridden or driven ; no English 
 coachman could drive, no English jockey ride. The men, 
 he said, only talked of their dull politics, the women of 
 their ugly clothes. It is true that he had upset himself. 
 Lord Hervey adds, by travelling in ' a violent manner, 
 only for the pleasure of bragging how quick he moved,' 
 but on arriving in London he was annoyed at finding Sir 
 Eobert AValpole gone off to Norfolk for his hunting ' congress,' 
 a thin Court, and a more or less empty town. This — Sir Eobert 
 being away — he put up with rather crossly, as he said no 
 man worked harder than Sir Eobert Walpole, and that his 
 mind wanted rest and his body exercise ; ' but he had no 
 
 ' Sir Robert Walpole only took thirty days' holiday in the year, ten in 
 August and twenty in November, when he entertained a large hunting party at 
 Houghton. 
 
32 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 patience with the Duke of Grafton, who also wanted to be 
 off fox-hunting. The king told him it was a pretty occupa- 
 tion for a man of quality and of his age to hunt a poor fox. 
 The duke said he did it for his health. Upon this, the 
 king asked him why he couldn't ride post for his health, 
 adding pertinently that, with his ' great corps of twenty 
 stone weight,' no horse could carry him within hearing, much 
 less within sight, of his hounds. 
 
 This period marks the commencement of a radical change 
 which was gradually taking place in the relations between 
 town and rural society in England, and which could not but 
 have an important effect upon country sports. Hunting, and 
 especially fox-hunting, was now beginning to attract the 
 attention of the ancestors of the men who were later on to 
 inspire ' Nimrod's ' pen and Ferneley's and Aiken's pencil. 
 In the earlier years of the eighteenth century hunting was 
 the business of the smaller gentry and of the parsons, and 
 a rough, boisterous sort of affair. ' There he goes,' says 
 Diana Vernon of her cousin Thorncliffe Osbaldistone, ' the 
 prince of grooms, and cock-fighters, and blackguard horse- 
 coursers.' Here and there a great nobleman or consider- 
 able squire kept hounds, especially harriers.' At Badminton 
 and Brocklesby and Berkeley, at Bel voir and Goodwood, a 
 pack of hounds was part of the apparatus of the estate which 
 went on from father to son. But it is doubtful whether 
 the sort of people who hunt most now hunted much then, 
 and it certainly was never the serious occupation of the 
 Court in England as it was in France. During the last two 
 
 ' ' I am very sorry,' writes Somerville to a friend. ' I must deny myself the 
 pleasure of your good company to-morrow. I was to-day with my Lord 
 Coventry's harriers, and I know Ball will not hold out two days together. I 
 meet them again on Thursday morning in Wilmcote Pasture, near Stratford ; 
 and should think myself very happy in your good company. I must be there 
 at six in the morning. It may be that a little variety may please you, and 
 induce you for once to condescend to hunt Xwlyg.^— Records of the Chase, p. 15(). 
 
GEORGIAN STAG-HUNTING 33 
 
 reigns a king over the water gave the zest, not only of 
 self-interest but even of self-preservation, to the dreariest 
 routine of Court life. Great people hung about the Court 
 and kept themselves in evidence not perhaps so much on 
 account of what they might be able to say or to do for 
 themselves, but for fear of what others might say or do for 
 them. Besides, an immense number of places, not merely 
 of profit, but of influence under the Crown, were to be had, 
 which entailed little ability or trouble. There were no 
 Blue-books, no long speeches to read, no Press Associa- 
 tion or Renter telegrams — no public affairs or interests to 
 keep in touch with. Politics were comparatively private 
 transactions. Both in this country and in France the 
 quick-witted, sharp-eared memoir- writers make us see that 
 politics were then largely carried on by intercourse often of 
 a gallant and agreeable kind, by conversation, and by the 
 repetition of conversations. More business was got through 
 in the corridors of St. James's or Kensington than in White- 
 hall. The Court backstairs teemed with better opportunities 
 for parliamentary preferment than the House of Commons. 
 The most powerful minister had often to square his accounts 
 with a lord of the bedchamber or an attractive maid of honour, 
 before he consulted his colleagues or gave the rein to his 
 statesmanship. William III. had never let the conduct of 
 foreign affairs out of his own hands. Up till the death of 
 Anne, the Court to a great extent qualified the Cabinet. 
 Anne presided with solemnity at her Cabinet. She kept up 
 all the prestige of the appearance of a governing monarchy. 
 But George I. and George II. were depressingly constitutional 
 sovereigns, and were very much aware of Parliament and of 
 the Whigs. George I. was preoccupied with the desire to leave 
 well alone and to live out of England as much as he could ; 
 George II., although he was always crowing loudly to the 
 contrary, was led by his wife, and his wife was guided by the 
 
 D 
 
34 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Whig Ministers. The place-hunter, inured ahke to asking 
 favours and to refusals, still flourished. He alwaj's will. But 
 times were changing, and a gold stick was beginning to mean 
 very little more than it looked. 
 
 London, and indeed town life generally, was very popular 
 in the earlier years of the century. On the other hand, 
 ' mere ' was the adjective which seemed to belong of right 
 to country life and country folk. In October, 1705, Mr. 
 Pope writes to Mr. Wycherley from Bracknell of their 
 character in Berkshire. Mr. Pope is very much out of 
 humour with things in general, but ' methinks,' he says, 
 ^ these are most in the right who quietly and easily resign 
 themselves over the gentle reign of dulness.' Then he comes 
 to the hunting men of the district, ' a sort of modest, inof- 
 fensive people who neither have sense nor pretend to any, but 
 enjoy a jovial sort of dulness. They are commonly known in 
 the world by the name of honest, civil gentlemen. They live 
 much as they ride — at random— a kind of hunting life, 
 pursuing with earnestness and hazards something not worth 
 the catching,' Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son 
 abound in slighting references to these honest civil gentlemen. 
 Tested by his standard of breeding and propriety, he has the 
 least sympathy of ail with fox-hunters. A good-natured 
 fox-hunter, he says, may, of course, be ' intentionally civil,' 
 but at the best he can only mean well. Capitals, which he 
 likes extremely, are the only places to live in. There are 
 only three capitals — London, Eome, and Paris — and London 
 is the only possible one. The smaller men followed suit. 
 Thus Dr. Warner, George Selwyn's chaplain, happening to 
 arrive at Leicester in the race time, thinks it right to 
 lament the poor show made by the country squires. ' God 
 help them,' he says, ' with their triple bands and triple 
 buckles to keep in their no-brain,' and he is disgusted at 
 recognising a friend (Colonel Guise, of Highnam) with his hat 
 
GEOR G/A X S TA G-HUN TING 3 5 
 
 decked with this ' post-boy ornament." No doubt he pretended 
 not to see him. In short, the doctor feels quite sick and sore 
 about them, especially when he hears ' a well fancied oath 
 from the mint of the metropolis ' robbed of all its ' grace ' 
 by their vile pronunciation. ' Oh ! " he cries, ' better is the 
 corner of a housetop than an habitation amongst such tents 
 of Kedar." ' 
 
 But about the middle of the eighteenth century a change 
 in habits began to operate. It was partly due perhaps to 
 Walpole's policy of proscription, and its political and social 
 effect upon the Tories, but anyhow a larger country life came 
 into fashion. The management of their estates, the breeding 
 of stock, drainage, planting, and reclamation, as against the 
 laying out of formal gardens and the posting of statuary, 
 began to interest people. Lord Chesterfield's letters to his 
 son, written with the object of making him a cunning and 
 accomplished man of the town-w^orld — for he was not to hunt 
 like Wyndham, a Master of the Buckhounds, and only to eat, 
 not to kill game — resulted in the best picture of him being 
 the one in which he is talking over the points of a prize 
 heifer with his agent in a straw-yard. George III. would have 
 been delighted. ' For my part,' he said, when he read Lord 
 Chesterfield's letters, *I like more straightforward work.' 
 The days of the country bumpkin who hunted all the 
 morning, and, to Lord Chesterfield's disgust, appeared in 
 the Pump-rooms at Bath in boots and spurs, a leather 
 cap and a deerskin waistcoat, were numbered. He was no 
 longer to be the interpreter of country life, and country life 
 
 ' Dr. Warner, like many parsons, knew what a hunter should be. It 
 was after the ' hard day's christening' that he writes, over-full of claret, to his 
 patron about his travelling hackney : ' I was hunting yesterday on Bay Spavin, 
 who astonished me with the discovery of qualities I never knew he possessed ; 
 agile as a spaniel and resolute as a lion. He wants thrashing along the road, 
 but in the field, where I took him yesterday for the first time, he is all anima- 
 tion.' 
 
 D 2 
 
36 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 was to take a new ply and tone from a very different type of 
 man. 
 
 Turnips and seeds and sheep-shearings began to occupy 
 the attention of great men. Towards the end of the century 
 Burke's letters, as Mr. Birrell tells us, thrill with passion on 
 these topics. Fox was never so happy as when in his fustian 
 coat and white beaver hat he leaned over the palings at 
 St. Ann's and talked to passers-by about the crops. Miss 
 Maria Holroyd, whose letters so brightly reflect the ways 
 of the political society in which she lived, writes of the 
 farming rides she is looking forward to with her father, 
 and Lord Sheffield himself, though detained in London by 
 his official duties, writes fidgety letters about drilling turnips 
 and taking advantage of the cooler weather and damp roads 
 to send the w^aggon oxen to Lewes. Lord Althorp came 
 later. But not the least of Lord Althorp's distinguished 
 services to his generation were those he rendered to the 
 management of grass lands and the breeding of sheep. 
 High farming began to occupy the fruitful leisure of poli- 
 ticians in those days. In these days it is golf, or theology, 
 or the unemployed. 
 
 I imagine that in memoirs written say since 1884 the 
 term ' country party ' would be meaningless. ' Comngsby ' 
 and ' Sybil ' could not have been written without the country 
 party, but Mrs. Humphry Ward finds no place for them in her 
 admirable ' Sir George Tressady.' As far as pohtical influ- 
 ence in the old sense of the term goes, the country gentlemen 
 might just as well colonise the Gordon Hotels as live amongst 
 their own people. Of late years neither party in the State 
 has had to lull the suspicions or coax the prejudices of the 
 ' Civis agricola ' Montalembert admired so much. Except, 
 perhaps, in Ireland, where, as Lord John Eussell said, the 
 land is still the life, the heart of politics has shifted from 
 the country house to the streets. 
 
GEORGIAN STAG-HUNTING 2>7 
 
 In the latter half of the eighteenth century the fathers 
 of the gentlemen in top-boots, who in Mr. Keynolds' picture 
 are watching with gloomy dignity the last stage of the 188'2 
 Eeform Bill in the House of Lords, were just beginning to 
 see where their real influence and interests lay. Even the 
 great revolution families whom power and office kept con- 
 stantly in London were always anxious to get away. Politics 
 and hunting entered together upon a new phase of their 
 existence. The former began to realise the country, the 
 latter to catch the tone and fashion and style of the town. 
 No doubt country life had always kept a strong hold of 
 the English character, and the Court was neither splendid 
 nor ainusing. ' No lone house in Wales with a mountain 
 and rookery is more contemplative than this Court,' writes 
 Mr. Pope. But such a keen observer as Lord Hervey, quite 
 as professed a lover of the town as Dr. Johnson or the Duke 
 of Queensberry, speaks despondingly of ' the rural epidemic ' 
 madness which was becoming chronic. 
 
 I never came across any mention of the Master of the 
 Buckhounds either in Lord Hervey's ' Memoirs ' or in 
 George Selwyn's letters. In the latter, however, there are 
 frequent allusions to hunting, and the following witty descrip- 
 tion of a weight-carrying pony for sale might have been 
 written yesterday. Writing to George Selwyn from Win- 
 chester, in April, 1767, Sir E. Smyth tells him that a Dr. 
 Thistlethwaite is dead and his horses are to be sold : 
 
 ' Amongst them is a little bay gelding, about thirteen or 
 fourteen hands, with flaming full long tail, strong enough to 
 carry you, the mayor, and all the money j'ou ever spent in 
 elections at Gloucester together. The Doctor, some forty- 
 eight stone, always shot off" his back, and the keeper killed 
 all the deer from him. I mention this as a proof of his 
 sedateness. He goes fast enough to carry you close to fox- 
 hounds in full chase ; but if your affairs do not requires 
 
38 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 so much attention a snail would distance him. His figure 
 is such that if you were to meet a tailor on his back you 
 would pull off your hat to him, though you did not owe 
 him one shilling. 1 know twenty men of weight who want 
 him, but the weight of metal will have him.' 
 
 I remember a horse-dealer saying to me at one of our 
 periodical jingo high tides that a war would play the devil 
 with hunting — he meant horse-dealing. In 1734 the Buck- 
 hounds played a very honourable part in our history. 
 They helped to avert war. The affairs of Poland had led to 
 a general international complication. The usual suspicion 
 in this country was aroused as to the designs of France. 
 ' T hate the French, and I hope as we shall beat the French,' 
 said Lord Grantham, and everybody agreed with him. There 
 were noisy appeals to national honour, and violent attacks 
 were directed against the Minister. George II. was full of 
 tight. His personal bravery was incontestable. He was 
 longing to put on the hat and coat he had worn with dis- 
 tinction at Oudenarde at something more stirring than the 
 public festivals at which they had hitherto appeared. Walpole 
 stuck firm to his policy of neutrality and inaction. But 
 Queen Caroline was incUning towards the war, and he wanted 
 to bring her into his way of thinking. Lord Hervey hated 
 standing armies with the hoHest Whig hatred, and was 
 entirely in Sir E. Walpole's ' interest ' to boot. Luckily 
 he had exceptional opportunities not only of learning the 
 queen's sentiments, but of conveying to her his own and 
 Sir E. Walpole's. Wednesdays and Saturdays were the 
 king's hunting days. The king, who had the manners of a 
 drill sergeant, always ordered the queen out, and she came 
 out in a chaise. As this is not a lively amusement for four 
 or five hours, she had undertaken to mount Lord Hervey the 
 whole season, who, although he gave some promise as a 
 jockey in his youth, tells us that he now loved hunting quite 
 
 I 
 
GEORGIAN STAG-HUNTING 39 
 
 as little as she did. By this arrangement he could ride 
 constantly by the side of the chaise and entertain her, 
 ' whilst others were entertaining themselves with hearing 
 dogs bark and seeing crowds gallop.' The most and the 
 best were made of one or two slow dragging stag-hunts, 
 whilst Sir Robert was keeping the field in order, or enjoying 
 himself at the tail of hounds. But Lord Hervey puts it in 
 a modest way. ' The queen herself,' he says, 'was enough 
 prejudiced too on this side [war], till Sir Robert Walpole 
 un warped her from it, and made her see how much this 
 inclination jarred with her own interest.' This strange 
 Paul and Apollos planted and watered to good purpose. 
 ' Madame,' Walpole was able to say to the queen one 
 morning in 1734, ' there are 50,000 men slain in Europe 
 this year and not one Englishman.' Surely that entitled 
 ' le gros homme,' as the king called him, to laugh his heart's 
 laugh at coarse jokes and in coarse company. To call 
 spades spades, and take the world as he found it. 
 
 As far as I can make out, George I. and George II. con- 
 fined their hunting operations to the parks, but George III. 
 was a stag-hunter of a very different mettle. His sport is 
 conscientiously recorded by the ' Brooksby' of the day in the 
 ' Sporting Magazine.' The scribe's style feels the century ; it 
 is elaborate and artificial. Still, in his own Court Newsman 
 sort of way he manages to tell us a good deal about the 
 stag-hunting. Here is his account of a run with a deer 
 called Compton : ' Lord Sandwich and his prime minister, 
 Johnson [the huntsman], on October 1, 1797, afforded such 
 a specimen of the superiority of stag-hunting as can scarcely 
 be found in the records of sj)orting history. Upon his 
 Majesty's arrival at Ascot Heath on the morning already men- 
 tioned, the deer Compton was liberated below the Obelisk, 
 and going off with the most determined courage and inex- 
 pressible speed, bid a seeming adieu to all competition. The 
 
40 
 
 .S TA G-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 hounds were laid on with only five minutes' law, and the 
 scent laying well they went away, breast high, in a style 
 that "beggars all description" ; eight of the fleetest horses 
 only, out of at least a hundred, being enabled to lay any- 
 where by the side of them, till headed in absolute racing by 
 Johnson, the huntsman, assisted by Nottage and Gosden, 
 two of the yeoman prickers. 
 
 ' They brought him to view at Black Nest ; here he 
 repeatedly endeavoured to leap the high paling of Windsor 
 
 '^P- ^^ 
 
 ^ i-Sj-X 
 
 TUKNING OUT THE DeER FOR THE KOY.tL HuNT ON Wl.NDSOK FoREST 
 
 Great Park, but without success, and the deer, hounds and 
 horsemen were all intermixed ni one general scene of 
 confusion, when, by a most wonderful exertion, the deer 
 reached the park by the hawhaw through the shrubbery, 
 and plunging into the immense sheet of Virginia Water, 
 passed entirely through it. Here his Majesty entered 
 most energetically into the spirit of the chase, absolutely 
 assisted in getting the hounds forward, laj-ing them on 
 
GEORGIAN STAG-HUNTING 
 
 41 
 
 where the deer left the water, and speaking to them in a 
 sporting-Hke style.' 
 
 His Majesty's hounds hunted from September '25 — 
 Holyrood Day— till the first Saturday in May. On Holy- 
 rood Day they at that time always met at Charity Farm, 
 Billingbear. Either harvests must have been earlier than 
 they are now, or this was all grass or forest country. 
 Tuesdays and Saturdays were the hunting days, and in 
 Christmas and Easter weeks they hunted alternate days. 
 Crowds of foot people used to come out these holiday weeks, 
 and we hear of their delight and amazement ' at the leaps of 
 unprecedented height and exhibitions of uncommon strength ' 
 of an unnamed deer in and out of the back-gardens and 
 drying-grounds of Staines. Then, as now, a great many 
 people drove after the Buckhounds, the 'surrounding spot,' 
 as a contemporary scribe calls the turn-out, being embellished 
 and ' beautifully variegated ' with carriages containing ladies 
 of the first distinction. I dare say the lemon-yellow post- 
 chaises and the gay curricles and their smart cargoes looked 
 very nice ; and one day his Majesty was given an opportunity 
 of exhibiting in a ' striking and public manner ' his proper 
 sohcitude for the ladies. It was in October, 1793, and the 
 ground was iron-hard. Prince Adolphus, a distinguished 
 stranger, was out. The deer ran indifferently, and the hard 
 ground lamed half the horses. A Mr. Grifhn Wilson, how- 
 ever, drove his lady in a phaeton after the hounds in so daring 
 a fashion that the king, who was a little out of humour, 
 asked him whether he thought he had driven fairly or not. 
 Mr. Wilson seems to have had nothing to say in reply to so 
 pointed a question, whereon the king proceeded to say that 
 whatever right a gentleman had to his own neck, he had 
 none to hazard a lady's. This improving of the occasion 
 met, we are told, with very general approval. 
 
 The ladies, however, were not always out in carriages. 
 
42 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu apologises to Lady ]\Iar for 
 having neglected her correspondence by saying she has not a 
 moment miemployed now she is at Twickenham. ' I pass 
 many hours on horseback, and, I'll assure you, ride stag- 
 hunting, which I know you'll stare to hear of. I have 
 arrived at vast courage and skill in that way, and I am well 
 pleased with it as with the acquisition of a new sense.' 
 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was at this time in her sixty- 
 fourth year, and was enjoying the service and companion- 
 ship of a really nice horse. ' I have got a horse,' she writes 
 to Lady Mar, * superior to any two-legged animal, he being 
 without a fault.' I dare say her friends wished she had not 
 taken to hunting. ' Her narratives,' Horace Walpole writes 
 to somebody, 'become incomparably tedious.' 
 
 Now for the young ladies. Mr. Pope, as we have seen, 
 tells Miss Martha Blunt how he meets the Prince of Wales, 
 with all the maids of honour on horseback coming back 
 tired and hot from hunting. These ladies can hardly have 
 done themselves justice on the hired hacks provided for 
 them. But the 'Sporting Magazine' speaks of Lady Lade 
 and Lady Shuldham as always being well up. Lady Lade, 
 who had started in life as a cook, after a good run in 
 October, 1796, is declared to be the first horsewoman in 
 the kingdom. In the picture at Cumberland Lodge she is in 
 a lightish blue habit. The conspicuous horse is a bay brown 
 against a very real Windsor background. It is a charming 
 painting and the landscape is in Stubbs's best manner.' On 
 
 ' This picture must have been a commission of the Prince of Wales — for 
 we hear of her attracting the Prince's admiration out hunting at Windsor. 
 Lad.y Lade was also greatly noticed at the execution of Sixteen-String Jack, a 
 notorious and popular highwayman, who was hanged at Tyburn. He was re- 
 markable for the originality of his dress, and for wearing a bunch of sixteen 
 strings at the knees of his breeches. Neither she nor Sir John Lade can have 
 been to the king's liking. Lady Lade was also painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 in a big hat. She looks very pretty and demure in this picture. Blue habits faced 
 and turned up with red, and white beaver hats with black feathers, were the regu- 
 lation for the queen, princesses and ladies of the Court in 1771). 
 
GEORGIAN STAG-HUNTING 
 
 43 
 
 another occasion when the Buckhounds met at the Blackbirds 
 on Walthani Common, we hear of a young lady displaying 
 ' a specimen of agility in following the hounds through the 
 enclosures as would have surprised Lady Salisbury herself ' — 
 T suppose the same Lady Salisbury who wrote upon archery 
 in the first number of the ' Sporting Magazine,' and who 
 hunted her own harriers. She was burned to death at her 
 writing table. 
 
 The AccoiiPLisHBD Spoktswojian 
 
 George III. was ' critically exact to time.' At eleven 
 o'clock he used to ride up on his hackney, accompanied by 
 the master of the horse, his equerries and retainers, and any 
 distinguished guests or strangers. His favourite hunters 
 were Hobby and Perfection. The hounds were twenty-four 
 to twenty-six inches, lemon pyes and black and white, with 
 big ears, and could run for half an hour, giving tongue like 
 Big Ben, but they never could have driven like the present 
 foxhound pack. They were always being stopped to let his 
 
44 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Majesty get up, which is not surprising, as he rode nineteen 
 stone ; but if the accounts of their runs are to be trusted, 
 they seem to have dragged over great tracts of country. 
 The story of George III. driving home to Windsor in a 
 butcher's cart, after a quick run to Aldermaston, miles 
 beyond Reading, is well known. On that occasion he sur- 
 prised the butcher by his wise converse on beef and mutton. 
 George III. wore a light blue coat with black velvet cuffs, 
 and top-boots buckled up behind. An old workhouse dame 
 told the ' Druid ' how she had once seen the deer taken near 
 Leatherhead ; years had created a confusion in her mind 
 between the gay dress of the huntsman and servants and 
 the simple insignia of the king. ' His Majesty wore a scarlet 
 coat and jockey cap, with gold all about ; he had a star on 
 his heart, and we all fell on our knees.' She was probably 
 right about the cap. They came into fashion in 1786, when 
 George III. discarded his three-cornered hat. The old 
 Duke of Grafton, Lord Grenville and Lord Pembroke had 
 always worn caps, and they now became general out of 
 compliment to the king. The six yeoman prickers wore the 
 scarlet and gold braid coats as they do now. The Master 
 wore the same gold couples and belt he wears to-day, and 
 I suppose scarlet ; but in a coloured engraving of the pic- 
 ture by Sir J. Eeynolds of Mr. Jenison, the coat is green and 
 faped with red, and more like the ' venerie ' coat of the Second 
 Empire, which I believe was an exact revival of the Louis XV- 
 hunt coat, except that the Bourbon coat was blue and the 
 Empire green. 
 
 This is what happened after the deer had been safely 
 taken : it is all much the same as now. 
 
 ' The horns now repeat the musical prelude of the 
 morning. This ceremony continuing a few minutes for 
 the purpose of demonstrating to the hounds that they 
 have obtained a victory, they are drawn off, and the deer 
 
GEORGIAN STAG-HUNTING 45 
 
 conducted to the first farmhouse or receptacle of safety, 
 from whence he is removed on the following day to the 
 paddocks at Swinley Lodge, before described. The time 
 and place of meeting for a future day being adjusted before 
 the departure of his Majesty with his attendants, he gene- 
 rally proceeds to the nearest town where a post conveyance 
 can be procured, and returns instantly to Windsor ; and 
 most frequently without taking the least refreshment, what- 
 ever may be the distance or the length of the chase. 
 Instances have occurred when his Majesty had not reached 
 the castle till eight or nine in the evening, at the dreariest 
 season.' 
 
 George III. rode to a pilot. On one occasion they came 
 to a place which the king did not quite fancy. He hung a 
 little. ' John has gone over, your Majesty,' said one of the 
 equerries, hoping no doubt that a hole might be made for 
 him. ' Then you may go after him,' said the king, and 
 jogged off to find a nicer place. But the king's personal 
 attendants do not appear to have been great thrusters. 
 Very possibly they were indifi'erently mounted ; but Colonel 
 Gwyn, one of the equerries, who married Goldsmith's and 
 Hoppner's Jessamy Bride, was a brilliant exception, and we 
 hear of his going so well in a good run (October 24, 1797), 
 that he is complimented upon displaying when out hunting 
 ' more of the genuine unadulterated sportsman than the 
 effeminate courtier.' Moonshine, Starlight, Compton, and 
 Highflyer were great Georgian stags. The two former earned 
 their names from so often running them out of daylight. 
 Moonshine ran for seven — some say for nine seasons. The 
 deer were established in the same five paddocks at Swinley 
 as the deer of to-day, their housekeeping being conducted 
 ' in a style of invigorating luxuriance.' George III. acquired 
 the freehold of the present paddocks of Swinley in 1782. 
 
46 
 
 .V TA G-Hl 'NTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 I happened to re-read the ' Four Georges ' just as we 
 began forest huntmg in 1892 — my first season as Master— 
 and Mr. Thackeray shall tell, in his own beautiful English, 
 the sadness of the last few years of our stag-hunting king's 
 life. ' He was not only sightless, he became utterly deaf. Ail 
 light, all reason, all sound of human voices, all the pleasures 
 of this world of God, were taken from him. Some shght 
 lucid moments he had ; in one of which, the queen desiring 
 
 Moonshine, a celebrated Deer, frequently Hunted by 
 His Majesty George III. 
 
 to see him, entered the room and found him singing a hymn, 
 and accompanying himself at the harpsichord. When he 
 had finished, he knelt down and prayed aloud for her, and 
 then for his family, and then for the nation, concluding with 
 a prayer for himself, that it might please God to avert his 
 heavy calamity from him, but if not, to give him resignation 
 to submit. He then burst into tears, and his reason again 
 fled.' 
 
GEORGIAN STAG-lfiuWriNG 47 
 
 The blue hunting coat had to be iolded away. The 
 early farming rides, the punctual hunting mornings, the 
 kennels, the deer paddocks, the hunter-stabling passed away 
 for ever out of his life. If he had a careful and affectionate 
 valet, I dare say the queer old top-boots .were put into grease 
 against his getting better and wanting them. If not, I 
 suppose that, like their master, they just perished away. 
 
48 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 CHAPTEK II 
 
 THE NEW SCHOOL 
 
 The good of other times let others state, 
 I think it lucky I was born so late 
 
 In 1813 the historic Charlton hunt was broken up. The 
 Eegent acquired the Goodwood hounds by gift from the 
 fourth Duke of Kichmond, and Charles Davis went to the 
 Ascot kennels as first whipper-in under Sharpe, his future 
 father-in-law. 
 
 Mr. Mellish, Master of the Epping Forest Hounds, had 
 been robbed and murdered one evening on his way home 
 after hunting with the King's hounds and dining at the Bush 
 in Staines ; and from this time a couple of boys on horse- 
 back used to be sent out with the Buckhounds whenever 
 George III. hunted. Each boy carried a brace of horse 
 pistols, which at the end of the day they handed to the yeo- 
 men prickers who rode home alongside of the king. Accord- 
 ing to the 'Druid,' Charles Davis started as one of these boys. 
 The ' Druid ' in his own line, and within the very differing 
 limits of his opportunities, was as fehcitous a compiler of 
 hearsay as Boswell. Take, for instance, his drive with Dick 
 Christian in 'Silk and Scarlet.' He gives to everything he 
 hears from others a visible flash of life and character which 
 makes it, as it were, fasten upon the eye as you read. Some- 
 times, perhaps, he relates what he would have liked to 
 hear in addition to what he heard. When his admirers 
 gave him a dinner in 1859, Charles Davis himself told them 
 
o ^ 
 
 
 
THE NEW SCHOOL 49 
 
 circumstantially about this ' unfortunate gentleman's ' fate, 
 and how from that time on, two yeomen prickers with pistols 
 always accompanied George III.'s carriage back to Windsor. 
 But as he gives no colour to this being a personal remi- 
 niscence, I must reject with regret a legend which it would 
 have pleased me to preserve. 
 
 The arrival of the Goodwood Hounds at Ascot started a 
 new period in stag-hunting. From this time stag-hunting 
 of the present day may be said to date. The old order 
 changed in many ways. Up till the end of the century the 
 Royal yeomen prickers all carried French horns, which we 
 may be sure they wound pretty frequently, and a great 
 musicianing went on when the deer was first uncarted, 
 ' an awfully impressive prelude,' says our chronicler. ' We 
 comfort our hounds with loud and couragious cryes and 
 noises both of voyce and hound,' writes a stag-hunter of 300 
 years ago. Even now stag-hunting is apt to be rather a 
 noisy proceeding. Lord Chesterfield presented Frederick, 
 Prince of Wales with a black boy named. Cato,^ who in- 
 structed the gentlemen of his household in blowing the 
 French horn and the various calls and signals of musical 
 venery. Africans were as honourably associated with the 
 horn in those days as the French with cooking in ours. 
 The celebrated ' Hellgate ' Lord Barrymore kept four 
 Africans in scarlet and silver on the staff of his Louis XV. 
 hunting retinue ; and I have a little picture at home of 
 a fashionable early eighteenth-century concerto, with two 
 Africans in the background making the utmost of their 
 opportunities. 
 
 A sustained chorus of horns and vociferous hounds 
 greeted the arrival of his Majesty at the meet, sped the 
 
 ' Cato was the great maestro of his day. Sir Walter Gilbey has a picture 
 by Wootton in which Cato in a turban and aigrette appears with his horn. 
 Vide Hore, Hist, of the Royal Bnckliounds, p. 322. 
 
 E 
 
50 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 deer upon his way when first uncarted, and enhvened all 
 concerned when he was taken. One way and another, says 
 the sporting magazine of the day, a meet of the Boyal hounds 
 graced by ' the condescending affability and kindness of the 
 Sovereign to the loyal subjects who love and surround him, 
 may be candidly considered a repast too rich, a treat too 
 luxurious, for a meeting at the side of a fox-hunting covert 
 to be brought into a successful competition with.' But these 
 ceremonies were now dispensed with, and the term ' yeoman 
 pricker ' gradually fell into disuse. Only the huntsman now 
 carried a horn of the present bugle shape, and a fast fox- 
 hound pack cram-full of the stout Goodwood and Egremont 
 blood — Jaspers and Dromos, Ledgers and Jumpers — took 
 the place of the old Magpies and were entered to deer. ' It 
 delights me,' George IV. writes to the ' gentleman hunts- 
 man,' as he always called Davis when, on Sharpe's retirement 
 in 1822, he was appointed to that post, ' to know you have 
 got the hounds. I hope you will get them so fast that 
 they will run away from everybody.' 
 
 The purport of his son's good wishes on Davis's appoint- 
 ment would have made George III.'s flesh creep. But 
 George IV. 's hunting notions and sympathies, even during 
 his father's lifetime, were so entirely with the new school of 
 stag-hunting that I have purposely made no mention of him 
 in the chapter I have devoted to the Georgian period ; this 
 seems to be the right place to do so. 
 
 On New Year's Day, 1828, Davis notes in his diary that 
 Dom Miguel of Portugal hunted an untried Windsor havier 
 from Salt Hill. The Dom was attended by a distinguished 
 company, including the Duke of Wellington, Lord Mary- 
 borough, who was Master of the Buckhounds at the time, 
 and Lords Mount Charles and Albert Conyngham. The 
 king himself had made very proper preparations to accom- 
 pany this grandee out hunting, although he did not actually 
 
^1 
 
 -^ 
 
 ■5^ 
 
 1 
 
THE NEW SCHOOL 51 
 
 grace the proceedings with his presence. When George IV.'s 
 wardrobe was sold after his death, everybody was sur- 
 prised at its variety and profusion. It was the history of 
 dress for the last fifty years in this country, and an 
 edition de luxe of the orders and Court costumes of every 
 Court in Europe. Whips and canes alone amounted to 
 several hundreds, and Mr. Greville, who was on most 
 confidential terms with the king's valet Batchelor, especially 
 notices a dozen brand-new pairs of corduroy riding 
 breeches which he had ordered to hunt in with Dom Miguel. 
 It was said that the time Louis XV. devoted to elaborating 
 statistics and returns of his stables and kennels would have 
 sufficed to post him up in the interior economy of his army ; 
 and George IV. appears to have spared himself as little when 
 clothes were concerned. Baron Gronow tells us in his 
 Memoirs of the hours of meditative agony which the Prince 
 of Wales dedicated to the fashions of the day, and up to the 
 last, as his pages lamented, he had a very wicked memory 
 for clothes, and often upset them by asking to look at a 
 coat which neither he nor they had seen for years. At the 
 time of Dom Miguel's visit, however, he had become 
 much too heavy to think of hunting ; indeed, owing to his 
 great weight and swelled legs, he had not hunted for a long- 
 time ; so the order can only have been given from a sense of 
 the eternal fitness of things, and by way of a tribute to the 
 days when he lived at Kempshot and rode his dear Curricle,' 
 
 ' ' Curricle,' according to the inscription on Lhe back of the picture from 
 which the illustration is taken, was a brown horse ' got by Trentham out of 
 a sister to Gay, and was bred by the third Duke of Eichmond as a racehorse ; he 
 was considered remarkably sjjeedy, but neither slow in carrying weight nor run- 
 ning a distance. As a hunter, however, he possessed all the three rare qualities 
 quite to perfection.' Stephen Goodall, the heaviest servant to hounds in the 
 kingdom, rode Curricle for many years. He was bought at a very high figure 
 for His Ivoyal Highness the Prince of Wales, the Prince ever after declaring that 
 Curricle was not only the finest but the best horse he ever saw, and that the 
 best runs he ever witnessed were from the back of his ' dear Curricle.' 
 
52 STAG-IIUN7ING RECOI. LECTIONS 
 
 and when his name stood at the head of the hst of the Hamp- 
 shire Hunt. 
 
 George IV. — then Prince of Wales — hved at Kempshot 
 from 1788 to 1795,' and he had a pack of staghounds which 
 were hunted by George Sharpe, who afterwards went to 
 Ascot as huntsman, and whose daughter Charles Davis 
 married. The stables at Kempshot were full of high-priced 
 horses, but the stable management was bad and they never 
 looked well. The Prince was already very gouty, and a 
 stout, strong woman named Nancy Stevens acted as his 
 nurse, and always helped him in and out of his bath. 
 Whilst he lived at Kempshot he hunted regularly, and a 
 little from the Grange and Crichel, where he lived when 
 he left Kempshot. It was whilst he was living at Crichel 
 that he rode home one day with a Rev. William Butler, 
 whom he cross-examined upon the drinking capacities of 
 various esteemed boon companions in the neighbourhood. 
 He asked the reverend gentleman whether it was true that 
 a certain gentleman was in the habit of drinking three bottles 
 a night. Mr. Butler had no accurate information, but w^as 
 inclined to give no credit to the story, adding that he would 
 be ' as drunk as a prince.' When the Prince got home he told 
 the story against himself, but he did not quite like it at the time. 
 Many years afterwards Mr. Butler attended a levee, and the 
 Regent was heard to mutter : ' The Rev. William Butler ; I 
 sha'n't forget the Rev. William Butler. ' Shortly afterwards he 
 presented him with a fat Crown living. Once, when Mrs. 
 FitzHerbert was staying at Kempshot, there was a great 
 lawn meet and breakfast. Lady Jersey and Lady Conyngham 
 followed the hounds on horseback ; but Charles James Fox 
 — who once rode post part of the way to Newmarket on 
 the wheeler behind the Prince of Wales on the leader, with 
 the postillions inside — though booted and spurred, was so 
 
 ' Sjvirtwg Rcminiscenci's of JTampshirc, by ' .F.soii ' (F. Hcysham. Esq.) 
 

THE NEW SCHOOL 53 
 
 gouty that particular morning, that he could neither ride nor 
 walk. In 1793 the Prince of Wales gave up his staghounds, 
 and Mr. Poyntz of Midgham, who only gave 8Z. for his unfor- 
 tunate hunt-servants' horses, but always drove up to the 
 meet with four horses and postillions, took over the direction 
 of his hounds and turned them into foxhounds. 
 
 At this time, and indeed for many years later, George IV. 
 never seemed tired of trying hacks and hunters ; nor could 
 he resist an invitation from Milton — the great horse-dealer 
 of the day — or anybody else to give the company at Carlton 
 House or the Pavilion a show. By all accounts he rode a 
 hack well, his seat being so easy that it is said never to 
 have soiled or rufded his tight nankeen pantaloons ; and 
 his favourite hacks Tiger and Tobacco Stopper carried him to 
 perfection. Tiger was light below the knee, and he was 
 told he should give up riding him. He refused, saying, 
 ' Tiger disdains to fall do war.' 
 
 In 1786 \yraxall tells us that the Prince of Wales was 
 in the full bloom of his looks and accomplishments, and that 
 he led the way in every sort of fashionable pleasure and 
 sport. There is a picture of him by Hoppner at Hertford 
 House which fully bears out Wraxall as to the distinction 
 of his good looks and the mantling bloom of his complexion ; 
 a lovely kitcat of poor Mrs. Eobinson (Perdita) hangs in the 
 same room. He is in a blue coat with a star, and wears his 
 own wavy hair. The pose is instinct with the ' fascinating 
 ease ' Lady Jerningham admired so much. Even in those 
 Florizel days he was under the ascendency of his uncle 
 Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, whom he grew to dislike so 
 much in later years. The Duke of Cumberland did all he 
 could to widen the breach between father and son and 
 to consohdate a Carlton House party. According to Lord 
 Hervey, Walpole pursued the same tactics with George II. 
 and Frederick Prince of Wales; but, whereas Wali)ole did 
 
54 STAG-HUXTIXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 his utmost to prevent them meeting in the peace-making 
 circumstances of hunting, the Duke of Cumberland and 
 the Prince of Wales were often out on the king's hunting 
 days, not, however, to amuse themselves, but to annoy him. 
 Neither of them ever spoke to him, and they made fun of his 
 slow ways, slower horses, and homely clothes. 
 
 About this time the Due de Chartres (afterwards Philippe 
 Egalite) and several French gentlemen of high degree 
 came over frequently and hunted and made love in this 
 country. It was a period of Anglomania in France, and the 
 Due de Chartres took all his men out of the Louis XV. 
 liveries and jack-boots, and put them into long skirted 
 scarlets, top-boots and hunting caps.^ There was a con- 
 stant interchange of hunting civilities between the great 
 hunting folk on either side of the Channel. The Marquis 
 d'Argenson arranged with the Duke of Grafton for long 
 hunting visits, and actually built kennels at Les Ormes 
 — these arrangements, which earned the difficult approval 
 of Arthur Young, being interrupted by the Kevolution. 
 Mr. Meynell got so tired of the visitors out hunting that 
 upon one occasion he was heard to say that he wished we 
 were comfortably at war again. 
 
 Horses of all kinds, even during his last illness, were 
 always in George IV. 's thoughts, and he saw most of Eat- 
 ford, his stud-groom, who came to him on the Duke of 
 Queensberry's (' Old Q.') death. There was no lack of con- 
 stancy wherever they were concerned. In the middle of a 
 great State function he turned to Mr. Greville, who was taking 
 an official part in the proceedings, with a ' Which do you 
 fancy — the horse or the mare ? ' in an audible aside, and 
 
 ' When the Due de Chartres first came over in 1783, Lady Clermont arranged 
 a great dinner for him. According to Horace Walpole, he came dirty and in a 
 ' frock ' with metal buttons enamelled over with hounds and horses. Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds painted him the same year, being commissioned to do so by the Prince 
 of Wales. The picture was burned in the fire at Carlton House. 
 
THE NEW SCHOOL 55 
 
 excused himself laughingly afterwards to the Duke of 
 Wellington by saying it was ' a little bit of Newmarket.' 
 But with his racing career and its vicissitudes, with his 
 debts and his indiscretions, with the sincerity of his selfish- 
 ness and the half-heartedness of his attachments and his 
 friendships, these pages have no concern. For all these 
 things, and more also, he has been apostrophised and trounced 
 by Mr. Thackeray with an energy which, to my mind, 
 damages the hterary and critical perfection of the last of 
 the 'Four Georges.' Considering, too, that Mr. Thackeray 
 felt him to be a dressed-up sawdust marionette, it seemed 
 hardly worth his pains. Many of the foibles to which his 
 critic brings a cudgel would have been better chastened 
 with a riding whip. Let us remember that a very charming 
 woman dignified him by her disinterested and abiding affec- 
 tion, and that the Duke of Wellington, who had the meanest 
 opinion of his judgment and found him a difficult man to do 
 business with, declared him to be very clever and amusing. 
 
 At all events, stag-hunters of the first fifty years of this 
 century owe much to George IV. He brought Charles Davis 
 to Ascot : he insisted upon a fast foxhound pack. In Charles 
 Davis, as we shall presently see, he promoted the right man 
 to form and educate a new school of stag-hunters. 
 
 The king can certainly have seen little of the hounds 
 in the field after Davis's appointment ; but I dare say he 
 saw them now and again in kennel. He told a Newmarket 
 trainer one day at Ascot that he was very happy with his 
 hounds and his Virginia Water. He used to drive himself 
 about the Park and Ascot and Swinley. There is a picture of 
 him in Huish's Memoir, driving away from the Sandpit gate, 
 where he had a menagerie of the better-disposed wild animals. 
 He is in his pony phaeton, sitting well up in a tight ' double- 
 
 1 Mr. Cobden, whose family have been estabhshed in Windsor as tailors to 
 the Crown since the reign of George III., tells me that his grandfather used to 
 
56 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 breasted coat, white duck strapped overalls, and a white 
 beaver hat. A yeoman pricker acts as outrider on a natty 
 bob-tailed horse with a lash to his whip, and two grooms, 
 dressed much as the Eoyal procession grooms are dressed 
 now, are riding behind. None of the party carry their whips 
 quite right ; and George IV. the worst of all, out hke a fishing 
 rod : but this must be the artist's and not his friend Sir 
 John Lade's ' fault, who had taught him to drive in their 
 palmy days. But to return to the hounds. George Bartlett, 
 Davis's feeder, tells me that George lY. liked a light-coloured 
 hound, and wished Davis to stick to the Goodwood lemon- 
 pye, which for some few years after they came to Ascot 
 distinguished the Eoyal pack, a notable lemon-pye named 
 Minos being a great favourite of his. ' But,' says Bartlett, 
 ' Davis liked a good tan, and wouldn't have them ' ; and 
 Davis was the sort of man who got his way. I am sorry 
 myself the lemon-pye has been lost. I hke an odd colour 
 in hound or horse; it gives character. Moreover, neither 
 Davis nor King was very successful as regards colour. 
 
 go up to the Castle every evening to see to the buttons and button-holes of the 
 clothes the king had worn ; some of which were certain to have started from 
 the tightness George IV. insisted upon. 
 
 ' The Lades (or Ladds) were a remarkable pair of people. Lady Lade I 
 have already spoken of. Sir John was Mr. Thrale's ward, and his extravagance 
 prompted Dr. Johnson to write a poem on his coming of age. When Dr. 
 Johnson lay dying he repeated this poem with great spirit to Mr. Windham, 
 saying he had never repeated it but once before, and had only given one copy 
 of it away to Mrs. Thrale. There are several four-line stanzas full of zest and 
 point. Two must suffice here : 
 
 ' Loosened from the minor's tether. 
 Free to mortgage or to sell, 
 Wild as wind and light as feather. 
 Bid the sons of thrift farewell. 
 
 ' Call the Betsys, Kates, and Jennies, 
 
 All the names that banish care ; 
 Lavish of your grandsire's guineas, 
 Shew the spirit of an heir.' 
 
THE NEW SCHOOL 57 
 
 When Goodall took over the pack in 1872, the ' good tan ' 
 was conspicuous by its absence. 'I found them,' Frank 
 Goodall writes to me, ' bad colours, mostly black and 
 white.' 
 
 Davis's diaries and manuscript books are very well kept, 
 but the comments are lamentably few, and he confines him- 
 self generally to the bare facts of the day — where they met, 
 how long they ran, the expenses, and so on. But on May 2, 
 1829, Davis enters in his diary — it is almost the only entry 
 where he commits himself to an observation : ' Tm-ned out 
 an elk at Swinley ; he wobbled away — I could not call it 
 running — for half an hour, and I took him at Bagshot. The 
 hounds would not hunt him.' The elk was to have been 
 fatted for his Majesty, but he was ultimately sent to the 
 Zoological Gardens. I suppose he came from the menagerie. 
 As far as I know, this is the last record of George IV. 's 
 direct intervention in the affairs of the Buckhounds, and not 
 a very proper one. 
 
 Very few words will suffice for William IV. As a boy 
 he hunted when ashore, and I have no doubt rode with the 
 dash of a seaman and the undeniable courage of his race. 
 But I have only been able to trace one circumstantial occa- 
 sion to his credit as a stag-hunter. In 1791, the French 
 Kevolution being at its height, Kempshot was crammed 
 with French emigres of distinction ; and ' ^Esop ' relates 
 how a stag-hunt was got up by the Prince of Wales for 
 their amusement ; post horses being hired from Hartford 
 Bridge to help out the Eoyal stables and mount them. 
 William IV. was at that time a middy at Portsmouth 
 and came out on a pony ; but he got into a deep ditch 
 early in the day's proceedings. This hunt nearly drove Sharpe 
 mad owing to the crowd, the confusion, and the horns of 
 the excited visitors, which they had stuck to in spite of the 
 
5 8 5 TA G-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 French Kevolution and the hurry of their departure from 
 France. 
 
 After Wilham IV. 's death, the Hampton Court stud, 
 which, contrary to expectation, he had kept up well, was 
 broken up in spite of a memorial from the Jockey Club and 
 remonstrances in both Houses of Parliament. The year- 
 lings made very poor prices, and looked MTetched owing to 
 a visitation of influenza — the crack Wings having gone 
 blind from the illness, and only making 46 guineas. Three 
 high-caste Arabian mares covered by a thoroughbred sire 
 headed the list ; they made 50, 150, and 105 guineas respec- 
 tively. A black Arabian stallion made 580 guineas, being 
 bought by the German Government ; and a bay Arabian, 
 450 guineas, by the French. But Turks and Arabians were 
 by this time going steadily out of repute. Eastern blood 
 seemed to have done all it could for us : its direct influence, 
 indeed, was held to be against a horse, and in 1782 the 
 Jockey Club, in the conditions of the new Cumberland 
 Stakes, gave the immediate produce of an Arabian an 
 allowance of 3 lbs. 
 
 I have now brought up the historical part of this book 
 to the accession of our present gracious Queen. As the 
 Adam Smith of stag-hunting economics, Charles Davis must 
 have a separate chapter to himself. 
 
59 
 
 CHAPTEE III 
 
 CHARLES DAVIS 
 
 Non omnis moriar, multaque i^ars mei 
 Vitabit Libitinam. 
 
 Charles Davis was born at Windsor in January 1788. 
 His good looks gave him his start. It is true that his father 
 hunted the King's harriers/ and that in any event he would 
 probably have entered the Eoyal service in some capacity or 
 other. But this is Dr. Croft's account of the beginnings of 
 his conspicuous career, as related to him by a very old 
 inhabitant of Bracknell (since deceased), who knew all the 
 circumstances. I give it in his own words : ' Young Davis 
 had been to school at Windsor or Eton, and on returning 
 home one day, went into the cloisters at the Castle, where 
 he was met by the King. Davis was a slim, good-looking 
 lad, and the King took a fancy to him, spoke to him, asked 
 him what he might be going to do, &c. Davis could not 
 say what he was going to do. The King asked him if he 
 would like to go hunting. Davis's father was at this time 
 huntsman to the King's harriers, but the King did not know 
 that he was talking to his huntsman's son. The boy said he 
 should like to go hunting very much. The King asked him 
 
 ' In Davis's diary several mentions of hare-hunting occur, but they are 
 casual and uninteresting. On May 14, 1832, Davis notes that the Duke of 
 Brunswick and his suite hunted with the harriers in Windsor Great Park. Con- 
 sidering the time of year, and seeing that they turned out three box hares and 
 killed them, it is strange to find him noting it as a good day's sport. 
 
6o STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 what his father was. In this way it came about that he 
 was made whip under his father.' 
 
 So it was settled, and hunting became Charles Davis's 
 profession when he was about twelve years old. But I 
 think he went on with his schooling. His feeder, George 
 Bartlett, who still lives at Ascot, and whose memory is 
 excellent, tells me that George III. gave him 1/. a week and 
 sent him to a school at Windsor, which probably means 
 that the king arranged that he should stay on at school 
 for a little longer, before going into service at the harrier 
 kennels. ' Stoody, stoody, stoody, always stoodying at thy 
 books. Take, I say, my advice, sir, and stoody fox-hunting,' 
 said Luke Freeman — Lord Egremont's kennel huntsman 
 and a great character — to one of his master's sons, the 
 course of whose education interfered periodically w4th 
 his hunting soon after Christmas. Doubtless the young 
 ' sir ' would have been only too pleased to have done 
 so. An open January is a sweet and bitter month to 
 many a schoolboy. But Davis, in spite of such an early 
 apprenticeship to business, must have found time for his 
 books as well as for his hunting. A few letters of his which 
 I have seen are certainly the letters of a man of education. 
 They are written in a graceful, early Victorian hand, the 
 sentences have originality and turn and j)i'ecision, proper 
 words fall into their proper places, and there are no mis- 
 takes in spelling.^ 
 
 The following is quite as good an example of his 
 style as anything I have seen. It is in reply to Sir John 
 Halkett's complaint that his hounds broke away directly they 
 
 ' His biographer in ' Baily ' tells us that he had a great liking for reading 
 and that Charles Kingsley and Whyte Melville were favourites. Mr. Bowen 
 May tells me that he remembers Lord Dufferin giving Davis Letters from 
 High Latitudes, and that Davis had told him he had enjoyed reading it very 
 much. 
 
U^l'SS Bf ^^^ 
 
 1841, FOR THE PROPRIETOR OF THE SpORTINQ REVIEW BY I. M.TCHELl, 33 OLD BOND STREET 
 
62 STAG-HUNriXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 saw the deer van. Davis underlines heavily all the words 
 printed in italics. 
 
 ' Ascot Heath : 
 ' December 12, 1839. 
 
 ' Sir, — I am delighted to hear of your good sport, but 
 am exceedingly grieved at your information respecting the 
 Hounds breaking away : I ahvays profess candour, and must 
 therefore give my opinion thus. I really believe there is 
 no cure for your grievance ; it probably might have been 
 prevented, the method of which cannot be put on paper, as 
 it consists of a thorough knowledge of the temper, disposi- 
 tion, &c. &c. of each Hound — to so great a degree as to know 
 what each intends to do, before putting their vice in prac- 
 tice — and at such times, speak not harshly, but kindly, 
 and even your countenance must bear the impress of 
 friendship. 
 
 ' Correction I do not advocate, and it is equally wrong to 
 say I never suffer the whip to be used — but certainly not 
 when you are taking them to the meet ; for by causing one 
 Hound to cry out, the others would be off, "gadding o'er the 
 plain." I am sorry to hold out no encouragement, but it is 
 only an opinion after all. Hounds are sagacious beyond 
 the belief of many, and man must use his own intellect, and 
 learning too, to deceive them ; therefore you must not try 
 deception with them, but treat them with the greatest confi- 
 dence, and make them know you are beholden to them, not 
 vice versa. For instance, yonder is a cluster of people; 
 they, the Hounds, know that the Deer is gone from that spot. 
 You must beg of them to go there quietly, not say " You 
 shall do so." If you saw me trot up to the spot, I must 
 assure you it was an exception to my general way ; for 
 I creep as quietly and as slow as possible. Y^esterday I 
 did so, and stood some time within five yards of where the 
 Deer left the cart. I never heard of any pack doing this but 
 
CHARLES DAVIS 67, 
 
 this one. Lord Derby's used to tly away in all directions; 
 the Royal Hounds in the olden times did so too.' 
 
 There is always a natural and comfortable tendency, 
 when a personality like Davis's is concerned, to take refuge 
 in general terms. He was a perfect specimen of a royal 
 servant : a thorough gentleman ; a miracle in the saddle ; 
 an example everj^where else, and so on. 
 
 But as the present case is worthy of something more 
 than mere generalities, I am indebted to many hunting men 
 for personal recollections of Charles Davis— things they saw, 
 things they knew ; things they noticed and drew deductions 
 from, and which had impressed themselves in colours, as 
 it were, on the magic-lantern slides of memory. ' 
 
 I shall first give extracts from Dr. Croft's and Mr. 
 Cordery's letters in their own words. Both these gentlemen 
 are excellent judges of hunting and of hounds ; they are 
 both Berkshire men ; famous riders in their day, and were 
 cradled, as it were, in the wildest and roughest part of the 
 Queen's country, the forest and heathlands and the intricate 
 Bracknell country. Writing to me from Bracknell, Novem- 
 ber 1895, Dr. Croft, in the letter already quoted, after telling 
 me about George III. and Davis in the cloisters, goes on : — 
 ' Davis's best time w^as before mine, but he was very good 
 in my younger days. He left much in his latter days to his 
 men, but he was always near enough to see what was going 
 on. His hounds in the forest were as perfect in close hunt- 
 ing as harriers. They were left to depend on themselves, 
 and so required but little assistance. "Let them alone" 
 were his words to his whips at check. I never heard him 
 say anything about a bad scent ; he told me he would rather 
 have a third-rate scent for his hounds, as the pace was then 
 
 ' Especially to Colonel Anstruther Thomson, Sir A. Halkett, Captain King- 
 King, Mr. Bowen May, Dr. Croft of Bracknell, and Mr. Cordery of Hall's Farm, 
 Swallowfiekl. 
 
64 
 
 S TA G-HUXTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 quite fast enough for pleasure, as the pack would have to 
 fling round occasionally and give you a chance to be nearer 
 to them. The Bracknell country was very difficult to get 
 over in former times — hedgerows very broad, and ditches 
 wide and blind, much overgrowai with grass and brambles. 
 Davis had his field under good control, and he never minced 
 the matter if he saw any man riding unfairly. His language 
 was strong and not always parliamentary, but was most 
 effective at the time, and. I have heard, lasted into the future. 
 
 
 • x:..'^ ^^r.^!.-"^- ^^ 
 
 
 Riding Unfaikly 
 
 
 If his temper was hasty it was soon over and forgotten. 
 He was a perfect gentleman in appearance, manner, and 
 conversation, well educated, and, I should say, of good 
 ability. 
 
 ' These hounds, as you know, from the first were fox- 
 hounds. I believe he bred from the best of his own and 
 others, but he managed somehow to make them peculiarly 
 his own, so nmch finer and more racy-looking than even the 
 foxhounds of the present day. Getting them faster began, 
 I dare say, when the King told him to make them fast enough 
 
CHARLES DAVIS 65 
 
 to run away from the field. This most certainly he did, for 
 they ran away from the field on several occasions in tlie 
 Harrow country, and I have experience of tlieir doinf:^ this 
 in the Bracknell country. 
 
 ' His hounds appeared to love him, and one of the prettiest 
 parts of the day was, when a check occurred, to see them 
 fly to his call, and all the pack cluster round his horse, and 
 he take them to a holloa and [)lant them on the line of scent. 
 I think this control was due in a great measure to his system 
 of entering the young hounds in the forest in October. The 
 deer were nearly always taken without injury, and many 
 were hunted for years, and knew how to take care of them- 
 selves.' 
 
 Mr. Cordery first knew Charles Davis in 1835. He used 
 to see him out with Sir John Cope's foxhounds— for Davis 
 loved fox-hunting — and also with the buckhounds. ' I thought 
 him,' he writes, ' as good as any one I ever saw on a saddle. 
 Used to ride over a country very easy, and never seemed 
 to distress his horse. He liked a clean, well-bred horse, and 
 was master of him and his men and his field and his hounds. 
 Kespected by every one, his word was law, his hounds he 
 loved, and woe be to the man who rode over one. 
 
 'Mr. Davis's hounds were not quite so high as yours. 
 Bitches very neat, and smaller, I think. Perhaps your 
 present pack goes a little faster than they did, that is be- 
 cause the country is so much more open now. Aldershot 
 Common all open at that time, Wellington College and 
 Broad Moor the only two houses. On each of these commons 
 you could see hounds a mile off. Have been hunting all day 
 and only have seen a man snipe-shooting. Very open and 
 wild at that time ; much troubled with bogs where there were 
 no rides. Mr. Davis did not ride fast at his fences ; good 
 trot or canter he would ease his horse to.' 
 
 Catching your own again, as some one called hunting 
 
66 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 the carted deer, lacks the inevitableness we prize in wilder 
 sports of the field. All concerned know only too well, not 
 perhaps quite what will happen, but what is meant to hap- 
 pen. Upon the other hand, the master and hunt-servants of 
 a stag-hunting estabhshment — I speak from some experience 
 — are always on the edge of novel and often ridiculous 
 incidents. 
 
 Some people, however, seem able to invest the most 
 untoward circumstances with their personal prestige. A few 
 of this sort should be kept for stag-hunting. Charles Davis 
 appears to have been one of these gifted personages. It is 
 true that he hunted a very much better country, and that in 
 other ways (which I shall refer to presently) he enjoyed sub- 
 stantial advantages which no Queen's Huntsman since his 
 retirement has enjoj'ed or can hope to enjoy. Yet it cannot 
 be supposed for a moment that he can have hunted the 
 Bunkhounds for the forty odd years he carried the horn 
 without having to put up with his share of the tiresome 
 things which attend upon stag-hunting. Some of these 
 are dilficult to suffer gladly ; ' and if record speaks true, 
 we must remember that Davis had to satisfy a critical 
 and superfinely mounted field who came out to ride, and to 
 ride against each other. He must have been familiar, as we 
 
 ' The following entries are, alas ! familiar to most stag-hunters : 
 
 'February 5, 1824.-— Paid two men 5s. ikl. for getting into the water at 
 Uxbridge by Lord Maryborough's order. 
 
 ' January 28, 1824. — Paid 2.s. CfZ. for a window broken by a stag. 
 
 ' December 11, 1837 Met at Salt Hill ; took in the Playing Fields, Eton. 
 
 ' December 29, 1837.—" Seymour " destroyed himself in a conservatory at 
 Taplow.' 
 
 This diaiy and a horse-book of Charles Davis were kindly lent me by Mrs. 
 James King, widow of Mr. James King, a brother of Harry King's, who succeeded 
 Charles Davis as her Majesty's Huntsman in l^m. Whether the amount 
 of the fee or the 'getting into the water' was Lord Maryborough's ' order,' 
 the amount is not excessive. I know the water at Uxbridge well. It used 
 to affect me very much in the same way as the waters of Babylon did the Jews 
 of the Captivity. About the worst place I know, to take a deer comfortably. 
 
CHARLES DAIVS 67 
 
 are now, with the good-natured but irresponsible foot people ; 
 with the deer which runs up and down the first fence, or 
 prefers the haunts of men to the shaggiest heath or fairest 
 champaign ; with the gentlemen who ride the deer, override 
 the hounds, or ride over other gentlemen. But I feel that 
 Davis was able to invest all these things with a decorum 
 as majestic as his neckcloths. Thus when we read of his 
 lying in a Vale of Aylesbury ditch, after a run which for 
 pace beggars description, with his arm round Richmond 
 Trump's neck — a position full of restless discomfort to both 
 parties — there is something chivalrous and romantic about 
 it all which redounds to the credit both of Davis and the 
 gallant Trump. Pictorially, it is all but a subject for Sir 
 Edward Burne-Jones rather than for Caldecott or Leech. 
 And the present Duke of Richmond tells me that he once 
 saw him direct the operations of a whipper-in in a punt— a 
 trying test— without the slightest sacrifice of dignity. 
 
 Mr. Bowen May, who began his stag-hunting under Lord 
 Maryborough, and who still notes with an observant eye all 
 that concerns his favourite pursuit, tells me that he once 
 asked Davis about the pace of a pack of hounds. Davis, who 
 had strong convictions as to the excellence of his own hounds, 
 rephed in a letter that the Queen's Hounds were the fastest 
 pack in his opinion, and that nine miles in the hour was 
 about their best pace. But this pace was far exceeded by 
 Richmond Trump's day.^ It was all over grass, and Davis 
 only weighed about ten stone, and had it all to himself on 
 the Clipper, an animal up to sixteen stone. When Mr. Davis 
 lay in the ditch with one arm round Richmond Trump's neck, 
 as already related, he pulled out his watch with his free 
 
 ' I have found the entry in his diary, March 13, 1832 : ' Kichmond Trump 
 at Lillie's, ran one hour, took at Twyford between Bicester and Buckingham — 
 ran twenty miles in one hour.' In his horse-book I find that the Clipper was 
 bought in the Christmas quarter of 1831 of Mr. Anderson for 120 guineas ; he 
 was sold again at Tattersall's in the summer quarter of 1834 for 24Z. 18s. Gd. 
 
68 STAG-HUNTIXG RECOLLECTIOXS 
 
 hand, and timed the run. Nobody but Davis could have 
 done so ; but his skill and knack with deer were most remark- 
 able. Colonel Anstruther Thomson told me he once saw 
 Davis jump off his horse in a narrow lane ; a tired stag was 
 coming up it slowly with all the hounds round it. He let 
 it half pass him, caught its horn with his left hand and swung 
 his whip round with his right, keeping the hounds at bay, 
 and held the stag till some one came to help him. The 
 Trump had been out twice before that season, and started 
 on his career as the Eichmond Knobber. After the Ayles- 
 bury performance, however, he was renamed Eichmond 
 Trump, after a popular fighting man of the day, who doubtless 
 nmch appreciated the dehcate compHment. 
 
 I spoke just now of substantial advantages which the 
 best Davis period enjoyed as against the present day. Until 
 well into the fifties the Queen's Hounds moved about and 
 saw a great deal more of other countries than they do now— 
 an excellent thing for everybody.' A run in the New Forest 
 inspired their huntsman's Muse. She keeps very near the 
 
 earth. 
 
 At Vinney Old Eidge they found a prime stag, 
 And ran hard for an hour, which caused him to flag. 
 He was taken near Burley alive, safe and sound, 
 But in less than ten minutes fell dead on the ground. 
 
 It is noteworthy that the New Forest deer hardly ever 
 survived a run, although they were always taken alive, if 
 possible, with the object of sending them to Windsor or Eich- 
 mond for a change of blood. Upon one occasion Davis said, 
 ♦ We shall kill every stag in the forest if we stay here long.' 
 
 ' As w^ll as going for a month or more every season to Aylesbury, they went 
 for about a fortnight at a time to Sir Eobert Throckmorton's at Buckland, 
 near Faringdon, during Lord Granville's Mastership ; and to Hampton Court, 
 and on to Epsom with Lord Rosslyn ; the deer during these outings to Epsom 
 being kept in loose boxes belonging to trainers. And for many years, as every- 
 body knows, the Queen's Hounds used to go down to the New Forest late in the 
 season. 
 
CHARLES DAVIS 
 
 69 
 
 They had not the condition ^vhich I shall insist upon in 
 another chapter. 
 
 The New Forest hunting was no joke. In 1848 we hear 
 of Lords Canning, Granville, and Kivers coming over to 
 Heron Court from Highcliffe, disgusted with the danger of 
 the ground, and declaring they will never hunt there again : 
 a groom having been killed, three gentlemen badly hurt, 
 whilst Lord Granville had had his face cut by the boughs 
 
 ■v-^.^y^-"'^^^ :: 
 
 v^ 
 
 To RIDE JEALOUS IN A FoREST YOU MUST BE REALLY IXTREPID 
 
 of a tree against which his horse had carried him. Lord 
 Malmesbury relates how, some years before this, Mr. Assheton 
 Smith and Lord Cardigan rode jealous of each other with 
 the Queen's Hounds in the New Forest. A large party was 
 assembled at Mr. Compton's,and the night before these gentle- 
 men glared at each other all dinner time, as if they were 
 mortal enemies about to fight the next day. Lord Cardigan's 
 horse after a ' regular race ' outstayed Mr. Assheton Smith's, 
 
70 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 To ride jealous in a forest, you must be really intrepid ! 
 ' /Esop ' relates how on another occasion Mr. Smith was 
 talking to Charles Davis, and not looking where he was 
 going to, when his horse suddenly swerved, Mr, Smith falling 
 on his back over the horse's shoulder. An officious well- 
 wisher asked him if he was hurt — always a mistake when a 
 man has tumbled off — on which Charles Davis turned round 
 and said, ' He is much too hard to hurt,' an encomium 
 which greatly pleased Mr. Smith. 
 
 I read somewhere or other that a great many pictures of 
 Davis were painted at different times. His namesake and 
 relative painted him several times on Hermit, the grey horse 
 he is riding in the well-known engraving of a Meet of the 
 Buckhounds on Ascot Heath during Lord Chesterfield's 
 Mastership. Then there is another engraving of him on 
 Columbine, a short-tailed mare which went to Badminton 
 and bred some capital coach-horses. The Duke of Beaufort 
 was telhng me about her only the other day, and I have 
 the entry now before me in Davis's horse-book. For the 
 Michaelmas quarter 1831, under * Horses sold,' he notes : 
 * Brown mare Columbine and foal to the Duke of Beaufort, 
 Vdl. 5s.' 
 
 I beheve, though, that the most characteristic and best- 
 known engraving of him is on Traverser, after Barraud. 
 Without placing this picture in such company as Titian's 
 ' Charles V.' or Velasquez's ' Don Balthazar Carlos ' at Madrid, 
 or Stubbs's 'Duke of Hamilton ' in the green coat on the chest- 
 nut hackney, if the painting is as good as the engraving 
 it must be a very charming and distinguished equestrian 
 portrait. People who care for sporting engravings should 
 buy it ; it is getting very scarce. In my time the reduced 
 photograph from the engraving was popular at Harrow. I 
 had one in my room over the mantelpiece. How often 
 have I looked to Mr. Davis for inspiration ni the liorrid 
 
CHARLES DAVIS 71 
 
 stress of iambics, and wasted my time in thinking that 
 Traverser was the sort of horse I should like to ride hunting 
 on some day, and Mr. Davis's the sort of seat I should like 
 to have ! Traverser was bought for Davis by Lord Gran- 
 ville, and was one of his best horses. He made a noise ; but a 
 whistler of Traverser's scope and quality, ridden by an artist 
 of Davis's weight and knowledge of the country, will always 
 beat an average sound horse — at least, that is my experience. 
 How well the artist has put him on the horse ! His length 
 of limb guarantees that smoothness of seat which Don 
 Quixote impressed upon Sancho as being the peculiar attribute 
 of a great gentleman. When some one asked Sir E. Sutton 
 whether a stranger out with his hounds could ride. Sir 
 Eichard said he did not know, adding ' I should think so, for 
 he hangs a good boot.' So did Charles Davis. 
 
 In the most literal sense of the word he was pictur- 
 esque ; and was becomingly aware of it. ' Davis,' a gen- 
 tleman tells me who knew him well, 'was always fond of 
 a grey if he could get one to suit him ; I think he thought 
 himself better looking on one.' George III.'s choice was 
 inspiration. Nature had dedicated him to scarlet and gold, 
 and had given him the right colouring and complexion for 
 scarlet. In the February number of ' Baily's Magazine ' 
 for 1867 a pleasant requiescat in jMce article appeared upon 
 Charles Davis. The writer (' The Gentleman in Black ' ') 
 had known the subject of his memoir well for many years, 
 had ridden for several seasons with the Queen's Hounds, and 
 all he says has the value which nearness and the habit of 
 personal intercourse alone can give. This is what he says 
 of Davis's appearance : ' He was very tall and thin, probably 
 6 ft. 1 in. in height, and only weighing nine stone and a 
 pound or two. He was a good-looking man, with a large 
 handsome nose and good dark eyes and eyebrows. The ex- 
 
 ' The Rev. C. Clark, of Sunningdale. 
 
72 STAG-HUXTIXG RECOLLECTIOXS 
 
 pression of his face was severe and serious, latterly with 
 many lines about the mouth, unless when excited by 
 conversation on his favourite topics. When not officially 
 dressed he had a very gentlemanly, almost aristocratic, appear- 
 ance, and always appeared to advantage amongst the fre- 
 quenters of the stand at Ascot.' 
 
 Appearing to advantage in the stand at Ascot, or indeed 
 anywhere else, is eminently satisfactory. But his biographer 
 goes even further : ' In plain clothes, he looked like a peer of 
 the realm.' This is a pleasant tribute to the good looks of the 
 House of Lords, but it would probably be nearer the mark to 
 say that all peers of the realm did not look like Davis. In 
 externals, at all events, and indeed in character, he had the 
 knack which Mr. Emerson somewhere or other lays stress 
 upon, of never reminding us of others. 
 
 Davis kept his figure to the last, and was one of the few- 
 men whose legs were sufticiently straight and clean on the 
 inside of the knee-joint to wear becomingly the skin-tight 
 leathers which were generally the fashion in his best days, 
 and which are still to some extent the fashion for the royal 
 servants. In his day the hunt-servants wore very much 
 shorter and closer-fitting coats than they do now — hardly 
 any skirt ; the old yeoman-pricker tunic pattern of coat 
 was retained for very many years ; and I remember think- 
 ing, when first I hunted with the Buckhounds in 1879 
 from Aldershot, that Goodall's tunic-like coat and tight 
 leathers gave a rather postilliony look. Whilst I was Master 
 T lengthened the coats very much, both in the waist and in 
 the skirts — a long coat seems to seat a man better on his horse, 
 and it is certainly comfortable and more becoming to the 
 average figure. 
 
 The slinuiess and youthfulness of Charles Davis's figure up 
 to the very last were in great measure due to the simplicity of 
 his life and the re<2ularitv of his habits. Like a wise man he 
 
CHARLES DAVIS 73 
 
 was very moderate in eating and drinking, and treated his 
 digestion with constant deference. Colonel Anstrutlier 
 Thomson tells me that one day, when the hounds met at 
 the Crooked Billet on Egham Heath, Davis said to Lord 
 Eosslyn when he arrived, 'I hope you will excuse me if I 
 do not ride hard to-day.' Lord Eosslyn asked what was the 
 matter. ' If you please, my lord, I allowed myself to be per- 
 suaded to take a bit of pheasant last night at supper. It 
 was rather high and it has disagreed with me.' However, 
 there was a scent. Davis was riding ahorse he liked, forgot 
 all about the pheasant and its effects, and went like a bird. 
 He liked a little wine, and sometimes accepted presents 
 of wine from his field, which he much appreciated. Dr. 
 Croft tells me he never remembers him having anything to 
 drink at a meet or on the road home ; nor would he allow 
 his men to do so. 
 
 Ladies going out hunting with the Queen's Hounds did 
 not meet with much approval from Davis. He made an 
 exception in favour of a Miss Gilbert, ' on account of her 
 cheerful spirit and dashing riding ' — qualities which are more 
 often apt to inspire a huntsman with suspicion rather than 
 confidence— but especially on account of her Spartan en- 
 durance of long rides home at hounds' pace, of which he him- 
 self was a great exponent. 
 
 He was very particular about feeding punctually, and 
 would allow no noise in the kennel. The whips were 
 sent in before feeding time to prevent a note. Those were 
 the days of stern kennel discipline. The celebrated Tom 
 Smith on one occasion tied twenty-five couples up in a row 
 to the park palings and had them flogged till all hands were 
 tired ; and the same gentleman would couple a wild hound's 
 forelegs under his neck and have him led for miles by a 
 whipper-in. But Davis's striking control— some might say 
 over-control — of his pack was due, as we have seen by his 
 
74 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 letter to Sir John Halkett, to the love which casts out fear 
 and begets perfect understanding. Speaking of the wonder- 
 ful discipline of the Eoyal pack, Sir Arthur Halkett writes me 
 from Pitfirrane, N.B. : 'When I was quartered at Hounslow in 
 1857 with the 3rd Light Dragoons, I saw an instance of this, 
 which I would not have believed possible, unless I had seen 
 it. The hounds were running up a grass lane, and got a 
 view at the stag, when Davis galloped along the hedge side 
 of the field, jumped into the lane in front of the hounds, 
 and drew his horse across the lane, holding his whip out at 
 arm's length. Although they were in full cry at the time, not 
 a single hound attempted to pass his horse — and when he 
 considered the stag had got a decent start, he lowered his 
 whip, and the pack dashed on again, on the line. It was the 
 most beautiful and perfect example of hound discipline I ever 
 saw.' He exercised his hounds all the year round, and went 
 out himself with the young hounds four times a week, and 
 with the old hounds twice a week. He took them chiefly 
 into Windsor Park till July, by which time they were broken 
 to fallow deer ; and Davis used to go off to Newmarket to 
 stay at the Palace with his brother-in-law, Edwards, the 
 King's trainer and former jockey. So far, I have not been 
 able to find out anything about his habits at Newmarket, but 
 in his later years, if his biographer is right, he can neither 
 have amused himself nor others very much at Ascot. ' He 
 spoke,' we are told, ' of the old days when royalty was regu- 
 lar in its attendance, and when the aristocracy and beauty of 
 England walked up and down the course between the races ; 
 rather of the glories of the past, Lords Jersey and Verulam, 
 the old Duke of York, of Zinganee, and the Colonel, and 
 Mr. Petre's Cadland, than of the present. Kacing had in 
 his mind become vulgarised and common,' and so on, and 
 so on. 
 
 A friend, who has hunted with the Queen's Hounds 
 
CHARLES DAVIS 75 
 
 regularly since 1862, writes iiie a less flattering account of 
 them at that time. ' The first time I saw them we had 
 over thirty couple out. We uncarted at King's Beech, 
 and of course they tailed all over the place. He always 
 stopped them at the end of the first ten minutes or so. 
 Between Sandhurst and Swinley the ground had just been 
 planted, so you could see hounds and ride to them, instead 
 of brushing through jungles after them, as now. I thought 
 his hounds very weedy and mute, and a bit flashy as w^ell, 
 but perhaps I didn't know much more then than I do now ! 
 The old man could gallop, and was pretty handy when 
 wanted, though he didn't jump a lot. He rode Comus, 
 a roarer, as often as he could. Davis alw^ays showed 
 the deer to the hounds when taken. His horn was like a 
 young trombone, and sounded like the roar of a rutting stag ; 
 but hounds came well and handily to it. At this time they 
 were said to be flashy from being too often stopped and 
 taken to holloas. I fancy very few were homebred ; you 
 can't get drafts like gloves, all one size or colour.' 
 
 ■ Excepting the Hermit, Davis rode all his horses in a 
 single-rein snaffle. ' His hands,' writes Dr. Croft to me, 
 ' were quite in the right place, and his horses seemed to take 
 hold of him just sufficiently to keep him in his favourite 
 position. I consider he rode with rather long stirrups, and 
 his position when galloping was standing. He was a 
 fine horseman, with a most perfect seat. It was rare, 
 when going fast, to see him sit down in his saddle ; but his 
 position standing in his stirrups was very fine, not to be 
 equalled.' In the picture of Davis and Columbine, he 
 is standing up in his stirrups. I am sorry to say he has 
 his cap off, which I do not like ; and in a little loose 
 engraving I have of him, he is standing up to Hermit and 
 going great guns. Once hounds are away and settled, 
 I confess I like to see a long, thin-legged man sit right 
 
76 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 down in his saddle, even if he has not, hke Mr. Varnish 
 in 'Market Harborough,' the air of playing a favourite 
 instninient. The standing-up seat, with your horse mov- 
 ing like clockwork and going right into his bridle, is to my 
 mind the seat for a critical time, when it is a matter of 
 lifting hounds and taking them on to a holloa. The late 
 Frank Beers did this to perfection. But all agreed that 
 
 The Hermit 
 
 whatever Charles Davis did on a horse was right. You 
 could not, by all accounts, get him out of drawing witli his 
 horse, your eye, or the circumstances. 
 
 Some people invest every horse they ride with character 
 and morals. I do myself, and although I have suffered some 
 literally stunning disillusions I shall continue to do so. 
 Davis had favourites, ])ut, according to his biographer in 
 
CHARLES DAVIS 77 
 
 ' Baily,' spoke very little about horses or their peculiarities. 
 He accepted them as horses, and turned them to their best 
 account. But as he had no sentimental prepossessions, so he 
 had no prejudices. The late Sir Tatton Sykes would never 
 look at anything over 15.2. The present Lord Lonsdale has 
 fixed an arbitrary weight — a horse must scale 10 cwt. as a 
 minimum to carry him — but Davis told the ' Druid ' that he 
 had been carried equally well by horses of all heights from 
 14.3 to 1(3.2, although, as a long-legged man, he liked a tall 
 horse. He spoke most of Hermit's performances, but often 
 mentioned an instance of his having been beaten on Hermit 
 by a little roan mare, nothing more than a pony, belonging 
 to a trainer called Dessy.' 
 
 He considered Hermit the stoutest and best hunter he 
 ever had. He was bred by Mr. Gates, of Brookwood 
 Stumps, near Woking, from a white Arabian mare. Gates 
 sent the mare to Grey Skim, who then stood at Petworth ; 
 so Davis was indebted to the Wyndhams for his favourite 
 horse, and to some extent for his favourite hound blood. 
 Hermit was six years old w4ien he was bought of Gates 
 in 1832 for 150 guineas. I have before me the entry 
 in his horse-book. The horse had been leading gallops for 
 thoroughbred horses. Harry King rode him the first season 
 with the Buckhounds. Dr. Croft says he was a very wild 
 horse at first, but King was a fine horseman with good hands, 
 and soon got him right. The story is that on one occasion 
 the field had been stopped by a canal somewhere in the 
 Harrow country, and the hounds had got a great start over 
 that fine vale. Davis, probably aware of some danger 
 ahead, bade Harry King try to stop them. By this time 
 
 ' The great Mr. Meynell's best horse. South, was only fifteen hands. He 
 gave 300 guineas for him, and sold him to Sir H. Fetherstonhaugh for 500 
 guineas ; and a Mr. Porter in Warwickshire achieved a great reputation with 
 two mares, 14.3 — own sisters. 
 
78 
 
 STA G-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 they were flying like pigeons over the grass, more than a 
 mile away. To his surprise he saw Hermit gaining on 
 them; and Harry King ultimately stopped them. When 
 King came back, Davis only remarked thai the horse seemed 
 to go a fair pace, which King admitted, and from that 
 
 Hakry King ultimately stoi'ped them 
 
 time on. King rode him no more. Davis rode him for nine 
 seasons; he broke down through injuring his coffin bone 
 by jumping down a deep place into a lane. His appearance is 
 well known to most people who look at hunting engravings, 
 from Sir F. Grant's picture of Ascot Heath. Hermit was a 
 
CHARLES DAVIS 79 
 
 stallion ; and in those days stallions were much more fre- 
 quently ridden with hounds. Anderson the dealer, who kept 
 a few staghounds at Brondesbury, had a milk-white stallion, 
 said to be so handy that he could jump through a window. 
 This animal was specially commended by ' Nimrod ' for his 
 cleverness in the suburban scenes of his exploits. It seems 
 a pity that Hermit was never put to the stud, bujb he was 
 one of many examples of a very good horse with very 
 crooked forelegs, amounting almost to deformity. His heart 
 weighed 21 lbs., eight pounds more than Eclipse's. 
 
 Hermit shows a great deal of Arab — a lovely head and 
 a bump on his forehead. He carried, as the dealers say, 
 ' two good ends,' and was a beautifully coloured horse, with 
 no thickness or muddle in his white and markings. When 
 a grey horse of that glorified rocking-horse type is as good as 
 Hermit was, there is nothing, to my mind, so attractive or 
 so becoming. Davis was quite aware of it. The ' Druid ' 
 noticed portraits of him on Hermit in nine positions when 
 he went to see him at Ascot. Mr. Edmund Tattersall, who 
 lent me the sketch by Byron Webb from which the Frontis- 
 piece is taken, declares it to be Davis's seat and look on 
 Hermit to the life. At the same time, both the position of his 
 left hand and of his saddle leave much to be desired. Mr. 
 Tattersall, whilst he corroborates Dr. Croft as to the excel- 
 lence of his hands, says that Davis always rode on a short 
 rein. But Hermit's immediate Arab descent must be held 
 mainly accountable for this. Arab shoulders seldom carry 
 an English saddle becomingly. I don't say that they are 
 necessarily bad, but they are often thick and inelastic ; the 
 wither wants line and drawing, and very few Arab horses 
 lend their forehand to your seat and horsemanship. 
 
 Charles Davis's horsemanship was as stainless as King 
 Arthur's morals. But I imagine his riding appealed to the 
 head rather than the heart. As we have seen, the expression 
 
8o STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 on his features was severe and serious, and I cannot help 
 thinking that his riding to hounds may have been a little 
 wanting in geniaHty— perfect in form and satisfying in 
 result— but somehow wanting in that impalpable quahty 
 which makes riding over an intricate country with certain 
 people so amusing. In a point-to-point steeplechase Jem 
 Mason rode Lottery over a locked gate 5 ft. G in. high, 
 off a newly-stoned road, in preference to a hairy bullfinch at 
 the side. ' I'll be hanged,' he said to his friends when they 
 were walking over the ground, ' if I am going to scratch my 
 face, for I am going to the opera to-night ' ; and Lottery 
 jumped it hke an antelope. There was no shadow of turning 
 about Davis, but he would never have said that. Doubtless, 
 had it been a question of rescuing the Trump or the Miller, 
 he would have ridden over the gate, but he would have done 
 it with the somewhat dismal zeal of a permanent official, 
 rather than the zest of a man of pleasure. I admit 5 ft. 
 6 in. high, and the take-off would make most people feel 
 grave. 
 
 Perhaps, too, Davis took himself a little seriously. He 
 read the newspapers religiously ; went to church regularly ; 
 never had a horse out on Sundays; made an excellent 
 speech ; favoured the Whigs in politics. All these things 
 contributed to make up a valuable and respectable citizen. 
 Moreover, the even and deserved prosperity of his career, his 
 converse— almost identity— with great personages, and the 
 responsible authority of his position may easily have induced 
 a certain semi-royal aloofness. I feel confident that he 
 was never in anything like a scrape — this is of itself quite 
 a misfortune- and I question whether he ever had much to 
 do with the scrapes and shifts of others. Under the startling 
 influence of gratitude, Tom Oliver once swore a great oath 
 that he would fight up to his knees in blood for Jem Mason, 
 who had won him lOOZ. with Trust-Me-Not, relieved him of 
 
^JJj U\/'<i4Mitt>'f:iu^ 
 
 ( >/ur r/f.'^ .JJJ.<it '(.i . 
 
CHARLES DAVIS 8i 
 
 the pressing society of the baihffs, and set him again on his 
 rather unsteady legs. But it is doubtful whether anybody 
 ever had occasion to enter into such savage covenants for 
 Davis. We might have asked him to stand godfather to our 
 first-born, or act as trustee to our marriage settlement — if in 
 order— but we should not have dared to write to him as Tom 
 Oliver did to Mason, to say we were in Short Street and 
 entertaining the sheriff of the county. 
 
 For some years before his actual resignation, failing 
 health and increasing years had led to arrangements with 
 King, by which Davis only went out hunting and remained 
 out for his own pleasure. But in 1866 he had a bad fall and 
 hurt his leg, and at the end of that season he asked leave to 
 retire, and Harry King was appointed in his place. He died 
 at Ascot on October 26, 1867, of bronchitis, in his seventy- 
 ninth year. Charles Davis left no family. 
 
 // nij a pas d'homme necessaire, but within the possi- 
 bilities of this unimpeachable aphorism it was manifest that 
 his death had made a gap, and that his life had made a quite 
 particular impression upon a considerable public. Davis's 
 was a conspicuous career, many things conspicuously 
 Enghsh had contributed to his renown. But the distinction 
 of his looks and ways, the elegance of his seat, the scarlet 
 and gold of his public duties, the bold serenity of his horse- 
 manship are not of themselves enough to account for the 
 vitality of his prestige and tradition. All these things we 
 admire in horse- and hound-loving England ; all these things 
 will be associated with and ornament his memory and 
 profession. But there is something else of Charles Davis 
 which I like to think lives to inspire and to encourage. 
 There is the staidness of his private life ; there is the 
 conduct of responsible duties ; there is the example he 
 has left us of endeavour to provide things honest in the 
 sight of all men. 
 
 G 
 
S TA G-HUN TING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 CHAPTER lY 
 
 DEBATE ABLE LAND 
 
 As it was my privilege to think with my own reason ; so it was my duty 
 to see with my own eyes. — Gibbon's Autohiograplnj. 
 
 ' The great difficulty is the Master of the Horse.' So writes 
 Horace Walpole in one of his most serious letters to Mr, 
 Montague in 1760. Those were the braver days of Court 
 appointments and Court influences. Yet a Walpole or a 
 Charles Greville of 189'2 might have written much the same 
 of the Master of the Buckhounds. Although perhaps a little 
 of the Bottom type, this ancient officer of state was quite a 
 lion in the path of Mr. Gladstone's last administration. 
 
 The difficulty in 1760 lay in the choice of the office- 
 holder and the rivalries of claimants. That was certainly not 
 the case in 1892, for, if anything, Mr. Gladstone had more 
 places than peers. The question was whether there were 
 to be any Buckhounds. Their situation w^as precarious. 
 Hunting has always been more or less associated with 
 Tory principles and machinations, and the Buckhounds 
 were represented in several party newspapers as being kept 
 for the amusement of a dissolute and exclusive gentry. 
 Social reformers both in and out of the new House of 
 Commons were actively hostile. And it is not to be wondered 
 at that the party wirepullers inclined to compromise. 
 
 In the event — in spite of the menaces and exhortations 
 of an excited section of our press— it was decided to appoint 
 
LORD COVENTRY, THE PRESENT MASTER 
 
DEBATEABLE LAND 83 
 
 a Master of the Buckhounds upon the understand] n«,' that 
 he was to prepare himself and those committed to his 
 charge for their latter end. The process was to be gradual ; 
 as far as possible painless ; but it was to be complete. The 
 doomed office was offered me, and, mindful of Lord Lans- 
 downe's advice to the most eminent of a long line of pre- 
 decessors,' I accepted it with all its suicidal conditions. 
 One Minister wrote congratulating me on my moriturus 
 appointment, and I discussed in cheerful after-dinner con- 
 verse the various aspects and possibilities of disestablish- 
 ment with one or two of our most trusted leaders. There 
 are kennel secrets just as there are Cabinet and stable secrets. 
 But I must chance the charge of indiscretion this paragraph 
 may bring up against me. 
 
 Threatened men, they say, live long. At all events a 
 threatened placeman quickly develops new instincts of self- 
 preservation. I made up my mind very quickly that the 
 of&ce and its responsibiHties would be entirely to my hking. 
 Ascot Eaces and the terrors of the Eoyal Enclosure were in 
 a reassuring distance. Forest hunting, on the other hand, 
 was already beckoning to me in the near and inviting fore- 
 ground. After going through the stables at Cumberland 
 Lodge with Lord Coventry, the most helpful and entertaining 
 of predecessors, on a glorious day in August, and just making 
 acquaintance with the hounds, the sun- bathed kennel green, 
 the wisteria in heavy bloom against the yellow brick of the 
 hack stable, I determined that life was sweet, and that I 
 would die hard. Even a ' Star-man ' should not rebuke me 
 for these admissions, seeing that they illustrate the most 
 mahgnant instincts of the Court-placeman. 
 
 I quite see that my having taken so naturally to my new 
 
 ' Lord Granville consulted Lord Lansdowne as to whether he should accept 
 the Buckhounds. Lord Lansdowne's reply was that he had never yet known it 
 go against a man's political career to have something to give up. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 duties is no evidence one way or the other in the case 
 sought to be made against the Buckhounds. I only dwell 
 upon this in order to make it clear that I saw a great deal of 
 them, because I liked the ^whole thing. The first season I 
 lived at Ascot till July, 1893. So, during the three seasons 
 I had the honour of hunting the Queen's Hounds, it is hardly 
 too much to say that I had almost daily opportunities of 
 arriving at conclusions based upon personal experience and 
 observation. Most people will agree that conclusions founded 
 on practice must always have a slight pull when placed in the 
 scales with conclusions based upon theory, hearsay, and con- 
 jecture — even granting the fullest credit for sincerity and 
 hona fides to the opponents of stag-hunting. 
 
 May I add that, if anything, my prepossessions were not 
 in favour of stag-hunting ; and that even now I should not 
 care to start a pack of staghounds myself, or to locate myself 
 in a stag-hunting country ? On the other hand, I have formed 
 a definite opinion as to its possibilities and limitations, and I 
 am quite clear as to what I think and do not think about the 
 ' cruelty ' question. If the Queen's pleasure and the vicissi- 
 tudes of politics gave me the chance of doing so— say to- 
 morrow — I would gladly hunt the Queen's Hounds for another 
 three years. I should not say this if I thought it cruel, and, 
 setting aside private and personal considerations, had I found 
 myself in substantial agreement with Mr. Stratton and those 
 for whom he thinks, I should, upon public grounds, have 
 deemed it my duty to our gracious Queen to say so, when an 
 opportunity was given me of stating my opinion upon the 
 cruelty question at the time my three seasons' Mastership 
 came to an abrupt end in the summer of 1895. 
 
 So now for a little controversy. Excepting sentimentally, 
 I have never been attached to the theory that an institution 
 should be upheld merely because it exists. That such and 
 such a thing should go on being done because it has always 
 
DEBATEABLE LAND 85 
 
 been done, is a method of reasonin<; which may be held 
 partly accountable for the catastrophe of agriculture and for 
 the costly eccentricities of so-called estate management. 
 Indeed, the lapse of years pleaded in its defence is often the 
 most vulnerable point of an institution. 
 
 Tested by these proper standards, there is a weak point 
 in the armour of the Buckhounds as an institution. More- 
 over, it is a weak point which cannot be adequately or 
 intelligently guarded by any ' J'y suis, j'y reste ' justification. 
 At the best, any such justification is to my mind only a 
 disengagement, and not a parry. Curiously enough, how- 
 ever, this real weak point to which I refer has never been 
 attacked by the critics. As I am in a good-natured mood, 
 I will just indicate the outlines of what I mean. 
 
 AVire in Middlesex, the villa in Berks, the pheasant in 
 Bucks, all the apparatus of population and residential 
 amenity have changed the face and the habits of the Queen's 
 country. The Master is obliged to constantly bear in mind 
 that in many parts of a wide district he no longer has the 
 free warren essential to stag-hunting. 
 
 Disraeli was proud of London because its environs could 
 not be reached with ' fatal facility.' I think the passage occurs 
 in ' Tancred.' But this evidence of expansion is no source 
 of satisfaction to the Master of the Buckhounds. When 
 arranging his meets he will often regret the days when a 
 lad}' friend of Mr. Bogers was made ill by a fright she got 
 from an omnibus on her way from Kichmond to London.' 
 
 Some day, the want of country must decide the Buck- 
 
 ' ' At that time,' says Mr. Eogers, who had called to inquire after the 
 
 invalid, ' omnibuses were great rarities, and while Miss was coming to 
 
 town, the footman, observing an omnibus approach, and thinking she might 
 like to see it, suddenly called in at the carriage window, " Ma'am, the omni- 
 bus ! " Miss , being unacquainted with the term, and not sui-e but an 
 
 omnibus might be a wild beast escaped from the Zoological Gardens, was 
 thrown into a dreadful state of agitation by the announcement.' — Tabic Talk 
 of Samuel Rogers. 
 
86 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 hounds question for friend and foe alike. Time is on the 
 side of those who would like to see the Buckhounds given 
 up, but the time is not yet. Middlesex I give up. But the 
 pheasant people in Bucks only require occasional considera- 
 tion : all about Ascot it would appear that the villa industry 
 is suffering from over-production ; on the Surrey and Hamp- 
 shire side a wide extent of rough country can very easily 
 be extended, with advantages which will be referred to else- 
 where. 
 
 It has often been observed tha^ those who attack institu- 
 tions, and especially institutions resting upon the titles of 
 time and custom, are usually better up in their case than 
 the defenders. The sub-editor of any thoroughpaced progres- 
 sive newspaper could ' arrange,' in the French sense of the 
 word, the House of Lords in a fashion which would astonish 
 and bewilder a respectable handful of average peers. The 
 fact is that, unless perhaps the ratepayer can be directly 
 interested in the matter, the conservatism of mankind has 
 always to be reckoned with when any definite proposal is 
 made to alter a usage or transform an institution. Thus, 
 when any such enterprise is in question, the attacking 
 forces have to take great pains. It is advisable to know the 
 strong points before attacking the weak ones. In discussion 
 it looks well to give these strong points full recognition. 
 
 But, in this matter of getting up their case, the agitation 
 against the Buckhounds seems to me rather an exception 
 to the general rule. I suppose it is a natural inclination to 
 see what suits us, and to shut our eyes to what does not 
 suit us. Very likely I shall often do so myself in the course 
 of these pages, but the critics of the Buckhounds appear 
 to have done this to a quite unusual degree, and their case 
 has suffered in consequence. Either stupidly, or perhaps 
 from the fact that their occupations and aptitudes do not 
 permit of any practical knowledge whatsoever of stag-hunt- 
 
DEBATEABLE LAND 87 
 
 ing,' these gentlemen have jumped into the error of general- 
 ising from exceptions, and they have tried to establish the 
 exception as the rule. 
 
 Every now and again a deer meets with an accident, and 
 has to be destroyed. Every now and again a deer may be 
 killed by the hounds. I admit this in the freest and fullest 
 way, and I will make the opposition a present of my own 
 experience of these occurrences. In three years, on the 
 whole fairly open seasons, I remember losing four deer ; 
 or let us say five, for I am not speaking by book, but to 
 the best of my recollection. Certainly five covers it. Two 
 of these are cases which I have seen instanced from time 
 to time with great richness of circumstantial detail in the 
 newspapers, and upon which the agitation still largely rests 
 its case. These deer came by their death through being 
 hunted, but I may here remark that not one of these four 
 or five deer was killed or even touched by the hounds. 
 
 Let us, however, for a moment assume that they had 
 been so killed or so hurt, is it fair to take these exceptional 
 cases, and present them to the large pubHc who have no 
 possible means of arriving at any real opinions one way or 
 the other as the regular incidents and accompaniments of 
 stag-hunting ? 
 
 I should protest against this tyranny of isolated texts, 
 if I attached any argumentative value to the method, but 
 I attach no such value. Indeed, the weakness of their case 
 lies in the method adopted. Eailway accidents are very 
 terrible things. Why do we not, therefore, do away with 
 fast trains ? Why do not people give up railway traveUing ? 
 Because accidents of this kind are exceptional ; because they 
 stand out in startHng, and yet in a sense most reassuring, 
 relief, as exceptions. Granted that there is no analogy 
 
 ' The first petition (18'.)2) was very largely signed by the hands in 
 Huntley & Palmer's Biscuit Works at Heading. 
 
88 SrAG-HUXTJXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 between stag-hunting and railway travelling, there is in 
 the reasoning process which should be applied to both. 
 
 And now for a moment let us turn from the opponents 
 to the defenders of the Buckhounds, and see what they have 
 to say about it all. The opposition to the Queen's Hounds, 
 as I understand their case, concentrates upon a charge of 
 colossal cruelty ; the defence, speaking broadly, takes its 
 stand upon a flat denial of cruelty, and a muscular ' all 
 
 d d rot ' to any ethical considerations which may be 
 
 advanced. 
 
 Kolands and Olivers of this build are as unlikely to 
 compose their differences as opposite angles or the Irish 
 party, and are best left to themselves. But speaking more 
 particularly, I remember being told by several people who 
 claimed to have given special attention to the subject, that 
 the agitation against the Buckhounds was only the first 
 parallel of a general attack upon all field sports, and upon 
 hunting in particular. I confess that is not the impression I 
 have formed. Here and there no doubt people may exist 
 who, in the matter of field sports, are of the sour mind of 
 Lord Macaulay's Puritans. Here and there an individual 
 may be cited who, for some reason or for no reason, honestly 
 dislikes hunting ; I have read that the late Professor Free- 
 man became so angry as to alarm his family whenever he 
 heard the cry of foxhounds running. But at all events 
 neither the Archbishop of Canterbury nor Mr. Stratton can 
 be included amongst these eccentrics. 
 
 Let us devote a moment to the Archbishop in this con- 
 nection. The Archbishop of Canterbury thinks a pack of 
 hounds a very proper appanage of Boyalty. And, with a 
 superfluity of charity, he recently placed himself at the head 
 of a number of well intentioned gentlemen who seriously 
 recommend to Lord Salisbury the transformation of the Bucl:- 
 houndsinto a National Drag-hunt. Now a National Drag-hunt 
 
DEB ATE ABLE LAND 89 
 
 is no doubt an alternative, and that is about as much as need 
 be said about it. But this last petition — signed by the Arch- 
 bishop—takes up fresh ground. It pegs out, as it were, a new 
 claim in the cause of the humanities. The horses ridden 
 by the hunt-servants and others after the Queen's Hounds 
 are now to be included in the area of organised cruelty.^ 
 It is not explained how the National Drag Hunt is to get on 
 without horses ; but w^e can hardly expect the Archbishop 
 to know all about drag-hunting as well as about stag-hunting. 
 When I took over the Queen's Hounds, the simpler form of 
 agitation was at its height. Under the leadership of Mr. 
 Stratton the horse argument had not been invented. 
 
 I made up my mind to make the acquaintance of Mr. 
 Stratton as soon as possible. Somehow I felt persuaded of 
 his sincerity ; besides, the zeal and resolution of his attack 
 upon the scarlet and gold of our dj^iasty rather interested 
 me. I wished to hear for myself what he had to say 
 about it all. The opportunity soon came. Early in the 
 month of October we ran a hind out of the forest to 
 Wokingham. She ran into a little stream, and w^as safely 
 taken a few hundred yards from the many-gabled old red- 
 brick almshouse of which Mr. Stratton is the warden. He 
 takes admirable care of the old people, and is much esteemed 
 by them. ' There,' said Harvey, the Queen's huntsman, to 
 me in a stage whisper, ' is the Kev. Stratton ' ; and there 
 he was, watching our proceedings. I at once introduced 
 myself, and we had quite a nice talk. On that occasion Mr. 
 Stratton assured me that he was no enemy to fox-hunting. 
 Quite the contrary ; a Staffordshire man, he was brought up 
 to like it, one of his nearest and kindest relatives, as he told 
 me, being a great judge of a fighting cock or a foxhound. 
 After that we had some little correspondence of quite a 
 
 ' 'Merciless riding of horses in the effort to save the deer for another day,' 
 is the way it is put : see The Times, Nov. "28, 1896. 
 
90 STAG-HUNTIXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 friendly character, and, although we disagreed, we did not 
 misunderstand. At least, speaking for myself, I certainly 
 never misunderstood Mr. Stratton's attitude. Honest dis- 
 agreement never hurt anybody. Mr. Stratton and I started 
 and parted very good friends, as far as our personal relations 
 at that time were concerned. I trust, though the exigencies 
 of politics have severed us, w^e so continue. 
 
 But admitting the root and branch opposition to the 
 Buckhounds to be honest in its sentiment and single-hearted 
 in its aim ; admitting that it has no dark designs upon hunt- 
 ing, shooting, fishing, or any of our institutions, from beer 
 to skittles ; is it quite honest in its argument ? 
 
 By all means let the case against the Buckhounds be 
 stated with zeal and conviction. But let it be stated fairly, 
 and — at the risk of repetition — I say it is not fair to represent 
 the exception as the rule. 
 
 Hunting the carted deer has always had — and I suppose 
 always will have — its critics and its apologists. I am not 
 going to attempt any further controversial apologia. It 
 would only be tiresome, and I dare say as unconvincing as 
 apologias usually are. Plato — I am quoting the tainted 
 authority of a sporting writer, and I have not been able to 
 discover the passage ^ — laid it down that hunting was a divine 
 institution. I do not suggest that Plato would have included 
 modern stag-hunting, and I advance no such claim on its 
 behalf. Tried by the purest standards of hunting, it cannot, 
 to my mind, take rank with fox-hunting. But during the 
 last four or five years the Buckhounds have become the 
 villains of politics. Sins are laid to their charge which they 
 know not of. Speaking as one most intimately connected 
 with the estabhshment, 1 hojie in the; following pages to 
 establish the exaggeration of the grave charge of systematic 
 
 ' Probably he had in his niiiid the opening words of Xenophon's essay on 
 Hunting. 
 
DEBATEABLE LAND 91 
 
 cruelty brought not only against these loyal servants of the 
 Crown, but also against the staff and against the field of the 
 Queen's Hunt. The best way of doing this seems to me to 
 tell my readers as much as I can of the everyday hfe of 
 the establishment. AVe should all— men, deer, horses, and 
 hounds — like the public to know all that there is to know 
 about us. 
 
92 STAG-Hl'XriNG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 CHAPTEE V 
 
 DEER 
 
 Foot-people staring and horse-men preparing, 
 
 Now there's a murmur, a stir, and a shout, 
 Fresh from his carriage as bridegroom in marriage 
 
 The Lord of the Valley leaps gallantly out. 
 
 Successful stag-hunting depends upon two things — the 
 condition and the humour of the deer you hunt. I put these 
 in front even of country — upon which I have laid stress else- 
 where—and very much in front of scent. Anxiety about 
 the latter need never keep the stag-hunter awake. Some 
 days of course there will be a better scent than others ; 
 every now and then circumstances, the only ' force majeure ' 
 which besets stag-hunting, may run you out of scent. But 
 there is always scent enough for hounds to hunt a carted 
 deer on days when they could not own a fox. I have often 
 seen the Queen's Hounds make up what seemed an impossible 
 leeway. As Davis said to Mr. Bowen May, ' The scent 
 of a deer is much sweeter.' Country, as I have already said, 
 I rank very high. It would be madness to start a pack of 
 staghounds in many parts of nineteenth-century England 
 which are hunted by foxhounds. But the condition and the 
 temperament of your deer— for perhaps it is temperament 
 rather than humour — come before country. Given these, 
 and given anything approaching a decent country within a 
 two-mile radius of your turn out— surely a very moderate 
 postulate— you are all right. ' An amiable deer,' as the deer- 
 
DEER 93 
 
 keeper at Swinley described Sepoy to the ' Druid,' will have 
 you out of the bad country in a twinkling. Upon the other 
 hand, I must admit that the condition and temperament 
 of the Swinley deer — certainly their condition — sometimes 
 prevented us taking them. ' Where did you take him ? ' in 
 a stag-hunting district is the equivalent of the ' Killed the 
 fox, sir ? ' or the juvenile ' How many have you cotched ? ' 
 which is put to the fox-hunter so often, so good-naturedly 
 and so unselfishly, on his way home from hunting. 
 Taking the deer is, of course, the proper conclusion of a 
 day's stag-hunting. I admit that there is a certain flatness in 
 having to tell these kindly and interested questioners that you 
 have left the deer out. It sounds and is rather ineffectual. 
 
 Whatever may be said against the long pilgrimage-like 
 dragging runs to which the athletic Swinley deer often treat 
 their followers, there is a certain satisfaction in bringing 
 such runs to their legitimate ending by taking the deer, and 
 a corresponding dissatisfaction about having to give him up. 
 It is nice, too, after a run like Bartlett treated us to on 
 January 27, 1892, from Hawthorn Hill to Stanford Dingley, 
 ten miles beyond Beading, to be able to bid good-night to 
 your good deer comfortably housed in the best loose box 
 about the place, up to his knees in long wheat straw. 
 There you know he will stay, the honoured guest of pleased 
 and sedulous hosts, until his carriage is announced some 
 time next day.' 
 
 How well I can see and recall it all ! ' Ex uno disce 
 omnes.' As I run a rather unpractised eye for the third 
 time over the pack I come to the startling conclusion — 
 which however I keep to myself — that we have got a 
 
 ' Bartlett did not get back to Swinley until past four o'clock on the Saturday, 
 but he was not in the least stiff, and at once went in at his carrots, old beans, 
 and clover-hay in famous fashion. This deer was named after a family which 
 for a century had been associated with the Koyal pack. 
 
94 STAG-HUNTIXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 couple more than we started with. This turns out to be a 
 mistake. We are really a couple short, as Needful was run 
 over by a handsome landau and pair at the meet, and 
 WelHngton was badly lamed by a gentleman, supposed to 
 be a captain from Aldershot, at the first fence. Bartlett is 
 being attended to and refreshed in his comfortable quarters. 
 The men's horses look a little tired ; yet hberally ridden 
 throughout, they have stayed. And here, faint but pur- 
 suing, come the second horsemen, who appear to have obeyed 
 their instructions to ' keep following on ' to the letter. As 
 to my own, he turned up with William half an hour ago 
 at a desolate cross-road. How he got there Heaven only 
 knows, for we were by this time clean out of our own coun- 
 try and geography ; but there he was, like manna in the 
 wilderness, waiting for me, with the horse cool, and the 
 stirrups ready altered to my length. William, considering the 
 generous way in which he insisted upon being ridden from 
 Hawthorn Hill to close against Loddon Bridge, still seems 
 as fresh as a daisy. But it is getting late ; the sunset has 
 robed the sky in rose and lilac. And now the distances are 
 fallen asleep, and the foregrounds are getting drowsy. We 
 must be moving. Horses, however tired, hack home cheer- 
 fully with hounds ; so do men. What though there are 
 ten long miles between us and Beading, good stabling, gruel 
 and linseed, and the welcome the Queen's Hounds can always 
 count upon. Is there not also the nearer and nearer anticipa- 
 tion of the snug coffee-room of the Great Western Hotel, of 
 the change you so prudently sent there, of the loin chop to 
 which you know the head waiter — the best of my acquaint- 
 ance — will give his particular and expert attention ? There 
 is even a reckless, thriftless sort of satisfaction in the calcu- 
 lation that you are short of horses, five-and-twenty miles from 
 the kennels, and a good four more on to that from the hunt 
 stables at Cumberland Lodge. 
 
DEER 
 
 95 
 
 It is true there are sets-off against these pleasurable emo- 
 tions. No one has seen or heard anything of the second whip 
 since three o'clock. He was last seen dragging his horse 
 through the Reading municipal sewage farm — a four-year-old 
 with a future, one of the ' no one knows what this horse 
 may grow into ' sort — on trial from an austerely just dealer. 
 The first whip's horse, who seemed quite himself but five 
 minutes ago, has been taken ' queer.' He has just been half 
 
 .>^^^ 
 
 The Deek should go right away oxtt of his Cakt like the ' Lord 
 OF the Valley ' 
 
 pushed and half supported into the empty two-stall stable of 
 the Marquis of Granby, and, you are informed, has now 
 ' started blowing.' The way to Reading seems perplexing ; 
 the locals, whom the spectacle of the hounds has gathered 
 round you, not being agreed amongst themselves. There is 
 no telegraph office, you are dining at seven to go to the play, 
 and you do not know the name of the theatre. But what good 
 fun it all was ! Was there ever such a deer as Bartlett, or 
 
96 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 such a pack of hounds as the Queen's, or such a country as 
 England, or such happy things as leathers and top-boots and 
 a plain flap saddle ? 
 
 I spoke just now of successful stag-hunting. I admit 
 the difficulty of exactly defining what this means ; it is a 
 pastime so full of paradox and anomaly and contradictions, 
 but at all events I know what i understand by it myself. 
 To begin with, the deer should go right away out of his 
 cart like the ' Lord of the Valley.' We had a deer called 
 Blackback, who would take off from the floor of the deer-cart 
 just as if it was a spring-board, and strike straight away into 
 his gallop. Mind you, it was not fear, it was courage made 
 him do so. Blackback was a most easily handled deer, quite 
 understood the nature of things, and never showed any signs 
 of terror or even anxiety. In the next place, I do not like to 
 see a deer often during a run. He should go straight away 
 in the Blackback style, and hardly be seen again until he has 
 had enough of it. I do not like to see or even hear any more 
 of a deer, once the inevitable cart business is over, than I 
 should of a fox, given the same conditions of country. In the 
 run I have just touched upon, I only saw Bartlett once at 
 Bearwood : hounds had turned back very short and sudden in 
 the fir woods near the house, and hearing them turn I got a 
 nick up the high road. I saw him jump in and out of it 
 three hundred yards in front of me as quick as thought— just 
 as you would like your horse to go in and out of a road 
 in a point to point race. That day we ran a point as the 
 crow flics of twenty miles— twenty-four a gentleman from 
 Slough, whose horse succumbed the same night, declared, 
 and it must have been thirty miles or more as the hounds 
 ran. This same deer pleased me in the same way when we 
 ran him from Aldershot to within a mile of Sutton, near Aires- 
 ford, when H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught was out with us 
 and saw all the best of it and in the right place. In the long 
 
DEER 
 
 97 
 
 distance covered by hounds that day after the turn-out I again 
 only saw him once, a long way off from the turn-out, until 
 we hunted up to him on some juniper-studded downland 
 near Lord Ashburton's place. I can see him now, standing 
 
 Egbert Baetlett, First Whip to the Queen's Hounds, 
 May 1835 to January 1854 
 
 {The head of the family from ivhnm the celebrated deer takes Us nayne] 
 
 haunch-on to us against the steely blue afternoon sky, look- 
 ing back to see if we were coming. It was an inconvenient 
 place to take a deer, and there was nowhere to house him. 
 We were all the best and most understanding of friends. My 
 
 H 
 
98 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 second horseman and I just moved him along two or three 
 yards in front of our horses to the nearest homestead, half 
 a mile or so away in the valley below. He went much 
 more kindly than many a Craven shorthorn or any Lonk or 
 Herdwick wether would have done.' 
 
 At the risk of redundancy, I will insist again upon mettle 
 and fettle as the things most profitable to stag-hunting. 
 The ridiculous and unseemly things which sometimes occur 
 out stag-hunting may usually be traced to the want of the 
 one or the other, or of both. It is foolish to hunt a 
 weak deer, and wrong to hunt an unwilling one. A stag- 
 hunt does not depend upon the mere capture of the deer— 
 
 I Mr. T. Nevill, of Chilland, says in his MS. journal written in 1870: ' I so 
 far succeeded in taming a red deer presented to nie by the Duke of Beaufort in 
 1855, that I turned him out on Winchester race-course and other open places, 
 and after giving us an excellent chase, when he had gone to bay and the hounds 
 were whipped off, he came at my call and followed me home, trotting alongside 
 my horse. Once he took soil in a pool after a very good chase : the moment I 
 called him he came out with a great bound, and galloped alongside of my 
 stirrup iron, to the astonishment of my sporting friends. My hind Princess 
 was just as tame. She fed in a field with our cows, started away when she 
 heard the deep note of two couple and a half of hounds, when I laid them on, 
 ran thirty miles and was lost, the hounds and horses being quite beaten. Three 
 weeks afterwards I heard of her whereabouts, took the same number of hounds 
 and hunted her- racing pace— for an hour, when she ran among some cows. 
 The huntsman called to a labourer to open a farmyard gate. In she went with 
 the cows. I dismounted, and the moment I called she came and pressed so 
 closely to me that I was afraid she would tread on my feet. A fallow deer 
 presented to me by the Earl of Portsmouth was made equally tame. This deer, 
 although so frequently chased by the hounds, would come up at feeding time, 
 and eat meal out of their trough.' But Mr. Nevill's command over animals 
 was extraordinary. Notwithstanding his apparent helplessness, for he was a 
 cripple from youth, he could hold horses that ran away with other people, and 
 thought nothing of putting a half-broken thoroughbred colt in harness, and 
 driving him alone for the first time. Many savage dogs, which their owners 
 dared not go near, were given to him on condition that he unchained them, and 
 took them away ; and a jackal given him by a friend from India would follow 
 him about like a dog, range the fields a long way in front, and come back on 
 being called and roll round his feet. ' I repeatedly hunted him,' says Mr. 
 Nevill in his MS. , ' with my bloodhounds. If closely pressed, he would frequently 
 i,'et his back to some bank or knoll and fiercely keep them at bay, showing his 
 white teeth till I came to the rescue.' 
 
DEER 
 
 99 
 
 I give this part of the business credit for many practical 
 and sentimental advantages — but, after all, the run is ' the 
 true pathos and sublime ' of the game. Yet, given that your 
 deer is as fit as a fighting man, and as great a votary of his 
 profession as a game-cock, he requires sympathetic handling. 
 A deer must not be hunted as you hunt a fox. Catch- 
 ing him as soon as possible is just what you do not v^^ant 
 to do. The huntsman of a pack of staghounds must dis- 
 regard opportunities which are often hurled at his head. 
 No healthy-minded fox-catcher ever gives a fox a chance. 
 He would as soon think of casting forward. But to press 
 home your advantages with a deer means that you run 
 great risks of bewildering and so spoiling him, or even 
 killing him. In any case, you will disappoint an eager field by 
 depriving them of what they conceive to be their full rights ; 
 that is, plenty of galloping, jumping, and tumbling about. 
 Moreover, it is well to bear in mind that a deer is quite as 
 easily killed by over-driving at the beginning of a run, before 
 he has had time to take his bearings, asat the end. ' Nimrod,' 
 indeed, disapproved of bursting a fox. A celebrated exponent 
 of this operation was Mr. Thomas Smith, of whom an admirer 
 said, ' If I were a fox I'd sooner have a pack uf hounds behind 
 me than Tom Smith with a stick in his hand.' In reference 
 to him, ' Nimrod,' in his hunting reminiscences, says : ' What 
 is called bursting a fox, and hunting him to death, are very 
 different operations, and on this subject I can state an 
 incident to the point which I witnessed with Lord Kintore's 
 hounds in Scotland. We had run a fox about twenty 
 minutes into a small cover, whence we viewed him break- 
 ing away again. " Pray help Joe to stop the hounds," said 
 Lord Kintore to me, blowing his horn at the time. " Let 
 him get well away, and we shall have a run." He did get 
 well away with the body of the pack on his line, and the 
 result was a beautiful fifty minutes. I call this fox-hunt- 
 
lOO STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 ing.' ' Lord Kintore would have, made a capital Master of 
 the Buckhounds. 
 
 The best deer run to points, and I think concern them- 
 selves little about wind, although their preference is said to be 
 to run on a side wind ; but it is as well to uncart a deer with his 
 head up wind, and give him time to make up his mind. It is 
 customary with the Queen's Hounds for the first whip to ride 
 the deer for a few hundred yards, to keep him away from the 
 country which you do not want him to take over, and to edge 
 him into the country you do. Davis liked to point him to- 
 wards any conspicuous hill, such as Harrow, if he could, with 
 a good stretch of country before him, and believed in giving 
 him a sort of cynosure. In the sequel, I think it makes very 
 little difference. 
 
 With certain deer, however, I got to know where to send 
 my change or my hack almost with certainty. I remember 
 turning out a havier named Lord Clanwilliam just under 
 Maiden Earley. He ran us out of daylight to Easthamp- 
 stead. We had him harboured in one of Lord Down- 
 shire's woods and found him there a fortnight later. It 
 was a very pretty find, quite like the real thing, and he 
 gave us a good run. He ran the last six or seven miles 
 almost stick for stick of his old line the reverse way. We 
 must all have jumped several fences in exactly the same 
 places — I know I did — and we took him in an outhouse in 
 the very next field to the one we had turned him out in. It 
 is related of the Miller, a noted deer in Davis's time, that 
 if he got two or three hundred yards out of his old line 
 he would take the greatest pains to right himself, and 
 would then set to in earnest. The Miller ran for eleven 
 
 ' ' Nimrod ' cites, in proof of the advantage of letting a fox get well away in 
 his own way, and at his own time, the fact that a woodland fox which has stolen 
 away, and only been viewed when well away, will stand longer before hounds 
 than a fox found in a gorse cover. 
 
DEER loi 
 
 seasons, and made them stop out so often that Davis used 
 to put an extra guinea in his pocket whenever lie was 
 hunted. 
 
 Davis, much as he enjoyed and reverenced fox-hunting, 
 was, as it were, cradled in stag-hunting. Thus, as we 
 have seen, a fine perception of the ways and habits of deer 
 had grown with his growth. Dr. Croft tells me that his 
 deer were nearly always taken without injury. Season after 
 season found the old names in the Swinley paddocks. ' The 
 science of stag-hunting,' a friend of long experience writes to 
 me, ' lies in the management of the deer : the rest is a matter 
 of a bold, fast horse and an adhesive buckskin.' At all events, 
 everything depends upon the old deer, the deer who know their 
 points and have learned how to take care of themselves. Thus 
 a man may be a good huntsman with foxhounds, and fail 
 from his very qualities as a huntsman of staghounds. An 
 apologist of the last century — for hunting the carted deer has 
 always had its Strattons and its Bowen Mays— puts it in this 
 way : ' Here our chase differs from every other of the field, 
 and proves itself worthy of the title Boyal, for as it is the 
 sport of majesty, it is also strictly the seat of mercy ; for in all 
 other sports of the field, as each individual considers himself 
 the hero of the day for being first in at the death, here the 
 arduous determined struggle is who can most exceed in his 
 exertions to save life.' 
 
 Thus, one of the most difficult things for persons in 
 authority out stag-hunting is to know when to stop hounds 
 and when to press a deer. Some deer, as I have said, go 
 away with a bang, make up their minds and yours m the 
 first field, and prosecute their point with the determination 
 of a Deccan boar ; but I have known deer which have given 
 us capital runs make very poor starts. The weather or some 
 accident or caprice may have something to do with it, but 
 there are good sulky deer just as there are good sulky race- 
 
102 
 
 STAG-HUXTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 horses. Guy Fawkes,' a great celebrity of my time, was 
 usually a little bit tricky at first— what a hansom-cab driver 
 means when ho tells you that his liorse is ' nappy." From the 
 cabby it is all but a coniiucndation, and the nappy ones are 
 nearly always stout ones. The racehorse Lanercost, it was 
 said, would make a race with a donkey, and I call to mind 
 several good deer who had a little of the Lanercost indolence 
 about them. 1 have had before me an old hunting diary of 
 Freeman's, who was whip to the Queen's Hounds in the 
 forties and fifties : invariably good runs for several years 
 stand to the credit of a deer named Sulky. Sometimes the 
 names of the Swinley deer had and have no connection with 
 anything in particular ; but in this case, I imagine, a deer 
 would hardly have been given such an ugly and undeerhke 
 name, unless it was in some way or other appropriate. 
 
 I have heard it said that hunting the carted deer, if 
 not a science, requires a system. I cannot quite agree. 
 Yovl never know what deer are going to do. They will run 
 up and down the fences, stand in the corner of a field look- 
 ing at you, trot back down a road into the pack instead of 
 galloping away from it, and altogether behave in a most 
 un-Landseer-like way. They oblige you often to trust to 
 luck or to the inspiration of the psychological moment as 
 it arises. Either of these plays the deuce with a system. 
 Sometimes, if the deer is disporting himself in the road, 
 it is best to let the pack go right up to him and let him 
 canter along in the middle of them under the safe escort 
 of the whips until he jumps out. Then stop hounds till 
 he has got his start. This looks bad, especially if the hunts- 
 man is at all excitable and fond of blowing his horn. The 
 master in such an emergency should, if he can persuade his 
 
 ' Mr. Gladstone took an interest in Guj Fawkes. Only the other day he 
 asked me after his welfare and recent performances. Alas ! muliis ille bonis 
 flebilis occidit. 
 
DEER 
 
 103 
 
 horse to understand, pass sideways down the road at the 
 head of the field, restraining the wagonettes and the hard 
 riders by voice and gesture as well as he can. 
 
 If, instead of being in the road, the deer is trotting up and 
 down the fences, it is usual to send on a whip with a couple 
 and a half, who generally have to be dragged to the scene of 
 action with backward and protesting glances. This does not 
 look well either. It is a curious thing — I am now supposing 
 
 V 
 
 WlXCHELSEA, A FAVOURITE DeEK 
 
 the deer to be looking serenely at the impatient hunt from the 
 angled corner of the same field — that hounds never seem to 
 realise the deer on these occasions. They cannot bear leaving 
 their companions, and dread missing some fun. Once they 
 get there, however, the reluctant couple and a half enjoy 
 themselves amazingly. A bitch called Cheerful was ridicu- 
 lously fond of this guerilla duty. She never forgot a delight- 
 ful quarter of an hour she once had all alone with a deer we 
 
I04 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 had brought from Bramshill. After a great deal of dodging 
 about she succeeded in driving him single-handed into a small 
 wayside pond near Elvetham, when we took him. Ever after- 
 wards she always tried to sneak on whenever hounds were 
 stopped. I never discovered the qualities of heart and 
 head — except I suppose that they could be easily stopped 
 — which recommended particular hounds for this duty ; but 
 particular hounds were always selected by the huntsman. 
 Cheerful and another great favourite of mine, a bitch called 
 Notion, also an adept, were exceptions to what I have just 
 said about hounds not seeing and realising a deer. It was 
 always difficult to keep either of them with the pack. In any 
 difficulty, whether indeed they saw the deer or not, they were 
 always rushing forward, longing to show off and be of use. 
 
 But in all these seasons of perplexity, unless you know 
 from experience that his behaviour is mere self -consciousness, 
 I am sm'e that the best thing to do is to make up your mind, 
 and not be too long about it, that there is nothing to be got 
 out of the deer. Leave him to his devices, waste no more 
 time, send for the deer-cart and turn out a second deer. 
 Although, as I have already said, I did not like being beaten 
 by a deer at the end of a good run, any legitimate excuse for 
 establishing an outlying deer is to be welcomed. One thing 
 must alw^ays be borne in mind. It looks best, and, indeed, 
 is best in all emergencies, to show no symptoms of hesitation, 
 to appear to take whatever happens as matters of course and 
 calculation, and to reject all advice. 
 
 I said just now that hounds did not seem to realise a deer 
 at times. It is curious too that in the case I have just out- 
 lined, that of a fresh deer cantering along in the middle of 
 the pack — I mean a deer that has not given anything like a 
 run— hounds do not try to get a hold of him. I have no 
 distinct recollection of ever having seen a hound in such a 
 case jump up at a deer, or even snap with any determination 
 
DEER 105 
 
 at his hocks. Even if he is standing still, a strong fresh deer 
 with the slightest advantage of ground will hold his own, and 
 the hounds will not go in at him. No doubt the men are 
 usually there or thereabouts, and the thongs in near earshot ; 
 no doubt, too, most of the hounds have had reason to acknow- 
 ledge at some time or other the flashing accuracy of a red 
 deer's forefoot ; but making due allowance for these considera- 
 tions, this can only be accounted for by the force of education 
 and example. The courage of individuals cannot be doubted. 
 A hound called Falkland, a three-season hunter which I sent 
 in a draft to Baron Houdemarre in Normandy, went straight 
 in at a wild boar the first day in a way which the Baron 
 described to me as heroic ; so did one or two of the others, 
 but Falkland would not have done this with a deer. Like 
 most people do, he conformed to public opinion. Not be- 
 cause he was in the least afraid of the deer, but because he, 
 the individual, had been merged in the pack. But a deer 
 must have the advantage, or at all events not the disadvan- 
 tage, of ground. In a ditch, for instance, he at once loses 
 all his prestige, and is in a fair way of losing his Hfe. The 
 best of deer have a great liking for deep wet ditches, and 
 seem to forget all sublunary things in their enjoyment of 
 them. A wired country is bad enough ; a wire fence some- 
 times throws a deer in a most disagreeable w^ay to see ; it 
 prevents the men riding to hounds and being there to help 
 him if he is in any straits ; but I declare water-meadows are 
 worse, and hounds should always be stopped at once. 
 
 I spoke just now of the value of old past-master deer, 
 but it is only fair to say that an untried deer will often give 
 you a fine run. Indeed, as a rule, I think, a deer tells you 
 all about himself the first time you hunt him in an open 
 country. He may not give you a good run the first time, 
 but by the pricking of your thumbs or some other esoteric 
 connnunication you know that it is in him to do so. Thus 
 
io6 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 every deer should be given a second or perhaps a third chance 
 of winning the affection of the estabhshnient and the esteem 
 of the piibhc. 
 
 I see, by some notes taken in 1892, that the Swinley 
 herd consisted in the middle of the hmiting season of 
 twenty-five deer altogether. We had eleven stags, seven 
 hinds, four polled haviers and three haviers in the paddocks.' 
 This may be taken as the average constituency. Most of 
 the deer at Swinley are Windsor-bred deer, with the excep- 
 tion of one or two from Eichmond Park. At that time I 
 remember the only really intractable deer we had was a 
 Richmond stag, and, from a hunting point of view, a very 
 
 ' I am indebted to Mr. F. Simmonds, of the Woods and Forests Department, 
 for the following rather technical particulars of S\vinley Paddocks, which are 
 in his charge : — ■ 
 
 There are five separate deer paddocks at Swinley, comprising altogether an 
 area of 12. 0. 35. acreage. The paddocks are supplied with water from a stream 
 flowing out of a neighbouring pond, small bays being made for the recep- 
 tion and storage of water. A certain acreage of the paddocks is manured, 
 harrowed and rolled every year, and the deer are shifted about from one 
 paddock to another, as occasion may require. If deer are left to graze the same 
 pasturage year by year, as at Swinley Paddocks, the herbage would go back 
 unless well manured and attended to by manual labour, although deer manure 
 is of first-rate quality. Deer are not good farmers, because they will cnly feed 
 upon the very best grazing to be had, leaving the rough parts untouched. The 
 paddocks are fenced by an oak fence standing eight feet out of the ground, 
 five feet of this being a close pale fence from the ground, and the upper three 
 feet open palisade. An iron ground sheet at the bottom of the fence is let 
 into the ground about nine inches, and an iron sheet about three inches wide is 
 laid along the fence where the close pale fence and the open palisade meet. 
 The average price of the fencing, including banking, is 3Z. 12s. Grf. per rod. The 
 paddocks are treated as permanent pasture and never meadowed. Fencing for 
 deer paddocks must be strong and kept in constant repair. In September, 
 1889, a very high wind broke down several rods of the fence, and when 
 Goodall began forest hunting, all the deer, with one exception, were lying 
 wild in the forest, but he took them all by degrees. The area of each 
 paddock is — 
 
 acre^s 
 
 roJs 
 
 poles 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 28 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 31 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 25 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 23 
 
DEER 107 
 
 inoderate animal. When it was a question of carting him, 
 he used to rear up on his hind le<(s and strike in a most 
 unfriendly way and with painful celerity. 
 
 The ' Druid,' in one of his books, attempts to draw dis- 
 tinctions between different breeds of deer from the hunting 
 point of view. The Woburn deer, for instance, he speaks of 
 with admiration ; the Chillinghani deer, imported by Lord 
 Kinnaird when he was Master of the Buckhounds, with faint 
 praise. I think it very doubtful myself whether the strain has 
 much, if anything, to do with deer running well or ill. Yet, 
 if I do not attach importance to how they are bred, I do 
 attach it to wlierc they are bred, and I should always prefer 
 deer drafted to the paddocks from large parks like Windsor 
 and Eichmond. The larger and the rougher the better. 
 
 Except for an occasional drive in the deer-cart — in reserve 
 — many of the Swinley deer are mere walking ladies and 
 gentlemen,' or at best understudies for the leading character 
 parts. ' Fruges consumere nati,' they are bovine in their 
 habits and interpretation of everyday life, preferring the 
 quiet plenty of the paddock to the distinctions of the chase. 
 However, they justify their existence very tolerably as veni- 
 son. A fat saddle helps amazingly to repair the gaps in 
 Farmer So-and-So's fences, or even the depredations of Lord 
 Suffolk's ' turnip tramplers.' 
 
 In my time only the good deer were hunted — deer that 
 I knew could go and would go. This has always been the 
 rule in the Eoyal establishments. I hear they were better 
 than ever last season. It is difficult to say whether a deer 
 will run well or ill. Much depends upon temperament 
 and accident, a good deal upon the state of the ground, 
 and a little upon the weather. Like other professionals, deer 
 
 ' Our crack deer come out four or five tinaes a season. Bartlett one season 
 was out six times, I think, and never had a scratch of any sort ; but this is an 
 unusual number of times. Three would be about the average for the good deer. 
 
io8 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 have their days. It would also be difficult to say whether 
 stags or hinds do best. Stags are, of course, the stronger, 
 and the great long-distance runs have almost invariably 
 beeij after stags or haviers. But towards the end of the 
 season, say about March, when the country dries up and 
 the fallows look pale and the pastures sallow, I like a 
 hind best. They are gayer, and run the roads less than 
 stags or haviers. I remember a wonderfully good fifty-five 
 minutes with a hind named Hawthorn. The meet was 
 unfashionable — Ascot Heath, which at that time of year 
 means the Forest. We turned her out on the verge, close to 
 South Hill Gate. She went straight out into the open 
 towards Wokingham, and we never saw her till we took her 
 after an eight-mile point. There may have been one or two 
 natural checks, but I never stopped hounds once, and w^e 
 were galloping all the time. Mr. T. Donovan, of Cork, was 
 much delighted. He was at that time living and dealing at 
 Reading, and a famous neighbour ; for if, as often happened, 
 we were short of horses, he would always lend us one. The 
 South Berks woodlands and Mr. Garth's heather were little 
 to his liking. He frequently took his gods to witness that 
 the Queen's Hounds kept him alive, and he used to assure 
 us of a cordial welcome if the Eoyal establishment could be 
 permanently transferred to Ireland. I remember that day 
 particularly, as we both rather mismanaged our hunting 
 seats over some strong black rails which a small boy on a 
 white pony with a crupper had jumped like an antelope. 
 Timber is an unusual fence in the Queen's country. It 
 seemed unjust ; and a nervous surprise is not the frame of 
 mind in which to ride at this sort of obstacle. 
 
 It is often impossible to account for a deer's actions. In 
 1892 Lord Clanwilliam, a havier named after the distinguished 
 Admiral who assisted in capturing him in Englemere pond 
 the first day he was ever hunted, ran us out of daylight after 
 
DEER 1 09 
 
 delighting an immense concourse at Cobham, where we had 
 met by invitation of the Master of Old Surrey and the 
 farmers of that sporting part of the world. We were nearly 
 forty miles from kennels, and hounds and horses had to sleep 
 out. After the stag had been outlying two or three weeks, 
 I sent the hounds to try to catch him, as we could not 
 afford to be without so good a stag. They found him on the 
 hills above Boxmoor, and ran him fast for an hour and a half 
 in a most distressing country for horses, having to whip off 
 in consequence. Lord Clanwilliam, however, behaved mag- 
 nanimously, and having seen the hounds out of sight retired 
 into the porch of a limekiln. Some children saw him stand- 
 ing there and rushed off to tell their father, who was anchored 
 in a neighbouring public-house. But, according to the 
 account given me, it was nearly four hours before anything 
 was done by the company in the public-house to secure him. 
 The porchway was, however, eventually blocked up, Lord 
 Clanwilliam having been good enough to remain there the 
 whole of the time. I saw this deer two or three days later 
 at Swinley, looking very well, but not in such good condition 
 as before he lay out. 
 
 Loss of condition is always involved in lying out. If 
 they gain in wildness they lose in wind and muscle. An 
 outlying deer is a bad neighbour. They are wasteful feeders, 
 and the lean tillage about Bagshot and Bracknell would 
 quickly suffer if many deer were left out. I remember 
 an outlying deer behaving very badly to the asters and 
 carnations in a villa garden, and I am bound to say the 
 massacre of domestic picotees and malmaisons by a so-called 
 wild animal would quite have justified a Berkshire adaptation 
 of Ansdell's ' Crofter's Kevenge ' from the best bedroom 
 window. 
 
 In the paddocks the stronger stags hustle the weaker, and 
 a good deal of bullying goes on. There is always a master deer. 
 
no STAG -HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Bartlett was master deer during my time, having bested a 
 deer called Blackback. Attached as we all were to Guy 
 Fawkes, who had quite as much guile as his namesake and 
 more personality about him than the others, I think Bartlett 
 was the best and the most reliable deer during my IMastership. 
 The other crack deer in my time were Lord Clanwilliam, 
 Blackback, and Kunaway. The latter got his name from 
 a remarkable exploit. Half an hour after his first arrival at 
 Swinley he was startled by the crack of a whip, and jumped 
 out over eight feet of oaken paling. He was out for some 
 weeks before he was taken after a capital run. I remember 
 seeing Guy Fawkes jump a frowning, tarred, Masterman 
 Ready-ish palisade within which the proprietor of the villa so 
 often sees fit to entrench himself, which must have been over 
 seven feet high. I also saw a deer jump a solid brick wall 
 out of the high road near Chalfont St. Giles, off the foot- 
 path. It was a continuous brick wall, coped at the top, and 
 looked quite unjumpable. 
 
 The beasts which roam over the plain 
 My form with indifference see ; 
 They are so unacquainted with men 
 Their tameness is shocking to me. 
 
 But the tameness and indifference which often shock the 
 stag-hunter can hardly be accounted for by Alexander 
 Selkirk's theory. The Windsor deer are as accustomed to 
 civilisation, the Queen's lieges, and the latest fashions, as the 
 sheep in Hyde Park. It is just the same when they get to 
 Swinley ; there is lots going on past the paddocks. Ascot 
 week is quite a gala, and the deer pay an inquisitive and 
 pleased attention to the smart ladies and gentlemen and car- 
 riages driving past their pleasant precincts on their way to the 
 races. I mentioned elsewhere the ' exhibitions of uncommon 
 strength ' of an unnamed Georgian deer in and out of the 
 back-gardens and drying-grounds of Staines. Perhaps this 
 
DEER I I I 
 
 particular deer was a specially selected holiday cheap-jack, 
 as it was Easter week, when crowds of holiday-makers used 
 to come out. There are always one or two of the hack-garden 
 sort at Swinley. But why are deer so fond of premises and 
 people ? ' I have never made out whether the deer is a bold 
 animal or a timid one. I am told that even the wild deer 
 on Exmoor will run into farm-buildings like the carted 
 deer. Not so very long ago one was killed in a dining- 
 room and another in a conservatory. It is true that the 
 latter was a Quantock Hill deer, which, as they live on a 
 very small tract of country, are really more like park deer. 
 I understand, too, that the Exmoor stags will trot down 
 a road towards the field just as the carted deer do, the only 
 difference being that the field, instead of standing still and 
 letting the deer come through them, as we do in Bucks and 
 Berks, gallop as hard as they can away from the deer. 
 
 I have already quoted from an old sporting magazine of the 
 last century the statement that the deer of that day lived at 
 Swinley in great luxury. This standard of comfort is still 
 scrupulously maintained. The sweetest second cut of clover- 
 hay (the first cut is too tough for deer's teeth), the glossiest 
 old beans, the juiciest carrots are very specially chosen for 
 them. I think the Swinley deer lead quite happy and con- 
 tented lives. A Black Mount deer would pine for the shrill 
 breezes of the tops, the sun-clad face, the cool stone and 
 shadowland of the long corries. But these are the park-bred 
 deer of Mrs. Hemans's stately homes of England. I won't 
 say anything about heredity and evolution, but they would 
 find the conditions of a Scotch forest very uncomfortable and 
 inconvenient. 
 
 Any hurt or mischance to a deer is a matter of poignant 
 regret to the whole Buckhounds establishment, and to the 
 
 ' Pliny observes that a deer pressed by hounds often takes refuge in the 
 haunts of men ; so does Du Fouilloux. 
 
112 STA G-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 stag-hunting public. Lord Cork and Goodall once got wet to 
 the skin in a tive-foot-deep pond in the interests of Hark- 
 away. When Bartlett was in difficulties one December day 
 in the ooze of the Loddon, the men went in nearly up to 
 their necks in icy cold water and mud to rescue him. And I 
 could give several conspicuous instances of the same kind 
 which happened during my ^Mastership. 
 
 Groves, Deer-keeper 
 
 Diet and solicitude, however, will not do everything for 
 condition. Whether a Master holds himself, his huntsman, 
 or his deer-keeper responsible for the condition— that is, for 
 the fitness — of the deer, the actual responsibility and credit 
 largely rest with the deer-keeper. Looking after deer may 
 
DEER 1 1 3 
 
 not be as rare a faculty as, sa}', water divining, but a man 
 who really understands deer under the artificial and hi^h- 
 feeding conditions of det-r kept for hiiiitiiig in paddocks is a, 
 very valuable factor in a stag-hunting establislnnent. Nor 
 is it altogether a question of care and regular diet and ways. 
 There must be the sympathy of secret understanding between 
 the care-taker and the cared-for. The deer-keeper must be, 
 as it were, their familiar. I remember its being said of the 
 head-stableman in a livery yard, who seemed, able to make 
 a bad doer thrive and to alter an ill-tempered horse's nature 
 from the moment he had anything to do with them, that he 
 told the horses little stories. A good deer-keeper must have 
 something of this about him, and at Swinley we are for- 
 tunate. 
 
 I will conclude with a word as to exercising. The few 
 times a deer is hunted in a season will not keep him in 
 sufficiently good wind for the deep country he is expected to 
 show sport over. To my mind, deer should be exercised in 
 the paddock. During my time we had a bob-tailed lurcher 
 called Charlie. I think he was half greyhound, half collie. 
 Harvey bought him for a sovereign of a travelling tinker. 
 This was a wonderful dog to exercise deer,- and such a 
 mover ! The deer and he were famous plaj'fellow's, and T 
 do not think you could have got him to touch one. Poor 
 Charlie, I heard the other day, had to be shot, being sus- 
 pected of dumb madness. I was very sorry, and I shall 
 always remember the good-humour of his innocent pursuit. 
 
114 
 
 STAG-HCWTIXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 CHAPTEE VI 
 
 THE STAGHOUNI) 
 
 Nobleman. Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds : 
 
 Brach Merriman, the poor cur is emboss'd ; 
 
 And couple Clowder with the deep-mouth'd brach. 
 
 Saw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good 
 
 At the hedge-corner, in the coldest fault ? 
 
 I would not lose the do"; for twenty pound. 
 Huntsman. Why, Belman is as good as he, my lord ; 
 
 He cried upon it at the merest loss 
 
 And twice to-day pick'd out the dullest scent : 
 
 Trust me, I take him for the better dog. 
 Nobleman. Thou art a fool : if Echo were as Heet, 
 
 I would esteem him worth a dozen such. 
 
 Lord Foppingtox in ' The Eelapse ' declares that hi his 
 opinion a man of parts and breeding can do without books, 
 and amuse himself very well with the ' natural sprouts ' of 
 his own imagination. But there are times when we should 
 think of others as well as ourselves, and Lord Foppington 
 had not undertaken to write a book about the Buckhounds. 
 He was much too sensible. So at the outset let me acknow- 
 ledge that a considerable portion of this chapter is the 
 result of books and reading. The literature of the subject is 
 large and rather formidable.' Scribes are not always authori- 
 ties, and many of the best authorities are not scribes. 
 
 ' Xenophon's Cynegeticon runs into twelve books, and in many respects is 
 curiously modern. A passage occurs in the sixth book beginning : iirftSav Se 
 nepl Thv Kayw dxn. 5f(Aoi/ -Koiva-ovcri r^ KvnToyirr) ffvv rals ovpah ra (Tw^ara S\a 
 (TweirtKpa5aiuov(Tai. iroK(iJ.iKws iiri<p(p6ixivai, (piKovi'iKws 7rapa0e'ou(roi, (rurTpexoi/aaj 
 <pi\on6vois, (TwiaTCLfjifvai raxv, duffTafxevai. etc. etc., describing a run on the Attic 
 Highlands which might have been written, say, by thelate Mr. Dear of Winchester 
 of a run with his pretty harriers over Worthy Down. 
 
THE STAG HOUND 115 
 
 However, I have levied upon other winters' researches and 
 recollections the odds and ends which seemed most likel_y 
 to season an excursion on the predecessors of the 'modern 
 staohound. From first to last, except some shreddy 
 personal experiences, there is nothing new nor original 
 about anything I have to say about these antiques. A 
 foot-note is not an enthusiastic expression of gratitude. 
 But I see no more handsome way of acknowledging the 
 heavy debt of gratitude I ow^e to the many excellent writers 
 whose works I have consulted. From some of these, en- 
 couraged by Mr. Fox's observation, that Hume's practice 
 of quoting from other writers gave an agreeable variety to 
 his style, I have here and there given passages in their 
 full text. 
 
 Since Lord Wolverton's hounds were sold to go abroad, 
 and Mr. Thomas Nevill's pack was broken up by his death, 
 as far as I know there is no pack which can lay claim to 
 being distinctively staghounds.' Dr. Collyns writes in the past 
 
 ' According to Turberville, we owe the staghound to one Brutus, who, having 
 got into serious trouble in Italy for killing his father, settled in Britain near 
 Totnes, and brought with him some hounds which were so staunch that, ' a 
 hart once found, they would never leave him till his death.' Brutus must have 
 been a country gentleman in advance of his time, for, notwithstanding the 
 graphic scraps in Horace, Od. i. 1, 2-5, Epist. i. 2, 65, the popular form of ' venatio ' 
 with the Romans was the hunting spectacle, in which hundreds and sometimes 
 thousands of wild animals were slaughtered in the amphitheatre to gratify the 
 populace. It seems to have come at last, in the days of the Empire, to pure 
 delight in shedding blood, e.g. King Bocchus sent 100 lions to Eome in Sylla's 
 prajtorship, ' with the proper number of javelin men to destroy them ' in the 
 circus. Sometimes a number of large trees torn up by the roots were planted 
 in the circus, and the less savage animals being admitted into this extemporised 
 forest were given up to the people, who were allowed to rush into the arena and 
 carry off what they could. At the consecration of the Amphitheatre of Titus, 
 5,000 wild beasts and 4,000 tame animals were killed. At a venatio given by 
 Probus there were 1,000 ostriches, 1,000 stags, 1,000 boars, 1,000 deer slaugh- 
 tered, and on the following day 100 lions and 100 lionesses, 100 leopards and 
 300 bears, and we hear of a hippopotamus and live crocodiles in tanks in the 
 amphitheatre, eighteen elephants, canielopards and giraffes (Scaurus, b.c. 58), 
 a python sixty cubits long, and thirty-six crocodiles contributing at different 
 times to the popularity of Empire (Augustus, 29 b.c). 
 
n 6 .V TA G-IIUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 tense of the old Devon and Somerset staghounds in his in- 
 teresting book on the chase of the wild red deer. ' A nobler 
 pack of hounds no man ever saw. They had been in the 
 county for years, and had been bred with the utmost care for 
 the express purpose of stag-hunting. What the exact origin 
 of this breed was I am unable to state with accuracy. The 
 bloodhound and old southern hound, however, were beyond 
 doubt amongst the ancestors of the pack, which when sold 
 consisted of about thirty couples. In height, the hounds were 
 about twenty-six to twenty-eight inches ; colour generally 
 hare pyed, yellow, yellow and white, or badger pyed, with 
 long ears, deep muzzles, large throats and deep chests. In 
 tongue they were perfect, and when hunting in water, or on 
 half-scent, or baying a deer, they might be heard at an 
 immense distance. Even when running at speed they gave 
 plenty of tongue, and their great size enabled them to cross 
 the long heather and rough sedgy pasturage of the forest 
 without effort or difficulty. The hills and woods of Devon 
 and Somerset will never again ring to the melody of such 
 a pack.' 
 
 Mr. Fitt, in his capital ' Covert-side Sketches,' accepts a 
 comparatively modern hound called Windsor, described in 
 the ' Sporting Magazine ' for April, 1840, as the true stag- 
 hound. He even goes further, and accepts him as the type of 
 the staghound of George III.'s pack in its best days. This 
 Windsor was a distinguished member of the Massy Buck- 
 hounds, a crack Tipperary pack of that day, and was pre- 
 sumably entered somewhere about 1820. This is what his 
 biographer has to say about him : ' Windsor, who deserves the 
 name of ' Ultimus Romanorum,' was the noblest buckhound 
 I ever saw, although I have been in their celebrated company 
 almost from my infancy. His colour was white with a small 
 spot of yellow upon each ear, heavy dew-lap, innnense fore- 
 part and somewhat cat-ham, which belonged to their pristine* 
 
THE ST AG HOUND 117 
 
 form.' With the requirements of modern hunting the whole 
 conception of the staghound has changed. No two animals 
 in the matter of points can be more different than the stag- 
 hound featured and characterised in these graphic extracts, 
 and the ideal a Master of the Buckhounds sets before him to- 
 day. As to the points of these ' vieille roche ' aristocrats, it will 
 be seen — again I quote — that they were not arrived at with- 
 out care and meditation. The cross is as compHcated as a 
 Chinese puzzle, and is worthy of a pigeon-fancier. ' They 
 were a cross of the Irish wolfhound, the Irish bloodhound, 
 and the Spanish dark red bloodhound ; and they were after- 
 wards crossed upon the large EngHsh bull-dog, and partook 
 of that animal's appearance in their silky {sic) coats and 
 large and deep-set underjaws.' 
 
 Colonel Thornton bought the best of the Eoyal hounds 
 and removed to France in 1814. T imagine they were not 
 anything to boast of. George's III.'s illness must have taken 
 a great deal of the heart and spirit out of the hunting. Sharpo 
 was an old man. In-and-in breeding, and the habit of con- 
 stantly stopping hounds for a quarter of an hour or twenty 
 minutes to let the king, who would go no faster than he 
 liked, get up, and yet having very long days and dragging 
 over miles of country, had demoraHsed the pack, both in 
 the kennel and in their work. By this time, according to 
 a correspondent of the ' Sporting Magazine ' (March 1814), 
 men, horses, and hounds had ' dwindled by rapid degrees 
 from splendour to decency, from decency to poverty, from 
 poverty to inability. Those,' he adds, ' which don't eat are 
 going mad, and those which are not going mad can only 
 eat.' 
 
 The Colonel, I suppose, had formed his estimate of French 
 taste in hounds during his bunting tour in France, and he 
 no doubt knew where to place them. The King's hounds 
 were not his sort if the pictures and the record which 
 
ii8 
 
 5 TA G-HUXTLYG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 appeared in Daniels' ' Kural Sports ' of one of his own 
 breeding named Merkin speak true. There is nothing 
 to choose between the Colonel's Merkin ; Luxury, a crack 
 hound in the Koyal kennel in Davis's best period, and which 
 
 ^ 
 
 Luxury 
 
 he considered faultless ; ' and Roman and Ehetoric, a dog 
 and a bitch now in the Ascot kennel.^ 
 
 ' Charles Davis in a letter to the ' Sporting Review ' in 1841 wrote : 
 ' Luxury is now six years old. and was bred by me : she is twenty-three inches 
 high, and I consider her in every respect perfect ; her sire was the royal hound 
 liightning ; her dam, the Duke of Rutland's Syren. Lightning was descended 
 from the blood of the late Duke of Richmond, which I consider the stoutest 
 of any in England. Syren's Belvoir blood is sufficient guarantee for its ex- 
 cellence 
 
 ■^ Roman is by Warwickshire Rhymer out of Lord Leconfield's Rosemary ; 
 Rhetoric, by Roman out of Ruby. 
 
THE STAGHOi'XD 
 
 119 
 
 The foxhound was not a fresh creation at the time fox- 
 huntin'^ first came into fashion. Side hy side with the 
 
 j^^i^Kv^^ 
 
 EOMAN 
 
 
 southern hound, which we may take to be the original 
 Georgian staghound, the northern hound had by this time 
 
I20 STAG-HCXTIXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 (say 1814) flourished for upwards of a century.' Originally 
 a distinct Yorkshire breed— as a Yorkshireman, I insist 
 upon keeping alive this most honourable tradition — this 
 northern hound is the modern foxhound. The northern 
 hound was an established breed in Yorkshire in Gervase 
 Markham's time. As against the southern hound, Markham 
 l)raises him for his ' swiftnesse,' and describes a most racing- 
 like animal witii round feet and many other precious fox- 
 hound characteristics. On the other hand, then as now, 
 silence was the price \\'hich had to be paid for pace. ' To speak 
 of their mouths, they have only a little sharp sweetnesse 
 like a jigge, but no depth or grand-like more solemn music' 
 Their nose Mr. Markham thinks as good as, indeed, because 
 more sensitive and responsive, better than that of the southern 
 hound. ' You shall understand that these swift hounds are, 
 out of their haste and nimbleness and metal, more subject 
 to make default than other hounds, yet full as curious and 
 full of scent as any other, as you shall perceive by the quick 
 knowledge and apprehension of their own errors, casting about 
 and recovering the scent, and so going away with the scent 
 before any huntsman can come up to help them.' M. de 
 Ligniville, a great French veneur and writer of the seven- 
 teenth century, speaks constantly of the excellence of the Y'ork- 
 shire hounds ; they are, he declares, the best in the world. 
 He himself possessed a white northern bitch called Mouille, 
 which could not be beaten. The hounds, not only in Woot- 
 ton's, Stubbs's, and Sartorius's more important pictures, but 
 in most hunting scenes to be found in old country houses, are 
 in appearance to all intents and purposes foxhounds, except- 
 ing in colour, for Belvoir tan was still a luxury ; they have 
 all the points of the modei-n foxhound, and none of those 
 of the Massy buckhound or of Dr. Collyns's majestic 
 
 ' The date ascribed by Mr. Baring Gould to ' Arscott of Tedcott ' and to his 
 famous fox-hunt in the West country is Klo'i. 
 
THE STAG HO UNI) 121 
 
 heroes. Very often the artist is not satisfactory, nor the 
 hound, but the type is a foxhound type and not a staghound 
 type. Indeed, as against Mr. Fitt's ' Windsor ' theory, in the 
 picture at Cumberland Lodge, by Chalon, of Sharpe with 
 the King's hounds, the hounds are more hke the modern 
 foxhound-harrier than the redoubtable ' Ultimus Eomanorum ' 
 of the ' Sporting Magazine.' 
 
 The Duke of Richmond gave me the other day the con- 
 temporary account of the great Charlton run, when twenty- 
 three ' glorious ' hounds ran into a bitch fox after having 
 run her from 7.45 a.m. till 5.50 p.m., on January 26, 
 1788, fifty-seven miles, two furlongs, ten yards by measure- 
 ment as hounds run. No wonder Charles Davis declared 
 there was nothing like the old Goodwood sort, and stuck 
 to them. These were foxliounds,' of course, and the chronicler 
 tells us with unction that after crossing Halnaker Hill to 
 Sebbige Farm, the Master of the King's (George II.) Stag- 
 hounds, Mr. Jenison, had had enough of it : ' thoroughly 
 satisfied ' is the way he puts it.- 
 
 But to return for a moment to Merkin and her owner. 
 Colonel Thornton thought such great things of Merkin 
 that he backed her to run any hound of her year on a 
 drag or train scent five miles over Newmarket, giving 220 
 yards start, for 10,000 guineas.^ Merkin's time trial — 
 incredible as it sounds— was four miles in seven and a 
 half minutes. The match does not appear to have come 
 
 ' William III. took the Grand Duke of Tuscany to hunt with the Charlton 
 foxhounds. 
 
 - The inference is that neither he nor his horse was accustomed to such 
 runs with the slow and heavy staghounds. 
 
 •' These contests were very fashionable at this period. In the match for 
 500/. between a couple of Mr. Barry's and a couple of Mr. Meynell's hounds, 
 sixty horses started, and only twelve got to the end. Seven to four was bet on 
 Mr. Meynell's hounds, who were badly beaten. The course was from the 
 rubbing-house at the town end to the starting-post of the B. C, and the distance 
 was covered in a little over eight minutes. The last horse was Rib, ridden by 
 Will Crane, and he was a King's Plate winner. 
 
122 S TA G- HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 off, and the Colonel sold Merkin for four hogsheads of after- 
 dinner claret. He appears to have liked bringing wine into 
 a deal, and he sold Dash, a celebrated pointer — painted, 
 I think, by Stubbs — to Sir E. Symons for 160^,tobe taken 
 out in champagne or burgundy, a hogshead of claret, an 
 ' elegant ' gun, and another pointer. Dash was half a fox- 
 hound, and a celebrated French Vendee hound called 
 Greffier was half a pointer. 
 
 It would "be worse than the evolution of the northern 
 and the southern hound if I delved into the action and 
 reaction of foxhound and pointer blood, but I remem- 
 ber well that, as a boy, I used to go and shoot at a very 
 good grouse moor called Strathavon, near Tomintoul, with 
 Colonel Legendre Starkie, who had a great kennel of pointers 
 and Gordon setters. I remember the particular style and 
 excellence of a black and white pointer ; he used to stand 
 to birds with his stern straight up in the air. This was 
 not quite right, but Colonel Starkie liked him especially 
 from his striking likeness in appearance and ways to a 
 foxhound. On this subject he writes to me : ' Shot, like 
 many of my pointers, had three crosses of foxhound in him 
 from three different kennels, Osbaldistone, Sir Harry Good- 
 rich and Captain J. White. All these men had a famous 
 breed of pointers, and each one of them had used the fox- 
 hound cross. This gave to their progeny endurance, and 
 good legs and feet and pace.' 
 
 Mr. Mellish's hounds were lemon pyes,' and hunted wild 
 fallow deer in Epping Forest up till 1805. As far as I can make 
 out, they were the foundation of the old Devon and Somerset 
 staghounds. In 1825 the Devon and Somerset were sold 
 by Mr. Lucas to Mr. Shard to hunt carted deer in Hamp- 
 shire. ' Nimrod ' paid Mr. Shard a visit at Little Somborne 
 
 ' Mr. Darby described the old Epping Forest staghounds as ' pointer fleshed. 
 
 with a stalliony look about them.' 
 
THE STAG HOUND 123 
 
 in December 182.5, and professed himself highly satisfied 
 with his equipment. ' AVhatever Mr. Shard does, he does 
 with spirit '—a prime requisite, I concur, in carted deer-hunt- 
 ing — and the turn-out generally appears to have been on the 
 Windsor model, as two good-natured friends of Mr. Shard's 
 acted as yeomen prickers, which, says ' Ninn'od,' ' gave 
 the whole a very classical effect,' Mr. Shard's own person 
 being adorned and enlivened by a handsome belt to which a 
 bugle was suspended. They had not much of a hunt over a 
 fenceless and featureless country ; and the deer went for 
 three miles with a couple close at his haunches. The deer 
 after being taken was blooded in the tail, Sangrado's treat- 
 ment, or this half of it, being in vogue at that time with 
 stag-hunters ; and he was in such fine fighting form by the 
 evening that he seriously injured the first whipper-in. 
 Speaking of these big North Devon hounds, ' Nimrod ' 
 observes, ' I should not suspect the Hampshire flints 
 agreed with hounds of this great size ' ; nor did the Buck- 
 inghamshire flints and hills agree with the coarse, heavy- 
 shouldered, so-called staghound of the Ascot kennels of 
 thirty years ago. 
 
 But the old Devon and Somerset hounds cannot have been 
 as slow as the Eoyal hounds in George III.'s time. The Eev. 
 Mr. Eussell writes of a celebrated trencher-fed pack and of 
 this blood : ' I hunted, as many days in every week as my 
 duties would permit, with John Froude, the well-known vicar 
 of Knowstone, with whom 1 was then on very intimate terms. 
 His hounds were something out of the common, bred from the 
 old staghounds, fight in their colour, and sharp as needles ; 
 plenty of tongue, but would drive like furies. I have never 
 seen a better or more killing pack in all my long life. He 
 couldn't bear to see a hound jjut his nose to the ground and 
 " twiddle his tail." " Hang the brute ! " he would say to the 
 owner of the hound, " and get those that can wind their 
 
124 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 game when they are thrown off." ' Mr. Russell's reverend 
 compeer was an excellent judge of what a staghound should 
 not do. 
 
 I alluded just now to Mr. Nevill's hounds. Mr. Thomas 
 Nevill was the younger brother of Mr. Benjamin Nevill, 
 of Chilland, between Winchester and Alresford. These 
 gentlemen were Hampshire yeomen, of old and honourable 
 descent, and were possessed of considerable means. Mr. 
 T. Nevill rented Chilland House from his brother, and kept 
 a famous pack of St. Hubert staghounds from 1853 until 
 his death in 1878. In spite of his infirmities, he was 
 an enthusiastic stag-hunter, and was very constantly out 
 with the Queen's Hounds when they went into the New 
 Forest. He was obliged to use a saddle of a peculiar 
 make, in consequence of having injured his hip-joint 
 when a boy. It was supposed that he would never be 
 able to ride again. The saddle which he invented, how- 
 ever, enabled him, though enduring much pain, to hunt 
 his hounds, standing quite upright in the stirrups. ' I 
 cannot,' he writes, ' describe the pain I went through at 
 first, and still sometimes feel, or the narrow escapes I have 
 had from many falls from losing my balance; but, thank 
 (rod ! I made my saddle answer sufficiently to enjoy riding 
 to my hounds. I once rode from Chilland to the New Forest 
 to hunt with the Queen's Hounds, and had a magnificent 
 run from one end of the Forest to the other, a distance 
 calculated by my friend when I returned in the evening to 
 Chilland at 100 miles. My Dartmoor carried me through 
 the chase and half-way back ; then I took a forest horse 
 which brought me home.' Dartmoor was nearly thorough- 
 bred, but only 14| hands high. He is buried in a meadow 
 near the house, with a deer and many bloodhounds near him. 
 
 Two or three days after I joined the depot at Winchester, 
 the sale of Mr. Nevill's effects was announced by his executors. 
 
THE STAG HOUND 125 
 
 I went up to Chilland to see what was to be seen : a small and 
 poor house on the roadside ; three or four lean paddocks, with 
 black tarred palings adjoined it ; some shaggy thatched stabling, 
 and two or three ricks of hay. The hounds had already been 
 disposed of, but there were two or three horses and I think 
 two or three deer ; but in those days I cared nothing for deer. 
 Inside the house there was nothing, or next to nothing, of 
 interest, but I remember in a glass case a stuffed rat which 
 had stood up for twenty minutes before the Talbots in a 
 twenty-acre turnip-field. However, they stuck to him like 
 leeches and killed him handsomely. It was said that latterly 
 they got so wayward and headstrong— for a bloodhound is 
 never wild in the foxhound sense of the term — that they 
 would run anything from a red-legged partridge to a turkoy- 
 stealer. But in their case it could hardly be called wayward- 
 ness, for Mr. Nevill encouraged them to hunt anything and 
 everything. In a letter to ' ^sop,' Mr. Nevill writes in 1861 : 
 ' I now state to you the different animals the bloodhounds 
 hunt. I often kill fourteen rats a day with them in turnips 
 and hedges, and their cry is equal to their chasing the deer, 
 and with the same energy as when after the stag. Badgers 
 and foxes turned out, and drags, even as far as man, as I 
 have recovered with them stolen goods from a thief. Water- 
 fowl in sedge I occasionally hunt in the meadows for amuse- 
 ment, and sometimes take them. One day I chased a swan 
 for a quarter of a mile in the main river, and to see the 
 hounds swim after him and come again to the bank and rest 
 themselves for a moment, and then gallop away again, was 
 astounding for a sportsman who would hardly believe such a 
 thing. This shows the breed of the magnificent St. Hubert 
 hound.' ^ 
 
 I never saw these hounds in the field, or indeed, strictly 
 speaking, in kennel, but Mr. Xevill had presented my old 
 
 ' S'pwtincj Reminiscences of Hcivipsliirc. 
 
126 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 friend, Mr. John Tnbb, the eminent Winchester horse-dealer,, 
 who is still enjoying an honourable and esteemed retirement, 
 from affairs in that city, with a fine representative of his 
 breed. When I knew this dog he was as blind as Homer,, 
 and no great company, but he was a favourite in the yard, 
 and Mr. Tubb used often to sing his praises and exploits tO' 
 the disparagement of a fine muscovy drake, also well stricken 
 in years, which I believe he originally acquired as a bad debt, 
 and to which he had never taken kindly. I forget the blood- 
 hound's name, but I think it was Conqueror or Kufus. It 
 had a Norman smack about it, certainly. He was a reddish 
 dog ; indeed, from age and grisliness he might have been called 
 roan, with only a saddle of rusty black. " Mr. Nevill bred 
 them to black and tan, and to the richest of both colours ; 
 he drafted them hard for colour, and never used a faint- 
 coloured dog. This one, I rather fancy, was drafted on this 
 account, as I believe, although he had nasty flat feet and in- 
 eligible fore-legs, he was a good-looking hound of his sort. 
 It was difficult to judge of his intelligence — a quality claimed 
 for the St. Huberts — as he was not only afflicted, but passed 
 his time always on the chain. He would, however, sometimes 
 set up a noble bay of recognition on his master's approach, 
 and upon one of these exhibitions of instinct and good-feeling 
 I remember John Tubb quoting the first verse of ' Old Dog 
 Tray ' with visible emotion. He also fetched some plum- 
 cake for him, of which Eufus was very fond. Upon one 
 occasion Eufus was all but settled by the depot coach get- 
 ting hung up on his chain and kennel, which was located at. 
 the entrance to the yard. He was extricated with difficulty 
 and half throttled by over-close relations with a soft wheeler 
 we called Delilah, whose numbness was the ' causa mali ' — at 
 least, so the coachman declared. But I must not be led 
 away into reminiscences of ' Our yard,' as Mr. Tubb always 
 styled it in the converse we daily held together, and when 
 
THE SrAGHOUND 127 
 
 he was speaking to any rifleman. It was with Mr. Nevill's 
 hounds that Captain Henry Ward of the 60th Kifles was 
 riding a recent purchase of John Tubb's which stopped half- 
 way through the run, and, as Mr. Tubb described it him- 
 self, ' went and died,' thus irretrievably disgracing himself. 
 The horse had been most fairly ridden, and the run was in 
 no sense classical, rather the reverse ; but Ward was in a sad 
 way, and at once volunteered to help John Tubb over the loss 
 with something over and above the owner's risk, two guineas, 
 backing up his declarations by an instantaneous tenner. 
 This John Tubb gratefully accepted, but refused to take a 
 shilling more, and ever afterwards cited Henry Ward as the 
 mirror of depot chivalry. It turned out that he had only 
 given 11. 15.S. for the horse the day before, so everybody was 
 pleased. 
 
 Lord Wolverton's hounds, with very different conditions 
 of mastership and economics, were much the same as Mr. 
 Nevill's. I was only out with them twice — once with Lord 
 Wolverton, who hunted them himself in Dorsetshire, and 
 once with Lord Carrington, who, I think, also hunted them 
 himself from Wycombe. But I remember both days pretty 
 well, especially the Dorsetshire day. We drove to meet 
 them somewhere in his best country, from Sherborne, a 
 largish party. It was a glorious day late on in the season, 
 and I shall not forget seeing those handsome hounds half 
 swim and half ford a stream and shake themselves dry in 
 the Kiviera sunshine. The sky and stream were all blue, 
 the rich grazing lands near the water all emerald, the 
 margins all gold with kingcups. 
 
 And then ray heart with pleasure fills, 
 And dances with the daffodils, 
 
 or the kingcups and the bloodhounds, and Lord Wolverton 
 in his green coat on a milk-white horse, which all do quite 
 
128 STAG-IirXTIXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 as well as datibdils. liut from a hunting point of view every- 
 thing went wa-ong. There was little or no scent, unusually 
 little for a deer, and the hounds were either very stale or 
 slack or very much out of humour. Lord Wolverton had 
 warned us not to seem to take any notice of them, or under 
 any provocation crack a whip or speak to a hound, a ad he 
 invited our particular attention to one old dog who, if trifled 
 with, or if he imagined himself trifled with, came straight 
 at your boot ; we noted his terribly uniform markings as well 
 as we were able with reverent respect. 
 
 As far as I recollect we never ran a yard, and the hounds 
 acquiesced in every difficulty. But we enjoyed our day. 
 We were in a fine country, and at the end of the season 
 this sticky vale rides well. A yellow bay horse I was riding, 
 called the Stag, sprang on and off the roomy banks with 
 all the airs of a dancing-master. At one moment Lord 
 Wolverton seemed to contemplate buying him at 800/. 1 
 did all I could to encourage him ; unsuccessfully, however. 
 The black and tan strain survives in Dorsetshire in the 
 kennel of a spirited lady. Their nose and perseverance arc 
 tested by drag-hunting after a fleet page-boy. The other day 
 Buttons only just got home in time, and slammed the door 
 of a friendly outhouse in the very jaws of his pursuers, 
 who were in quite an ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' humour. ' The 
 hounds,' said Mr. Merthyr Guest, when he heard of it, 
 ' richly deserved the boy.' 
 
 The day we hunted from Wycombe the St. Huberts ran 
 pretty well for the first twenty minutes in an orderly string, 
 but with persistence and a sonorous, if rather intermittent, 
 cry. There was nothing extraordinary, however, in the way 
 of music, but this may have been partly due to the line taking 
 us over dry cafe-au-lait-coloured fallows and ploughs. Just 
 as in the Vale of Blackmoor, the chorus w-as loudest at the 
 fences ; to my mind a detestable trick. It was said of the 
 
THE STAGHOrXD 129 
 
 North Devon lemon pyes that with the wind right you could 
 hear them four miles off on a good scenting day. At one or 
 two r()ii.L;ii hairy places that day the noise was tremendous, 
 and the black and tans would certainly have been heard a long 
 way off. Every hound meused and waited his turn, throw- 
 ing his tongue freely. In his ' Eiding Kecollections ' Whyte 
 Melville speaks of Lord Wolverton's hounds running at a 
 great and sustained pace ; of their charging the fences like 
 a squadron of heavy dragoons, and so on. Now an all but 
 solitar}' experience counts for nothing, but certainly nothing 
 of this sort appeared either in the Vale of Blackmoor or on 
 the Wycombe day. Nor, I confess, on the former day did 
 they ' turn like a pack of harriers ' to their huntsman, in spite 
 of his marked and unwearying deference to all their humours 
 and susceptibilities. Whyte Melville knew a great deal about 
 hunting. Like Kingsley, whom he admired so cordially, 
 he knew all about it instinctively. Added to this intui- 
 tive knowledge he had diversified his ideas by the test of 
 countless experiences of hounds, horses, and countries. But 
 in this appreciation of the Talbot as a stag-hunter, setting 
 aside the observations he makes on the umbrageousness of 
 his disposition, his natural wish to please an old friend, and to 
 commemorate the pleasures of bygone days must have led him 
 a little further than he really intended to go. However, most 
 people would quite as soon be wrong with Whyte Melville 
 as be right with any other writer on sporting subjects. 
 Mr. John Roden, who bred eight couple of Lord Wolver- 
 ton's hounds when first he started his pack, writes of them 
 in a letter to the ' Sporting Gazette,' May 2, 1874 : ' They 
 will not be driven or stand cracking a whip ; they get sulky 
 or cross ; they must be let alone, and the slower they go the 
 more beautiful the hunting. ... In work they do not cast 
 like other hounds ; each hound goes alone and never 
 watches for another dog ; in fact, they never take their nose 
 
 K 
 
I30 STAG-HUNTJXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 off the ground, and only one deer was killed by them in 
 Dorsetshire. Even in the same field they never get a view, 
 so all the deer have been saved without difficulty." As no 
 man ever hated his own flesh, we may assume that Mr. 
 Eoden is writing sympathetically of the St. Huberts ; but 
 it is clear that they are not adapted by their ' ingenium ' to 
 hunt in a pack, admirable as individuals may be on the line 
 of a page-boy or a turkey. One of the many lovely and 
 pleasant things about a pack of foxhounds is an almost over- 
 alertness to each other's possibilities. At the shyest sugges- 
 tion of a note, five out of six hounds fly to the scene of the 
 discovery, bent upon confirming and wresting it from the 
 discoverer. In a sense, a foxhound is apt to prefer his 
 neighbour to himself —often too much so, indeed, in drawing. 
 The bloodhound looks upon his neighbour either as a 
 nuisance or a superfluity. 
 
 So much, then, for the two main varieties of the authentic 
 staghound as known to more or less contemporary history. 
 That is to say, first, the lemon pye, magpye, and badger pye, 
 like George III.'s hounds which Colonel Thornton took 
 to France, and like the Epping Forest hounds which went 
 to North Devon ; and, secondly, the black and tan St. 
 Huberts or Talbots of Mr. Xevill and Lord Wolverton. 
 It is as well, both for their own sakes and for that of 
 their admirers, that they have either gone abroad or dis- 
 appeared. They would have been sadly ridden over in these 
 days, when riding is the avowed principle of so much hunt- 
 ing, and especially of stag-hunting. Whatever their qualities 
 may have been of nose and patience, it is certain that the 
 value of these was largely modified by characteristics requir- 
 ing exceptional conditions, which 'these mixed times,' as 
 'Nimrod' called the democratic expansion of hunting even 
 in his day, can no longer be expected to afford. 
 
 And now I have done with ancient history and tradition, 
 
THE STAGHOUND 131 
 
 and I come to the stag-hunter of the present day. I will 
 narrow him down to the hounds which have come within 
 my own experience — the Queen's. Give me, to hunt the 
 Swinley deer over the wide and varied district known as 
 the Queen's country, a foxhound of the highest mettle 
 and courage to be got. It is only with the foxhound that 
 true joys are to be found. But here I may fairly be 
 asked to state my general proposition more precisely. In 
 foxhounds, granted the same spirit, there is as everybody 
 knows a diversity of gifts. If, then, such a question be 
 put — and for the sake of answering it, let me assume that 
 it is put — I should say, after the experience of three seasons' 
 stag-hunting, that both for appearance and style I would 
 breed and draft a pack of staghounds to the standard of 
 two particular packs — the Blankney bitches at the time 
 Lord Lonsdale hunted them from Brigstock, the largest 
 of the Hursley bitches during Colonel Nicholls's Mastership, 
 say in the early seventies ; or, if we are to come nearer 
 to the present day, to the model and fashion of a lemon 
 pye strain which go straight back to Blankney blood, of 
 which there are now a few individuals in Mr. Butt-Miller's 
 kennels at Cricklade. Very likely it might be objected by 
 some that the Hursley bitches would, at the time I am 
 speaking of, have been on the small side for the heath 
 and the Queen's forest country, but I do not beheve a 
 word of it. For one thing, except in some of the lower 
 sweeps of the Chobham ridges, there is very little of 
 the high sinewy heather which the Devon and Somerset 
 have to contend with ; but, even if there were, they would 
 have streaked through it on a scent as if it were paper. 
 Besides, the Berkshire side of the Queen's country in 
 Davis's best time, say in the forties, was a much more 
 stubborn country than it is at present. There was more 
 heath, less reclamation, great fuel fences as close and 
 
132 5 TA G-HUNTIXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 thick as haystacks, and yet Bartlett his old feeder declares 
 that Davis's hounds were bred much smaller and finer 
 than ours of to-day, and yet ran quite as hard. 
 
 England's green pastures are grazed in security. 
 Thanks to the Saxon who spared us our flocks ; 
 
 He who, reserving the sport for futurity, 
 Sweeping the wolves away left us the fox ; 
 
 and the pastoral as against the woodland characteristics of 
 England have given us the foxhound and obliterated the 
 staghound. He is the result of the country he hunts in 
 and of the horses ridden to him, not of the animal he hunts. 
 M. de Ligniville declares in his book that the speed and 
 drive of the English hounds of his day were due to their 
 being ridden to by gentry mounted on barbs and Turks in 
 condition. 
 
 Put him where you will, at home or abroad, there is 
 nothing like the foxhound. At times — as, for example, when 
 he should be getting out of the way of a carriage — he 
 certainly seems to think very little for himself. At other 
 times — as, for instance, when in defiance of horn-blowing and 
 remonstrance he flies on a heel line like a pigeon — he seems 
 to think too much. But given the most untoward and 
 unfamiliar conditions of climate, diet, management and 
 huntsman, a foxhound will always have a try. Anywhere 
 and everywhere, although he may not always persevere, a 
 well-bred foxhound cannot help trying. 
 
 An illogical willingness to spend himself for the 
 smallest wages adapts him, moreover, particularly to stag- 
 hunting. Whyte Melville somewhere or other in one of his 
 pleasing and unpretentious excursions into ethics tells a 
 story of a foxhound which, as a puppy at walk, had once 
 caught a swallow with a broken wing. It ruined his 
 prospects in life. The prisoner of hope, ' cette eternelle 
 
THE STAC HOUND 133 
 
 esperance qui lueiit si bien qii'on la croit toiijours,' be ran 
 himself out cbasing swallows. 
 
 To a certain extent the Queen's Hounds have to bunt 
 their deer in the same spirit. It is true that Mr. Assbeton 
 Smith declared that blood was not a necessity to finely 
 bred bounds. He cited, in proof of this, a week of most 
 extraordinary sport to which his hounds once treated 
 him, after they had been out for nine days in succession 
 without blood. Besides, I quite admit that a bulky havier 
 and a sound swallow are not comparable pursuits. After 
 coursing him in view, Khetoric and Khapsody have the 
 constant satisfaction of running up to striking distance of 
 their old ally and baying respectful defiance at him. 
 Honours, so far, are quite easy. But now the deer and his 
 safety and comfort become everybody's business. Their 
 part in the transaction is only acknowledged by loud and 
 threatening rates of the whips, or, w^orse still, by the stinging 
 thong of some well-intentioned amateur saviour of venison 
 in distress. This must be galling and disagreeable. I 
 should have been sadly sorry — so would every member of my 
 field — to see a deer hurt by a hound. Yet I could not but 
 be a little sorry too sometimes for the hounds, and regret 
 the ungracious rebuffs which had to be administered to 
 these faithful subjects of the Queen. 
 
 The average stag-hunter no doubt admits that the 
 hounds are necessaries. He would not like not to find 
 them at the meet, and during the pursuit they are a sort of 
 legal tender that he is really having a day's hunting ; but 
 here his interest in them ceases, and I can quite understand 
 his point of view. Even fox-hunters settled down in hunt- 
 ing quarters to all the rigour of the game will notice fifty 
 things about horses, bits and bridles, boots and breeches, 
 habits and pretty faces, for one thing they w411 notice 
 about the hounds. In every hunt of course tbere are 
 
34 
 
 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 exceptions, who are understood to frequent the flags in the 
 dog-days, and who ask to he allowed to sample the young 
 entry at inconvenient times. But I am generaHsing, or 
 rather averaging. Besides, even these exceptions rely for 
 their reputation chiefly upon two or three couple of easily 
 recognised hounds. One season, years ago, I hunted a little 
 from Brackley, and a ruddy whole-coloured Grafton bitch 
 called Glory was in constant request. Someone was always 
 cheering or chiding her. I even knew her by sight myself. 
 On November 12, 187'2, the Queen's Hounds ran a deer 
 called Highlander from Uxbridge Common through Lord 
 Ebury's park, and took him after a fine run. Frank Goodall, 
 who then hunted them, enters in his journal : ' I shall 
 never forget poor old Garland cutting the herd of deer 
 asunder in Moor Park, and carrying the line across the park 
 all by herself ; it was, indeed, most beautiful.' I wonder 
 if anybody else, out of I dare say 100 or 150 persons, 
 except Lord Cork and the whips even noticed Garland's 
 distinguished services on this occasion. Fortunately there 
 is always a per contra in most human affairs, and although 
 it is the fashion to pity the Queen's Hounds for all kinds 
 of humiliating indignities to which they are subjected 
 by their followers, they enjoy some advantages which do 
 not fall to the lot of foxhounds. Indeed, most of the 
 stock accusations of unfair riding made against the Queen's 
 field are unjust and as apocryphal as travellers' tales. If 
 the turn-out is properly selected and the laying-on properly 
 managed — and a Httle foresight on the part of the Master 
 and hunt-servants should always be able to compass this — 
 the pack should get away all together, and thus, though 
 they may of course be over-ridden, individual hounds are 
 not liable to be cut off and carried off the line, as constantly 
 happens when only three or four couple get away with the 
 fox, when the field is eager, and the first fence away from the 
 
THE STAG HOUND 
 
 135 
 
 covert looks made to jump. In such cases, unless you suffer 
 from a huntsman who waits for his hounds to get together, the 
 body of the pack scattered about in the thriving hazels of a 
 big wood have to make up their leeway as best they can ; 
 they do not get the ' all start fair ' chance which staghounds 
 get. Besides, owing to the ill-hung, patched-up nature of 
 the gates in Buckinghamshire and Berkshire, and to the 
 good-natured character of most of the fences making it 
 easier to jump the fence rather than have to fumble and 
 perhaps get off to open the gate, the Queen's Hounds do 
 not get so much squeezed out at gateways as often happens 
 in strongly enclosed and well-gated fashionable countries, 
 when the huntsman, with any few hounds he can get 
 together at the moment, has gone on as quickly as he can 
 either to a holloa or at the best of that mocking spirit, 
 information. 
 
 A Master of hounds of my acquaintance, who hunts his 
 own pack in a wild and strong country, and who takes a lot 
 of catching if he gets away on anything like terms over what 
 William Goodall used to call the ' big old grasses,' writes to 
 me : ' My experience is that few who have their two horses 
 out for a day's hunting, a pair to drive them to covert, 
 and a hack to gallop home on, care about the hounds 
 which have given the day's sport, or observed the way in 
 which they hunted during the day, the way they drew for 
 their fox, the head they carried over the grass, the way they 
 stuck to it over the fallows, or the old hound which took it 
 down the road when the body of the pack was at fault, so 
 long as they were able to tire their horses, dirty their boots, 
 and have a good gallop over a negotiable country ' ; and he 
 goes on to say : ' I have been asked most pertinent questions 
 about hounds by people whom one would have thought were 
 the most unlikely to have interested themselves in such 
 matters, and I have picked up many a wrinkle from the 
 
136 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 criticism of a man who was riding the horse that had taken 
 the milk to the station, when most of us were still folded in 
 the arms of Morpheus. This, perhaps, is not very remark- 
 able, as the probability is the dairy farmer walks a puppy 
 and rides to hunt, whereas the other hunts to ride, and 
 has a garden and a gardener which dispense very readily 
 with the companionship of a foxhound puppy.' No doubt, 
 this is all absolutely true ; but, like most matters of fact, 
 it must be made the best of. The hound — as I shall have 
 occasion to say later on — is paranjount in France ; the 
 horse here. 
 
 But the over-riding, or rather the being ridden over con- 
 tingency, is one which largely determines the selection, the 
 career, and the future of a Queen's buckhound. Every now 
 and then Goodall notes in his diary how poor old this or 
 dear old that have got a little too close to some cut-me-down 
 captain, whose name he always contrives to get hold of. 
 Military rank is invariably given to the equestrian in these 
 semi-obituary notices. Possibly the neighbourhood of 
 -Addershot and Windsor, and the fact that unmanageable 
 horses seem to be an inseparable element in the society 
 of large garrison towns, account for this. But the question 
 of over-riding brings me to one or two of the more particular 
 reasons which justify my original and — setting aside harriers, 
 otterhounds, and beagles — self-evident proposition, that a 
 foxhound is now the only possible staghound. Nose is hardly 
 the first consideration with a stag-hunter. The scent of a 
 deer lies so high and sweet, that most days there is enough 
 scent to carry them all along with their sterns as straight as 
 tobacco pipes — as Mr, Tom Smith liked to see them— a 
 rare thing with foxhounds. Nor do the Queen's Hounds 
 profess, like the St. Huberts, to take a line along the bottom 
 of a stream, that is, under water, as tunefully as along 
 its soggy margin. A well-watered road is more likely to be 
 

THE STAG HO UNI) 137 
 
 the scene of any signal exploit in the neighbourhood of 
 Windsor. But still we have always had a Garland or two 
 about the place, and a thick-shouldered, throaty hound called 
 Cardigan twice gained a reprieve from transportation to 
 France by hitting off a cold line on the hard high road. It 
 is worth remarking here that such a lover of a good-looking 
 hound as the late Mr. Smith, who not only knew how to hunt 
 hounds but also how to draw a hound, rather agrees with the 
 French critics I shall refer to later on, who think that in 
 our rage for pace and shape we sacrificed nose. ' A throaty 
 hound,' says Mr. Smith, ' is now rarely seen in a pack, 
 although very common some years ago, when men thought 
 more of hunting than of riding ; but by getting rid of the 
 throat the nose has gone with it, for a throaty hound 
 has invariably a good nose ; and that hounds were so until 
 the end of the last century, nearly all sporting pictures of 
 hounds will prove.' This reminds me of a story told me 
 of George Carter, for many years huntsman of the Fitz- 
 william, and a famous hound-breeder. Hounds could 
 scarcely feel a line on some dusty fallows when a throaty 
 hound called Eemus opened with decision, and held the 
 line across the furrows. Carter cheered him to the echo. 
 ' Yooi Eemus, I'll give you a bitch for that ! ' 
 
 Speed and drive are the first things to think about in 
 a hound to hunt the carted deer. These are all-important. 
 It is true that draft as you may, and draft as I did for speed 
 and dash, every hound cannot go in front. In the nature of 
 things that is impossible. Even running at a strong head, 
 hounds make their little mistakes and suffer their little ill 
 fortunes which are constantly changing their order in the 
 pack. But in a pack of twelve couple^in my opinion the 
 right sort of number for stag-hunting with a large field of 
 horsemen — every hound should be fast enough to stay in 
 
138 STAG-HUNTIXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 front if he gets there, thanks to a good start or to some httle 
 accident in his favour. 
 
 A strong deer nearly always involves a certain period of 
 pursuit about which there are few pleasurable agitations. 
 
 The fastest are failing, the truest are tailing, 
 The Lord of the Valley is over tlie hill. 
 
 He always is, or seems to be. It is an idiosyncrasy of stag- 
 hunting, and these dull bits must be relieved by racing pace 
 contrasts. Everyone knows a particular sort of hound — he is 
 as ubiquitous a type as the pug-fox, ' who always will get him- 
 self headed somehow. The hound I am thinking of seems to 
 be always behind, though always galloping. Incessantly you 
 pass him, repass him, and yet overtake him again. Yes, there 
 he is again, staunchly pursuing, usually with his ears back. 
 He catches your eye each time out of the corner of his own 
 w^ith an amiable ' Here-we-are-again ' twinkle. Fox-hunting, 
 he may often have many fair — or at all events plausible — 
 excuses to offer, and we may be certain he would state them 
 admirably. Even stag-hunting he might have something to 
 say in his defence, and complain of the wagonettes and 
 lighter vehicles which keep up wonderfully well. But in stag- 
 hunting excuses cannot be accepted. The first year I had the 
 hounds, we had one or two of the sort. With a couple or two 
 more unprofitable servants they found their way to the boards 
 of a great London theatre — a box for the men being a part of 
 the consideration very properly insisted upon by Harvey — 
 and nightly enlivened the vicissitudes of a hunting party and 
 the echoes of an enchanted forest in a most lifelike manner. 
 I was told that the way they strained upon the leash 
 after some offal ingeniously displayed in the opposite wings, 
 Ijrought out in much admired relief the well-turned limbs 
 
 ' Our fox-hunting ancestors of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
 ilivided foxes into two classes— the greyhound and the pug. The pug was only 
 hunted if no greyhound was forthcoming. 
 
THE STAG HOUND 139 
 
 and proportions of two or three beauties becomingly attired 
 as yeomen prickers. 
 
 But, passing from their successes on tlie stage, drafts from 
 the Queen's pack distinguished themselves in many ways 
 during my time. Falkland (the hound I have already men- 
 tioned) was a weakish ill-coupled dog, but had the blood of 
 all the best kennels in his veins, and covered himself with 
 wounds and glory worthy of his namesake. 
 
 In thee alone, fair land of liberty, 
 Is bred the perfect hound, in scent and speed 
 As yet unrivalled, while in other climes 
 Their virtue fails — a weak, degenerate race. 
 
 Somerville is quite right, and it may here be pointed out that 
 only English blood answers w^ith boarhounds, and that a 
 pack of boarhounds must be constantly recruited from 
 England. It is admitted by French authorities, notably by 
 the late Due d'Aumale, who told me so himself, that even the 
 produce of English hounds mated in France will not do as 
 well, climate and conditions apparently having a detrimental 
 effect upon their fire and courage. A pied hound called 
 Woodman, which I drafted for rather lumpy shoulders and 
 a suspicious tendency to the kennel lameness once so dreaded 
 at Ascot, was sent by Harvey to Captain Peacocke, who 
 was at that time hunting his old country, the Isle of Wight, 
 and Captain Peacocke wrote to me afterwards that AVood- 
 man was invaluable on a road, although not distinguished 
 for drawing. And a bitch named Nellie, which was too 
 small for us, went to Prince Murat, and entered so well at 
 roedeer — a most difficult animal to hunt — that he told me 
 last year that he was breeding from her. 
 
 Up in my part of the world there is a celebrated pack of 
 blue-mottled harriers known to a wide circle of admirers 
 and friends as the Rossendale. They are ridden to by the 
 subscribers, but have always been hunted on foot by two 
 
I40 STAG-HUNTLYG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 men in scarlet coats, knee breeches and gaiters, and tall 
 beaver hats with gold bands. ' Hey ! stick, stick,' is the 
 only caution and encouragement they get, both in and out 
 of season. This is the converse to the stag-hunter's cheer. 
 With us ' Get away on, hanging about there ! ' is the counsel 
 of all perfection. It must not, however, be supposed that, 
 like Sir Walter Scott's hero, the rush and fury of the chase was 
 all we cared for at Ascot. Quite the contrary. Staghounds 
 should be able to race like Persimmon, but I would have them 
 hunt like what Mr. Smith calls ' ploughholders ' ; and with 
 this object in view I used to meet in the heather districts 
 oftener, I think, than some of my hard-riding field liked. 
 What I disliked of all things was a hound which bayed 
 at its fences ; in the early part of the season the young 
 entry were a little apt to do this. It is hereditary, I believe, 
 but I think it was often due to a sort of shyness and 
 bewilderment at the stampede which a Hawthorn Hill or 
 Wokingham field means, and if not the result of heredity they 
 often come right. How well I remember a bitch called 
 Nemesis, which was actually sentenced to transportation 
 to the boar-hunting baron aforesaid. I can see her now 
 hanging in a sort of cluster with another first-season hunter 
 whose name I have forgotten, on a little bank on Mr. 
 Auckland's farm. I stopped the impetuous ' William ' 
 almost in his take-off, and sacrificed my start to give myself 
 the satisfaction of helping them over, my opinion of the 
 delinquents not being improved by my catching the thong 
 of my whip round a powerful bramble. Meanwhile, there 
 they sat, eyeing me deferentially, but making little or no 
 effort to get over. However, Comins begged Nemesis off 
 on the score of her youth and noble collaterals, and she fully 
 justified his clemency and judgment. 
 
 Staghounds do not have to draw. Lord Henry Bentinck, 
 when he hunted the Burton country, used often on a gloomy 
 
THE STAG HOUND 141 
 
 December evening to throw his hounds into a big woodbind on 
 their way home after a long day's hunting. The hounds which 
 drew well were the hounds he bred from, for drawing under 
 these circumstances was his great criterion of stoutness. But 
 although the Queen's Hounds have not to draw, they must 
 be stout and tireless, for they are never vanned, and on the 
 ]3uckinghamshire sides, hounds go twenty miles to some of 
 the meets by road, and then have to hunt all day in hills 
 and flints and get home again. 
 
 In conclusion then : speed, dash, stoutness, and nose are 
 the four things to go for and insist upon in the modern 
 staghound. I know that I have not assigned the same im- 
 portance to nose in what I have said as to the other qualities 
 — perhaps I have not attached enough. But still, for 
 the ' sweet ' scented deer give me stoutness and speed first. 
 Since I wrote the earlier portion of this chapter, I have 
 come across some observations of Mr. Smith's, which are so 
 wise that they shall finish it up for me. After laying stress 
 upon the supreme importance of nose and stoutness, he 
 says : ' The two qualities often go together ; for it is the 
 stoutness which makes a hound willing to try to hunt and 
 make use of his nose, which a slack hound would not try 
 to do.' 
 
142 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 CHAPTEE VII 
 
 THE HAREOW COUNTRY 
 
 After years of life together, 
 After fair and stormy weather 
 
 Will it evermore be thus 
 Spirits still impervious 
 
 Are the bounds eternal set 
 To retain us — strangers yet ? 
 
 Ale, in the Harrow country, was Charles Davis's favourite 
 meet. How often, during my own Mastership, have I 
 been congratulated upon being the hunting suzerain of 
 those elysian fields ! Nor is this to be wondered at. Few 
 people fond of hunting can travel northwards by any of our 
 great railways without for a few moments thinking a little 
 less affectionately of their own country ; w^ithout con- 
 trasting its uninviting ploughs, its bleak moorlands or its 
 cramped enclosures with the smooth sea of emerald, and 
 the virgin enclosures which Harrow spire commands. 
 
 Alas ! the glory has departed. The Harrow country sur- 
 vives as a tradition. It has long ceased to be a fact in the 
 everyday life of the Eoyal pack. The hunt horses used to 
 go on to Uxbridge or Hillingdon the night before hunting, 
 but the stabling they occupied knows the welcome invaders 
 no more. Whyte Melville, I think, breaks Satanella's neck 
 and her rider's back in a newly drained pasture somewhere 
 out Pinner way. It would be a breach of the unities to do 
 so now. If the Queen's country is ever to be the scene of 
 
THE HARROW COUNTRY 143 
 
 the same sort of euthanasia, the iiovehst luust have recourse 
 to an oubhette in the heath or to a Buckinghamshire wattle. 
 I do not know the beginnings of our ending as regards 
 the Harrow country. Nominally, of course, the country is 
 still by way of being hunted over by the Queen's Hounds. 
 Even in my time the Middlesex farmers still received and 
 expected paddock tickets for Ascot races. But for many 
 years past there has existed an uncomfortable sort of judicial 
 separation tantamount to a divorce. Possibly at some time or 
 other there may have been some little unintentional neglect 
 of the diplomacy of hunting, upon which we hunting folk must 
 learn to rely in these days quite as much as upon the science 
 of our huntsmen or the good gifts of an open season. Possibly 
 the reduction in the £ s. d. allowances to the Master of the 
 Buckhounds during Lord Bessborough's Mastership, and the 
 consequent reduction in the number of hunting days from 
 three to two, may have had something to do with it. 
 But be all that as it may, it is certain the conditions 
 of this part of Middlesex can never have been favour- 
 able to the stability of hunting. Graced conspicuously 
 with all the most attractive features of a hunting country, 
 the corresponding mind and disposition have always been 
 lacking. There are not, and never have been, any large 
 estates with resident owners to help hunting. Much of the 
 land is owned by non-residents, and occupied by tenants 
 with no direct or personal interest in it. Nearness to a 
 great city gives every acre an accommodation value. Much of 
 the pasture is let for summer grazing to cattle-dealers. Hay 
 for the insatiable London market is the staple and most 
 remunerative industry. Lord Cork told me that when first 
 he hunted in the Harrow country he was struck by the 
 manure which had almost expropriated stock. In the 
 better times rents were run up to a very high figure. 
 Even in these days they have kept up. To pay them the 
 
144 STAG-HrxnXG RECOLLECTIOXS 
 
 nieadowland must be wound up to the highest pitch of 
 production by heavy manuring from the London mews 
 and dust-bins. These speciaHte conditions of agriculture 
 did not agree very well with the Queen's Hounds and their 
 following, and I am free to say that very rich permanent 
 nieadowland does suffer from a huge field of horsemen 
 in wet seasons. But it must be borne in mind that the 
 Queen's Hounds never, even in the palmiest days, hunted 
 the Harrow country — except for an odd day by arrangement 
 — after Christmas, and with a travelling deer probably did 
 less harm than a pack of foxhounds, or even harriers on a 
 twisty fox or catchy scent. 
 
 All about Harrow the grass has always been a sensi- 
 tive plant. One of the favourite amusements in the 
 Easter term when I first went to Harrow was going out 
 jumping on a half-holiday. It was never a general practice, 
 but a certain set were much addicted to it. A great friend 
 of mine at Harrow, ' Budge ' Arnold — a son of Mr. Matthew 
 Arnold's — was a great organiser of these parties of six to eight 
 boys. You jumped, as yon hunt in France, by invitation. 
 The success of the party depended to some extent upon a 
 sort of jumping jester, who was expected to do something 
 amusing, or which we thought amusing. As far as I 
 recollect, this usually took the form of jumping into a muddy 
 pond. It sounds a simple and not very exhilarating 
 pleasantry, but, like many other things, all depended on how 
 it was done. I have seen it quite fail in its object, and in 
 that case the drenched and shivering jester was called an 
 ass. The crack jester in my time was Elliot Xeeld, in 
 Butler's house. He always came off. 
 
 The jumping parties were capital exercise, and gave us 
 a famous appetite for muffins and hare soup of a most noble 
 liver-chestnut colour at Winkley's. I have never met with 
 hare soup of that exact colour or consistency since. As 
 
THE HARROW COUNTRY 
 
 145 
 
 somebody may always be trusted to say at a shootin^'-party 
 luncheon, it was not the worst part of the day. The nearest 
 I ever get to it is in the commercial room of a country inn : 
 a good place to make for, both for fare and company. 
 Exclusive, no doubt, but we can all travel in small courtesies. 
 But there was a hazardous as well as a gay side to a 
 jumping party. There was always the chance of being 
 chivied, caught, and haled before some rural Jeffreys by the 
 angry occupiers of the soil. Embalmed in the oral history 
 of the school were noble legends of stand-up fights and 
 desperate melees, in which brave Harrow boys of the past 
 had successfully engaged a savage but courageous peasantry. 
 In my time no one was ever caught, and there were no fights 
 or melees of this Homeric kind, but I remember Arnold ' and 
 myself being chased. The farmer's men, encouraged by their 
 employer's curses and liberal promises of beer, until he was 
 beaten off by want of condition, ran well over a fine line of 
 country on the Pinner side, and the palisade of the Phil- 
 athletic field, which was our point, is not the sort of obstacle 
 you can take in your stride. However, we shinned over it 
 somehow by a short head, and they did not follow us into 
 the school territories. The episode lost nothing in the telling 
 at ' Four Bill.' I recall these reminiscences in evidence of 
 an almost morbid consciousness of the preciousness of grass 
 which animated the occupiers of land all about Harrow as 
 far back as 1868-9. 
 
 Lord Cork became Master of the Buckhounds for the 
 first time in 1866. But long before that the Harrow country 
 was a sort of hunting Eastern Question. For several years 
 prior to 1866 his predecessors had been discouraged, if not 
 actually prevented, from taking the hounds into the best of 
 
 ' To ray sorrow, Arnold died the following year, in the middle of the term, 
 quite suddenly, and after a few days' illness. I missed him very much. For a 
 long time we had inhabited the same forms ; our progress up the school being 
 very temperate. 
 
 L 
 
[46 
 
 S TA G-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 it. In theory the Queen's Hounds hunted it ; in practice, 
 however, it was in an uncomfortable way. No one knew 
 what he was writing about better than the late Mr. Higgins, 
 and nothing could be better or more amusingly done than his 
 account of a day with the Queen's Hounds written early in 
 the forties, and during Lord Rosslyn's Mastership. I must 
 not spoil it by a paraphrase. The road which Mr. Higgins 
 (a fine horseman) would have us believe he has been sticking 
 
 The Country Fak and Wide is up in Arms against us 
 
 to, no longer serves : ' In a fit of frenzy we deviate into a 
 green lane; becoming still more excited we open a gate 
 into a field, and adventure upon a cart track. The track 
 ends in a heap of manure ; we desperately crawl through 
 a weak place in a fence, and, our blood being up, jump 
 a couple of rotten hurdles ; and then we are entangled in 
 the heart of the Harrow country. The deer and hounds 
 may be gone to York for all we know or care ; for on collect- 
 ing our scattered senses we find that we have objects of major 
 
THE HARROW COUNTRY 147 
 
 import to attend to. We are in the enemy's camp ; the 
 country far and wide is up in arms against us. No man will 
 tell us the way to the nearest road ; insidious clods only 
 pretend to open gates, that they may get a grab at our reins 
 as we pass through ; and others, infuriated, flourish pitchforks 
 in gaps and accost us in terms " peu flatteurs." We bestir 
 ourselves like men, to extricate ourselves from the unhand- 
 some fix, and ride as we never rode before or intend to ride 
 again. Some get falls, and are led away into captivity by 
 the lords of the soil ; but the survivors, of whom I have the 
 fortune to be one, after escapes of a perfectly Afghan charac- 
 ter, manage to gain the high road from Uxbridge to London, 
 when they hail the seventh milestone with joy, not, I trust, 
 unmixed with gratitude.' ' 
 
 This little instantaneous photograph may also be interest- 
 ing, even at this distance of time, as signalling the ' lucida 
 sidera ' of those days : ' King sticks to them ; about five or 
 six other men do likewise. On the left, Dicky Yj^se, Beau- 
 champ Proctor, and Billy Baillie of the Blues lie well along- 
 side the leading hounds. Stout Makepeace follows gallantly 
 in their wake, as well as his weight will permit. On the 
 right, Davis glides smoothly along, whilst Jem Mason and 
 Allan Macdonough are racing with one another, looking out 
 eagerly for the big places to jump.' 
 
 During Lord Cork's short tenure of ofiice in 1866 — he 
 was only in a month or two — hints were freely given him 
 that the difficulties were not insuperable, and that if the 
 tenant farmers were properly approached their objections could 
 be got over. This was actually effected by Lord Colville's 
 tact and urbanity, the best of all sesames for locked gates. 
 This is what Lord Colville writes to me about it himself : 
 ' I cannot tell you under what circumstances the Queen's 
 Hounds were banished from the Harrow country. But one 
 
 ' Wild Sports of Middlesex. 
 
148 
 
 5 TA G-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 day during my first season, Harry King — tlutlien huntsman, 
 and who had recently succeeded Charles Davis— said that 
 a gentleman from the Harrow country wished to speak 
 to me : it was, I think, Mr. Bherborn. He [Mr. Sherborn] 
 
 Hai!KY King, Huntsman to thk Queen's Hounds, July 1866 
 TO December 1871 
 
 said he thought there was a feeling among the farmers that, 
 under certain conditions, I might take the hounds back there. 
 Some time later he told me that the farmers and owners 
 consented. We might have a day or. two in the Harrow 
 
THE HARROW COUNTRY 149 
 
 country, but the hounds were not to go there if the ground 
 was wet. The first run we had over the Harrow country 
 was on December 23, 1867. We met at Denham Court, and 
 had an excellent gallop over the grass, an hour and twenty 
 minutes, and took at Willesden. I well remember how well 
 poor Harry King rode to his hounds, over a stiff country 
 which had not been hunted over for nine years, and where 
 gaps were scarce. 
 
 ' On March 2, 1868, we had a meet at Denham Court. It 
 was late in the season, but the country was dry. The Prince 
 of Wales was out, and we had a remarkable run. From 
 Denham Court we ran past Pinner to the foot of Harrow 
 Hill. The deer went right up to the top of the hill, I believe, 
 passed through the churchyard, and down the other side of 
 the hill into what are called " Duckpuddle Fields," and 
 thence to Wormwood Scrubbs, where I well remember see- 
 ing the Due de Chartres, his horse bogged, with a wire fence 
 twisted round his legs. We took the deer at Paddington 
 Goods Station, and accompanied the Prince of Wales to 
 Marlborough House, riding through Hyde Park and down 
 Constitution Hill in hunting dress.' 
 
 Lord Cork came back to the Buckhounds in January 
 1869. As the Harrow country was always forbidden fruit 
 after Christmas, it was not until the autumn of the same 
 year that Lord Cork w^as able to form an opinion of its 
 boasted merits from personal experience. He and Frank 
 Goodall had some capital fun over it, as the following 
 letters from Lord Cork, and a few extracts from Goodall's 
 well-kept journal, which he most kindly placed at mj' dis- 
 posal, will show. They have the value of being the testi- 
 monies and experiences of riding men in a riding country. 
 Goodall was quite undefeated over the biggest country in 
 England. When huntsman to Mr. Tailby he held the 
 position, in the estimation of those most competent to form 
 
ISO 
 
 ^" TA G-Hl ^NTIXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 an opinion in his day, equivalent to that held by Firr now. 
 His style of riding compared favourably with that of Charles 
 Davis and Jem Mason in their best days. He rode over a 
 country with the same ease which characterised those two 
 fine horsemen. The flying fences, the jumping from grass 
 
 u 
 
 
 ■■^M^ 
 
 La^T!'"' i%i ,... -sr-l 
 
 ^^^^ 
 
 — ^^^ 
 
 Frank Goodall on Crusader. Huntsman to the Queen's Hounds, 
 April 1872 to May 1888 
 
 to grass, the fair take-off of the Harrow country, were 
 entirely to his mind when he was riding Cardinal or Crusader, 
 and showing the field how the thing should be done. He 
 never really took to the sticky bank and ditch business, but 
 enjoyed some fine runs over it.' 
 
 ' Goodall writes to me from Lyndale, Southall, where he is now living : — 
 
 In reply to your letter, I have much pleasure in giving you my opinion of 
 
 the country hunted by the Queen's Staghounds, and may add that I consider 
 
 you have paid me a great compliment in asking for it. Tlie Harrow country 
 
 I liked exceedingly, and it reminded me very much of Leicestershire. It 
 
THE HARROW COUNTRY 151 
 
 Now for Lord Cork ; in Goodall's journal there are con- 
 stant references to his riding. He is always there to keep 
 the field in order, help to take a deer, and to show them 
 how to ride in any and every sort of country. So his 
 opinion of the Harrow Vale is worth having. 
 
 ' A good many short and some long runs,' he writes me, 
 ' soon convinced me that on a good horse, and with one's heart 
 in the right place, there were few greater enjoyments than a 
 turn-out at Bull's Farm, at Down Barn, at North Holt, and at 
 Wiltshire's Farm, near Hayes, or a take near Harrow or 
 Pinner. During 1869 the 9th Lancers were quartered at 
 Hounslow, and a cheery hard-riding lot they were. Headed 
 by Lord Bill Beresford, they were ahvays to the front over 
 both the Bracknell and Harrow country, and — may I be 
 forgiven for saying it — sometimes nearer the stag than the 
 hounds. 
 
 ' I remember well a run at the end of December, when, in 
 consequence of King's illness, I had to hunt the hounds my- 
 self, a difficult task at any time, particularly when personally 
 the hounds know little about one. The meet was at 
 Uxbridge Common, the field large, consisting of some of the 
 hardest riders from London and adjoining neighbourhood, and 
 my 9th Lancers. My friend, Mr. F. Cox, in his day one of 
 the finest horsemen in England, and still with a seat w^hich 
 
 was nearly all grass, with flying fences, plenty of water to get over, but less 
 room between the fences than Leicestershire. To negotiate this country a 
 horse must not only be able to jump, but both race and stay — the only draw- 
 back to this country being that there was not enough of it, and the meets were 
 long distances from the kennels, the nearest being Hayes, sixteen miles away. 
 My favourite horses for this country were ' Cardinal,' chestnut, very plain look- 
 ing, but good ; ' Norman,' a chestnut purchased by Lord Hardwicke, whom I rode 
 for ten seasons, and who only gave me one fall, which I may say was a very 
 bad one, and laid me up for the rest of the season. ' Crusader,' a grey horse 
 purchased by Lord Cork, was a very great favourite of mine, and I think the 
 best I ever rode during my long hunting career. He was a big upstanding 
 horse, standing 1G.2, full of quality, no fence too big, no water too wide, and 
 no day too long. 
 
152 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 many younger riders might well have imitated, was there as 
 usual to welcome the pack with which he had hunted all his 
 life, and to give his kindly and most useful advice to the 
 master. The deer on being turned out went straight away 
 in the Windmill Hill near Ruislip, then over some large 
 fields rather deep in places, the fences being strong but 
 mostly negotiable, in the direction of Pinner, crossing the 
 London and North-Western Eailway between Pinner and 
 Harrow stations. Here, to the best of my recollection, we 
 had our first check ; distance, about seven miles. The deer 
 appeared to have been headed soon after crossing the line, 
 and to have amused itself in running up and down some of 
 the high fences. The hounds after some little delay, having 
 caught sight of him, the deer again put his head straight across 
 the vale, leaving the hospitable roof of Mr. Brown at Hinton 
 on the right, under the Midland Railway between Edgware 
 and Mill Hill stations. Up High Wood Hill (a good pull up 
 with a tired horse) by Totteridge Park to Chipping Barnet, 
 where he went into a pond and was quickly captured. 
 
 ' At this distance of time, twenty-five years, I cannot well 
 recollect the names of those who went through the run, but 
 I know they were very few. Shirley of Twickenham, who 
 possessed, after Jem Mason,' perhaps, the finest hands in 
 England, and was a good all-round sportsman, was certainly 
 there. As I often told him, he was a bad man to follow, as 
 whatever the fence might be, he never hustled his horse nor 
 seemed to increase his pace, which on this occasion I found 
 out to my discomfiture, as at the last fence but one he 
 brought me down in consequence of this wonderful art, over 
 a brook with a cut-away bank on the landing side. Fortu- 
 
 ' A story is told of Jem Mason riding the line of hounds over a stake and 
 bound country without a mistake when the ditches were full of snow, and in 
 many cases on the take-ofif side, the take-off itself thus being a matter of guess- 
 work. This is a dazzling illustration of 'hands ' and of what can be done. 
 
'y- 
 
 \/^j/a^^ 
 
THE HARROW COUNTRY 153 
 
 nately the ditch was not deep. I was soon mounted again, 
 and I think followed Shirley in a good second. Messrs. 
 Talbot, Walter Colson, Sanders, and the whips soon followed 
 close up. Distance from London and North- Western Eail- 
 way, about eight miles; total, about fifteen miles. 
 
 ' Another good run, the date of which I cannot remember, 
 was from the back of Wiltshire's Farm, near Hayes. The 
 first stag having proved a failure, and preferring the brick- 
 yards to giving a run, I ordered Goodall to take the animal 
 as soon as possible. In the meanwhile I galloped back to 
 where I had left the deer-cart, and ordering the driver to 
 come on as quickly as possible, took it into a field with a 
 brook for the first fence. The deer thus uncarted in the 
 presence only of myself, had plenty of time to look about him 
 and start off at his own pace. This it certainly did, for when 
 Goodall and the field came back nearly fifteen minutes had 
 elapsed. Yet on my telling Goodall to lay on the hounds, they 
 seemed to fly. I don't think I ever saw hounds run faster. 
 We all had to ride pretty hard to keep with them. Those 
 who hesitated were soon out of it. The line taken was over 
 West Hill Farm and straight up to Harrow School. There 
 we had rather a long check, the deer dodging about the 
 lanes. Goodall at last viewed the deer crossing the school 
 cricket-ground. He put on the hounds. The scent seemed as 
 good as in the morning, for the hounds again left us rising 
 the hill to where Kingsbury Eaces used to take place. It 
 was as much as the few who still remained could do to 
 keep them in sight. Turning to the right of Kingsbury by 
 Neasden to Willesden, the deer was eventually taken at 
 Brondesbury in a yard belonging to the late Mr. Sheward, 
 of Green Street. I consider this the best run I had with 
 the hounds.' 
 
 Goodall's accounts of runs and incidents speak best for 
 themselves. Of the excellence of a day when a hind named 
 
154 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Miss Headington gave them a very capital run, he says : ' This 
 day I consider a most extraordinary good one. Out of a field of 
 400, thirty-eight showed their faces at the finish, including 
 the noble master [Lord Hardwicke] on his good horse, White 
 Boy, who carried him from start to finish in the front.' And 
 he adds : ' My horse Cardinal carried me well, although he 
 began to go at last very, very politely.' Goodall had ridden 
 one horse all through. They left off thirty-two miles from 
 kennels.' ' il/«rcA 22, 1875. — Meet— Denham Court. Un- 
 carted in a field close to the fisheries, and had a most capital 
 two hours and forty minutes, and took at Bushey, near Wat- 
 ford. I got a regular ducking riding over a wooden bridge '^ 
 at Hamper Hill. My horse Eosslyn slipped on one side and 
 came upon his back on the top of me, and in the struggle 
 my spur got caught in the stirrup, and he dragged me down 
 the brook for fifty yards, and luckily my spur leather broke 
 and let me at large. Although I felt very much shaken I 
 went on and did my duty, and rode home twenty-four miles 
 in wet clothes.' He enters under date November 27, 1877 : 
 ' The Prince Imperial was out to-day ; he rode my favourite 
 mare, Countess, and I fed the hounds and left them at Lord 
 Salisbury's, at Hatfield, for the night. I came home by train, 
 
 ' The deer was taken three fields from Scratchwood. This was a celebrated 
 fox-cover in the old Berkeley country in the beginning of the century. Lord 
 Berkeley found a fox in Scratchwood and killed him in Kensington Gardens. 
 Lord Berkeley's country extended from Scratchwood to Thornbury, in Glouces- 
 tershire, and he had a kennel at Gerrard's Cross, where the Queen's Hounds so 
 often meet, as well as at four or live other places. ' The tawny coats ' hunted 
 over 120 miles of country, and at one time thirty hunt horses were located in 
 the village of Charing, now Charing Cross. 
 . -' The same thing happened to me some years ago with the Queen's Hounds. 
 Lord Suffield, at that time Master, had mounted me. He led his horse, The 
 Dunce, across. I stupidly thought I could ride across it. There was a little 
 rail about two feet high at the far end, and when my horse — a very free but most 
 intelligent animal by Bass Bock— saw The Dunce arch over, he began to trot. 
 I shall never forget the disagreeable sensation of going off the planking. I was 
 hardly hurt, and we got out the right side without the loss of a moment, but 
 rather wet. 
 
THE HARROW COUNTRY 155 
 
 wet through to the skin.' This day thoy met at the ' Kose 
 and Crown ' inn, Harrow Weald, and ran through Cannons 
 Park. Londoners may Hke to know, or doubtless do know, 
 that the two inspiring stone-fagaded houses on the north side 
 of Cavendish Square were built from designs for the lodges of 
 Cannons, built in the early years of the last century by the 
 Duke of Chandos, the supposed ' Timon ' of Pope's ' Essay 
 on False Taste.' 
 
 I spoke just now of the services rendered to the Queen's 
 field for many years past by the Great Western Railway. 
 'Hunting,' I remember Baron Ferdinand de Eothschild 
 saying to me some years ago, in days when, if hounds really 
 ran over a gentlemanlike country, he would go like a swallow, 
 ' is a charming amusement, but a detestable occupation.' At 
 the risk of a charge of heresy and schism I entirely agree. 
 But if this be true of fox-hunting, it is trebly true of 
 stag-hunting. Stag-hunting is essentially the professional 
 or busy man's playground. The stag-hunter should have 
 other occupations or interests sufficient to make his day 
 with the stag a treat and the loss of it a disappointment. 
 For this reason London is the best, and indeed the only, 
 place to hunt the stag from. In ' The Noble Science ' 
 Mr. Delme Eadcliffe investigated the effect which railways 
 would be likely to have upon the breed of horses and upon fox- 
 hunting. He predicts that they will become ' the most oppres- 
 sive monopoly ever inflicted on a free country.' The most 
 narrow-spirited, he declares, will agree to this. And this is 
 his conclusion of the whole matter : * When we consider the 
 magnitude of the convulsion which this mighty railroad 
 delusion will effect, the fearful extent of its operations, the 
 thousands of human beings thrown out of employ, the 
 incalculable diminution in the number of horses and conse- 
 quent deficiency in demand, we cannot but wonder at the 
 blindness which has countenanced the growth of a monster 
 
156 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 which will rend the vitals of those by whom it has been 
 fostered.' These prophecies need no comments. It may, 
 however, be worth remarking that many fashionable hunting 
 countries are finding it necessary to protect themselves by 
 stringent and scaled regulations as to subscriptions, because 
 of the immense expansion of hunting which train services 
 organised ad hoc mean. 
 
 A short time ago the * Field ' newspaper took exception 
 to the ratcatcher costume of the Queen's field, and it must 
 be admitted that an intelligent foreigner, captivated, we will 
 say, by Sir F. Grant's picture of Ascot Heath and its patri- 
 cians, who hires a horse for a day with Lord Coventry, would 
 be aesthetically disappointed. We can no longer boast of a 
 d'Orsay, a Brummell, a Beaufort or an Alvanley. Black- 
 ing is no longer made of port wine and red currant jelly, or 
 boot-top liquid of champagne and apricot jam. We feel the 
 levelling tendency of the democratic tailor. 
 
 The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Connaught always 
 wear scarlet out with the Queen's, and approve of the strictest 
 tenue. Of course it is the counsel of perfection. But it 
 must be remembered that the Queen's field has changed 
 very much in the last thirty or forty years. The loss of 
 the grass country, and the excellent sport shown by 
 Baron Rothschild — a pack like the Queen's without the 
 bondage of a subscription — over a fine country, essentially a 
 riding country, and in many ways a stag-hunting country, 
 have seduced the richer London contingent from Slough 
 and Uxbridge to Leighton Buzzard. The field is now 
 chiefly local and resident. Day in, day out, ten to twelve 
 would now be a high average of horses boxed from Padding- 
 ton, and comparatively few are kept at livery either at 
 Slough, or Windsor, or Ascot. As a matter of fact most 
 of the regular London gentlemen who hunt with the Queen's 
 Hounds have stuck to the traditions of the past and to scarlet. 
 
THE HARROW COUNTRY 157 
 
 I hear that the doyen of the hunt, Mr. Bowen May, ordered 
 a new red coat this very season, and it is the large and ever-in- 
 creasing local field who are responsible for the relaxation in the 
 morals of hunting dress. Far be it from me to speak lightly 
 of these high things, but it may be pointed out that the large 
 majority of those who hunt with the Queen's are not hunting 
 in a large way: probably, if the staghounds were abolished, 
 they would give it up altogether, and get their exercise from 
 golf or cycling. I dare say a great many of them are not 
 very rich, and are not in a position to undertake the serious 
 responsibilities of leathers and top-boots, which in many 
 ways mean a considerable tax upon the resources of a small 
 establishment. De rigueur hunting dress must be very 
 well done or not done at all. Some excellent servants never 
 learn to do leathers properly. It is at once an art and a 
 craft. Tops, too, want an eye for colour. 
 
 I am a stickler for the tall hat. It looks the best, and 
 in every way is the best for riding of all kinds, which 
 includes falling. A tall hat gives a little finish to horse- 
 manship w^hich the wideawake can never hope to achieve. 
 But given the tall hat, properly put on box-cloth breeches 
 and well-cleaned butcher boots look a great deal better than 
 the buckskins and tops of the single-handed or the parlour 
 maid. My old friend, Mr. John Tubb, whose instinct in all 
 these matters was unerring, always admitted a strong prepos- 
 session in favour of what he styled ' a man dressed serious.' 
 
158 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 CHAPTEK VIII 
 
 THE FOREST 
 
 Laudabunt alii claram Ehodnn, aut Mitylenen, 
 Aut Epheson — 
 
 or Wokingham or Gerrard's Cross, but every Tuesday and 
 Friday in October the Queen's Hounds meet on Ascot Heath 
 at ten o'clock — not the Ascot Heath of Sir F. Grant's well- 
 known picture, but on the grass immediately in front of 
 the Koyal Hotel. A brass band discourses here during the 
 race week, but the hounds and hunt-servants look much 
 nicer there than the band-stand. The field is small, uncon- 
 ventionally dressed, and uncertainly mounted. The hunt- 
 servants wear their oldest coats, and, in my time at all 
 events, did not ride their most precious horses. 
 
 The deer cart is sent either to Red Lodge, Gravel Hill, 
 or South Hill Gate, which are within a couple of miles of 
 Ascot. The First Whip rides on to uncart, and, after giving 
 him (the Whip) a few minutes' law, hounds move off and 
 are laid on in the usual way. Unless we were fortunate 
 enough to have harboured an outlying deer, this accurately 
 describes the routine prehminaries of a day's forest hunting. 
 
 Anybody who has hunted with many different packs of 
 hounds must have observed that every hunt enjoys some 
 native characteristic of its own which the stranger is invited 
 to notice. There will always be something or other which 
 the country claims as a more or less satisfactory distinction. 
 
THE FOREST 159 
 
 These distinctions are often anything but reassuring : such, 
 for instance, as drains — which, if you get into them, involve a 
 stay for hours, and a sovereign to pay for a team of cart-horses 
 — menacing stone-faced banks, or impervious doubles. On 
 the other hand, you may be congratulated upon the first 
 draw being in the centre of ' our vale,' or on the sporting 
 indifference of the farmers about seeds and roots. 
 
 The forest and the forest hunting claim and deserve 
 special consideration. To my mind, the forest is not enough 
 appreciated by the gallants who ride to the Queen's Hounds. 
 They think it dull. Some little time ago an article in the 
 * Spectator ' declared that the ideal of modern hunting is 
 ' to ride hard and straight,' and even w^ent so far as to 
 represent an accident as its pleasurable objective. What 
 would Sir Eoger de Coverley and the stone-grey horse 
 have said to this ? I shall admit over and over again in the 
 course of these pages that staghounds are things to ride 
 to. Agreed and agreed, that, tried by the aesthetic canons 
 of a riding country, it is better fun to set a nice horse going 
 after a Keading-bound deer from Hawthorn Hill than 
 through the fir-trees and Spanish chestnuts of Swinley ; 
 but, still, much of the wide landscape stretching away 
 from Ascot to Winchfield and Farnham and Guildford and 
 Woking possesses a chief essential of any hunting country, 
 and the very first essential of a carted-deer country — w^ild- 
 ness. I do not mean to say that all this country is forest. 
 A low margin of cultivation, the course of a stream, a kinder 
 soil, have here and there invited enclosures and tillage, a 
 farmhouse or two, and a few cottages. But this makes a 
 little change. It is true that the sour grassland is boggy, that 
 the banks are rotten, and that there is a good deal of untidy 
 trailing wire. But you squelch and scramble on in the 
 hope, which always animates the cross-country rider, of 
 soon getting into a nicer bit of country. 
 
i6o STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Thus the forest and the heather make up for much 
 which the encroachments of population have taken from the 
 wide provinces over which Charles Davis hunted the Queen's 
 Hounds thirty years ago. You cannot quite get rid of the 
 deer cart, nor of the mysterious attraction this ' very pulse 
 of the machine ' has for a considerable public on wheels 
 and on foot. Three large colleges, Mr. Waterer's extensive 
 nurseries, and the Gordon Boys' Home are disenchanting 
 occurrences ; and I remember a humiliating pursuit in the 
 grounds of the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, owing 
 to our civilian horses not liking the look of the abattis and 
 inundations, revetments and trous-de-loup which train our 
 youth to arms. But you can still ride for miles in certain 
 directions without meeting a soul or seeing a house. No cattle, 
 no sheep, only sand and heather, birch and fir, and sweeps 
 of yellow bog-grass. Eed brick, tarred palisades, and resi- 
 dential amenity stop short at the Bracknell and Bagshot road. 
 
 I never dared to turn out on the sly, and, as it were, draw 
 through the forest until we hit the line.^ It would have 
 disappointed so many people, and after all would only have 
 been a distinction and not a difference. Besides, in the 
 forest, at all events five minutes after hounds are laid 
 on, given a little luck and a little imagination, you are 
 hunting a wild animal in a country as wild as Uam Var. 
 
 No one knew this country I have outhned better than 
 Charles Kingsley. He has described it in a way I can never 
 hope to arrive at. The thrill of hunting things was in his 
 blood. AVhen I was a little boy, I was at a famous private 
 school at Winchester, kept by the Rev. C. A. Johns. Mr. 
 
 ' This is undoubtedly the right and ideal way to manage the uncarting. 
 Davis, I am told, always uncarted quite away from the crowd, and only put a 
 couple of old hounds on to keep the deer moving, thus saving him (the deer) 
 from being mobbed and bewildered and letting him get his bearings and make 
 his point. But in these days it would be very unpopular and almost impossible 
 to carry into effect. 
 
THE FOREST i6i 
 
 Kingsley, as he was then, and Mr. Johns were old friends 
 and brother natiiraHsts. I remember, one July afternoon, 
 Mr. Kingsley taking our class in Xenophon. We felt 
 flattered, but nervous. In the first three or four sentences 
 we came to r]v Se /ie'ya? TrapdSsia-os. He forgot all about the 
 rest of the lesson, and went off into a ringing description of 
 hunting cheetahs and Persian greyhounds, and bustard and 
 florican, and antelope. And then, having made us see the 
 irapdhsKTos, he told us about the Chase at Bramshill, and its 
 Scotch and silver firs, and the bishop who shot the forester 
 by mistake and built the almshouses at Guildford to his 
 memory. 
 
 One of the happiest days of the year at that happy school 
 was Avhen we all went down to Lyndhurst to hunt white 
 admirals and fritillaries. Twice, I think, Mr. Kingsley came 
 with us. I can see him now, with his trousers turned up high 
 over famous lace-boots and a butterfly-net and collecting- 
 box, coursing a purple hair-streak over an intricate country, 
 in the hope of catching it before it spired — which is the 
 way of purple hair-streaks — into the high oak-tops. But 
 I remember something better than that. I can hear him 
 viewing away a fox we put out of a snug patch of whitethorn . 
 His scream was as ' remarkable and susceptible ' as Jack 
 Eaven's. 
 
 At three-and-twenty, Kingsley tells us, his brains were 
 full of bison and grizzly bear, mustang, bighorn, and ad- 
 venture ; but, fortunately for us, these things were not 
 for him. Had it been otherwise, ' Westward Ho ! ' and 
 ' Hypatia ' might never have been written. His lines fell 
 in quiet places, amongst quiet people. Eversley is close to 
 Bramshill, on the skirts of the Hampshire moorlands. It 
 is not in the forest proper, which, I suppose, is confined to 
 Windsor and Swinley Forests ; but the country round 
 Eversley and Bramshill is still rougher and wilder. The 
 
i62 STAG-HUNriNG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Queen's Hounds ran over it several times in my day. I 
 remember one particular day hunting a deer on a cold but 
 fairly holding scent across Hartford Bridge flats. As they 
 hunted like beagles, and chanted their Gregorian, and now 
 and again spread like a sky-rocket, the men and I — to use a 
 "West Riding expression — were ' rarely suited.' One season 
 we had an outlying hind about Bramshill ; we never caught 
 her, but she came back of her own accord one day to the 
 Paddocks, and in at the Paddock gate, which Groves, the 
 deer-keeper, propped open for her. She was so difficult to 
 harbour that we called her Hide-and-Seek. Like an en- 
 chanted deer in a German fairy tale, she seemed to know 
 what we were about. Once she had been harboured in a 
 small wood below Bramshill House for several days, and 
 used to go out and feed every night on some turnips. The 
 very day the Queen's Hounds met at Bramshill to try to catch 
 her, they seemed to hit a line on their way to the meet over 
 Hartford Bridge Flats. Of course, we never found Hide- 
 and-Seek, and the very same afternoon she was seen hanging 
 about Swinley Paddocks. As far as I remember, she again 
 worked her way back to Bramshill, and eventually came 
 home to her friends and the old beans and clover hay at 
 Swinley. 
 
 When ' Ximrod ' made his tour of inspection of the reput- 
 able hunts of his day, he dismissed Sir John Cope's country, 
 as it was then, in a very cursory way. My boy was at 
 a capital school just against Eversley Green, under Brams- 
 hill, and I remember his saying in a rather homesick letter, 
 ' The fir-trees are very dismal.' ' Nimrod ' was of the same 
 opinion. ' It [Sir John Cope's country] partakes,' he says, 
 ' of a sort of Cimmerian darkness in November,' and he 
 warns the hunting aristocracy, whose society he affected, 
 against its clays and sands, bogs and heath, immense fuel 
 hedges, deep, blind ditches, and bad foxes. 
 
THE FOREST 163 
 
 But Mr. Kingsley never tired of the firs and their ' saw- 
 edge ' against the red sunsets, and all their belongings and 
 incidents. 
 
 Mr. Garth in his scarlet and Mr. Cordery in his green 
 coat were ever welcome sights, the hounds and hunt- 
 servants his chosen brethren and companions. And so one 
 afternoon, he tells us how, after visiting his sick people, he 
 rides the old mare away through the fir woods, under the 
 dome of buff and grey cloud, and comes right across Mr. 
 Garth's hunted fox. Shall he halloa as he did in the New 
 Forest ? It is needless. Louder and louder, nearer and 
 nearer, swells up the chorus music of hounds running in 
 woodland. 
 
 Perhaps he may have written the ' Ode to the North- 
 East Wind ' when he got home that day. 
 
 Through the black fir forest 
 
 Thunder harsh and dry, 
 Shattering down the snowfiakes 
 
 Off the curdled sky. 
 Hark the brave north-easter! 
 
 Breast-high lies the scent, 
 On by holt and headland, 
 
 Over heath and bent. 
 Chime, ye dappled darlings. 
 
 Through the sleet and snow, 
 Who can override you ? 
 
 Let the horses go ! 
 Chime, ye dappled darlings, 
 
 Down the roaring blast. 
 You shall see a fox die 
 
 Ere an hour be past. 
 Go ! and rest to-morrow, 
 
 Hunting in your dreams. 
 While our skates are ringing 
 
 O'er the frozen streams. 
 
 Somerville never wrote anything like that. There you 
 have the life and character of the well-bred foxhound in 
 verse. 
 
 This is what he says of the foxhound in prose : ' The old 
 
i64 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 savage ideal of beauty was the lion, type of mere massive 
 force. That was succeeded by an over-civilised ideal — say 
 the fawn — type of delicate grace. By cunning breeding and 
 choosing, through long centuries, man has combined both, 
 and has created the fox-hound, lion and fawn in one ; just 
 as he might create noble human beings, did he take half as 
 much trouble about politics (in the true old sense of the 
 word) as he does about fowls. Look at that old hound, 
 who stands doubtful, looking up at his master for advice. 
 Look at the severity, delicacy, lightness of every curve. His 
 head is finer than a deer's ; his hind-legs tense as steel 
 springs ; his fore-legs straight as arrows ; and yet see the 
 depth of chest, the sweep of loin, the breadth of paw, the 
 mass of arm and thigh ; and, if you have an eye for form, 
 look at the absolute majesty of his attitude at this moment. 
 Majesty is the only word for it. If he were six feet high 
 instead of twenty-three inches, with what animal on earth 
 could you compare him ? Is it not a joy to see such a thing 
 alive? It is to me at least. I should like to have one in 
 my study all day along, as I would have a statue or a 
 picture ; and when Mr. Morrell gave (as they say) two 
 hundred guineas for Hercules alone, I believe the dog was 
 well worth the money, only to look at.' The last sentence 
 would have delighted Captain Cook, a great authority in 
 his day. In his book published in 1826, the Captain 
 complained that, while people thought nothing of giving 
 three hundred guineas for a hunter, they would not give 
 money enough for hounds ; ' whereas,' says the Captain, 
 excited into italics, ' everything depends upon a jxick of 
 hounds.' I do not like the prose so much as the verse. It 
 is a little excessive, and the ' breadth of paw ' will not do 
 for Peterborough. 
 
 But old Virginal has hit it of!", and Kingsley turns the 
 mare's head homewards. This is a capital description of 
 
THE FOREST 165 
 
 forest-riding: 'So lioiiieward I go through a labyrinth of 
 fir-stems, and, what is worse, fir-stumps, which need both 
 my eyes and my horse's at every moment. . . Now I plunge 
 into a gloomy dell wherein is no tinkling rivulet ever pure ; 
 but, instead, a bog hewn out into a chessboard of squares 
 parted by narrow ditches some twenty feet apart. Blunder- 
 ing among the stems I go fetlock deep in peat, and jumping 
 at every third stride one of the said uncanny grips half 
 hidden in long hassock grass . . . out of it we shall be 
 soon. I see daylight ahead at last, bright between the dark 
 stems. Up a steep slope and over a bank which is not very 
 big, but, being composed of loose gravel and peat-mould, 
 gives down with me, nearly sending me head over heels in 
 the heather, and leaving me a sheer gap to scramble through 
 and out into the open moor.' 
 
 I said just now that the forest was unpopular with the 
 riding men. They dislike the unfairness of its emergencies 
 and the certainty of its vicissitudes. A Jem Mason may be 
 cast in a pot-hole, a Jock Trotter flounder into a gobble- 
 cow bog, and the hidden prehistoric ruts, made nobody knows 
 how, leading nobody knows where, may at any moment 
 discountenance a Gambado. 
 
 ' It is these plaguy holes on the heath throw a horse 
 down,' observed Mr. Garth to a dear friend of mine,' after 
 watching him recover from one of those long-drawn-out 
 blunders that seem a lifetime to the rider. This is danger 
 unredeemed by distinction. Yet, assuming you escape all 
 the untoward possibilities of a forest run, it is a great 
 mistake to think that it is an easy thing to ride to. In 
 hunting jargon you must keep right at the tail of hounds. 
 A deer will hardly run the present fast foxhound pack 
 
 ' The late Mr. John Hargreaves of Maiden Early, for many years Master 
 of the South Berks. Mr. Hargreaves was in his real element amongst the 
 banks and ditches of the Hawthorn Hill country, and often came out with us on 
 a Friday. 
 
1 66 
 
 .V TA G-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 out of scent on a good scenting day. He does not go 
 much faster at one time than another, but he goes no 
 slower, and he keeps going on. So do the hounds. Under 
 the fir-trees, and even among the birch and Spanish chest- 
 nut, there is no undergrowth to stop them. On a really 
 good scenting day hounds can carry a head through a great 
 deal of the woodland, and there are none of the' high 
 pahsaded enclosures which the economics of forestry have 
 recommended in the New Forest. The forest banks and 
 
 - > 
 
 
 The Hiduex Phehistoiuc Kuts 
 
 grips mean nothing to the necks and shoulders and the dash 
 •which their inheritance of the best blood in England gives 
 the Queen's Hounds, and outside on the open moorland, the 
 heather, except here and there in the deeper hollows, is not 
 high enough or strong enough to make hounds go appreci- 
 ably slower. It makes tliem string, and individual hounds 
 single themselves out. A rather long-backed hound named 
 Hotspur, which Harvey brought with him from the Isle of 
 Wight —a great favourite of mine — always led thi-ough the 
 
THE FOREST 167 
 
 really thick heather. Thus, when hounds really run, and 
 the man really rides to them wherever they go — following 
 the rides on such occasion is a mere hope-for-the-best affair 
 — a really fast forest run is in some ways a greater test of 
 horsemanship than crossing the obvious enclosures of a 
 fairly fenced hunting country ; I think Comins, the Queen's 
 Huntsman — a most dashing forest rider — will agree with me. 
 In the latter case on a free and experienced horse the rider 
 need only be a passenger, but in the forest the man must 
 ride his horse, he cannot be merely carried. 
 
 In the forest, as anywhere else, it is an advantage to be 
 on a fast horse ; but, whatever you are on, you have often 
 got to ride him fast, under circumstances peculiarl}- un- 
 favourable to fast riding, and which are often irritating to 
 the temperament of a high-couraged and sensitive animal. 
 
 I remember hunting for a few days with Lord Lonsdale 
 some years ago when he hunted the Woodland Pytchley. 
 One afternoon, latish on in the season, we literally rode into 
 an old dog-fox in Boughton woods. He jumped up between 
 us. The hounds got away right on the back of the fox. 
 "We both started on the back of hounds. I was riding a 
 handy, quick horse by Berserker, and those stately wood- 
 lands have been well administered and thinned. But Lord 
 Lonsdale lost me in three minutes — not so much because 
 he was riding a faster horse, although I dare say he was, but 
 because of his superior horsemanship and his knowledge 
 of manege riding, which, to my mind, especially distinguishes 
 him from other celebrated riders to hounds. It is your legs, 
 and not your hands, which take a horse through trees. 
 Since then circumstances have given me plenty of oppor- 
 tunities of learning to ride quickly through woodlands ; but 
 I am no good at it. Perhaps on that account I may be 
 overrating its difficulty. 
 
 But whatever the forest may be for the rider, it is a 
 
i68 STAG-HUXriNG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 famous place for hounds. No huntsman with Swinley 
 Forest within five hundred yards of his kennels can find an 
 excuse for not having hounds in condition, almost at any 
 season of the year. It is a mere platitude to say that there 
 is nothing Hke big woodlands to teach a pack of hounds to 
 run together and hmit together. We all know that. But 
 the anomalous and inevitable conditions of hunting the 
 carted deer give to forest hunting a quite particular value. 
 Thanks to the forest, or the forest country, the Queen's 
 Hounds enjoy advantages without compare, and which should 
 be turned to the fullest account. 
 
 Once forest hunting begins, the young entry get their 
 chance. They begin to realise themselves. Life is not to 
 be made up of snubbings from the siu:ly old hounds, of dull 
 constitutionals, of quarrels with Splendour and Streamer, of 
 the unbroken monotony of regular hours, regular meals, and 
 of kennel-life generally, with not nearly so much to do as 
 there was in and about the pleasant farmyard near Woking- 
 ham or Slough. 
 
 During the first two or three days' forest hunting it is ad- 
 visable to check hounds every now and then ; Charles Davis 
 always did this, and his hounds in the forest were said to be 
 as perfect in close hunting as harriers, although he was in 
 the habit of taking out over thirty couple, and a large propor- 
 tion of unentered hounds. It gives the stragglers a chance 
 to get up. But towards the end of October these artificial 
 checks should not be necessary. A hound hates being lost 
 in a great lonely wood with no familiar sights or sounds for 
 miles, and a hound which is always getting lost is either 
 peevish, faint-hearted, or slow, and not worth Scotch oat- 
 meal at 13/. a ton. The open heather country is a capital 
 test of drive and action. I like to see hounds lay themselves 
 right down over the rough ground or the patches of burnt 
 heather as if it were permanent pasture. Some hounds, 
 
JUHN CUMINS 
 Huntsman- to the Quken's Houxd^. Aitointed April 1, 18U4 
 
THE FOREST 169 
 
 good ones too, have a sort of high, romping action at these 
 times A'-hich I never approved of. On a scent a hound 
 should streak along. 
 
 And now as to horses in the forest. The horses, I 
 think, are cleverer than the men. I have seen wild, light- 
 headed horses never put a foot wrong. They make their 
 riders and themselves hot, cross and uncomfortable ; but, in 
 apparently constant jeopardy, they seem to enjoy the same 
 sort of protection which Providence is said to accord to 
 drmiken men in railway accidents. But it is difficult to say 
 how a horse will carry you in the forest. I had a black horse 
 called William which I rode for three seasons with the 
 Queen's Hounds, and which I always rode a good deal 
 during the forest hunting. William, now the favourite of 
 a friend of mine, is a very free horse in the open, childishly 
 fond of galloping and jumping, and indeed, unless ridden in 
 front, he ' pleasantly tightens the rein,' to quote a dealer's 
 euphemism ; but in the more gloomy and mysterious parts 
 of the forest, or in deep, suspicious-looking heather, William 
 would always go behind his bridle, ringing a sort of tune on 
 his bit at an extravagantly actioned trot. At such times he 
 seemed to have laid upon himself a self-denying ordinance, 
 neither to catch hold nor to gallop until things were more 
 like what he was used to. This kind of pace has two 
 objections : it does not get you on very fast, and it gives you 
 a tremendous cropper if anything goes wrong. I have a 
 lively recollection of William, when conscientiously escalad- 
 ing an ineligible bit of riding ground near Minley, being 
 betrayed in a thicket of rhododendrons ; even his shoulders 
 could not save us — to use an expression of that noted 
 horseman, Dick Christian, he fell 'like a clot.' 
 
 I had another horse called Agitator, by Republican ; he 
 was own brother to Doneraile, and had won one or two 
 steeplechases himself. Agitator was a charming hunter. 
 
I/O STAG-IIUNTJ\'G RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 with fascinating ways and style about him ; but the swish 
 of branches used to excite him, and he would bound about 
 in a most foolish way at times if I rode him through the 
 stuff. He was 16.3, and not at all the sort of horse 
 which you would pick for- the forest ; but however close the 
 grips came together, you could not make him put a foot 
 wrong, and you could not have filled an hour-glass from the 
 damage he did to the crumbly little banks you occasionally 
 have to cross. This instinct some horses have of putting in 
 a short one has always seemed to me like the instinct of 
 time which some people possess in a greater degree than 
 others. There is no better test of an active, resourceful 
 horse than to canter him along the grass siding to a high 
 road, with different-sized grips at short intervals. If he 
 times them all without disturbing the smoothness of your 
 seat, or making you involuntarily job him in the mouth, you 
 may be sure it is all right. It is not a trial an intellectual 
 dealer will often recommend to you. 
 
 I always liked the forest as a school of morals for excit- 
 able, fractious-mouthed horses, w^hich are often treated with 
 greater consideration than they deserve. Nine times out of 
 ten, so far from being humoured, they should not even be 
 consulted. ' He wants very light hands ' is an implied 
 compliment to a horse's courage and to his owner's riding, 
 but it usually only means that this undesirable animal has 
 always had his ow^n way about his neck and head and 
 mouth. Light hands are not the same thing as good hands. 
 Very often light hands only mean that the rider has a good 
 seat, and is consequently undisturbed by a rough uncom- 
 fortable ride, and independent of his reins. The late Mr. 
 Chapman, one of the hunting horsemen of the century, once 
 told me that you should think of your horse's mouth as a 
 piece of delicate pie-crust. It is a pleasant fancy, but, like pie- 
 crust, a mouth wants making, and depends on the cook. Mr. 
 
THE FOREST 171 
 
 Chapman himself always rode on strong bridles and asserted 
 his prerogatives. He would never put up with the various 
 liberties a light bridle permits a horse to take with his 
 rider. A long cheeked sliding-bar double bridle, a Cheshire 
 martingale, a leather strap instead of a curb chain, turnings 
 here, twistings there, plenty of fir-trees, and the discontents 
 and surprises of the forest are the best things in the world 
 to make your Eupert and Lady Clara Vere de Vere lose the 
 self-consciousness which so often renders them a nuisance 
 to themselves and their riders. 
 
 And so farewell to the forest and the heather, to the lean 
 cultivation, the ineffectual turnips, to the commons and the 
 geese, the jays and the unfashionable side of the Queen's 
 country. Let all stag-hunters remember that Charles 
 Davis, the great tradition of the royal pack, was devoted to 
 the forest. One October, on the last day of forest hunting 
 years ago, he said to Dr. Croft, of Bracknell, who knew him 
 well, and to whom I am indebted for a great deal of help 
 and information, ' Now my fun is over — on Tuesday my 
 troubles begin.' 
 
^' TA G-HUXTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 BANKS AND DITCHES 
 
 Make me feel the wild pulsation I have often felt before, 
 
 When my horse went on before me and my hack was at the door, 
 
 Yearning for the large excitement that the coming sport should yield, 
 And rejoicing in the cropper that I got the second field. 
 Ha, ha, ha ! was that an oxer ? What, old Eambler, is he dead ? 
 What of that ? pick up the pieces, he was mortal, go ahead 
 
 There is very little to be said about the Buckinghamshire 
 side of the Queen's country. It is a land of large undulations, 
 light-coloured plough, beech-woods, and flints. Here and 
 there in the valleys a narrow tract of permanent pasture 
 cheers you up, and fills another corner in the sketch-book of 
 memory. I saw the body of the pack carry a rare head up 
 the emerald stream line of the Amershain Valley one day, 
 with a hound called Splendour three hundred yards in front 
 of them all — we could never make out where or how he had 
 got such a lead. But it caimot be considered a good hunting 
 country from a riding point of view. In old days the Queen's 
 Hounds used sometimes to run down into the Vale of 
 Aylesbury from Gerrard's Cross — at least, so the late William 
 Bartlett, for many years second whip, used to tell me. One 
 or other of our Nestors used always to remark to me — it was 
 the veteran commonplace of this particular meet — that the 
 wind, whatever its quarter, was right for taking us thither. 
 But, alas ! it never did so in my time. At the same time, 
 all about Gerrard's Cross and Beaconsfield is not by any 
 means a bad stag-hunting country. At all events there is 
 
BANKS AND DITCHES 173 
 
 lots of room, and we had some capital gallops in that part 
 of the world. When there had been plenty of rain these 
 pale ploughs and the high beech-woods carried a capital 
 scent, and the configuration of the country wanted a galloping 
 horse ; indeed a better bred one than Berkshire. 
 
 The best thing 1 remember was fifty minutes from Chal- 
 font Park with an outlying deer, named Bramshill. We 
 found him in a large patch of broom, just above Captain 
 Penton's house, where he had been treated for two or three 
 weeks as an honoured guest. Harvey drew up to him 
 very quietly and slowly, and the hounds had owned a line for 
 three hundred yards before the deer jumped up. This 
 was a very pretty find ; the deer jumped with such gay 
 bounds through the broom. I u'as riding a mare called 
 Milkmaid, not up to my weight, but she was all but clean- 
 bred and fast, and carried me well. I don't think I ever 
 remember going for so long at top speed. Comparatively few 
 people really lived through it or saw it. As there was 
 nothing to jump all the way, there is no harm in saying so ; 
 it was more like a flat race. Bramshill took to the reser- 
 voir at Chalfont St. Giles, and we had to leave him there. 
 This deer w^as a great water lover. We had taken him in a 
 pond at Elvetham the first day he was ever hunted. The 
 following year I took him down to the Vine, where we 
 hunted one day by invitation, thinking we were safe in that 
 dry and waterless country, bat he found his way straight 
 to the only ornamental piece of water for miles, Ewhurst 
 Park, and he again refused to come out. 
 
 There were several good riders who used to come out on 
 the Bucks side of the river, most notably Mr. Drake, the 
 rector of Amersham, who joined us once or twice. Except for 
 the Rev. Mr. Fowle, whom George III., on a public occasion, 
 declared to be one of the best cavalry officers (Mr. Fowle having 
 at the time of the French AVars raised a corps of Berkshire 
 
174 STAG-HUXTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Yeomanry), one of the best riders, and also one of the best 
 preachers of his acquaintance, and whom he much wished 
 to make a bishop, the Eoyal Hounds do not appear to have 
 ever been distinguished for any of the hard-riding parsons 
 who adorn the sporting Hterature of fifty years ago. A 
 writer of authority in the early years of this century declares 
 that he would back the bench of Bishops against the 
 Judges any day over a country or on the flat, and the pages 
 of ' Nimrod ' teem with the exploits of resolute clergymen, 
 who seem to have been especial favourites, and to have often 
 attracted distinguished and particular notice. Thus, ' the 
 Rev. J. M.,' writes the Duke of Cleveland in his diary, 
 ' shone as conspicuously on his grey mare as in the pulpit, 
 and was alone with hounds over Ainderby Moors.' Again, 
 ' The Vicar of P. is no humbug,' writes ' Nimrod.' This 
 satisfactory conclusion was due to the Vicar's love of hunt- 
 ing, and to the sporting character of his invitation to the 
 writer and Sir Bellingham Graham to drink more claret. ' If 
 you drink enough, it will make your eyes look like boiled 
 gooseberries.' The first time I saw Mr. Drake out we hap- 
 pened to run fast over half a dozen old grass fields with rough, 
 old-fashioned fences. This was quite at the beginning of the 
 run, and we were all full of go. As I watched the ' seriouslj^ 
 dressed ' horseman smoothly cutting out the work for us 
 on a well-bred old chestnut horse, I knew at once we were 
 entertaining an angel unawares. Perhaps Mr. Drake would 
 have come out oftener, had he known the pleasure and 
 interest his style of riding gave us all. 
 
 Whether hounds run fast over it or slow, Bucks is not 
 at all a bad country to give a horse confidence ; the neat 
 wattles are encouraging to a degree, and here and there a sort 
 of fringe of young and innocent hazel, with no ditch, teaches 
 a horse to get up. As far as I remember, the only time I saw 
 a hona fide upstanding gate jumped by one of the Queen's 
 
BAjVKS .-LVD DITCHES 175 
 
 field was on the Bucks side. Mr. Shackle of Kedleaf 
 was the hero of this incident, on a well-bred black horse 
 he owned in 1892. It was charmingly done, and the black 
 horse landed noiselessly on his hind legs on to a rough ser- 
 vice roadway leading into some farm buildings. I nearly 
 Absalomised myself by jumping the fence alongside into an 
 orchard with apple-trees of the most gnarled and deformed 
 description. The gate, too, was new, painted black ; the next 
 worst colour to white. 
 
 The Slough country, with its once popular meets, I 
 consider quite unsuitable to stag-hunting; it is distinguished 
 by almost every characteristic yon don't want — population, 
 wire, a river, a canal, a railway, cabbages, strong wheat 
 land, and soggy grass with a black subsoil. The opening 
 meet at Salt Hill is one of those institutions which can no 
 longer be defended in practice. In 1893, I remember, we 
 spent the whole of our time — it seemed very long — crossing 
 and recrossing the river by Maidenhead Bridge, finally taking 
 the deer in Weston's yard before a large assembly of Eton 
 boys and maidservants. It was stag-hunting at its very 
 worst. Indeed, I have often thought the best thing about 
 these teeming flats between Bray and Windsor — which I 
 admit sometimes carried a scent — were the varying prospects 
 of Windsor, rising like an enchanted castle into the clearer 
 sky out of the lilac-blue haze which broods upon the low 
 horizons of the Thames Valley. Often and often I have 
 thanked Windsor with loyal satisfaction for that stately out- 
 line of towers and terraces, and felt compensated for a stupid 
 hunt. 
 
 But now let me take my readers to the banks and ditches 
 of Berkshire. Most of the glad emotions so pleasantly 
 recalled to us by Mr. Bromley-Davenport in the couplets 
 quoted at the head of this chapter, are to be had for the ask- 
 ing by the stag-hunter ; indeed, if there is a scent and; the 
 
176 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Queen's field are in the humour — which, to do them justice, 
 they invariably are — and if the deer goes the right way 
 from Hawthorn Hill, it is very possible to rejoice in your 
 cropper at the first fence which happens to be a very 
 typical example of the Queen's bank and ditch country. 
 
 There are no oxers— nor need this be a matter of inex- 
 tinguishable regret — and very little timber. Mr. Van de 
 Weyer's fine grass land around New Lodge was fenced with 
 rood upon rood of uniform post and railings, but I do not 
 think I can remember seeing them jumped. One day 
 when we nearly ran straight over this bit of country, I 
 thought of doing it, but there it ended. The rails are not 
 very high, but they are painted black, and they stand up out 
 of the level fields with horrid integrity without a suspicion 
 of a lean from you. The geometry of their alignments gives 
 the whole affair a building-plot look ; and in bold relief 
 several hunting gates are painted a staring white, and open 
 easily and quickly. It requires moral as well as physical 
 courage to resist such a conspiracy. A sporting doctor was 
 the only conspicuous exponent in my time of timber jump- 
 ing. He had a white horse and a bay horse, which like him- 
 self were both highly versed in the art, but he literally had to 
 hunt for opportunities of exhibiting their talents. 
 
 There is no water either in the Berkshire side of the 
 Queen's country ; that is, no jumpable w^ater. The not-to-be 
 denied stag-hunter will have frequent opportunities of swim- 
 ming if so minded, but very few of pounding the field over 
 a bumping brook. Take them all through, the fences are 
 mostly of the deferential breed ; you seldom come to the 
 sort of place which Jem Mason described as comprising 
 eternal misery on one side and certain death on the other ; 
 or of the character so neatly suggested by a hard-riding 
 nobleman to his huntsman : ' What's the other side, my 
 Lord '> ' ' Thank God, I am.' 
 
1p l/'>. 
 
BANKS AND DITCHES 177 
 
 But the best part of it — all about Wokingham and 
 Hawthorn Hill and Warren House — is quite a nice country 
 to ride over on an active horse, who ^oes up to his bank 
 with a flippant one, two, three, four, and his ears pricked and 
 jumps on and off it quick. And the banks are not big and 
 wide like some of the Blackinore Vale banks which consti- 
 tute quite a regular operation. When all goes well, you do 
 not get quite the same emotion as you do in a stake and 
 bound country, on a free horse. They are not to be had in any 
 on and off country. But, on the other hand, when all goes 
 wrong, you are not liable to the imperial crowners which 
 Mr. Sawyer watches his friends take in Market Harboro', 
 and which are so capitally rendered on the yellow back of 
 that most admirable and inspiring novel. You are much 
 more likely to sprain your ankle than to smash your hat ; 
 the very few falls I had were all of this latter sort, and I 
 cannot remember having ever been shot handsomely into 
 the middle of next week. Indeed, with the exception of 
 the railway gates of an occasional level crossing, and a 
 fair choice of well-protected deep cuttings, Bucks and Berks 
 only present average opportunities either for falls, or for 
 conspicuous exploits. Jack Mytton and men of his kidney 
 would find little to satisfy their ambition in the Queen's 
 country. 
 
 Some few examples of punishment cheerfully taken by 
 the men of old time and of their ethics may serve to edify 
 the present and rising generation of horsemen. 
 
 ' No sympathy was like his,' says ]Mr. Mytton's biogra- 
 pher.^ It certainly found vent in unusual ways, for we read 
 of his knocking down his tutor and putting an eminent 
 horse-dealer to bed with two bulldogs and a bear, to say 
 
 ' He might have added his digestion. On one occasion he and a friend 
 consumed eighteen pounds of filbert nuts. At the close of the stance they 
 were ' up to their knees in nut-shells.' 
 
 N 
 
178 5 TA G-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 nothing of larger traits of a generous nature. Nature, 
 however, cannot be expected to be prodigal of her Myttons, 
 and it might not be easy to string together a long chaplet 
 of true Mytton lustred pearls. Here, however, are two or 
 three merely average selections. 
 
 * Nimrod ' relates how a Mr. Stanhope who was staying 
 at the time with Sir Bellingham Graham, being already in 
 a more or less maimed condition from previous exploits, 
 was stretched for dead early in the day. He was taken to 
 Bosworth and blooded ; three ribs being found to be 
 broken. Mr. Stanhope, however, resisted these insinua- 
 tions of the faculty, and came out again two days later. 
 The field were hindered by some high rails which were 
 being pulled down, when Mr. Stanhope insisted on ' having 
 a try,' with the result of another heavy fall. ' You are a 
 good one, by G ! ' exclaimed his host ; but as he pro- 
 bably did not wish to have him laid up in his house all the 
 season, he added, ' You shall ride again no more,' and Mr. 
 Stanhope, to his great annoyance, was sent in a post-chaise 
 to Leicester. This fall accounted for two more ribs and his 
 breast bone. ' Not a bad sort to breed from,' is the chro- 
 nicler's appreciative comment. 
 
 Upon another occasion, a Cheshire whipper-in pleases 
 ' Nimrod ' very much by this account of his injuries : ' Three 
 ribs broken one side, two on tother, both collar bones, and 
 been scalped.' It further appeared that his horse ' Valentine,' 
 whom, it is true, he calls a ' dunghill brute ' for lying on him 
 half an hour, when he did get up, kicked him on the head till 
 the skin hung down all over his eyes and face. ' And do you 
 know, sir ' — this was the part of the story which appealed 
 most to ' Nimrod's ' best feelings — ' When I gets to Wrexham, 
 I faints from loss of blood ! ' Only a Blackburn Eover could 
 stand this sort of thing in these days. As a pendant to this 
 undefeated hunt -servant may be cited the gay stoicism of a 
 
BANKS AND DITCHES 
 
 179 
 
 man of fashion. This was a Mr. WiUiamson, who fell from a 
 height before a large company into a deep road. ' There was 
 something very frightful in the motions of Mr. Williamson.' 
 It tm-ned out that, in addition to more important injuries, 
 this fentleman's jaw was broken, and most of his teeth 
 
 Ch.\i?les Hoare, Second Whipper-in to the Queen's Hounds, 
 APPOINTED July 1, 1894 
 
 knocked down his throat. Mr. AViUiamson was young and 
 good-looking. He declared he would not have taken a 
 thousand guineas for his teeth, but with true sportsmanlike 
 feehng said he regretted them less than the run he had missed. 
 It is true that Mr. Henry Kingscote's feat in getting to the 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 -end of a fine run in spite of eleven bad falls, owing to having 
 blinded his horse, is recorded as a somewhat rare example of 
 grim resolution. Such incidents were taken in perfect good 
 part, and in an ' all in the day's work ' spirit which would 
 cause something like alarm and even unpleasantness in these 
 more narrow-minded days. What for instance should we 
 say to this ? Mr. Assheton Smith and Mr. J. White always 
 rode very jealous of each other. On one occasion they came 
 to a great bullfinch with only one possible place in it. Mr. 
 White got at it first, but stuck fast in the middle of it, to 
 Mr. Smith's great annoyance. ' Eam the spurs in. and pray 
 get out of my way,' says Mr. Smith after a decent interval. 
 
 ' If you're in such a d d hurry, why don't you charge 
 
 me ? ' was the rejoinder. Mr. Smith took him at his word, 
 and on they went as if nothing had happened. Or, to the 
 generous sang-froid of one of the many hunting Dukes of 
 Grafton ? The Duke had been thrown into a ditch ; a young 
 curate who was following him stick for stick shouted out, ' Lie 
 still, your Grace,' and cleared him handsomely. The Duke, 
 we are told, on being extricated from his predicament by 
 his attendants, declared himself highly satisfied with such 
 an exhibition of presence of mind, and upon rejoining the 
 hounds promised the young divine his first vacant living. 
 This he carried into effect, remarking to his friends, when he 
 told the story, that if he (the curate) had stopped to help 
 him out, he should never have patronised him. Wliilst we 
 are considering the mighty deeds of the past, and in a day 
 of magnum-like flasks and trunk-like sandwich cases, it 
 may here be noted that Mr. Meynell — the hero of the great 
 Billesden Coplow ' run and the ' Hunting Jupiter ' of his 
 day — always breakfasted on a tea-cup of veal tea, and 
 
 ' Feb. 24, 1800. From the Coplow by Tilton, Skeffington earths, to Enderby 
 Warren, crossing the Soar below Whitstone. Twenty-eight miles in 2 hours, 
 15 minutes. 
 
BANKS AND DITCHES i8i 
 
 depended during the day upon a flask of tincture of rhubarb, 
 the only refreshment he carried. 
 
 But passing from the chivah-y and stomachs of our 
 forbears, it may here be observed without disrespect to 
 their memory that a note of the many more clement and 
 intelligent conceptions of manners and taste, which have 
 fruitfully multiplied during the inspiring reign of Queen 
 Victoria, is the changed standard of riding to hounds. Little 
 or no credit is now awarded to a Mr. Stanhope. A man 
 who overfaces a generous horse and is always taking heavy 
 falls, is looked upon as a fool — all but as a knave. That 
 So-and-so is always ' on the floor ' is as much as saying that 
 So-and-so is a poor performer. He is spoken of in accents 
 of pity, not of admiration ; and you are given to understand 
 that though his heart may be in the right place, his hands 
 and another part of his person are elsewhere. 
 
 Every now and then, of course, some great necessity 
 arises, and a gallant pair pound the field. A fall is inevitable, 
 but fine shoulders, fine hands, and a fine seat bring the 
 staunch partners out of the crisis handsomely. I have seen 
 both the late Mr. Chapman and Mr. Corbett Holland fall in 
 a way which was a lesson in the arts of horsemanship. But 
 to ride your horse fairly, to get to the end of many runs with 
 few falls, and to finish a season with a soundish stud, is now 
 the criterion of artistic riding to hounds, not the bravo-like 
 adventures of the Mytton type, which entitled the foxhunter 
 to a place in the sporting anthologies of sixty years ago. 
 
 And now as to the sort of horse to ride with the Queen's 
 Hounds. ' Whoever rides Eadical should be as quiet as a 
 mouse, as bold as a lion, and as strong as a horse.' So said 
 Mr. Assheton Smith, which is the same thing as saying 
 that Kadical was not everybody's horse. At the same time 
 horses of his class, for he was one of the best-bred hunters 
 which ever went over Leicestershire, are the best anywhere 
 
1 82 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 and everywhere. All who have hunted in a bank and ditch 
 country have met the victim of an uncomfortable conviction 
 that the animal he happens to be riding is out of his proper 
 country ; that he exults in big flying fences, and disdains to 
 lay a foot to a bank. Nine times out of ten, however, you 
 would find the same individual — say if you met him in 
 Mr. Fernie's country — paralysed by the self-same animal's 
 supposed preference for banks and doubles. Here and there, 
 perhaps, a Leicestershire horse is not at his best in a bank 
 country. Eadical, for instance, ridden by anybody but Mr. 
 Smith, might not have done himself justice in the Bracknell 
 country ; and it is undeniable that many good horses are not 
 quite Leicestershire horses. But for my own riding any- 
 where I like a horse which has been obliged to jump high, 
 and wide, and strong ; and in the whole of my hunting 
 experience I only remember owning one horse which could 
 not be trusted to kick back at a bank. 
 
 One of the finest exhibitions of hunting riding I ever saw 
 was in the Cattistock country some years ago. The late Lord 
 Guilford was at that time hunting the country. We found a 
 fox in Briarswood, and ran for twenty minutes very fast over 
 the best of the country. All banks and doubles. Lord Guilford 
 was riding a horse which had only arrived the night before, 
 and had been sold out of Leicestershire because he took off 
 too soon from courage and over- jumped the fences and him- 
 self. A horseman such as Lord Guilford was — I put him in 
 the first half-dozen of my acquaintance — can to some extent 
 govern accidents ; but I cite this as an illustration of the 
 steadying effects big banks have upon the most extravagant 
 high-flyers. 
 
 There is a picture, by Byron Webb, of Mr. Tattersall on 
 a thoroughbred mare named Black Bess, with the Queen's 
 Hounds in an alluring middle distance, in the little room 
 facing the office at Albert Gate, which he has given me leave 
 

BANKS AND DITCHES 183 
 
 to reproduce. The man and the mare are just what staf^- 
 hunters should be, and equally good-looking. I delight in 
 the green coat and the careful ease of the abundant cravat. 
 But this mare is the veiy model of a stag-hunter. All blood, 
 fore-legs right under the points of her shoulders, long deep 
 ribs, no lumber, and I will wager you would hardly hear 
 her on the hardest high road — a great point in a stag- 
 hunter. Koad work, and fast road work, is inevitable, and 
 a noisy hackney-actioned horse knocks his legs to pieces in 
 no time, to say nothing of getting upon his rider's nerves. 
 
 Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum. 
 
 That is right enough on the permanent pasture or in an 
 hexameter, but it is a desolating sound on the Wokingham 
 and Beading road. 
 
 Thoroughbred horses, Dick Christian told the 'Druid,' 
 make the very best of hunters. ' I never heard,' he declared, 
 ' of a great thing but it was done by a thoroughbred horse.' 
 They certainly make the best stag-hunters, for only blood, 
 and quality legs and feet, can stand the long distances, the 
 long runs, and the road work. Bucks is hilly, Berks is 
 deep. A slow or underbred horse is soon blown, if not actually 
 outpaced by staghounds, and the more confidence you have 
 in his jumping and his courage, the greater the disaster 
 when it comes. After twenty minutes you would not know 
 the horse ; poor devil ! as he rolls and slobbers along he 
 would not know himself. Is this the animal that devoured 
 the first four fields like a tiger, and jumped like an india- 
 rubber ball '? With the thoroughbred horse it is just the 
 other way. He is often a bad beginner, but the farther 
 he goes the better he goes. The first fence he all but fell 
 from getting too near it, the second fence not liking the look 
 of some straggling thorns he came round, the third fence he 
 left his hind legs ; but though annoyed or disappointed with 
 
1 84 
 
 ^ TA G-Hl WTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 him, you know he does not mean faUing, and you wait his 
 own good time. Now you have been going for the best part 
 of an hour, the claims of high descent have asserted them- 
 selves, the best blood of a century is coursing and mantling 
 through his veins, he swells the muscles of his neck, and 
 cracks his nostrils in patrician disdain of every difficulty ; he 
 is jumping bigger and bigger, galloping with the force of a 
 steam-engine, collecting himself with the balance of a rope 
 dancer. You know what it is to be reallv carried. 
 
 You KNOW WHAT IT IS TO BE RkALLY CaRRIKI) 
 
 However, I must not gallop my Pegasus to death, and 
 restrain myself from any further description of an animal 
 we most of us desire, all deserve, but never find. Suffice it 
 to say that a horse must have his veins full of winning-post 
 blood to carry you safely after the everlasting Swinley deer 
 and over the inevitable miles home. 
 
 A sentence in one of Lord Cork's descriptions of a good 
 run in the Harrow country suggests a few further observa- 
 
w^4 
 
 L^^::^.^ Py 
 
 Si^v 
 
BANKS AND DITCHES 
 
 185 
 
 tions on mere riding to staghounds. ' To hesitate,' he says, 
 ' meant that you were out of it.' Of course this is in a measure 
 true of all riding to hounds when they run fast, but it is 
 especially true of staghounds. Given favourable conditions, 
 
 Charles Strickland, First Whipper-in to the Queen s Houndo, 
 appointed jcly 1, 1894 
 
 pace with staghounds is epidemic — you keep on going fast, 
 going on. 
 
 A good deer, although he may not run a straight point, 
 
1 86 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 always gives that impression. It is a question whether he 
 can be headed, once he has made up his mind ; and this 
 accounts, to some extent, for the extraordinary places he 
 will run into. If he had meant crossing it, I do not think 
 Epsom Hill on a Derby day would have turned Guy 
 Fawkes. Thus staghounds, once they get settled, run on 
 at a pertinacious sort of speed, which most people must find 
 rather tiresome after a bit. There are none of the lightning 
 changes of temperature which illuminate a run with fox- 
 hounds. Staghounds, for instance, would seldom inspire a 
 ' Thirty quick minutes from Eanksborough Gorse,' written, 
 I believe, between dressing time and dinner in the congenial 
 atmosphere of stained leathers and a hot bath. But there are 
 exceptions to every rule, and there can be no question that 
 every now and then the Queen's Hounds, not only in pace, 
 but in their drive and fling, give you all the * vital feelings 
 of delight ' of the foxhound. 
 
 It is a question whether you can ride ' cunning ' with 
 staghounds. In all kinds of hunting a really high post 
 and rail or a sullen brook are apt to develop the guile of the 
 Eed Indian. Very often this does not matter much when 
 fox-hunting. Horrible injustices often occur, and the battle 
 is often rather to the wary or the swift than to the brook- 
 and rail-jumpers. But with staghounds the event seldom 
 transforms hesitation into judgment. Once you begin to 
 hesitate, it is a hundred to one you see no more of the 
 gallop. One has to account for one's failure somehow, of 
 course ; you acted, for instance, upon a theory that the deer 
 would not go here or was making for there. I have occasion- 
 ally practised this self-deception upon others, but rarely with 
 any success upon myself. 
 
 I remember especially missing the end of one of our 
 more or less classical runs from Shinfield, close to Beading. 
 We ran for a great number of miles under a needlessly 
 
BANKS AND DITCHES 
 
 187 
 
 splendid sun, the deer being ultimately taken in Fleet Pond 
 after a great display of aquatics. In this case a deep river 
 with a boggy bottom, a high bank, a mere apology for a ford, 
 and an impetuous horse with a great taste for ' taking off ' on 
 the slightest provocation, suggested a theory as to the run of 
 the deer. Satan in boots and breeches, who is always at hand 
 on these occasions, whispered something about a bridge, ju^t 
 
 
 The i'lKsi Whip's Horse subsided with only his Head out of Water 
 
 as Valesman, the first whip's horse, subsided with only his 
 head out of water under our startled eyes. At the head of the 
 divisions of caution which quickly form on such occasions 
 I led the way at a confident pace to the nearest high 
 road. We kept bolstering ourselves up by saying, ' He 
 is hanging our way.' ' This is his line ! ' and no doubt 
 I pressed into our service something about a side wind, 
 
1 88 STAG-HUNTIXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 which is always supposed to woo the affections of the hunted 
 red-deer. Not a bit of it. We never got to hounds again, and 
 I had twenty miles home to Reading, suffering from a hot 
 red coat, a spring headache, and that intolerable sense of 
 injustice which always accompanies well-merited misfor- 
 tune. 
 
 A writer of some note of George III.'s day declared that 
 were the king once to see a fox well found and handsomely 
 killed he would give up the staghounds. He condemns 
 stag-hunting for its lack of ' ecstasy,' and the glorious 
 uncertainty which should distinguish hunting ; the sulky or 
 generous temper of the deer being the sole variety the stag- 
 hunter can count upon. It is true the stag-hunter recks 
 nothing of the hazards of a doubtful find, a wild night, a 
 chain of woodlands, and a main earth. But to say there 
 is no uncertainty is to say you have never ridden over 
 the banks and ditches of Berkshire after Bartlett or Guy 
 Fawkes. 
 
LORD lUBiiLhMtAI.K 
 M.B.H. 1892 TO 1895 
 
1 89 
 
 CHAPTEE X 
 
 BLACK AND WHITE 
 
 Ille potens sui 
 Lastusque deget, cui licet in diem 
 Dixisse, Vixi : eras vel atra 
 Nube pclum Pater occupato 
 Vel sole puro. 
 
 Sporting literature often suffers from a surfeit of success. 
 In the jungle, on the river or the hill, and especially in the 
 hunting-field, the reader's mouth is over-satisfied with good 
 things. As an antidote I will cite one of my own personal 
 experiences of the Harrow country. For the most part these 
 are dismal and ineffectual to a degree. With the exception of 
 one day, when we met at Harefield, and ran into a detest- 
 able country — ' the wrong way,' with which all beasts of the 
 chase are so conversant — we only met once in the Harrow 
 country of famous tradition during my Mastership, so I re- 
 member this occasion very distinctly. Like my more fortu- 
 nate predecessors, I too had received several assurances from 
 individuals of welcome and goodwill. It was a dry time, 
 and an experiment seemed worth trying. I am horribly 
 afraid of wire ; not on account of the horsemen, who, in 
 the well-laid-out environs of London, may be trusted to 
 take remarkably good care of themselves, but on account 
 of the deer and the hounds. The latter can of course be 
 stopped, but there is nothing more sickening than the sight 
 of a good deer doing his generous best in a wired country ; 
 and the Master of a pack of staghounds who knowingly 
 
I90 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 exposes and condemns a deer to what this means, is a 
 criminal in boots and breeches. However, the farm upon 
 which we were to turn out, at all events, was not wired. 
 If, as I expected, we ran at once into a wired country, I 
 meant to stop the hounds and trust to luck, which had often 
 befriended me, as regards the deer. In the event, however, 
 these resolutions were not tested, as it was impossible to 
 hunt owing to a cotton-wool fog which never lifted. 
 
 Never shall I forget the depressing accompaniments 
 of that da}. Just as we grumble more at our mishaps than 
 we give thanks for our benefits, bad days have always 
 impressed themselves more upon me than the good days. 
 Only one of my stalwarts, the London gentlemen, turned up 
 at Paddington with a friend from the North. The pea-soup 
 fog would certainly not have kept the rest at home ; and as 
 my eye swept the platform for my missing divisions with 
 all the heart-searchings of Deborah and Barak, I realised 
 that their absence could only be due to the Quixotic nature 
 of the enterprise. Neither the veteran scarlet of Mr. Bowen- 
 May nor the dreadnought outlines of Mr. Noble Smith 
 were to be seen. On the other hand I discerned a respectful 
 pity in the demeanour of the courteous staff of the Great 
 Western Eailway, who contribute so materially to the 
 comfort of hunting with the Queen's Hounds. However, 
 after our locomotive had wheezed and creaked like some 
 monster in distress, off we went in an all but empty train. 
 London's yellow-brick girdle always depresses me. But 
 on this particular morning the row upon row of crowded 
 loneliness, the symmetrical monotony broken only by the 
 pre-eminence of some public-house, the panorama of neutral 
 tints, were quite in harmony with my spirits. Circumstances 
 seemed to be too much for me, just as they must be for 
 those who have to live in those endless yellow-brick houses. 
 
 There is a great deal about the look of a platform when 
 
BLACK AND WHITE 
 
 191 
 
 you hunt by train. Some look like the job, some do not. 
 This particular one did not. IMie fog seemed thicker than 
 
 Charles Samways, Second Groom to the Queen's Hounds ' 
 
 ever, which was consoling at all events. Like Watchhorn 
 before Sir Harry Scattercash had given him the second 
 
 ' Samways entered Her Majesty's service in 1875 as rough-rider ; he was 
 appointed second horseman to tlae Master of the Buckhounds in May 1880, and 
 promoted in 1894 to be second groom, vice Reuben Matthews. 
 
192 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 glass of port wine, I was by this time longing not to hunt. 
 The hounds and hunt horses had slept at Hillingdon, and 
 my second horseman met me at the station with a de- 
 pressing account of a dull evening, chilly stabling, and 
 languid feeders. It was all very different to the cheer- 
 ful days of yore he remembered. Samways is a man of per- 
 ception, resource, and counsel. A good second horseman, 
 like a good valet, should guess what his master is thinking 
 about, and I saw ' the day's disasters in his morning face ' ; 
 he now declared the fog would never hft, suggested the 
 next train back to Paddington, and that he should ride one 
 of my horses on to the meet and send the hounds home. 
 
 But by this time the two London gentlemen had coaxed 
 their shrouded favourites out of the horse-boxes, and were 
 asking their way to the hotel. Evidently they were all for a 
 ride of some sort. For the matter of that, so was I. The 
 bare mention of Agitator had cheered me up. ' Post equitem 
 sedet atra cura.' This, as Major Whyte Melville has pointed 
 out, is one of the very few mistakes Horace has made. In 
 the shape of an awkward stile downhill, ' cura ' may for 
 a moment be embodied in front of you, but there is no 
 room for him behind really superlative shoulders, and these 
 consolations were waiting for me only a hundred yards 
 away. 
 
 The railway hotel, implacable yellow brick of course, 
 was as little like hunting as the platform. We were looked 
 upon as peculiar animals by an indolent landlord and an 
 incredulous barmaid, Samways in his gold-laced hat being 
 taken, I imagine, for some mounted janissary of the London 
 County Council. However, the cherry brandy — a great 
 incentive to stag-hunting — was pronounced all but up to the 
 Slough sample by my companions. That being the case, 
 there was nothing irretrievably rotten in the state of 
 Denmark. Whilst I was writing a letter — in itself an out- 
 
BLACK AND WHITE 
 
 193 
 
 rage on a hunting morning — an old gentleman in a pea- 
 jacket drew a confused picture of what things used to be 
 before Lord John Kussell's Reform Bill, in a manner which 
 would have delighted Lord Marney. Those, it appeared, 
 were the days to go hunting in. ' Things,' as he rather 
 vaguely kept declaring, ' were something like.' What with 
 the plush fiurniture, the oleographs and Japanese grasses 
 of the parlour, and the damaged reminiscences of the pea- 
 jacket, the icy fingers of depression began clawing at me 
 again. No time was to be lost in mounting. There was 
 nothing for it but the elaborate freedom of Agitator's 
 action. Agitator in the meanwhile had created a diversion, 
 though hardly in our favour, by planting one neatly on the 
 potboy's posterior, whom, failing an ostler, Samways had 
 commandeered from the security of the bottle and jug depart- 
 ment, and who was now being lectured for his folly in getting 
 near a long-tailed blood horse. ' You'll know better another 
 time,' Samways was sternly saying as we came into the 
 yard, an assurance which did not seem altogether to comfort 
 the potboy. Five shillings, however, did wonders for the 
 injured part and off we set for the meet. But the mist 
 grew worse every yard of our way. I divined wire every- 
 where, which is much worse than actually seeing it. The 
 kindest of welcomes awaited us, and a most hospitable host 
 had all sorts of good things to eat and drink laid out for 
 our benefit, but there could be only one opinion about the 
 fog. As to the wire, the hunt-servants who had come a 
 different way, and one or two unenthusiastic local sports- 
 men, confirmed the opinion I had already formed. Even 
 Comins, the keenest and hardest of stag-hunters, thought it 
 would not do. For once I was glad that the weather made 
 it impossible to hunt, and glad to order the hounds home. 
 
 So much for a dies atra. And now let me refresh myself 
 v/ith the recollections of a much more amusing day, when 
 
 o 
 
194 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 we met by invitation in the old Berkshire country, which I 
 jotted down at the time. 
 
 March 2, 1893. Posted from Swindon to Kitemore. Orr- 
 Ewing put up hounds, horses, and men at the kennels ; 
 self, horses and Samways at Kitemore. A very wet night. 
 However, it had faired up by the time we started. Water 
 out all over the place. Forded the redoubtable Eosey Brook 
 on our way to the meet, a lively but not inviting stream. 
 Van de Weyer, who I suppose has often been in it in old days, 
 had prepared me for its peculiarities. This morning it was 
 running bank-high and out over the banks. Took a mental 
 but futile note of the look of the ford we crossed by. A great 
 concourse at the turn-out. Foot-people for miles round. I 
 was told many had started at 4 a.m. to get there. Waggons, 
 musicianers and cock-shies. Might have been a country 
 race-meeting by the look of things. Serried ranks of 
 spectators drawn up on neighbouring high grounds com- 
 manding the Kosey. We were all hospitably entertained 
 by several capital farmers,^ living at Baulking; my host 
 had very pretty daughters. Sloe gin, I think it was — very 
 good, and fashionable heliotrope colour. Found the Beau- 
 fort contingent all landed up, well-mounted, and ready for 
 anything.^ Joe Moore had managed their journey arrange- 
 ments capitally. Turned out Blackback soon after twelve 
 o'clock, amidst great and general confusion. Fast-asleep, who 
 was very fresh, nearly threw me off by shying at the Aunt 
 Sallies, just as I was going to address the foot-people on 
 the situation. By the time T had recovered one stirrup 
 and my hat, Blackback was out of the cart. After going 
 two fields parallel to the brook the hill-folk turned him 
 
 ' Mr. Geoi-j^e Reade, Mr. llobert Whitfield, and ]\Ir. Thomas Matthews. 
 
 - Messrs. .J. Hibbard, .James, Charles, and William Rich, .Joseph Moore, 
 .Joseph Large, and the late Mr. Frank Hiscock, all came up from the Duke of 
 Beaufort's country. 
 
BLACK AND WHITE 195 
 
 down over the Kosey, which he crossed at some conventional 
 willows — a nasty, flooded-looking place from where we 
 were. The knowing ones now made off for the ford. How- 
 ever, the heliotrope kept a good many in the path of 
 glory. The country being very deep and much water out, I 
 gave him very little law— also on the principle of ' For God's 
 sake start us, captain, before the whiskey is out of us ! ' 
 
 The willows presented a scene of wild confusion. For a 
 hundred yards each side of where the hounds crossed there was 
 no reasonably fair take-off, the water being out over banks. I 
 think all the hunt-servants more or less got in. The fact is, 
 we are more accustomed to boating than water-jumping. Mr. 
 Harvey, on Bomeo, appeared to make a sort of duck and drake 
 job of it, but did not part, greatly to his credit. The spluttering 
 about was tremendous. Waterspouts filled the startled air. 
 Everybody got in. Charles Eich, according to his own ac- 
 count, climbed up one of the willows after driving Moore's old 
 grey that he was riding into the water up to his neck. I could 
 not understand what he did next, but they got over somehow 
 on right side together, Charlie being wet up to his middle. ' A 
 
 d d good performance, I call it,' he said to me afterwards, 
 
 which, as he weighs nineteen stone and is no climber, I 
 think it was. Self, and Goldsmith on a well-bred white 
 horse, and one or two more rode up the brook. Goldsmith 
 found a place with a little rise to it, good take-off and friendly 
 bush. It was really no width anywhere, so w^e got over. 
 Luckily, hounds had gone no pace meanwhile, and dragged 
 along into the wrong country, of course, Lechlade way out 
 of the Vale. The chase now led us to the Thames, running 
 strong and high, only to be crossed by an unholy w^hite spar- 
 bridge near a weir. For once the men and hounds managed 
 to get over first ; then came Jim Eich and one or two of my 
 Wiltshire- friends, burning to distinguish themselves. Jim 
 Eich's fool of a horse slip]ied and got cast on the bridge. 
 
 o 2 
 
196 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Hind leg hitched through the spars ; all passage blocked. 
 A nice predicament for me and large and brilliant field ! 
 At first we gave the usual advice. ' Take care ! Look 
 out ! Mind where you're going to ! ' flis brother Charlie 
 again on the right side, urging him to shove the blooming 
 horse into the river and let him swim for it. Jim seemed to 
 think it a good joke ; and if it had to happen, it was as well 
 it should happen to a Eich. They have a talent for rescues 
 and emergencies, and are the sort of Deal fishermen of the 
 Beaufort Hunt. Meanwhile, there we all were. After hoik- 
 ing against hope, I started magna comitante catervd for the 
 nearest bridge, four miles off. By this time I was on William, 
 and directly we got to the high road we set off at a strong pace. 
 The high road had all the requisites — hard, wide, well-kept, 
 and no grass siding to lure one off it. After galloping for fif- 
 teen bright minutes or so, we at last saw scarlet specks bobbing 
 along about a mile away from us, half right. Thank Heaven ! 
 hounds looked as if they were only just running. After 
 some difficulty in persuading William of my good intentions 
 — for he fancied by this time that he was taking the good 
 news from Bruges to Ghent — I turned out of the road with 
 Sturges on his white horse and two of the second horsemen 
 who had kept ' follering on ' with their usual dash ; the rest 
 of our party being beaten off by our superior disregard for 
 our horses' legs. We made straight for them over quite a 
 nice line of hunting country. To my surprise, or rather not 
 to my surprise, there were both Charlie and James Rich. 
 Just as they were resolved on putting Charhe's first counsel 
 of perfection into effect, the animal had recovered the leg 
 which was over the edge of the bridge. Not hking the look 
 of the swirling starchy water, he made a great effort, ably 
 assisted by Charlie, who had hold of the root of his tail, 
 the others meanwhile hauling at other coigns of vantage. 
 Up to this point I think they had enjoyed this more than any- 
 
BLACK AND WHITE 197 
 
 thing. We had to go back over the spar-bridge, and another 
 horse did just the same thing. This time the body servant 
 of a young lady with a deep silver lace band hat, and the old 
 drab Zouave gaiter. However I was the right side, having 
 exerted my prerogative of ' Master, please ! ' and bidden Jim 
 sternly to the rear. Charlie was with difficulty restrained 
 from staying to see if he could not get this one in, and 
 lustily roared the same advice to Hatband. After dragging 
 on a mile or two we had a long check, the floods and our 
 ignorance of fords and bridges having played the dickens 
 with us. Just as we were settling down into the doldrums 
 of stag-hunting a baker's cart brought up tidings of great 
 joy. The baker had met the deer at some cross roads about 
 two miles away. Harvey at once subjected him to a severe 
 cross-examination as to his acquaintance with the look of 
 a deer, perhaps remembering the story of the yokel who 
 took a squirrel for the fox — * He wor but a little one, and 
 he run up a tree.' The baker stood it well, and offered to 
 go with us as a sort of hostage, declaring he would chance 
 it, which I suppose referred to the afternoon delivery. 
 
 Harvey having satisfied himself of the baker's bona 
 fides and natural history, started off at a hard-held gallop, 
 blowing his horn. We wanted a little enlivening. The baker's 
 roan pony leading us to such purpose that his loaves kept 
 being jerked out from time to time. The baker must have 
 forgotten the cross road, for when he came to it on he went. 
 ' Hold hard ! ' we all shouted, like one man, whilst I added 
 the conventional ' You're all over the line ! ' On this he 
 pulled up so short that one wheel went into the ditch, and a 
 large wicker basket flew out. However, it was all right, and 
 that thick-shouldered Cardigan hit it off and took it down 
 the road at least two hundred yards ; none of the others 
 seemed to own it. We slotted him out of the road, and then 
 hunted up to him rather nicely over a fair country, through the 
 
198 
 
 ^^ TA G- H UXTIXG RE COL L ECTIcW 'S 
 
 park and young plantations of a gentleman's seat to a large 
 piece of water (Buscott Reservoir), in which Blackback was 
 swimming serenely about. In went the hounds, and I began 
 to feel nervous. Bartlett's ' fine tenor of entreaty and remon- 
 strance now rent the air — it is always one of his great 
 moments — though I never saw any effect produced on the 
 hounds. 
 
 Harvey, meanwhile, blew his horn, trotting promi- 
 
 It was all I COULD DO TO GET ' WiLIJAJI ' HOME 
 
 nently up and down the bank, whilst all who knew how 
 cracked their whips. My Wiltshire friends were quite en- 
 tranced with the spectacle, and declared with one accord 
 they would have come miles to see it alone. Blackback, 
 meanwhile, was veering unconcernedly about in the middle, 
 very little in front of Notion, who, ever since she once got a 
 
 ' For many years second whipper-in, retired on pension in 1SU4, and died 
 the same year (see footnote to p. 93). 
 
BLACK AND WHITE I99 
 
 nip at a deer in the Loddon, has much unproved ni her 
 swimming. There was no boat-house, and I was beginning 
 to be really uncomfortable, when, greatly to my surprise and 
 satisfaction, out went Blackback on the far side. We ran 
 into him in a deep ditch three or four fields further on. Jim 
 Eich had an arm round his neck in a trice, as if he had been 
 at it all his life. There can have been only twenty or thirty 
 people up with us at the end. All my Beaufort guests were 
 there, I am glad to say. William had had quite enough of 
 it. He tires himself from his implacable energy. I gruelled 
 him at Farringdon, where I had some poached eggs. Inn 
 full of talkative and happy hunters. We all thought Joe 
 Moore's horse was going to die when we got him into the 
 stable. A stiii brew of hot ale and whiskey was being ad- 
 ministered when I left. It was as much as I could do to 
 get William home the two or three miles I had to go to 
 Elitemore. He dwelt like lead upon his own footsteps. We 
 were both very glad to see Samways. Only a couple short, 
 I think, and the men's horses did pretty well, in spite of their 
 moderate performances at the Eosey Brook. They are not 
 quite what they should be. Eocksavage out, and preserved 
 a knowing air of mystery throughout. It is a pleasure to 
 see him ride over a country. Ease and power combined. 
 His horse always gets the best possible chance, and always 
 seems to take it. He said he thought the hounds were fat. 
 I dare say they are. They certainly are good ones to eat. 
 
 Not a very brilliant point, but w^e circumvented a lot of 
 country, and I think the people of the district all enjoyed 
 it. We were treated with great hospitality and kindness. 
 Brown, who hunts the old Berkshire, and Orr-Ewing, the 
 Master, had thought of everything possible to help us in 
 every way. The Queen's Hounds had not been in this part 
 of the world for seventeen years w^hen Lord Cork brought 
 them down. 
 
200 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 CHAPTEK XI 
 
 KENNELS AND STABLES 
 
 ' There can be no more important kind of information than the exact know- 
 ledge of a man's own country ; and for this, as well as for more general reasons 
 of pleasure and advantage, hunting with dogs and other kinds of sports should 
 be pursued by the young.' — Plato, haws (Jowett), vol. v. p. 334. 
 
 Queen Anne established the kennels on their present site 
 at Ascot. She inherited her father's love of hunting, who, 
 as Duke of York, was if anything over-fond of it. Pepys 
 more than once complains of the routine Admiralty business 
 falling into arrears owing to the Lord High Admiral being 
 out hunting. Swift speaks of her hunting in burning July 
 weather in a calash — a sort of gig — for she did not ride much 
 latterly, and in order to get about and see the hunt she was 
 always having new rides cut and bogs drained. We horsemen 
 owe much of the pleasure of the October forest hunting about 
 Swinley and Bagshot to Queen Anne. 
 
 Kennel lameness was the great scourge of the Ascot 
 kennel in the earlier years of this century. Sharpe and the 
 whips, described rather mildly as ' kind and civil ' men by a 
 writer in the ' Sporting Magazine ' of 1814, appear to have 
 acknowledged themselves powerless to deal with it.' 
 
 George IV. thought otherwise. Brighton, in his opinion, 
 was the panacea for all things hurtful, and for a year or two 
 he sent Sharpe there with the hounds for sea-bathing, their 
 
 ' The central figure in the plate opposite is G. Sharpe, huntsman ; the 
 ethers are C. Davis, J. Mandeville, and J. Freeman. 
 
KENNELS AND STABLES 
 
 20I 
 
 departure for the sea-side being formally announced in the 
 ' Gazette.' Brighton failed, and Davis appears to have 
 thought, like Sharpe, that there was nothing to be done, and 
 that five or six couple at the least must always be down 
 with it. He speaks of the lameness like a man who has lost 
 his sense of proportion and possibility. ' No artificial means,' 
 he writes to Mr. Vyner, the author of ' Notitia Venatica,' 
 ' can make a lame kennel a sound one. You may build it 
 with marble and alabaster and heat it with fire ; all won't 
 
 do,' and in 1838 he sends Sir John Halkett the best dog in 
 the kennel, Ganymede. 
 
 ' I should be pleased,' he writes, ' to give you one of the 
 best and stoutest I ever bred. He was never known to 
 tire, but he is now afflicted with our cursed torment, kennel 
 lameness, of which he may recover in a fresh place, but 
 never would here,' 
 
 This taking them to a fresh place seems to have been 
 the only remedy practised \^'ith any success. Bartlett, his 
 
202 STAG-HUXTING RECGLLECTIOXS 
 
 feeder, wlioiu I have quoted so often in the course of these 
 pages, declares to me that he has seen hounds taken away in 
 the kennel cart, unable to move, to farmhouses where their 
 kennel might be a pigsty, but in about three weeks they 
 would return, permanently and effectually cured. A curious 
 fact which Bartlett also brings to my notice is this. The 
 same lameness was rife at Cumberland Lodge in the harrier 
 kennels ; the suffering harriers, brought to the Ascot kennels, 
 got well in about three weeks, and the change to Cumber- 
 land Lodge had the same effect upon the impotent staghounds. 
 Bartlett sticks to it that the cure was permanent. But it 
 is difficult to reconcile these statements with the Sharpe and 
 Davis view of the malady. 
 
 Under Harry King, things were no better; he had to 
 some extent imbibed the paralysing conviction of his chief 
 that there was nothing to be done. But thanks to Lord 
 Cork, the Ascot kennel is now free from ' the cursed torment.' 
 When he took over in 1866, the lameness was very prevalent. 
 He had all the kennel yards and houses laid with con- 
 crete over a thick layer of dry rubbish, and on the top a 
 layer of asphalte. These practical means succeeded, a 
 further improvement being made by Goodall, who, when he 
 was appointed huntsman, raised the benches nearly two feet. 
 
 There was no symptom of kennel lameness during my 
 Mastership, and I imagine — although on this point my 
 opinion is not worth much, seeing that I was not brought up 
 to hounds — the plan and general arrangements of the kennela 
 and premises are favourable to health. The drainage is ex- 
 cellent, all sewage being carried on to a small sewage farm 
 by a well -planned and rigorously inspected system of pipes 
 and sympathetic manholes. The water supply is pure and 
 abundant, and the kennels and whelping houses face south- 
 east by east, which I understand is a desirable aspect. 
 Large grass yards inside the precincts make famous play • 
 
KENNELS AND STABLES 203 
 
 grounds for the young entry, and the hunt-servants and 
 feeders have a bit of garden ground attached to their 
 cottages. There is ample and excellent storage for meal 
 and coal, so that the Master, if so inchned, can take advan- 
 tage of low prices. The average establishment has always 
 been forty couple, say thirty-five couple of working hounds. 
 It sounds a good many for two days a week, but the Queen's 
 Hounds are never vanned, and the flints on the Buckingham- 
 shire side and the five-and-twenty miles journey home, which 
 is a constant experience, must be taken into account. 
 
 Harvey instituted a capital practice, although I du not 
 know whether it has been continued. The hunting pack 
 after being fed were always turned into a big loose box 
 filled seven or eight feet high with wheat straw, and he did 
 not disturb them till well on in the next morning. 
 
 There is no difficulty about getting walks, and in my 
 time we entered six or seven couple out of the five-and-twenty 
 walked in the district ; but it is not a country for good 
 walks, as there is not enough grass land or milk, and too 
 much residential amenity. The two plans of the kennels are 
 not quite up to date, but they give a good general idea of the 
 premises and distribution. But enough of technicalities. 
 When the thorns and daisies are out, and the whelps about, 
 and the sun is shining, no pleasanter place than the kennel 
 green can be imagined. 
 
 In 1875 the Queen honoured the kennels by a visit. 
 
 ' And now,' Goodall notes in his journal on the 23rd of 
 March, ' a red-letter day. Her Majesty went all over the 
 kennels, taking great interest in the hounds and in every 
 detail.' This was indeed an honour. Not even the fact he 
 records of being very ' unpresentable ' from a black eye and 
 contused face, due to his fall with ' Eosslyn ' off the wooden 
 bridge, could diminish Goodall's pride and pleasure. 
 
 But Chance, the most sensible and companionable of 
 
204 
 
 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 kennel hacks, is waiting on the pillar reins of the hack stable, 
 and I must canter over to Cumberland Lodge, by the pleasant 
 
 5 I 
 :_ < 
 
 ^rM 
 
 M 
 
 \c- 
 
 -;0-.ZOJ- 
 
 grass rides we botJi know so well. The situation of Cumber- 
 land Lodge is fairly central, and the place has great advan- 
 
KENNELS AND STABLES 
 
 205 
 
 tages of good air, famous all-the-year-round exercising 
 ground, and plenty of things for the horses to look at — deer, 
 
 and cock pheasants and rabbits, and fern and fine trees. 
 They make a little variety for them at exercise. 
 
 The present buildings stand on the site of an old keeper's 
 cottage described in Norden's Survey (1607) as Hayman's 
 
2o6 5 TA G-HrXT/XG RECOL LECTIO XS 
 
 Lodge ; a comfortable range of warm-toned red brick, with a 
 high-pitched gable roof, and all sorts of proper and sympa- 
 thetic things about it — wide lawns, spreading trees, a cricket 
 gromid, and at the back a very remarkable kitchen garden. 
 The stabling has all the dignity and character of a royal 
 and ancient establishment, and the refined look which only 
 belongs to the older-fashioned stabling of people of quality. 
 They were built by Charles II., like his father, a fine school- 
 horseman, who delighted and surprised the Duke of New- 
 castle by the gay shrewdness of his sayings about horses, and 
 also by the integrity of his equestrian principles. Sarah, 
 Duchess of Marlborough, added to and improved Cumberland 
 Lodge during her rangership of Windsor Great Park, and Sir 
 Jeffry Wyattville carried out some further additions whilst he 
 was playing the very deuce at Windsor. Mercifully, however, 
 he did not think it worth ' Gothicising.' I forget how much 
 stabling there is, but we always had a lot of horses there, 
 twenty-five or thirty, and yet there always seemed to be plenty 
 of room, and plenty of work for more. Most of it is stall 
 stabling, but of the wide, long, generous sort, with old oak 
 divisions and posts. Horses do here just as well as in boxes, 
 and a shy feeder put next a greedy one very soon gets into 
 the spirit of feeding time. The summer boxes are very good, 
 the best I think I ever saw : every two boxes has an open 
 yard the full size of both, and the horses take turns in 
 going out, one all night and the other all day. Given the 
 right sort of land with shade and water, spareish for grass, 
 with a sweet bite here and there, I like turning horses 
 out myself. Here and there an individual horse is better 
 summered in a box ; but most horses gain in every way 
 by the contrast and the freedom of the out-door life. It puts 
 nature into them and makes them more independent and 
 sensible. At Cumberland Lodge we had no grazing land. 
 However, this T tliink is the only weak point; and many 
 
1^ 
 
 1^. 
 
KENNELS AND STABLES 
 
 207 
 
 people would not agree with me as to the benefit of tlie out- 
 door hfe, and the change from a box, where a horse can 
 neither see nor even hear his companions, to a sort of club life. 
 The Prince of Wales summers his hunters at Cumber- 
 land Lodge, and in the days when H.E.H. kept harriers 
 (which he afterwards gave to the farmers of the Queen's 
 country) the harriers were kept there. In the good time 
 when H.E.H. hunted frequently with the Queen's Hounds, 
 that is, in from about 1864 into the beginning of the seventies, 
 he saw some excellent runs and owned some capital horses. 
 Lord Colville has already told us of one great run. I 
 believe only three really saw the end of that one — Colonel, 
 now Sir Nigel, Kingscote, King the huntsman, and Mr. 
 Sowter, the well-known Haymarket saddler ; but the Prince, 
 Sir Nigel tells me, went at the top of the hunt as far as 
 Harrow, when with the majority of the field he made a bad 
 turn in the lanes. On this occasion the horses were sent 
 home by train to AVindsor, and the Prince's horse, a very 
 favourite mare named Firefly, caught cold and died within 
 a day or two. Another run in which H.E.H. rode ' hard and 
 well ' — terms which are not always synonymous — and to the 
 end, was from Taplow to St. Albans. Sir Nigel instances 
 another, when the deer was taken near Tring — which must 
 have been a long point — where they had mutton-chops and 
 poached eggs so well served that they merited and received 
 very special attention and commendation from the Prince. 
 Some of his best horses were Firefly, Paddy, Thornton, 
 Eural Dean, Q.C., Lockington, and Charlie, and they were all 
 ridden regularly with the staghounds. Though all were well- 
 bred high-couraged horses, Thornton, Firefly, and Paddy 
 were perhaps the special favourites. Q.C. was a grey ; 
 the Prince was mounted on him by the Duke of Beaufort 
 when he was staying at Badminton, and liked him so 
 much that he persuaded the Duke to sell him. ' Paddy,' Sir 
 
2o8 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Nigel writes me, ' a chestnut horse which I bought out of 
 sale of the present Duke of Westminster (then Lord Gros- 
 venor), was, take him all in all, the horse H.K.H. liked 
 the best for many years ; and once when staying at Bad- 
 minton we had quite a good run over the Dodington Vale 
 up on to the high country toward Badminton. I well 
 remember the Prince riding Paddy over a stile first, that, 
 with horses having come so far and so fast, very few indeed 
 would have looked at.' 
 
 It is a common saying that a moderate horse really fit 
 will beat a first-rater that is not fit, and the importance 
 of condition in a stag-hunting stud cannot be overrated. 
 Average condition will not do. A horse must be wound 
 up, and never allowed to get stale, othervdse the effects 
 of a severe day's hunting take a long time passing off. 
 Propitious antecedents play a great part in conditioning 
 a hunter. Personally, I should never buy young horses for 
 the stag-hunting work : it is not so much that a well-bred 
 young horse may not carry the huntsman or whip to the 
 very end, and come home apparently fresh, but it takes the 
 steel out of him, and his constitution is apt to resent it. A 
 stag-hunter must be a seasoned animal. I hke them eight or 
 nine years old, out of a crack stud, with three or four years 
 of some one else's oats in them, plus the elbow grease some 
 Meltonian Mr. Tiptop's subordinates have devoted to muscle 
 and sinew. 
 
 I referred just now with grateful recollection to Chance. 
 And it may here be noticed, that good kennel hacks are most 
 valuable servants in the Eoyal establishment. They are like 
 the odd man in a large house, who always does most of the 
 work. The hunt horses are sent on direct to the Bucking- 
 hamshire side meets, and the men ride their hacks on 
 v/ith the hounds, the hacks being sent back to Windsor, and 
 waiting there till the hounds arrive, or meeting them else- 
 
KENNELS AND STABLES 209 
 
 where on intelligence, or the chance of the hounds coming 
 home that way. This saves the Cumherland Lodge stud 
 many a mile, and gets them into their own quarters a good 
 two hours earlier. But given the alliance of the hacks, 
 mounting the establishment is a serious matter. To get on 
 comfortably with the Queen's Hounds and the tireless Swinley 
 deer, you really want two sets of horses, one for the Bucks 
 side and one for the Berks. The furthest meet from Cumber- 
 land Lodge in the Friday county is Loddon Bridge, thirteen 
 or fourteen miles ; and most of the best Friday meets are 
 within ten miles, but the Chalfonts, Holtspur Heath, 
 Beaconsfield, all run into fourteen to twenty-five miles. 
 
 ' I have been stag-hunting for between thirty and forty 
 years, and I have come to the conclusion that the demand 
 on the stud in the Royal Hunt is greater than that upon 
 the stable of a master of foxhounds.' So writes Sir Henry 
 Simpson, the widely known and respected Windsor veterinary 
 surgeon, and he goes on to say, speaking from professional 
 experience of the Cumberland Lodge stud, ' No one in my 
 time can say the horses have been overworked, which must 
 have been the case if the Master for the time being had 
 attempted to horse the hunt in the same ratio as would 
 amply suffice for a fox-hunting establishment.' As I have 
 said elsewhere, you want a very well bred one for the far side ; 
 even thoroughbred is not too good to stand the long hours, 
 the hills, and the ever-lengthening miles home which a good 
 run means. To my mind it is an economy to have two horses 
 out for all the men, and I usually had an extra horse out in 
 case of a casualty — this with two for myself meant nine out 
 daily, and five-and-twenty miles home was quite an every- 
 day occurrence. Unfortunately, too, in stag-hunting the 
 second horses do not always mean any very great saving to 
 the first horses ; often and often we could not get them at 
 the right moment to make a difference and in any case the 
 
 P 
 
2IO 
 
 5 TA G-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 second horses have had an average day's hunting before they 
 are requisitioned for active service, having been obhgedto keep 
 going. Nicks and points serve them very httle. However, I 
 do not wish to further load this page with ' the gibberish of 
 hunting studs,' to borrow a phrase from a puzzled Quarterly 
 Keviewer of the Delme-Eadcliffe day. 
 
 I will only again quote Sir Henry Simpson on the very 
 
 JosiAH Miles, Stud Gboom to the Queen's Hounds, 
 October 1843 to March 1894 
 
 point which led to a deliverance from the Archbishop, that 
 is, the cruel strain upon the horses. It is always an advantage 
 to hear both sides, however unevenly matched from the point 
 of view of knowledge of the subject. It is in no sense a 
 rejoinder, as it was written in October, long before the Arch- 
 bishop came to the front. This is what the layman has to 
 say: 'As regards hunting casualties or illness, the result of a 
 
KENNELS AND STABLES 211 
 
 hard day, I think I may say with safety of the Royal Hunt, 
 as I may say of other well-ordered hunting establishments, 
 that, in proportion to the risks run, the casualties are not 
 high. Casualties, of course, will always occur, but if a hunter 
 is in condition and fairly ridden, the effect of a severe day's 
 hunting soon passes off.' 
 
 As I have said a little about hunt horses in this and in 
 other chapters, I must not close it without a few grateful and 
 affectionate words to the memory of one of the Queen's most 
 faithful and affectionate servants, Josiah Miles, for very 
 many years stud-groom at Cumberland Lodge. He died 
 in the Queen's service after a mercifully short illness in 
 the second year of my Mastership, greatly regretted and 
 respected by all who had ever known him. I know my 
 predecessors felt his loss and appreciated his ability and 
 devotion to his charges quite as much as I did. Duty was 
 ever his first thought, and his daughter writes me that 
 almost his last conscious words to her were to remind 
 my second horseman of a particular bridle which I had 
 desired should be used next hunting day. Miles started in 
 the Queen's service on his wedding day, October 4, 1843, as 
 second groom under Charles Bryant, and was appointed first 
 groom on Bryant's death in 1867. In the summer of 1898 
 the Queen presented him with a medal in honour of his fifty 
 years' service. I rode over to Cumberland Lodge the same 
 evening to see and congratulate Mr. and Mrs. Miles, tea and 
 a talk with Mrs. Miles being one of the many pleasant things 
 which came with the Mastership of the Queen's Hounds. 
 They had driven over to Windsor together, and the Queen 
 had given Miles his medal with her own hands. It was a 
 most happy tea. 
 
 The present stud groom, Eeuben Matthews, succeeded 
 Miles. He has been at Cumberland Lodge for a great 
 many years ; having been appointed second groom when Miles 
 
2 12 5 TA G-HUNTING RECOL LECTIONS 
 
 succeeded Bryant. Thanks to Lord Coventry's kindness, I 
 hunted two or three times last season with the Queen's 
 Hounds, and greatly enjoyed myself with my old friends. 
 I never saw hunt horses looking bigger and better. They 
 did both the stud groom and the master credit. 
 
 Reuben Matthew? 
 
CHAPTKIi XII 
 
 ASCOT AFFAIRS 
 Excussus propriis aliena negotia curat 
 
 Every Master of the Buckhounds, I fancy, is urged on his 
 appointment by some of his racing friends to deal in a states- 
 manhke way with the stands. 
 
 Several people spoke to me seriously on the subject, and 
 of course they all had ideas of their own as to what should 
 be done. Some of these were a little difficult to follow. 
 But one and all had espoused great principles, and separated 
 themselves — judicially — from all questions of detail. Any 
 and every objection — such as interference with the high road, 
 the local authorities, private ownership, the configuration of 
 the ground, the convenience of the resident population — were 
 brushed aside. A large outlook was the thing, and all these 
 puny points would work themselves out. However, during 
 the time I lived at Ascot I came to the conclusion that, in 
 principle and indeed in fact, which is a very different thing, 
 there was quite enough to be said in favour of setting the 
 stands at an angle to the Straight Mile course to make it 
 worth careful consideration. 
 
 But how was it to be done ? After looking over and over 
 again at the ground, and the villas, and the high road, and 
 the possibilities of space, I decided that, for many reasons — 
 economic and utilitarian^ — the mountain, that is the stands, 
 could not go to Mahomet. Mahomet, that is, the course, 
 
214 STAG-HUXTING RECOLLECTIOXS 
 
 must come to the mountain. The accompanying plan 
 shows how I thought it could be managed. Some ex- 
 planatory notes drafted at the time this plan was submitted 
 to the Jockey Club cited the general grounds upon which 
 I made the proposal and the particular advantages claimed 
 for the alteration. I have nothing to add to these notes, so 
 I give the exact text : * For some years it has been very 
 generally objected that the occupants of the stands and 
 enclosures ' on the present alignment are unable to see the 
 races run over the New Mile course until the horses are 
 nearly home ; for instance, the line marked A un the plan is 
 drawn parallel with the front of the Koyal stand. It will be 
 seen that the starting point and the greater part of the 
 present New Mile course are actually behind the front of 
 the Koyal and other stands and enclosures. 
 
 ' The Master of the Buckhounds is of opinion that this 
 objection may be successfully dealt with by an alteration 
 in the direction of the present New Mile course, and he 
 would suggest laying out a new Straight Mile as shown on 
 the annexed plan. 
 
 ' The whole course would thus be thrown considerably in 
 front of the stands and enclosures, and their occupants would 
 literally see each race run out from start to finish. 
 
 ' Another consideration disposes the Master of the Buck- 
 hounds to recommend this alteration. The present New 
 Mile course is just under a mile, and cannot be lengthened on 
 account of the high road. There is thus no room for fractious 
 animals to be quieted in, and a consequently increased risk 
 of false starts. The new course, on the other hand, is 
 exactly a mile in length, amply sufficient space being provided 
 behind the starting post to enable a large field of horses 
 to be conveniently marshalled. This is a very practical 
 
 ' IJoyal Stand ; Master of the Buckhounds' Stand ; Jockey Club Stand ; 
 Iron Stand ; Grand Stand. 
 
2i6 STAG-HUNTIX(; RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 advantage, in view of the tact that the rich stakes at Ascot 
 attract large fields of horses. 
 
 ' It is, hovi^ever, obvious that, if this new course is carried 
 out, the turn from the present Old Mile course on to the 
 new course would be an impossible one, and would require 
 to be altered as shown by the line marked B on the plan, 
 
 ' The effect of this alteration would be to shorten the 
 course run over in certain races ' by about fourteen yards, 
 but this will be easily rectified by throwing back the starting 
 posts that distance.' 
 
 , Upon the whole the plan found favour, but it was of a 
 philosophic, not a practical kind. The stewards of the Jockey 
 Club took up a safe position. 'You offer us, at least so 
 you tell us, a course where everybody will be able to see 
 instead of a course where hardly anybody sees. That will 
 be charming. Pray do so, and we shall all be happy and 
 grateful ; but it is for you to act in the matter. It is not our 
 business, and we do not propose to make it our business.' 
 
 Then, as always happens when all changes from the 
 known to the unknown are concerned, the quieta non movere 
 instinct in human nature came to the alert. It was further 
 pointed out, and with some force, by my predecessor in 
 office, that even at Newmarket, in the very heart of the racing 
 world, fifty per cent, of the people, including most of the 
 finest judges, will not trouble themselves to leave the July 
 stand and go down to the first winning post to see a race, and 
 H.R.H. Prince Christian, a true lover and judge of racing, 
 objected that any plan by which the horses would be seen 
 coming all the way would rob him and other racing idealists 
 of that precious psychological moment when the first cap 
 comes into sight out of the dip of the straight mile. 
 
 ' Gold Vase ; Ascot Stakes ; Visitors' Plato ; Coronation Stakes ; Ascot 
 Derby ; SOtli Ascot Biennial Stakes ; Gold Cup ; St. James's Palace Stakes ; 
 31st New Biennial Stakes ; Ascot Hi}jh Weight Plate ; Hardwicke Stakes. 
 
 
ASCOT AFFAIRS 217 
 
 On the other hand, individuals of unimpeachable 
 authority whom I consulted gave the plan their careful 
 attention, and wished the alteration might be carried into 
 effect. However, the writing was already on the wall. It 
 would have been manifestly unfair to pledge my successor to 
 a large undertaking and heavy expenditure, in his view of 
 questionable advantage and necessity, and the Friday of Ascot 
 week, 1895, terminated my connection with Ascot affairs 
 and power for good or evil. If the change is ever carried 
 out, it is clearly one of those departures which must be 
 taken by mutual and cordial consent of both the ins and the 
 outs. 
 
 Here let me add that I had no personal prepossessions 
 in the matter. Assuming the terms of the problem to have 
 been correctly stated, I merely advanced my proposals as a 
 practical and feasible solution. A fair composition could 
 have been made — at that time— with the owner of Sunning- 
 dale Park for the acquisition of the additional land required 
 for a new Straight Mile course, and for carrying out the plan 
 in all its details. There were no difficulties in the w^ay as to 
 gradients, nor as to the laying of the course, which, assuming 
 the work to have been begun, say, in October 1895, should, 
 so I was informed by expert opinion, have been in order for 
 the Ascot races this year, or at all events for next year. In 
 the meanwhile, whilst the new course was consolidating and 
 getting a good face of grass, all could have gone on just as at 
 present. Many people took a kind interest in the matter 
 from first to last, and I was especially pleased by the hearty 
 encouragement of Captain Machell, who came down to Ascot 
 with me one day, and w^ent over the ground with the plans 
 most carefully. Even those who did not agree with me 
 hstened courteously, if with a wandering eye, to all I had 
 to say on a subject which my readers will agree is not 
 
2i8 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 particularly entertaining. ' The Captain,' I remember, said a 
 very characteristic thing the day he came down. I said that 
 I was disinclined to ask So-and-So's advice. ' Oh ! ' he said, 
 ' I should ; I always ask for advice. One need never take it.' 
 
 From time to time great fault is found with the state of 
 the course at the time of the meeting, and I should like to 
 say a word or two here about the difficulties which have to 
 be met. 
 
 The soil is sand and gravel ; rain silts away through it like 
 a filter. Thus racing Ascot is in constant jeopardy from the 
 dryness and the drying qualities which are the boast of 
 residential Ascot. Only the deep-rooted grasses can with- 
 stand the zest of a spring sun, its escort of parching easterly 
 winds, the dewless nights, the spiteful frosts, and the un- 
 handsome pranks, from a farmer's point of view, our climate 
 often plays upon us in April and May. Ascot Heath has 
 no natural advantages but beauty. The course is regene- 
 rated common land, and the grass, and especially the New 
 Mile, is peevish haggard stuff and hardly honest. No better 
 illustration can be given of its hostility to the best inten- 
 tions than the fact that sheep have been tried both on the 
 course and on the lawns, but owing to thinness of the 
 turf soil and the dry and thirsty subsoil, they did so little 
 good and stained the land so unbecomingly that much had 
 to be re-turfed. The fact is that unless you have a wet 
 spring you cannot expect "a really good course, and April 
 and May are critical and anxious months for Major Clement, 
 who for many years past has spared himself no trouble to 
 make each Ascot meeting better and more convenient than 
 its immediate predecessor. He watches the weather with the 
 strained attention of the prophet Elijah. But Major Clement 
 is only an experienced and faithful steward of the many 
 things connuitted to his charge ; ho is not, as some of the 
 
A SCOT AFFAIRS 219 
 
 newspapers seem to think, either a magician or a Jehovah, 
 and he has ungi'ateful conditions to deal with, which I am 
 glad to have had the opportunity of stating. 
 
 And now I come to a terrible responsibility of the Master 
 of the Buckhounds. I use the word responsibility advisedly, 
 for he is annually held accountable not merely for the 
 enjoyment and safe conduct of fashionable society, but also 
 for the satisfaction of its progressive desires.' Far be it from 
 me to lift the veil which shrouds the excellent mysteries of 
 the Eoyal Enclosure. Suffice it to say that the most well- 
 intentioned and upright Master of the Buckhounds must 
 be guilty of injustice. Clearly, unless he gave his life to 
 it, he cannot be expected to know everybody ; but setting 
 this aside, allowance must be made for the pressure of a 
 Frankenstein-like society, for the wear and tear of his nerves, 
 for the eccentricities of his digestion. Added to these comes 
 the strain of a seemingly four-fold multiplication of posts, 
 a locust horde of telegrams, devoted powdered footmen who 
 refuse to quit your premises, however uncomfortable, without 
 an answer, and all the other irritants of his everyday life 
 from say April 1 till about midday on the Wednesday in 
 Ascot week, when the well-directed dropping fire of appli- 
 cations begins to slacken. Nor is this the place to record 
 the elegant anguish of AVorth- and Paquin-dressed disconso- 
 lates, the dignified remonstrances of their more influential 
 
 ' The following figures, which Major Clement has kindly sent me, may 
 amuse the curious and serve to indicate the present scale of the demands of 
 an Ascot week. 
 
 On the Gold Cup day there were sent from the Ascot offices in 1890, 12,753 
 telegrams and 4(j,000 words of Press matter ; and in 1897, 10, .500 telegrams 
 and 45,000 words ; the diminution in the latter case was due to the fact that 
 betting on the lawn of the Grand Stand was this year prohibited. For the Grand 
 Stand luncheons alone, exclusive of the more solid viands, there were cooked 
 —1,800 fowls, 1,200 pigeons, 1,700 lbs. of salmon, 1,500 lobsters and 500 quails. 
 Of such figures as these Pantagruel himself would not have been ashamed. 
 
220 STAG-HrNTIXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 relations, and the despair of their admirers. These things are 
 pitiful, but inevitable, and the Master of the Buckhounds is 
 often the unconscious executioner of all kinds of agreeable 
 plans and stimulating hopes. Of course he is abused : if he 
 happens to be a Liberal any rod is good enough for his back ; 
 if he happens to be a Tory, he at once becomes a noble of 
 the type which justified the French Kevolution. But for the 
 most part he is forgiven freely. Besides, the ' all against all ' 
 character of the scramble comes to his rescue. Lucre tia's 
 many friends have got a little M^earied with her account of 
 her preparations and Paris tryings-on. She cannot, hke 
 Constance, ' instruct her sorrows to be proud,' and they 
 naturally cannot help being amused at her failure to get her 
 ticket. There is a general sense of relief that the tiresome 
 Gracchi have been refused. 
 
 In my time one incident occurred of a probably unique 
 kind, which may here be recorded. I received a message 
 which demanded very instant attention. It appeared that 
 an individual with a kodak was loose in the enclosure. 
 He had commenced operations by several snaps at the Royal 
 party, and when last seen was actively engaged upon a group 
 of duchesses. Needless to say that he was described to me 
 as a complete radical in appearance. Hoping for my own 
 sake, as well as for that of the Newcastle progi-amme, that 
 he might not turn out to be an Irish member, I portrayed 
 him to my green-plush-clad myrmidons, who, assisted by 
 some good-natured volunteers, at once set off in pursuit. 
 Owing to the congested state of the enclosure, progress was 
 difficult, and the chase for some little time eluded them like 
 a will-o'-the-wisp. He had been seen here, suspected there, 
 noticed flagrante delicto somewhere else. At last, however, 
 he was delivered into our hands, and haled into my presence. 
 It ended rather tamely, for he turned out to be a distinguished 
 visitor to our shores, accredited by the embassy of one of the 
 
ASCOT AFFAIRS 221 
 
 great Powers, and a relative of an ex-crowned head. How- 
 ever, I administered a wordy reprimand or rather lecture 
 on the trite thesis of ' autres pays,' &c., and made him 
 promise to banish the partner of his guilt to the boot of a 
 distant drag. To this he sadly but courteously consented, 
 and the incident closed. I only hope I invited him to 
 luncheon. 
 
STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 PREDECESSOES 
 
 They shall not be ashamed when they speak with their enemies in the gate 
 
 Having regard to the antiquity of our office, it must be 
 admitted that, with a few distinguished exceptions. Masters 
 of the Buckhounds have not left a very marked or consecutive 
 impression upon the pages of constitutional history or the 
 roll of constructive legislation. The office belongs to the 
 livery of politics. Its duties and opportunities lie outside 
 the walls of Parliament. We cannot, for instance, boast 
 that a Cromwell, or a Pitt, or a Gladstone ever dignified 
 the couples : at the same time, tried by the most rigorous 
 tests of proportional representation, we stand out very fairly 
 well. We can hardly be said to be an insignificant order 
 when we remember that two of us have been beheaded for 
 high State reasons — Sir Bernard Brocas, whom Mr. Burrows 
 has told us all about in his valuable introduction, and Lord 
 Rochford, Anne Boleyn's gifted brother. Nor can we justly 
 be said to be undistinguished. Lord Leicester in Queen 
 Elizabeth's, Sir William Wyndham in Queen Anne's, and 
 Lord Granville in Queen Victoria's reign, all held high offices 
 of State. And we can point to a long succession of booted 
 and spurred, gentle and noble men who have done their 
 duty more or less picturesquely in the saddles to which 
 
PREDECESSORS 223 
 
 Royal favour or party politics have called them. Upon the 
 other hand, we have at times been treated with little respect. 
 In the ' Infernai Marriage ' Pluto promises Cerberus the Buck- 
 hounds in the event of a change of the Ministry — I am 
 bound to say his antecedents qualified him to deal with 
 the Royal enclosure. It was the post Lord Marney most 
 coveted ; and I was told a story the other day which, as it is 
 wounding to my self-esteem, I shall degrade to a footnote.' 
 
 I cannot pretend to having made any exhaustive inquiry 
 into the subject, but it has occurred to me that with the 
 exception perhaps of William III. the greatest men have not 
 been the best riders. As all Masters of the Buckhounds are 
 presumably first-rate horsemen, this may have something to 
 do with it ; we may be the victims of our aptitudes. 
 
 A distinguished Frenchman — a lover of belles lettres and a 
 student of Napoleonics — told me the other day that Napoleon 
 rode ' affreusement mal,' and the slouching seat Meissonier 
 always gives him is doubtless historically accurate. It is 
 the seat of a round and short-legged heavy-stomached man, 
 and the artist hits off exactly the restless poise of the paunch 
 upon the pummel of the saddle. One ' Nim South ' formed 
 an equally poor opinion of the Duke of Wellington's horse- 
 mansnip, as well as of his get-up, when he saw him out with 
 Sir John Cope's hounds at Hartley Row Gate in 1831. As 
 everything about the Duke of AVellington is worth remem- 
 bering, and as he hunted regularly on the heather and 
 Hampshire side of the Queen's and Mr. Garth's country, 
 some of Mr. Nim South's appreciations may here be cited. 
 After telhng the readers of the 'Sporting Magazine' how he 
 has to wait in a drizzling rain for some little time at the 
 
 ' ' Ben ' Stanley, the celebrated Whig Whip, was walking one day with Lords 
 Bessborough and Granville, both of whom had been Master of the Buckhounds. 
 A new Administration was in process of formation and one of them asked Mr. 
 Stanley what Lord So-and-So was likely to have. ' Oh, the Buckhounds, of 
 course ; the only place for a fellow like that.' 
 
224 STAG-HUNT/yG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 turnpike, Mr. South says : ' I saw a red coat winding along 
 at a snail's pace, the wearer evidently disregarding the 
 sprinkling. "He is a sportsman," thought 'I, "and see, he 
 wears drab breeches — a sure sign of one ! " ' • 
 
 As the wearer draws nearer, Mr. South finds to his 
 surprise that he had mistaken drab fustian trousers for ker- 
 seymere breeches, the horseman's ' grave and thoughtful 
 countenance ' making but poor amends for such a shock. The 
 rest of his costume was disquieting in the extreme. ' His dress 
 consisted of a plain scarlet frock-coat, a lilac silk waistcoat, 
 kid gloves, the aforesaid fustians, and boots which we call 
 Wellingtons ; and certainly they were Wellingtons in every 
 sense of the word, for the wearer was neither more nor less 
 than the illustrious Arthur himself. As he advanced my red 
 coat caught his eye, and at the same moment my eye caught 
 liis undeniable nose. There was no mistaking him, and I 
 took off my hat to the greatest man of the day.' Needless 
 to say that the Duke converses with Nim South with all 
 the urbanity which the interviewer invariably experiences at 
 the hands of the truly great. ' We had,' Nim goes on to say, 
 ' just the sort of day's sport to please a man like the Duke 
 of Wellington, who, though mighty in the field of war, cuts 
 no great figure in the hunting field. Indeed, to do him all 
 due justice, I have seldom seen a man with less idea of 
 riding than he has. His seat is unsightly in the extreme, 
 and few men get more falls in the course of a year than his 
 
 ' In spite of Beau Brummell's instruction to his tailor, ' Keep continually 
 sending leather breeches,' it would appear that at this time cords and not leathers 
 were the vogue ; George IV., as we have seen, ordered cords for Dom Miguel's 
 visit. When the Mr. Tomkinson of the day electrified the Meltonians with his 
 uncompromising riding to hounds, he was at first classed by Ninirod as ' a slow 
 one ' on account of his wearing leathers. They soon found out their mistake, 
 and the Cheshire squire appears to have had much the same effect upon the 
 mind of Leicestershire as that produced by his gallant descendant some few years 
 ago on the occasion of his first visit to Melton. Lord Wilton's and Lord George 
 Bentinck's distinguished appearance in buckskins at Croxton Park races some 
 two or three years later is said to have brought them into fashion. 
 
PREDECESSORS 225 
 
 Grace. Nevertheless he seemed to enjoy the thing amazingly, 
 and what with leading over occasionally and his groom's 
 assistance, he did very well.' The Duke did not mind falls. 
 He used to relate with evident pleasure how on one occasion 
 he counted eight pairs of shoes flash over him as he lay cast 
 in the landing side ditch. This was in England, but the 
 Duke hunted regularly from Paris after the Peace.' On one 
 occasion he rather annoyed Charles X. by saying when the 
 stag, after ringing about for hours in the forest of Compiegne, 
 took them out into the open, ' Ah ! this is more the thing ; 
 it reminds me of the Vale of Aylesbury.' Judging from my 
 own experiences of les petits environs and the French open, 
 the stag must have picked a very exceptional bit of country. 
 Perhaps it was the unusual look of things which made 
 Charles X. a little nervous and consequently a little short. 
 The Duke was a great supporter and a most generous sub- 
 scriber both to the Vine and the Bramshill hounds. At 
 one time he gave 400?. a year to the former, and on hearing 
 that Sir John's hounds had drawn the Strathfieldsaye coverts 
 blank, he warned all the keepers that a repetition of this 
 would mean their discharge. One day a well-wisher advised 
 him to take up his stirrups a couple of holes. Bad advice, 
 which I hope he did not take, although he appears to have 
 accepted it in good part. But a more striking example of his 
 patience in the hunting field is given in the ' History of the 
 Vyne in Hampshire.' Mr. Chute's hounds were never adver- 
 tised, and one day in March, 1820, the Duke sent his horses to 
 darken Green, as he had been told by the huntsman that 
 the hounds were to meet there that day. They never turned 
 up, and the Duke spent much time in trying to find them ; 
 
 ' A great many Englishmen were in Paris at this time. Lord Pembroke 
 astonished Parisian 'society by his fine harness horses and turn-out generally. 
 He asked his groom one day what he did about exercising horses. The man 
 replied that he had been twenty times round Wyndham Place, as he called the 
 Place Vendome. He had evidently made himself thoroughly at home. 
 
 Q 
 
226 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 but he only writes to Mr. Chute, ' Not finding or hearing 
 anything of you I have returned home. I regret this 
 exceedingly, particularly as I feel you will have waited for me.' 
 Only a strict disciplinarian would have put up so uncom- 
 plainingly with such an annoying misunderstanding. A five- 
 pound subscriber in these days would have at once written 
 to the papers and asked leave to publish the correspondence. 
 
 In spite of some very hunting-like and perceptive stanzas,^ 
 Lord Byron himself was no great horseman. Lady Blessing- 
 ton gives an amusing account of their first ride together 
 and of his get-up. Accustomed to the irreproachable ap- 
 pointments of Count d'Orsay, who always went up to the 
 front with the best of them in the Harrow country, she was 
 amazed at the variety of his riding gear — ' trappings, caves- 
 sons, martingales, and heaven knows what else,' overlaid 
 the very moderate hack he rode, whose stumbles frequently 
 discomposed his rider very much. His dress was quite as 
 unusual as the Duke of Wellington's. A short- waisted 
 nankeen jacket, much shrunk and very narrow in the back, 
 embroidered w^ith three rows of buttons ; nankeen gaiters, 
 a black very narrow stock, and a dark blue velvet cap with 
 a rich gold braid and a tassel, and blue specs. He gave 
 Lady Blessington the idea of being an exceedingly timid 
 rider. Sometimes, she says, the nankeen jacket gave place 
 to a green tartan tunic. 
 
 Although he writes to his sister from Southend in 1884 
 
 ' He broke, 'tis true, some statutes of the laws 
 Of huntiiift : for the sagest youth is frail. 
 Kode o'er the hounds it may be now and then, 
 And once o'er several county gentlemen. 
 
 He also had a quality uncommon 
 
 To early risers after a long chace, 
 A quality agreeable to woman 
 
 When her soft liquid words run on apace ; 
 Who likes a listener, whether saint or sinner. 
 He did not fall asleep just after dinner. 
 
PREDECESSORS 
 
 227 
 
 of nearly killing an Arabian mare in a run of thirty miles, 
 which is not to be wondered at, seeing that he adds, ' I 
 stopped at nothing,' Lord Beaconsfield can hai-dly be said 
 to have kept up his riding. Mr. Gladstone's riding was 
 limited to the observances of the Liver Brigade in Botten 
 Eow. Mr. Carlyle rode far and fast for pleasure and dys- 
 pepsia, but there is no reason to think that he was in any 
 sense a horseman ; like most Scotchmen he speaks and 
 thinks of them as ' beasts,' although from time to time he 
 handsomely acknowledges the good care which the ' very 
 clever creatures ' take of him. Sir Eobert Peel was a clumsy 
 and inelegant rider, and his death is attributed by most of 
 his biographers to his weak seat, which prevented him 
 recovering his horse's stumble. But enough of these incon- 
 sequences, I must get back to the title of this chapter. 
 
 As the first Master of the Privy or Household Pack, 
 George Boleyn, Viscount Kochford, Henry VIII. 's Master of 
 the Buckhounds (1528-1536) is the proper person to begin 
 with. Lord Eochford had his full share of the prosperity of 
 his family at Court. One way and another father, mother, 
 sisters, brother, all made the most of good looks, shrewd 
 heads, and slender scruples. Sir Thomas and Lady Boleyn 
 could point with satisfaction to an earldom, the garter, a 
 rebuilt country house, and fat acquisitions of property : 
 Mary Boleyn for a time enjoyed the prestige of being the 
 king's mistress : Anne became his lawful queen : George 
 Boleyn was given the Buckhounds, and received many other 
 pleasant and profitable marks of Eoyal favour. He is a 
 favourite with most of his biographers. His personal gifts 
 were of a kind which I hope will always command respect. 
 He could ride, and shoot, and dance, and make love, and 
 lead a masquerade better than his neighbours. But his 
 intellectual attainments appear to have been considerable. 
 ' II a laisse cliez ses contemporains,' says M. Bapst, ' une 
 
228 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 reputation de bon litterateur.' Although he said himself 
 he could never write decent Latin prose, he had distinguished 
 himself at Oxford, understood colloquial Latin and ItaHan, 
 and spoke and wrote French with ease and correctness. 
 Mr. Hep worth Dixon pays a high tribute to his elegant 
 culture, and cites him as a notable member of a progressive 
 Young England party, and an ardent partisan of hberal learn- 
 ing. ' Early in life he had begun to toy with verse, a fine 
 accomplishment of a liberal age, and by his talents he was 
 helping that revival of English poetry which his playinate 
 Wyat and his cousin Surrey were to foster into vigorous life.' ' 
 As we can hardly accord to Davis the rank of a poet, 
 Lord Eochford is the only poet of our order. 
 
 Farewell, my Lute, this is the last 
 Labour that thou and I shall waste. 
 
 For ended is what we began : 
 Now is the song both sung and past, 
 
 My Lute, be still, for I have done. 
 
 This 'farewell to his lute,' said to have been composed 
 and sung by him the night before his execution, has the 
 mother-of-pearl refinement which belongs especially to the 
 poetry of that time. 
 
 These pages need have no concern with the truth or 
 falseness of the charges brought against the brother and 
 sister. They are matters of history ; bvit in no way afi"ect the 
 ethics of stag-hunting. On May 15, 1536, Lord Eochford was 
 arrested on a complicated charge of treason to his king. He 
 was tried next day by his peers. Long odds were laid upon 
 his acquittal. He could not be shaken in cross-examination, 
 and his defence was ably conducted ; ' he made answare,' 
 we are told, ' so prudentlie and wisely to all articles layde 
 against him, that marveil it was to heare.' But Henry VIII. 
 had by tliis time persuaded himself that the masterful 
 
 ' lli&t. of Two Queens, vol. iii. p. '285. 
 
PRIiDECIiSSORS 229 
 
 Boleyn family compact had become a danger to the State, and 
 that the pubhc welfare pointed out his duty. Before all, the 
 king was a man of conscience, and in the words Shakespeare 
 puts into the mouth of the Duke of Suffolk, his conscience 
 had again crept near another lady. The Boleyns must 
 go. Lord Kochford was found guilty by a large majority. 
 His friends were kept away ; his enemies gathered together. 
 Like his sister Anne, and in the fashion of the day, Kochford 
 was versed in the controversies raised by the Eeformation, and 
 had identified himself actively with the new ideas. 
 
 The Catholic peers, led by his own kinsman, the Duke of 
 Norfolk, who, it is said, had sworn to break him, voted solid. 
 He was sentenced to be hanged, cut down alive, ripped 
 up, drawn and quartered. Mindful, perhaps, of the rather 
 dismal consideration shown by Henry IV. to Sir Bernard 
 Brocas, who, though beheaded at Tyburn, was excused the 
 prehminaries of being hanged and drawn, Henry VIII. com- 
 muted the more savage parts of the sentence, and he was 
 executed by the headsman on Tower Hill on May 17, 1536. 
 
 Lord Leicester we all know a great deal about from 
 ' Kenilworth.' But a letter of Castelnau's to Henry III. of 
 France describes the sort of hunting which Queen Elizabeth 
 and Lord Leicester enjoyed together. 
 
 After telling his sovereign that he had received a hospit- 
 able invitation from Lord Leicester, on behalf of the queen, 
 to come and stay with him and have a hunt at Windsor, he 
 goes on to relate the pleasures of the actual hunt, which 
 appears to have consisted in driving a number of deer up and 
 down inside a netted space in front of a well-screened butt 
 (feuillade), in which Queen Elizabeth was stationed with her 
 arblast. The sport then became varied by some coursing. 
 'Et tout le reste du jour jusques au soir, sortirent des 
 thoilles (toils), ung, deux, trois, et a diverses fois, plusieurs 
 grandz cerfs passant par la dicte feuillade, entreprenant deux 
 
230 
 
 .S" TA G- HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 et trois inilles de course avec les levriers les meilleurs de ce 
 roiaulme, desquelz quelquefois ung, deux et truis portoient 
 un grand cerf par terre ' ' He concludes by a tribute to 
 Lord Leicester's able management of everything, the satis- 
 faction of the queen and the company, and the excellence 
 both of the deer and of the hounds. 
 
 The ' levriers,' I fancy, were not greyhounds as we under- 
 stand the term, but of the same breed which were still pre- 
 served at Godmersham and Eastwell in Kent a few years ago. 
 The keepers used them for deer-catching, and I was told that 
 the strain could be traced back to Elizabethan times. A 
 good one always pinned a deer by the ear, and this was 
 a criterion of purity of strain. They were cream or fawn- 
 coloured with dusky muzzles, with really greyhound speed, 
 and half greyhound, half mastiff-like heads, long ridgy backs, 
 loosely coupled, high on the leg and apt to be very crooked, 
 resembling in appearance the boarhounds in Snyders' and 
 Velasquez' pictures. 
 
 Lord Leicester gave Queen Elizabeth the first watch 
 bracelet recorded in historj^ ; I suppose for her hunting days. 
 Once, when she and he went to stay at Berkeley Castle, they 
 had a day with the toils in the park in Lord Berkeley's 
 absence, and killed twenty-seven prime stags, again having 
 resort to screens and arblasts. When he came back and 
 heard what they had done he was very much annoyed, and 
 threatened to do away with his park and his deer altogether. 
 It sounds rather an excessive straining of royal prerogative. 
 I am sorry to say that one of Lord Leicester's first official 
 activities after he was appointed Master of the Buckhounds 
 in 1572 was to fall out with the Archbishop of Canterbury 
 over some lands. But up to this time the See of Canterbury 
 and the Queen's Hounds appear to have been on excellent 
 terms. Under date September 4, 1 564, Lord Leicester writes 
 
 ' Cheruel, Marie Stuart et Catherine dc .\fi'dicis, A)ipeinlix, p. 227. 
 
PREDECESSORS 231 
 
 to ' his singular good Lord ' of Canterbury this considerate 
 letter : ' The queen's majesty being abroad hunting yesterday 
 in the forest, and having had very good hap, beside good sport, 
 she had thought good to remember your grace with part of 
 her prey, and so commanded me to send you a great fat stag, 
 killed with lier own hand ; which, because the weather was 
 wet, and the deer somewhat chafed and dangerous to be 
 carried so far without some help, I caused him to he parboiled 
 for the better preservation of him, which I doubt not will cause 
 him to come unto you as I would he should. So, having 
 no other matter at this present to trouble your grace withal, 
 I will commit you to the Almighty, and with my most 
 hearty commendation take my leave in haste.' 
 
 From the day when he rode down to Hatfield on a milk- 
 white ' managed ' horse to announce the death of Mary, 
 the queen's partiality for her Master of the Horse — for Lord 
 Leicester was a Pluralist and held both offices — seems to 
 have been a ' secret de PoHchinelle ' at Court. When 
 the Duchess of Suffolk engaged herself to her equerry, 
 Adrian Stokes, the queen was surprised and indignant. 
 ' What ! ' she said to Cecil, ' marry a horse-keeper ? ' ' Yea, 
 madam,' he replied, ' and she says you would like to do 
 the same with yours.' And Sir James Melvill and other 
 contemporaries relate many public and private indiscre- 
 tions ; ' great liberties,' as he says, ' to be taken by a lady of 
 thirty.' 
 
 With the people the Leicester alliance seems to have 
 been popular enough : it was probably preferred to a foreign 
 match. A contemporary writer,' after describing the Master 
 of the Horse's good looks and fine manners, says : ' The 
 queene had much of her father, for excepting some of her 
 
 ' ' The Court of Queen Pllizabeth, originally written by Sir Kobert Naunton 
 under the title of " Fragmenta Regalia." With considerable biographical addi- 
 tions by James Caulfield. London, 1814. 
 
232 S7'AG-NU\TJXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 kindred and some few that had handsome wits in crooked 
 bodies ; she alwaies tooke personages in the way of election, 
 for tlie people hath it to this day, King Henry loved a Man.' 
 As he advanced in years Lord Leicester lost his complexion ; 
 became too high-colom-ed, and a little dull. Having made 
 away with his first wife, he is described in his latter days 
 as ' doting upon marriage with a strange fondness.' 
 
 In 1G84 a Swinley deer led the Duke of York and his suite 
 a tremendous dance through Beaconsfield and Amersham 
 right away into Oxfordshire. Very few besides the Duke and 
 Colonel James Graham got to the end. Somewhere about 
 this time Colonel Graham, or Grahm, was appointed Master 
 of the Buckhounds and Lieutenant of Windsor Forest by 
 Charles II. There is a tablet in Charlton Church, near 
 Malmesbury, to his memory. He is set forth as ' a faithful 
 servant of King Charles and King James II., w-ho lived and 
 died an unworthy but true member of the Church of England, 
 faithful to both his masters, and a sincere lover of monarchy.* 
 From many points of view Colonel Graham's career attracts 
 me more than any other Master of past days. The every- 
 day facts of his life, collected by Colonel Josceline Bagot in 
 his charming little history of Levens, were worthy of Mr. 
 Stevenson's imagination. He was born in 1649, and married 
 Miss Dorothy Howard, a niece of the Lord Berkshire of the 
 day, after a romance in a slow stage coach. This young lady 
 was maid of honour to Catherine of Braganza. The year 
 1685 finds Colonel and Mrs. Graham living at Bagshot. 
 Evelyn stays with them on his way back from Portsmouth, 
 and describes their housekeeping and the park full of red- 
 deer, and how one of the children had the small-pox and 
 Mrs. Graham kept it with the otliers, because she thought 
 it better they should all have it at once. 
 
 But Colonel Graham's lasting reputation will rest rather 
 u|»on his gardens than his stag-hunting. Somewhere about 
 
PREDECESSORS 233 
 
 this time he purchased Levens, in Westmoreland, of Mr. 
 BelHngham, described as ' an ingenious but unfortunate young 
 gentleman,' who had run through all his money at a very 
 early age. Fortunately, the gardens which this Master of 
 the Buckhounds laid out have been preserved to us by the 
 piety of successive owners of Levens. ' They remain,' says 
 Lord Stanhope, ' a stately remnant of the old promenoirs 
 such as the Frenchmen taught our fathers rather, I would 
 say, to build than plant.' But although Colonel Graham 
 lived much in the North, pruning the perspective of his 
 terraces,!Jmystifying his maze, putting annual touches to his 
 own glossy green silhouette, he also lived up to the very edge 
 of the ticklish times in which he played a dexterous part. 
 As well as being Master of the Buckhounds to James II. he 
 was also Privy Purse. He accompanied the king in his 
 flight to Eochester, and as one of his most trusted and 
 confidential agents he stayed on in England, watching and 
 reporting events. James II. wrote a long letter to the 
 versatile Chifiinch from Eochester. The letter is not remark- 
 able for orthography, but it is characteristic of the careful- 
 ness for trifles which seems to beset the average individual in 
 a great crisis. The King had not quite lost his crown when 
 he wrote to Chiffinch ; he had thrown the great seal into the 
 Thames, with the object of gaining time and delaying the 
 elections. The army was encamped at Salisbury, and so far 
 had not declared itself ; ' LillibuUero ' had not yet caught on. 
 There was still a chance. But his letter is all about trifles. 
 ' Those things which you were a-putting up when I came 
 away ' ; his ' antickes ' watch ; his devotional books ; his 
 shares in the East India and Guinea Company, and his 
 cash balances. All these were to be handed over to Colonel 
 Graham, and he ends up his letter by telling Chiffinch 
 to bid Graham not to forget to send him the usual returns 
 of ' the stablishment of my horse ' and all the stable 
 
234 STAG-HrNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 news. A sustained cypher corresiDondence now set in 
 between England and St. Germains. In this James II. is 
 Mr. Banks, which was the name of the steward at Levens, 
 Graham himself being sometimes Sir H. Paulsworth, some- 
 times Mr. Chapman. In spite, however, of the intrigues 
 with which he was surrounded, the ci-devant Master of the 
 Buckhounds was a cautious man, and appears to have kept 
 his eye upon every shift of circumstances after the deposi- 
 tion of James. Without actually running with the fox and 
 hunting with the hounds he so contrived his correspondence 
 as to give as little handle to his enemies as information 
 to his friends. Even in cypher his letters read all ways 
 but a particular way. They were so involved and obscure 
 that in a letter to Graham the Duke of Hamilton complains 
 that they put him in mind of the Peace of Eyswick and 
 the peace of God, in that they passed all understanding. 
 It is true that in 1691 Luttrell speaks of Colonel Graham 
 having ' got over ' into France, evidently in a hurry, and 
 that the next year two proclamations were out against 
 him. And in 1696 he was thrown into the Fleet for com- 
 plicity in the Fenwick plot. But still he succeeded marvel- 
 lously well, in spite of several narrow escapes, in evading any 
 serious trouble. I dare say through the good offices of Queen 
 Mary, and very likely with the full assent of James, he made 
 his peace with William III., and when things settled down 
 after the Revolution of 1688 Graham returned to Bagshot 
 and to office as Ranger. Thus, when 108 red-deer were sent 
 from Germany to William III., the king orders his Master 
 of the Buckhounds (Baron de Hompesch) to confer w^th 
 Graham about the future of the deer; and we find him 
 sending fruit and rabbits to Princess Anne from Bagshot, 
 and promising to send her some char when he gets back to 
 Levens. Colonel Graham was painted by Sir Peter Lely. 
 Sir Peter Lely and the flowing wig of the day betwixt them 
 
(C)ayfJy c^ \oh£,^>^^^e4/ie/ay 
 
PREDli C US SOR S 235 
 
 were tej'rible levellers oi' individuality ; but judging from the 
 photograph this picture has a little more personal character 
 about it than most of Lely's portraits. The picture is 
 now at Levens. He was a tall, thm, dark man, and his 
 conversation is commended by Horace Walpole for its dry 
 humour. When living at Levens he was particularly fond 
 of hunting an outlying buck and bringing him back into the 
 park ; beyond this, however, I know nothing of his hunting 
 proclivities. His daughter Catherine married Lord Suffolk 
 and Berkshire, and he died at beautiful Charlton, in the 
 heart of wild Braydon, in 1730, in his eighty-first year. His 
 last wishes are expressed in the strong Commonwealth 
 English — pure as crystal. ' I hope when I die,' he had 
 written to his daughter in 1729, ' your lord will allows me to 
 1)6 buried among my little ones at Charlton. If I die there 
 send to Bath for a leaden coffin. I will have no hearse, but 
 be carried by my own and your servants. All what is in my 
 will observe and do it, which is not much. Thank you for 
 all your goodness to me. God bless you and your lord and 
 all the children. — Your affectionate father, J. Geahme.' And 
 he adds a postscript to this effect : ' Do what you can of 
 kindness to my servants who have been careful of me.' Here, 
 at all events, are none of the involutions of the non-committal 
 letters. But now it was all plain enough saihng. He was 
 very near the end of his voyage. There were no more earthly 
 accounts to square. 
 
 In the last century the Master of the Buckhounds had a 
 charming house ' in Swinley Forest against the deer paddocks 
 and he enjoyed, in right of his office, the use of about tw'O 
 hundred and thirty acres of arable, pasture, and woodland. 
 
 ' A very complete and detailed history of Swinley Lod^e, traced from the 
 time when it is first specifically mentioned in Norden's Survey of Witidsor 
 Forest (1()07) down to its final dismantling and sale by auction in 1831, is given 
 by Mr. Hore in his History of the Buckhounds, chap, xviii. 
 
236 
 
 S TA G-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 which went with the Lodge. A faded outHne of the pleasure 
 grounds, the tangled vestiges of the shrubbery may still be 
 traced. The Master cannot live in his stand on Ascot 
 Heath, and I think he ought to have a habitation where 
 he can take shelter after his inevitable sins of omission 
 and commission as regards the Koyal enclosure, that most 
 thorny field of his later-day patronage. Swinley Lodge 
 may have been a little shut-m and wanting in view in 
 
 SWINLKY LoiXiK, THK OLD KesIDKXCK OF THE MasTKIE OF THK BUCKHOVNDS 
 
 winter-time, but the stately linu^s, the spangled thorns, 
 the close companionship of the forest and forest sights and 
 sounds must have made it a perfect summer house. A great 
 deal of eating and drinking used to go on at Swinley, and 
 every fourth of June the Master used to give a dinner to 
 all the farmers and foresters. Twice or thrice the Royalty 
 drove over from Windsor and watched the dancing on 
 the gnu'ii ill front of the house. Hunting was expected to 
 
'f^^m^ 
 
 t^^/^^-s^i 
 
PREDECESSORS 
 
 '■17 
 
 be convivial. Mr. Jenison was honoured as a live-bottle 
 man ; Lord Cornwallis w^as a great host ; but Lord Bateman, 
 who held the appointment for twenty-five years, disgusted 
 everybody by a 'penurious sterility' and 'personal pomposity.' 
 Lord Jersey put things right again,' and the public got a 
 Master to their mind at the fall of the Coalition, when Lord 
 Sandwich, who used to take a dice-box out hunting with him 
 and gamble with the Duke of Cumberland in the intervals 
 of the chase, was appointed. We are told ' the exhilarating 
 steams ' of roast sirloin and the ' vibrating echo of the cork ' 
 once more inspired the stag-hunter's prowess, and awakened 
 the long seclusion of Swinley. 
 
 And now to come to some of tRe Masters of more modern 
 days, and a few odds and ends I have been able to pick up about 
 them. Lord Maryborough, afterwards Lord Mornington, 
 was William IV. 's Master of the Buckhounds, and had a 
 very fine seat on a horse. He and the horse he rode were a 
 great feature in the Koyal procession, and I have seen an 
 engraving of him leading it on a dappled grey horse which 
 he bought from Mr. Shard, whose classical stag-hunting 
 establishment I have already noticed, for 500 guineas. This 
 is the way to do the thing. 
 
 Mr. Charles Greville does not give a good account of 
 the morals of the Koyal procession in William IV. 's time. 
 ' His household is now so ill-managed,' he writes at the end 
 of the Ascot week of 1833, ' that his grooms were drunk every 
 day, and the only man of them who was sober was killed 
 going home from the races ! ' However, he wrote this in one 
 of his ' video meliora proboque ' moods, when he had been 
 eating and drinking too much, sitting up too late, and not 
 
 ' No sportsman now was to the mansion led, 
 No corks were drawn, no social tables spread, 
 'Twas blank and dull till Jersey's cheerful lifi;ht 
 Dispersed the gloom of long incumbent night. 
 
238 STAG-HUNT/XG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 winning his money. Lord Lichfield, who was appointed 
 Master of the Buckhounds in 1880, Hved at Fernhill, and, 
 as D'Orsay was a famous hkeness-catcher, he must have been 
 a very good-looking man. His tenure of office was marked 
 by all the agreeable qualities accorded him by Mr. Greville. 
 Upon the whole he comes out with flying colours from the 
 trying ordeal of a special and detailed mention in those fasci- 
 nating memoirs. ' He is a fine fellow with an excellent dis- 
 position, liberal, hospitable, frank and gay, quick and intelli- 
 gent. Without cultivation, extravagant and imprudent, yet 
 with considerable aptitude for business. Between spending 
 and speculating , buying property in one place, selling in 
 another, and declining to sell in a third, he has half-ruined 
 a noble estate.' The writer of the article in ' Baily,' already 
 referred to, says that Davis thought less about the horses than 
 the hounds. Yet some letters of Davis to Lord Lichfield 
 I have seen went into great detail about the horses which 
 he himself and the men had ridden, and the way they had 
 carried them. Lord Lichfield was a great favourite at the 
 kennels, and he rode to hounds very well himself. On that 
 account Davis probably made a point when writing to him 
 of telling him a good deal about the horses. 
 
 We now come to some of the Masters of the present 
 reign. Lord Chesterfield was Master at the time of the 
 Queen's coronation. It was a sort of Francois I"" period 
 of stag-hunting. He dressed himself and mounted his men 
 and his friends sumptuously. He bought many of his horses 
 of Shirley of Twickenham, the father of the Shirley whose 
 riding Lord Cork commends in a good gallop in the Harrow 
 country, and who at that time kept the Catherine Wheel 
 at Egham. Quite a stud of Lord Chesterfield's horses were 
 kept at the same place, and sent on from there to the meets 
 for his many friends to ride. Dr. Croft writes me : ' I seem 
 to remember a little about him and his appearance, though I 
 
PREDECESSORS 239 
 
 was quite a small boy at that time. I pictun; liim as about 
 the average height, rather thick in body, well got up, and so 
 forth. I remember him coming to the meet at the Horse 
 Shoes, Warfield, with Count d'Orsay and two others, four 
 horses with postillions.' Captivated no doubt by Charles 
 Davis's horsemanship, Lord Chesterfield became over-fond 
 of standing up in his stirrups. But he overdid it, for it 
 was said that if you were behind him you could see the ears 
 of his horse between his legs. However, in one of the 
 ' Songs of the Belvoir Hunt,' this Master plays a worthy 
 part, and the bard compliments him upon his seat. 
 
 See Chesterfield advance with steady hand, 
 Swish at a rasper and in safety kind ; 
 Who sits his horse so well ? or at a race 
 Drives four-in-hand with greater skill or grace ? 
 And when hounds really run, like him can show 
 How fifteen stone should o'er the county go. 
 
 Lord Kinnaird comes into the great Quarterly Run 
 and goes well all through it. It is he who ventures the 
 observation that Dick Christian would be drowned in the 
 AVhissendine. ' But the pace was too good to inquire,' and 
 on they all go. He was a noted Meltonian. Lord Kinnaird 
 tried the experiment of giving the deer very little law and 
 never stopping hounds, as against Davis's plan of sending a 
 whip on for the first mile or so, to stop hounds at a moment's 
 need. This did not answer ; the runs were often over in a 
 few minutes, and the deer being overpressed were often badly 
 hurt. One very frosty season he hunted in the forest all 
 through the frost and snow, and had some capital sport. He 
 lived at Ascot, and was a great man in the kennel as well as 
 a famous rider. 
 
 Lord Rosslyn hunted the Queen's Hounds from the stud 
 house in Bushey Park ; and he must often have looked at 
 some of the pictures which have been reproduced in these 
 pages, many of which were moved some few years ago from 
 
240 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 the Stud house to Cumberland Lodge. He was a fine 
 horseman, and as great a judge of a horse, or indeed of any- 
 animal, as his greatly missed and lamented successor. In 
 those days Harry King, who had just come from the Ather- 
 stone, was only second whip, Freeman, who came I think 
 from Goodwood, being first whipper-in. Lord Kosslyn 
 mounted the men admirably as far as appearance went, but 
 the whips complained that they often had to do their duty 
 on unmade horses, and that directly they had got them 
 handy and accomplished they were sold. ' He [Lord Eosslyn] 
 was,' says Dr. Croft, ' a bit of a dealer,' and his horse-book, 
 which I have had before me, is full of valuations and sales of 
 the hunt horses. I remember a capital picture of him at 
 Dysart, in well-blacked butcher boots, and a blue bird's-eye 
 old-fashioned neckcloth.' 
 
 ' The best man of the Hunt ' at this time, 1841 and 1842, 
 Colonel Anstruther Thomson writes me, ' was Dicky Vyse, 
 a Captain in the Blues, and Fred Ponsonby, who used to 
 ride like a demon. His boots and his breeches never met, and 
 there was always a patch of bare leg between them.' Lord 
 Clanricarde was another celebrated bruiser with the Queen's 
 Hounds, but a very fine horseman, with long thin legs and 
 a nice weight. Mr. Saxty of Windsor, the accomplished 
 artist, told me that he once heard Bryant, the stud groom, 
 tell Lord Clanricarde that the horse he was going to ride, 
 belonging to Lord Bessborough, then Master of the Buck- 
 hounds, was not reliable at timber. The first thing Lord 
 Clanricarde did — Mr. Saxty saw him do it — was to ride him 
 at a white five-barred gate. They got over somehow. 
 
 The first time I ever saw Lord Granville out hunting was 
 with the Pytchley. I remember the incident most distinctly, 
 and it fully bears out the reputation he left behind him in 
 the Queen's Country for resolute riding. It was a starving 
 cold day. Lord Granville was looking ill and suffering from 
 
/l' 
 
PREDECESSORS 241 
 
 gout, and he told me he had come out against his doctor's 
 orders. He had on thick white duffel breeches, and the boots 
 known, I think, as Napoleons, like those in which Mr. Her- 
 ring's first-flight gentry lead the way. He and I had managed, 
 with several others, to get thrown out, and we found ourselves 
 with no visible means of getting to hounds, which were drag- 
 ging along on a cold line two or three fields away. There 
 was neither gate nor gap to help us, and a really high stake- 
 and-bound fence of the type which John Leech drew so well, 
 between us. A March day was just treating us to an interval 
 of hail. I was riding a most ungenerous horse who made no 
 allowance for one's mistakes, and took a serious view of 
 jumping without hounds. ' I am afraid,' said Lord Granville 
 with a pale smile, ' we shall have to go ; will you try or shall 
 I ? ' I felt that for once I should not be justified in following 
 ni}^ leader. So I crammed Marsala at it, with a show of 
 decision which did not take him in for a moment. Bound he 
 came, and our small party exchanged glances of discourage- 
 ment. Lord Granville was riding an uncoupled rather 
 Cleveland-bay-looking horse. He turned him suavely round 
 at it, and over he went, and piloted his convoy to the haven 
 where we would be ; Marsala, who luckily did not like being 
 left alone, at last climbing over somehow. 
 
 Eminent horse-dealers, like great painters, have their 
 styles and manners, and Lord Granville knew and appreciated 
 them all. I recollect his filling in with a few telhng 
 touches the portrait of the moralist who robs you of your 
 wits by the integrity of his eye, and the almost sacred 
 conviction of his utterances ; the oracle who inspires you by 
 the little he says and the much this little leads you to infer ; 
 the sophist who can turn an animal's defects to advantage. 
 How he delighted too in those crude or delicate compliments 
 — served to taste— to one's riding and judgment, which lead 
 to so many deals. 
 
 R 
 
242 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Lord Granville's stories gained enormously, of course, 
 by the telling restraint of his ' raconteur ' style, which 
 had a certain dryness and bouquet not to be surpassed, 
 so it is perhaps as well that I only remember one of them. 
 Lord Granville had bought a very expensive horse from 
 Anderson. Some little time after he met Anderson and said 
 to him, ' Well, you know the price was quite extravagant, but 
 I am bound to say the horse is worth it.' Anderson made a 
 little bow and said, * I can assm:e you, my lord, your approval 
 is our only profit in the transaction.' 
 
 In a speech which Lord Granville made many years ago 
 at a farmers' dinner at Windsor, he went back to the pleasant 
 days when he hunted the Queen's Hounds, and he told them 
 that Mr. Disraeli had taunted Lord John Kussell with having 
 taken a young riding peer all boot and spur and pitched him 
 into the prosaic office of the Board of Trade. His political 
 services to his generation and to his party are in no danger 
 of being forgotten. Speaking from recollection, I think one 
 of the most persuasive speeches made on our side at the fever 
 point of the first Home Rule crusade and cleavage was made 
 by Lord Granville at Manchester. There he was amongst 
 old friends and brave associations. In 1851, Lord Granville 
 was sworn in as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, a 
 rapid promotion. Madame de Lieven wrote ' in transports 
 of joy ' of the appointment. ' Granville,' she writes, 'is very 
 popular at Manchester and with the Free Traders, which 
 is a great thing.' In 1855 he became the Leader of the 
 Liberal Party in the House of Lords, a position which in 
 the face of hopeless odds he felicitously held for thirty-six 
 years without interruption. I can speak from grateful experi- 
 ence of the kindness and encouragement he knew how to 
 bestow upon those who, like myself, succeeded very young, 
 and knew very few people. Addison's Tory fox-hunter was of 
 opinion that being able to talk French was prejudicial to a 
 
PREDIiCESSORS 243 
 
 hunting seat. But he had never met a Lord Granville. At the 
 Exhibition banquet at the Hotel de A'ille in 1851, England, 
 owing to the ill-health of the Prince Consort, was repre- 
 sented by Lord Granville. On this occasion he charmed his 
 hosts by responding for the Commissioners in a French speech 
 free and flowing and full of telling points. ' Had he been 
 Demosthenes himself,' Sir Theodore Martin tells us, ' speak- 
 ing with the purest French accent, he could not have com- 
 manded more genuine applause.' 
 
 The late Lord Hardwicke's popular Mastership was 
 marked by its debonnair magnificence. It was to some 
 extent a sort of renaissance of the Chesterfieldian splendours. 
 Nothing stopped him if it were a question of getting there to 
 help a deer. Dr. Croft once saw him jump some high iron 
 hurdles in an emergency of this kind. His recent death will 
 be regretted by all who knew him in the Queen's Country. 
 
 Lord Suffield has the art of galloping like steam between 
 his fences and yet jumping the place almost from a stand. 
 He thus negotiates the trappiest obstacles with safety and 
 despatch, without upsetting high-couraged and even fractious 
 animals, and— for this is the real point— without giving spec- 
 tators the faintest impression of sticky ' come-up ' sort of 
 riding. This means fine hands. The first time Lord Suffield 
 went out with the Duhallow, a country which in the opinion 
 of the natives is only practicable to those brought up within 
 a few miles of Cork, they never could catch him for twenty 
 minutes, a surprised top-sawyer of the Hunt being overheard 
 thus to exhort his friend : ' For God's sake, Mike, ride at the 
 man in the beard ! ' Unsurpassed as a judge of a horse or a 
 hound, and one of the most undeniable cross-country riders 
 of his day, Lord Coventry brings knowledge and experience 
 to bear upon every practical detail of his otiice. The ancient 
 honour and everyday welfare of the Hoyal Hunt are in safe 
 keeping. 
 
244 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 YEXERIE AND THE VALOIS 
 
 Pour le plaisir des rois je suis donne, 
 
 De jour en jour les veneurs me pourchassent ; 
 
 Par les forests je suis abandonne 
 
 A tous les chiens qui sans cesse me chassent. 
 
 (Bouchet's Cojiijilainte du Cerf, IGth century.) 
 
 The sixteenth century in France is the Velasquez period of 
 stag-hunting. It formed the grand style. Woodcraft hugger- 
 muggered along with poverty and privilege in the provinces, 
 but Venerie, at once an art and a science, came to Court. 
 Like some daughter of the gods visiting the sons of men, she 
 disputed precedence with everybody and everything. Even 
 the king's mistresses had to reckon with her. Diane de 
 Poitiers, conscious of the attractions of an enchanting rival, 
 spent large sums of money in building hunting stables and 
 mews, and laid out her demesne at Anet to suit hunting. 
 Meeting gallantry and intrigue on equal terms, hunting 
 became the instrument of political ambition. It conducted 
 and controlled the great affairs of state.' It challenged 
 diplomacy and plenipotentiaries. The main current of 
 politics, or what we should call politics in these days, 
 streamed along the alleys of Fontainebleau and Compiegne 
 and flooded the level plains of the Loiret and Seine-et-Marne. 
 Francois I., according to that eminent and polite Hellenist 
 
 ' Documents Infdits : N('goc.iations avcc la Tosca7ic, t. iii, p. 421. 
 
V EN ERIE AND THE V A LOIS 245 
 
 Biide, did a great deal for hunting. In his Treatise on A^enerie,' 
 Bude tells him in the dedication, ' Sire, vous avez tellement 
 dresse et poli I'exercice de la venerie, qu'elle semble estre 
 parvenue a sa perfection.' At all events, he put all the gilding 
 on just as he did to the doors and ceihngs of Fontainebleau. 
 Tornabuoni, the Tuscan ambassador, evidently ' un homnie 
 grave,' writes to the Grand Duke Cosmo I. de' Medicis : 
 ' This Court is not as other Courts are ; here they only think 
 of limiting, pretty women, entertainments, and change of 
 scene. The Court only stays in a place as long as the 
 herons last. They hunt the stag twice, then one day's deer 
 catching (' aux toiles '), and then on again somewhere else.' ^ 
 Everyday hfe was one long hunting progress. This is how 
 he describes the invasion of the country by the scarlet- 
 clad locusts : 
 
 ' Quelquefois le roi, outre ses cent pages, ses deux cents 
 ecuyers, piqueurs ou chevauchem'S, mene avec lui quatre ou 
 cinq cents gentilshommes, quelquefois il est accompagne de 
 la reine ou des reines, suivies de leurs nombreuses dames et 
 filles d'honneur. Alors tous les appartements d'en haut, 
 toutes les salles d'en bas, tous les etages, tout le chateau, 
 toute la cour, toute a chevals, toute en habits rouges, semble 
 au miheu de la campagne trotter, galoper a la suite du roi, 
 aussi en habit rouge, courant le cerf ou le sanglier.' 
 
 This ' to-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new ' way 
 of going on quite upset all the Venetians. 
 
 How swift we go, how softly, ah ! 
 Were life but as the gondola ! 
 
 It certainly was not so at the Court of France to the 
 homesick envoys and secretaries. 
 
 ' Our embassy,' cries this indignant and saddle-sore am- 
 
 ' Traite de Yi'ncrie de BiuU, translated from the Latin, Paris, 18G4. 
 
 - Documents Inidits: N^(jociationsdiplu)iiatiqiics avec la Toscanc, t.iii. p. 17. 
 
246 SrAG-HUXTJXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 bassador, who was presumably little accustomed to horse- 
 exercise, ' has lasted forty-five months ; during that time we 
 have never been a fortnight in the same place.' Cavalle, 
 another Venetian diplomatist, informed his Government 
 that Frangois I.'s hunting expenses amounted to 150,000 
 ecus a year. But even this unfriendly critic admitted he 
 got value for his money. ' If,' he adds, ' you could see what 
 the Court of France means, and what is done for the money, 
 you wouldn't think it dear.' 
 
 Francis II. 's reign was in many ways anxious and un- 
 comfortable. But the Tuscan ambassador Tornabuoni 
 writes thus to the Grand Duke Cosmo I. in the thick of a 
 storm centre : ' 'In the midst of the most serious anxieties 
 hunting goes on just the same. No one knows where it will 
 all end, but stag-hunting is the great business of the Court ; 
 it is the only way apparently of getting things into motion ' ; 
 and again he writes, ' It would appear that MM. de Guise force 
 this poor devil of a prince into these amusements. They 
 wish to see him entirely absorbed in them, as this will mean 
 that they can keej) the direction of affairs in their ow^n 
 hands.' - 
 
 Early in March 1560 the air was full of disquieting 
 rumours. Privy conspiracy whispered in the corridors of 
 Amboise. Any and every night one half of society at Court 
 expected to wake up with its throat cut next morning by 
 the other half. Yet nothing was allowed to stand in the 
 way of hunting. In the middle of it all, when men's hearts 
 were failing them for fear, both conspirators and conspired 
 against set out for a week's hunting at Chenonceaux with a 
 levity worthy of the chorus in ' Madame Angot.' Chantonnay, 
 a keen observer, writes to his friend Cardinal de Granvelle : 
 ' In three days these people seem to have got rid of all their 
 
 ' Documents Iiiidits : Ni'gocioti(ms avcc la Toscanc, t. iii. p. 421. 
 - Ducumcnts Inidits : N^gociations avcc la France, t. iii. p. 421. 
 
V EN ERIE AND THE V A LOIS 247 
 
 fears. After having made a great fuss about holding the 
 castle at all hazards with men at arms, and as many of the 
 gentlemen of their party as they could get together, here is 
 the King off hunting and hawking again, and with him as 
 many of the Court as have got large horses to ride. As for 
 his own suite, he has only two or three pages mounted on 
 Spanish horses.' ' 
 
 Moralists may admonish us of the vanity of human 
 pleasures, but the composing and helpful influences of sheer 
 amusement cannot be overrated. Years before Amboise, 
 as Sir Walter Scott tells us, the strained relations between 
 Charles the Bold and Louis XI. were eased, and the whole 
 ' trame des affaires ' changed, by the chevy after the Eouge 
 Sanglier. As the false herald flew for his life in front of the 
 Snyders-like 'Talbot' and 'Beaumont,' and doubled here 
 and twisted there in a manner greatly approved by the spec- 
 tators, both kings laughed till the cordial tears ran down their 
 faces, and forgot all about their differences. I dare say that 
 this is not founded on fact, but Sir Walter Scott always 
 knows what would have happened, and it is quite as satis- 
 factory to me as if it had happened. 
 
 Evidently from Chantonnay's letter, the Court was short 
 of horses. Then, as now, hunting was dependent on the 
 grim qualification, with which all who hunt are conversant, 
 of having something to ride. In the preceding reign hardly 
 any seasoned and mettled horses were to be had in France. 
 In February 1557, a capital hunting month, and, I suppose, 
 in open weather, the Connetable de Montmorency writes 
 to M. d'Humieres : '^ 'I've spoken to the King [Henri II.] 
 
 ' Archives de Vienne, Lettres de Chantonnay. 
 
 * ' J'ay paile au Roy [Henri II] pour vous donner ung cheval ; il nx'a diet 
 qu'il vous donnera bien un poulain, luais de cheval fait il n'en a pas; mesmes 
 des turcs que lui a amenes dernierement Moranges il ne s'en est pas trouv6 
 ung seul de service ' (le 11 fevrier 1.557, Bihlioth. Imp., Fonds Clerambault 
 vol. 61). 
 
248 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 about a horse for you. He said he would give you a foal with 
 pleasure, but that he had not anything like a made horse to 
 spare ; even the barbs (Turcs) which Moranges brought over 
 here last were a disappointment. There was not one worth 
 having in the lot.' 
 
 Francis II. and Charles IX. inherited the love of hunting 
 from both their parents. In spite of her fatness, Catherine 
 de Medicis was very fond of hunting. Modern and progres- 
 sive in many of her ideas, she had a soul above the numb 
 Norman or Flemish ' haquenee,' the Gustave Dore squire, 
 the brocaded leading rein, and the cushioned pad which 
 wobbled about on their lusty backs. So she invented a 
 side-saddle and started ladies riding to hounds. However, 
 like most inventors, Catherine de Medicis had to put up with 
 some early rebuffs. 
 
 On one occasion she fractured her thigh, and on another fell 
 with such force on to her head that her skull had to be tre- 
 panned. Her daughter-in-law, Mary Queen of Scots, was also 
 unfortunate. Feeling bound, I suppose, to adventure herself 
 in the new saddle, she got a most disagreeable fall. Writing 
 to Queen Elizabeth from Blois, December 27, 1559, our 
 ambassador in Paris, Throckmorton, who was much esteemed 
 at the French Court as a ' veneur emerite,' relates in graphic 
 language and easy-going spelling how this lovely lady was 
 swept off by the branch of a tree when out stag-huntmg. 
 
 ' The xix. of this present there happened a mervailous 
 chance and escape to the Frenche Queue ; who riding on 
 hunting, and following the hart of force, was in her course 
 cast of her gelding by a boughe of a tree, and with suddeines 
 of the fall was not hable to call for helpe. And albeit there 
 dyd followe her diverse gentlemen and ladyes of her chamber, 
 yet three or foure of them passed over her before she was 
 espied ; and some of there horses rode so nere her as her 
 hood was troden of. As sone as she was reised from the 
 
V EN ERIE AND THE V A LOIS 249 
 
 grounde, she spake and said that she felt not hurt ; and her 
 self begaine to set her heare, and dresse up her head and so 
 returned to Court ; where she kept her chamber till the King 
 removed. She feleth no incommodite by her fall ; and yet 
 she hath determined to chaunge that kind of exercise.' That 
 the pace was too good to inquire would hardly, in those days, 
 have constituted a sufficient excuse for such careless be- 
 haviour. The ' diverse ' gentlemen and ladies of the house- 
 hold must have been too busy riding or perhaps flirting. 
 
 As against the magnificent and picturesque days of Fran- 
 9oisI., Charles IX. 's reign was the Hterary £ind thoughtful 
 period. I have already spoken of Du Fouilloux's book, and a 
 host of grave treatises now formulated the definitions, postu- 
 lates, and axioms of an exact science with all the French love 
 of order and symmetry. Charles IX. himself was the author 
 of a painstaking text-book. Not a single sentence, however, 
 begins with I. Thus the want of the personal note makes it 
 sadly dull. It has not the real spark about it. Unlike Henry 
 IV., who wrote all about his day both to Gabrielle and to his 
 Queen— how he got drenched to the skin, how he did not get 
 back till one in the morning, but took his deer ; how he is short 
 of shirts, how he has the toothache, but hopes a day's hawk- 
 ing will put him right, and so on— Charles gives us nothing 
 of himself except his theory. 
 
 However, Charles died before he had finished his book. 
 
 Pour aymer trop Diane et Cytheree aussi 
 L'une et I'autre m'ont mis en ce tombeau icy. 
 
 So ran the popular epitaph. It cannot be disputed that 
 hunting and love-making have always been close friends. 
 Mrs. Markham will have nothing to do with Cytheraea. 
 When pressed by the intelligent questions of Richard and 
 George and Mary, she falls back upon the French horn ex- 
 planation of his death. It is true that Ambroise Pare, Charles' 
 physician, told Brantome ' qu'il estoit mort par s'etre trop 
 
250 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 fatigue a sonner de la trompe a la chasse du cerf, qui luy 
 avait trop gate son pauvre corps.' The king's ' trompe,' it 
 appears, was larger than anybody's, and quite an encunil^rance 
 to his person ; but the note could be distinguished above all 
 the others, and the temptation to rally and direct the hunt, 
 says a contemporary authority, was too great for him to 
 resist.' 
 
 However, the hunting literature of the day was not con- 
 fined to serious prose. The Pleiad deigned to shine upon 
 the chace ; its poets illuminated its triumphs, hazards, and 
 delights. Baif extols the feat of his royal patron, who brought 
 a stag to bay with a single hound, ' sans levriers, sans clabots.' 
 Eonsard immortalised the drive and stoutness of a bitch 
 hound called Courte and a dog called Beaumont, and bewails 
 in an elegy Charles IX. 's untimely end. Even the High 
 Almoner, Gaucher, who should have known better and minded 
 other things, spent much of his time, and indirectly, no doubt, 
 much of the king's money, in composing bad verses on the 
 different kinds of hunting. 
 
 During his captivity in England, Sir John Chandos made 
 King John of France a present of a brace of greyhounds. - 
 There is a curious letter in the British Museum from 
 Louis XIII. to the King of Aragon, thanking him for the 
 gift of a white falcon. ' II m'a plut,' he writes, ' tant par la 
 beaute et I'estrangete qu'aussi il vient de vous.' Koyal per- 
 sonages have always been great hands at this admirable sort 
 of intercourse. They have always been wilhng to receive 
 such presents from their subjects —sometimes they have 
 
 ' I remember hearing Mr. Browning say, in conversation with Mr. Gladstone 
 upon the particular point whether or not many great men had been great chess- 
 playej-s, that Charles XII. of Sweden was a great chess-player, but spoiled his 
 game by insisting on always making use of his king, and refusing to recognise 
 the limits of his possibilities; and I dare say Charles IX. often played the mis- 
 chief with what might otherwise have been a good day's sport. 
 
 - Notes et Documents relatifs a Jean, lioi de France, et sa captivity en 
 Angleterre, par S.A.IJ. le Uuc d'.Vuniale. Philobib. Soc. 
 
V EN ERIE AND THE V A LOIS 251 
 
 given in return. Thus George III. recognised Arthur Young's 
 services to agriculture by the gift of a Spanish merino ram. 
 
 Indeed, assuming a happy selection of examples, an 
 interesting chapter might be written on the antiquity and 
 modernnessof this kind of present. From Solomon's Temple 
 to the stud farm at Sandringham, gifts of this kind and ex- 
 changes of blood may easily be traced back authentically to the 
 very earliest times, and can be brought as easily up to date. It 
 is a note of the inclinations and pursuits of a large section of 
 human beings in all times. Like playing the trumpet, the 
 habit has neither gained nor lost by the progress of civilisa- 
 tion and the frequent reconstruction of human ideas and 
 societies. 
 
 The French hound of high degree to this day claims 
 descent from the gift of a subject to his sovereign. T am 
 not sure of the date, but in the latter half of the fifteenth 
 century a poor country gentleman of Poitou gave a hound 
 called ' Souillard ' to Louis XL There was nothing remark- 
 able in the colour. The white St. Huberts were already an 
 ascertained breed, and although the Duke of Burgundy of 
 Quentin Durward's time hunted the ' Kouge Sanglier ' with 
 the mastiff-like hounds I alluded to in the last chapter, 
 his successor in 1608 kept a strong pack of twenty to 
 twenty-five couple of notable staghounds. ' Chiens merlants 
 issus de la variete blanche des chiens de St. Hubert.' ' 
 But this particular hound came to Plessis les Tours with 
 the reputation of being something quite out of the common. 
 As Louis XL liked greyhounds better than Hne hunters, very 
 little further notice was taken of Souillard. However, he 
 
 ' A royal pack of this strain was held in great esteem in Louis XIV.'s time. 
 Unlike most French hounds, they went a great pace, and were said to bay their 
 stag in twenty minutes. In 1700 orders were given by the king to M. de la 
 Rochefoucauld, the Grand Veneur, to slow down the ' grands chiens blancs,' 
 as they went too fast for him as ho got older. (Baron Dunoyer de Noirmont, 
 //is/, de la Chassc en France.) 
 
252 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 liad been noticed and appreciated ; so one day the Seneschal 
 de Gaston asked the king to let him have the dog. The 
 king, who was not a cheerful giver, asked why and for whom 
 he wanted him. The seneschal replied that it was for ' la 
 plus sage dame ' in the kingdom. Louis, who had a poor 
 opinion of women, was curious to know who the lady might 
 be. On hearing that it was his own daughter, Anne of 
 Bourbon, he only said, ' Dites moins folle que les autres, 
 car de sage femme il n'y en a point au monde,' and, recom- 
 pensed by the epigram, made no f mther objection to Souillard 
 being drafted to her kennel. 
 
 Anne of Bourbon knew what she was about, and a bitch 
 called Baude was mated with Souillard. Baude's htter by 
 Souillard vindicated her selection. In France a good tufter 
 to this day is always supposed to go back to Souillard. He 
 is Corbet's Trojan and the Beaufort Justice rolled into 
 one. Souillard should always be pointedly referred to some- 
 how at the meet, or, better still, at the brisee, by the 
 intelligent sporting tourist. 
 
 In the footnote I have given, with the late Due 
 d'Aumale's permission, a list of French books on Venerie, 
 which his Royal Highness very kindly sent me, in his 
 own handwriting, from Chantilly in December 1895.' The 
 
 ' Le plus ancien des trait6s de venerie est celui de Gaston-Phebus, comte de 
 Foix, mort en 1390, mon ancetre et celui de tous les veneurs. L'edition 
 imprini^e par V6rard a la tin du xv<^ si^cle n'en donne qu'une faible idee. II 
 faut se reporter aux manuscrits et surtout aux euluminures qui les decorent. 
 J'en ai un fort beau. II y en a plusieurs a la Biblioth^que Nationale.— Inte- 
 ressant. 
 
 Presque contemporain, mais moins important, le ' Livre du Roy Nodus et de 
 la Reyne liacio,' imprime a Chamb(:'ry en 148(), avec de curieux bois, et plusieurs 
 fois reimprime depuis. J'en ai un joli manuscrit et la trt^^s rare premit^re 
 edition. -Plus curieux qu'instructif. 
 
 Sif,'nalons encore le ' Livre des Deduitz,' par Gace de la Buigne, ecrit en 
 Angieterre pendant la captivite du roi .lean pour enseigner la venerie et la 
 fauconnerie au jeune due de Bourgogne. J'en ai un manuscrit original et j'en 
 ai jiarli' dans un ' Kssai ' ins6re au tome II des ' Philobiblon Society's Miscel- 
 lanies,' tire a part sous le titre ' Notes et Documents relatifs au Koi Jean,' etc. 
 
VENERIE AND THE V A LOIS 
 
 253 
 
 comments are valuable, backed by his eminent authority not 
 only as a man of letters, but as a judge of hunting. But a 
 book which interested me very much is not on this list — 
 namely, ' Meuttes et Venerie ' of M. Jean de Ligniville, w^hich 
 was pubhshed in 1635, although I do not think the book 
 enjoys the authority of Du Fouilloux or D'Yanville works. 
 
 M. de Ligniville was born in 1580, and became Grand 
 Veneur to the Duke of Burgundy. Lorraine was in those 
 days a jealously preserved hunting country. Only the reign- 
 ing house, the great nobles, and the chief priests hunted and 
 sported. The clergy, as we understand the term, never 
 hunted in France. Arthur Young contrasts them favourably 
 with our parsons in this respect. ' Such advertisements,' he 
 writes, speaking of the pre-Kevolution clergy, ' were never 
 seen in France as I have heard of in England — " Wanted, a 
 living in a good sporting county where the duty is light and 
 the neighbourhood convivial." ' The great ecclesiastics, how- 
 ever, hunted on a very large scale. ' I am told, Monseigneur,' 
 said Louis XV. to the Abbe Dillon, Archbishop of Narbonne, 
 ' that you hunt. Is it not a bad example for your clergy ? ' 
 He replied : ' Sire, for them it would be undoubtedly a 
 grave fault to go hunting ; for me it is only a taste I have 
 inherited from my ancestors.' ' The law was express, 
 and recited its prohibitions with a clearness unknown to 
 modern parliamentary draftsmen. * Sauf aux prelats ct aux 
 gentilshommes defense de frequenter aux arquebuses et rouet 
 
 La • Venerie de Jacques du Fouilloux, dudiee au loy Charles IX.' Poitiers, 
 15C0. Avec de tr^s belles figures. Beaucoup plus rapproche de nos proeed^s 
 que la date ne le ferait croire. Nous sommes ici dans le vif et presque dans 
 l'actualit6. 
 
 Robert de Salnove: 'La Venerie Eoyale,' 1665. — Classique, mais a vieilli. 
 
 Le Verrier de la Conterie : 'Venerie Normande,' 1778.— Tr^s complet. 
 
 Le comte Desgraviers : ' Essai de Venerie,' 1804. — Bon resume : trt^s pratique. 
 Instruction pour chasser a Ermenonville et a Chantilly, pp. 310 a 327. 
 
 D'Yanville, premier veneur : ' Traite de Venerie,' Paris, 1788, in 4". — Le livre 
 classique par excellence. 
 
 ' JcrningJiam Letters. 
 
2 54 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 par les bois, forests, tallies et gareuiies, plaines et campagiies.' 
 As far back as 1605 a work had been published at Spires in 
 which the question was discussed, ' Quod sit venatio et 
 quotuplex ; utrum venatio liceat clericis ' ; the conclusion 
 being that, though fishing was allowable, hunting was too 
 expensive and venison too heating a diet for holy men. 
 
 When Ligniville was about eighteen he was sent with 
 letters of introduction to great people by his relative and 
 patron, the Comte de Vaudemont, to the court of Henry IV., 
 to finish his polite, that is, his hunting, education. He 
 had special instructions to try to learn something of the 
 woodcraft of M. le Comte de Vitry, who hunted the king's 
 hounds after the roe-deer in the forest of Fontainebleau ; 
 the roe-deer being then, as now, in France esteemed by the 
 great Nimrods to be the most guileful of all the beasts of 
 chase. His good looks, his gentle birth — for he came from 
 the most ancient and exclusive chivalry of Lorraine — 
 
 Chastelet et Lenoircourt, 
 Ligniville et Haraucourt, 
 Grands chevals et chevalliers 
 De Noblesse sans esgalle, 
 
 his fondness for hunting, and a superlative tufter got him 
 on. He enjoyed himself thoroughly, and writes home to 
 his people, ' Tantost je vas a la court, un limier a la 
 main, une autre fois habille en veneur, et selon les occur- 
 rences vestu en courtisan prepare a aller au bal : le lende- 
 main dispose a monter a cheval,' &c. This was all ver}' 
 nice, and M. de Ligniville made such good use of his advan- 
 tages and ' occurrences,' that on the retirement of Franjois 
 de Beaufort from the post of hereditary Grand Veneur, he was 
 appointed by Charles III. of Burgundy to the vacant office. 
 And now for his book. The first thing that made me 
 like it is that he goes out of his way to tell us that a favourite 
 hound of his, called Mouille, came ' de la contree de York.' 
 
VENERIE AND THE VALOfS 255 
 
 Mouille was so fond of him that she would leave the most 
 ravishing line if she heard his voice ; an amiable peculiarity 
 which he admits does more credit to her heart than her 
 perseverance, and which would have profited her nothing 
 with the late Mr. G. Lane-Fox at Bramham. But I like 
 the book for its rather particular and unusual style and fla- 
 vour. It is too long ; most books on sporting subjects, and 
 especially mine, are. Very often we lose sight of the forest 
 for the trees. It is too allusive, thanks to a mixed cargo 
 of classics, ethics, scripture, and philosophy, which the 
 author carries and unloads at every port, but only to take 
 in fresh stores. Saints and sages and public characters 
 of all sorts and sizes are squeezed into his service and into 
 all sorts of ineligible places. But what gives the book the 
 particular and unusual quality I have just referred to, is 
 his treatment of the subject throughout in the spirit — if I 
 may say so without irreverence — of the hundred and fourth 
 Psalm. 
 
 When Mr. Jorrocks got lost and benighted on the 
 moor on the Pinch-me-near forest day, the spectacle of 
 nature caused him a homesick alarm. He could only 
 think of Betsy and the Torbay soles he had ordered for 
 dinner. But in similar circumstances M. de Ligniville would 
 have looked at things very differently. 
 
 Nature to him is the splendid nature of Addison's hynm. 
 I do not say that at times the sylvan piety is not a little 
 overdone. Every incident of a day's hunting is not sus- 
 ceptible of being read into a sublime and everlasting context. 
 A luxury of horror at Nature's frown, an overdone thanks- 
 giving for her smile, easily become mannerisms, and M. de 
 Ligniville is not frugal enough of reaHsing his feelings 
 in type. But, on the whole, the fault is on the right side. 
 Possibly, the manufacture into words of thoughts about 
 Nature and her divine message is too sustained. But it is 
 
256 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 the drift which the benefits of Nature should give to the 
 thoughts of people who hunt and stalk, and shoot and fish. 
 I only hope he was not a humbug. 
 
 M. de Ligniville is quite as fond of hunting as Captain 
 Doleful declared himself to be when he took his gods to witness 
 that it was the only thing worth living for. Not to hunt is to 
 be a miserable fellow, and he is always demolishing the objec- 
 tions of an hypothetical faineant who is shirking the rigours 
 of the game. He is much afraid lest the rising generation 
 whom he admonishes in every page may be led away by 
 these specious home-loving gentlemen, and he equips his 
 disciples vdth suitable retorts for times of temptation. Tell 
 the faineants straight out, he cries, that hunting is the way 
 to heaven, and stopping at home to somewhere else. Hunt 
 six days a week if you can ; blow the expense and the waste 
 of tissue. Remember that Xenophon (a prime favourite 
 and authority with M. de Ligniville) lived till he was ninety, 
 and that you will have plenty of leisure to rest yourselves at 
 the proper appointed time, where beyond these voices there 
 is peace.' 
 
 M. de Ligniville's appreciation of English hounds, 
 English hunting, and English ways have been cited in a 
 preceding chapter. He visited England. He tells us how 
 he went there to some extent entangled in preconceptions 
 and prejudices about English hunting, hounds, and hunters. 
 He returned to France in quite a different frame of mind. 
 
 ' Cross the Channel,' he says to his chosen audience, the 
 youth of his nation, ' you smart J'oung gentlemen who think 
 you know so much about hunting. If you can manage it, 
 stay in England for a full hunting season. I cannot find 
 you in wits as well as in counsel ; some people, of course, can 
 
 ' ' Responded hardimcnt aux fainijants que pendant la vie vous avez con- 
 tentement en vostre travail et qu'apr^s la mort vous reposerez et dormirez du 
 sommeil de I'aix avee Dieu.' 
 
VILNERIE AND THE VALO/S 257 
 
 neither learn nor forget, but such of you as can do both or 
 even either will benefit much by following my advice.' 
 
 Many things have changed and happened in France since 
 Louis XVI. entered ' rien ' in his hunting diary on the day 
 the Bastille was taken. The charming old names Hke the 
 Cabinet de Monseigneur, the Route du Vert Galant, the 
 Bouquet du Roi are only names and memories. Hunting is, 
 alas ! no longer the occupation of kings or the pastime of 
 a Court. But a Bourbon prince still hunts the stag at 
 Chantilly according to the ideas of the sixteenth century. 
 Gaston-Phebus, his distinguished ancestor, is still the 
 suzerain of venerie. In this country, less than one hundred 
 years has revolutionised— speaking broadly — our horses, our 
 hounds, our methods, and our hunting fashions— least of all, 
 perhaps, strange to say, our hunting dress. But in France, 
 to have recourse to a metaphor, the valse seems never to have 
 ousted the minuet and the pavane. 
 
258 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 CHAPTEE XV 
 
 THE EMPIRE AND THE REPUBLIC 
 Remembrance wakes with all her busy train 
 
 In the following pages I only propose to make good some 
 bird-of-passage impressions of a few days' hunting in the 
 neighbourhood of Paris. They were most enjoyable days, 
 and I cannot speak too gratefully of the kindness and 
 courtesy shown me everywhere and by everybody. I shall 
 not attempt to establish comparisons between French and 
 English stag-hunting. They are things to be avoided by 
 the writer, as, provided he can describe what he has seen, 
 they may safely be left to the reader. Besides, where out- 
 door amusements and many other things are concerned, 
 people should rest satisfied with contrasts. The comparative 
 method often plays the deuce with one. You can, for 
 instance, get a great deal of fun out of the Calpe hounds 
 at Gibraltar, or, as I am told, out of punt fishing in the 
 Thames. But both must be accepted as things by them- 
 selves. It will not do to be always comparing the Queen 
 of Spain's chair to the Burton Flats, or a baited swim 
 to the Thurso or the Awe. Instinctively, I suppose, a 
 process of comparison is always going on. You cannot 
 at will make your mind as blank and virgin as a sensi- 
 tive plate. What you may have seen and done is always 
 thrusting its more or less apt impertinences into what you 
 may be seeing and doing ; but, like Colonel Thornton of 
 
THE EMPIRE AND THE REPUBLIC 259 
 
 Thonivillc Koyal in Yorkshire in similar circumstances, I 
 set out for Calais with the open mind of ' a citizen of the 
 world,' with nothing English about me except my accent. 
 
 The shortness of ray stay and the comfort and ease 
 of modern travelling did not involve the preparations which 
 Colonel Thornton saw fit to carry into execution in 1801. 
 The Colonel, it may be remembered by those who have read 
 of his exploits and appreciations, took a travelling carriage, 
 six or eight couple of hounds, two valets, a gamekeeper and 
 a hu7itsman, a terrier and a pointer, Mrs. T.,' as he persists 
 in calling her, her trunks, and her maid, and he was much 
 incensed with his coach-builder at having to leave behind a 
 boat and a boat-carriage, owing to these carefully designed 
 necessaries not being finished. All this was in my case 
 meagrely represented by a pair of my own stirrup irons and 
 long leathers ; but I inspected my hunting wardrobe with 
 very particular care, inspired my valet with a due sense of 
 the issues at stake, and, of course, had my hair cut by a 
 special artist. 
 
 French stag-hunting was not new to me ; in a sense I 
 was about to renew an early and affectionate friendship. 
 My riding and hunting education began in France. When 
 I was about eight years old we went to live at Fontainebleau, 
 and we lived there a great deal till the war of 1870 drove 
 us away in a hurry. We only just got through Paris. The 
 gates were closed a very few days later, and cattle were 
 being driven into the fortified enceinte and were grazing in 
 the ditches and on the slope of the glacis when we passed 
 
 ' There were several quasi-Mrs. Ts, but I fancy this one was the lady 
 who in 180G rode a four-mile match on one of the Colonel's horses against a 
 gentleman whose name I have forgotten on York racecourse. An immense con- 
 course assembled, and great admiration was expressed at Mrs. Thornton's 
 riding and the chasteness of her bloomer costume. She made too much play 
 
 however with her horse and was easily beaten. Poor Mr. , who probably 
 
 could not help himself, was censured by public opinion for his lack of chivalry. 
 
26o STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 through ; people used to drive out to see them. Our house 
 in the Kue Eoyale was actually tenanted by Prussian officers, 
 who behaved very well and made a sensible use of every- 
 thing and of the servants. Fortunately my father prudently 
 buried a recent consignment of claret in the garden before 
 he left. 
 
 My first pony was black — a mai-e called Mignonne. 8he 
 was bought at Cheris. I don't know how she was bred, but 
 her shoulders were good enough to permit of her kicking 
 high. Our groom — who used also to cirer the parquet 
 floors — was an ex-dragoon, an Alsatia.n. If the day was 
 cold, clear, and sunny, he always warned me that Mignonne 
 might be gaie. He was often right about this, and I was 
 often kicked off. My father did not care much about the 
 hunting. ' One fool follows another,' he used to say, and 
 he seldom came out, or if he did went home early, so my 
 education in venerie was left to Isidore, who prided himself 
 upon a complete knowledge of its martial observances 
 and excellent mysteries. We had great fun together, and we 
 were great friends. 
 
 Isidore was not an over-confident rider, but in his shiny 
 peaked cap, alpaca coat, white duck trousers and straps, 
 which was his costume on sunny spring days, he circum- 
 vented an academy canter down an alley as well as his 
 neighbours. When I first went to school in 1864 Mignonne 
 was sold. However, I always got out hunting when 
 I came home for the holidays. I was soon promoted to 
 independence and an animal called ' Enguerrand,' just 
 out of training, and after Enguerrand to a three-year- 
 old called ' Flambeau,' and sometimes I was allowed to hire. 
 Flambeau had a chequered career. He could ' run a bit ' 
 --an expensive accomplishment — and once managed to win 
 a match either at Chantilly or Longchamps. Then he 
 used to go stag and l)()iir limiting, wliicli lie liked better 
 
THE EMPIRE AND THE REPUBLIC 261 
 
 than the last two or three furlongs. When we all had to 
 flit, bag and baggage, before the Prussian advance, my father 
 did not go with us, but rode a clean-bred and most fractious 
 chestnut mare named Catalina to the coast from Fontaine- 
 bleau. I think it was to Dieppe. Isidore accompanied him 
 on Flambeau. It was lovely weather, and both horses had 
 good legs and feet, so they enjoyed it. Once they were all 
 but shot at as spies by a zealous franc-tireur from behind a 
 tree, but explanations were quickly forthcoming from the 
 startled Isidore. Flambeau was soon after raffled for an 
 unflattering amount at a bazaar in aid of an organ fund 
 in Yorkshire. By that time he made a cheerful noise 
 himself. 
 
 The Fontainebleau hirehngs were very moderate animals 
 and suffered from chronic sore backs, but I remember one, a 
 reputed ' Irlandais,' which w-as held in high esteem and 
 request ; and another of the now scarce colour known as 
 porcelaine — a creamy white with black spots and flecks and 
 a very pink nose. He was a well-shaped, self-advertising ani- 
 mal, and made a great show and commotion. Louis XIV., 
 who liked pied chargers, would have looked capital on 
 him, and Loutherbourg or Vander Meulen would have 
 been pleased with their model. There was plenty of hunt- 
 ing ; M. M. Aguado hustled the boar about ; the Imperial 
 Venerie hunted the stag. The late Baron Lambert, as 
 Lieutenant de la A'enerie, was for all practical piu'poses 
 Master. He was very kind to me, and I looked up to him 
 as one upon the pinnacle of human greatness. He invited 
 me once or twice to the Yenerie, took me out for a ride on a 
 Yenerie horse, and gave me a Swaine and Adeney cutting 
 whip. Speaking from memory, I think he bought nice 
 horses with plenty of quality for the men, and he always 
 rode lean-necked, clean-headed, conspicuously coloured 
 horses himself. I remember in particular a charming white 
 
262 stag-hvntim; recollectioxs 
 
PIQUEUll DE LA VENERIE IMrERIAL 
 Aftku a. de Duei-x 
 
THE EMPIRE AND THE REPUBLIC 263 
 
 mare. I would not swear to it, but I think she was called 
 Begina. The first Latin declension was in great request for 
 the names of mares in the hunt stables ; the Koman Empire 
 and the Punic wars being placed under heavy contributions in 
 the kennels. 
 
 Baron Lambert was quite a character and a wit. Lord 
 Byron never would speak French because he declined to 
 speak it like a German waiter ; but the Baron had no such 
 fastidiousness about his English. He spoke it as freely and 
 graphically as any Mr. Tiptop in Melton, and could slur the 
 //. in horse and hundred, and shunt the g in hunting with 
 the refined subtlety of a Lord Scamperdale. 
 
 He rode about 12 st., a I'Anglaise, in an English pain-flap 
 saddle, double bridle, and hunting spurs. In those days these 
 were all looked upon with only half-approval, for haute ecole 
 riding made her concessions slowly. But Baron Lambert's 
 English ways were never overdone, and he quite suited the 
 frame of his circumstances. His legs were perhaps a trifle 
 short for elegance, but he sat well on his horse, and well- 
 blacked jack-boots — which looked like having been made 
 somewhere near the Marble Arch — did wonders for him. 
 White hair, a clean-shaven actor's face, but as fresh and 
 ruddy as Simon Lee's or Michael Hardy's, the becoming 
 venerie dress, and everything put on and worn and held 
 right. There you have his portrait. He carried an English 
 horn, but I have no recollection of his using it much ; and he 
 knew how to catch hold of a horse and balance him on a 
 long rein as we do here, and as even in these days few know 
 how to do there. I saw no one like him, when I was over 
 the other day, tried by the conventions of English hunting 
 riding form. 
 
 Napoleon III. liked the thing to go. His hunting notions 
 and sympathies were English. So long as hounds ran on 
 he winked at their having changed their deer, and paid very 
 
264 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 little attention to the moralities and the purists. He would 
 often gallop like steam for a few minutes along the alleys 
 as they came in his way — the tuneful operations of the chase 
 being a matter of no importance— and then, relinquishing 
 all interest in the proceedings, relapse into conversation 
 with somebody he liked talking to. Sometimes, however, he 
 would electrify M. de la Eue, who held a Woods and 
 Forests appointment under the Second Empire, and has 
 chronicled its chasses, by asking him where on earth the 
 hunt had got to. On such occasions M. de la Eue used to 
 lead the way to the Etang de Sainte-Perrine, a favourite soil, 
 and hope for the best. On one occasion he was much 
 annoyed with things having gone wrong, and sent for 
 Baron Lambert, and found great fault with his arrange- 
 ments. If it should happen again, he told him in my father's 
 hearing, ' Je raye la Venerie d'un trait de plume.' I never 
 saw him out hunting, and he very seldom hunted at 
 Fontainebleau, but I remember his seat on horseback 
 perfectly. He sat right down and into his horse, and 
 looked exceedingly well on horseback. He was probably 
 not as good a school rider as the Prince Imperial, but I liked 
 his seat and style better. Of course, as everybody knows, he 
 rode exceedingly well to hounds over here, and on moderate 
 horses. On one occasion he showed the whole Queen's 
 field the way, including, I believe, Charles Davis, for the first 
 two or three miles from Pole Hill in the Harrow country. 
 
 The old school were scandalised by the full-steam- 
 ahead ways which, under the Second Empire, jostled the 
 stately and classical proceedings of the Valois and the 
 Bourbons. Grave fault was found in the loss of music and 
 the decay of sylvan arts and sciences. England was held to 
 blame. Fifty or sixty couple of hounds had been got 
 together in a ' sic volo sic jubeo ' sort of way by Comte 
 Edgar Ney, the Grand Yeneur. A few couple of entered 
 
THE EMPIRE AND THE REPUBLIC 265 
 
 hounds came from M. de I'Aigle's pack, but most of them 
 were draft hounds got together in a hurry from England ; and 
 entered draft hounds which go to France are sometimes not 
 good enough to earn their keep in their own country. 
 
 As far as I remember, I think the hounds were wanting 
 in music, but the men did their best to make up for the 
 deficiency. There was one particular piqueur whom Isidore 
 held in high esteem, and who was much admired for the 
 stirring way in which he could wind his horn at full gallop. 
 On such occasions, M. Eugene, as Isidore and I always called 
 him (of course we never dared speak to him), would come 
 through the horsemen and carriages in a crowded carrefour 
 standing up in his stirrups, and leaning over to the off side 
 until the bell of his horn was on the level of his right stirrup. 
 I think M. Eugene seldom knew where he was going, but 
 w^e all used to gallop after him. ' Benclez la mam, Monsieur 
 "^Thomas ; voild M. Eugene qui sonne,' Isidore used to say, 
 getting his own horse well on the bit nd giving him the 
 full benefit of a muscular calf. 
 
 However, I must now relate my more recent experiences, 
 and say something about the hounds, the horses, and the 
 men I hunted with last November, and the country they 
 hunt. 
 
 The Channel was kind, and after travelling all night I 
 arrived at Laversine, a dehghtful destination, in comfortable 
 time to devote proper and particular attention to the cere- 
 monies of boots and breeches. Now for what I saw and 
 noticed and did. 
 
 As compared with those of most travellers and sportsmen 
 my adventures were insignificant. But I was lucky. In 
 these large forests it is not often that a stag will face the 
 open, but the day I hunted at Halatte and the day I hunted 
 at Fontainebleau we got out. This is, of course, a matter of 
 general congratulation, and everybody sits down to ride with 
 
266 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 refreshed determination and proper regard for cultivation 
 and the damage fund. This is the worst of it. The plaine 
 or open is not good going; it is very deep, with that pro- 
 testing deepness of spade cultivation. I do noc know how 
 the land is held, whether in small or large holdings. Of 
 course it is the sort of thing I ought to have asked and did 
 not ask ; but the plaine shows the honourable symptoms of 
 small ownership. Biding over^it gave me the same feeling 
 of doing unkind damage to poor people's pains as riding 
 over allotments or cottage gardens would give me. It has 
 neither the look nor feel of a hunting country. Of course I 
 am only speaking of what I saw, as I fancy in some parts of 
 France, notably the Landes and La Sologne, there is plenty 
 of rough country, although not so wild as in the beginning 
 of this century, when land was sold an son cle la voix and 
 the stretch of ground reached by a man's voice sold for a 
 few francs. 
 
 I only had four days' hunting. Two in the forest of 
 Chantilly with the Due de Chartres and the Prince de 
 Joinville ; one in the forest of Halatte with theHalatte hounds, 
 kept by M. le Marquis de Valon ; and one at Fontainebleau 
 with M. M. Lebaudy. 
 
 On the Halatte day we had an excellent hunt. It was a 
 very wet day, but only began to rain about 8 o'clock a.m., 
 after several sunny days with white frosts at night. There 
 was a capital scent, and I was very pleased with the hounds 
 — the way they were hunted, or rather not hunted, and 
 their style and character. I was very unlucky in not seeing 
 M. de Valon hunt his hounds ; he had broken two ribs just 
 before I arrived. We ran through some beechwoods some- 
 thing like the birdless grove at Goodwood, and, just as I 
 have noticed in the Goodwood and the Buckinghamshire 
 beechwoods of the Queen's country, the hounds ran a great 
 pace over the thick carpet of wet l)eech leaves. I do not 
 
THE EMPIRE AND THE REPUBLIC 267 
 
 know what sort of point the deer made, but it seemed to me 
 a long zigzag. 
 
 Our stag was liarboured in some young oakwood with 
 thick undergrowth, and at first had several other deer with 
 him — I mean he was joined by these, or pushed them up, 
 after the pack was laid on. The convpagnie went ringing and 
 lurching about together in a thinned enceinte with very strong 
 undercover. I rode with the huntsman through the stuff on 
 a nice active horse which a kind friend at Laversine, M. 
 Lambert, had mounted me on, and which would have found 
 his way through Oustwick AVhin or Eanksborough ; and 
 although, owing to the stubborn undercover, you could not 
 have ' sheeted ' them, their cry was beautiful, and each hound 
 hunted the Hne as if everything depended on his individual 
 performance. We were often within a few yards of the deer, 
 who kept turning as short and stupid as rabbits in the 
 corner of a warren ; and the hounds must have constantly 
 seen them, but they showed none of the demoralisation of 
 view. Taking nothing for granted, they stuck to the Hne 
 rehgiously, almost fanatically ; I do not think you could have 
 hfted them if you had tried. At last they got the stag— an 
 eight-pointer — away with one nobber, who soon got dropped, 
 and stuck to him like wax till they forced him over three 
 or four marshy fields into the Oise and drowned him. I 
 think we were running about two and a half hours. 
 
 M. de Yalon never touches hounds ; that is, they get 
 no assistance of any kind. They have crosses of English 
 blood ; and, like M. de Chezelles, he is especially fond of the 
 Duke of Beaufort's blood. But they are essentially French 
 hounds, and personally I liked them much better in their 
 work, their appearance, and their style, than any other pack 
 I hunted with. They are on the long side and a little slab- 
 sided, but of charming quahty and no lumber. Over here 
 we should not like the colour. There is a great deal of 
 
268 STAG-HUNTLYG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 black and hardly any tan. But this marks and preserves the 
 French foundations of the pack. I saw no regular Badmin- 
 ton badger pie, but several hounds were of a dark mousey 
 colour, which they call soiiriot. This means plenty of 
 Badminton blood, and M. de Valon especially esteems the 
 souriots. The Halatte kennel is the only one I saw, as I 
 went to pay the master a visit, and to tell him how much I 
 had enjoyed my day. 1 went down to look at the young 
 entry — les chiens M. — as in many French packs the names 
 of the young entry of each year all begin with some particular 
 letter of the alphabet. As purists the French would be 
 more particular than the fox-hunting Enghsh Baronet, who, 
 wishing to name three own brothers in the usual way, called 
 them Govial, Gowler, and Galloper, but they stick to this 
 so religiously that some of the names of a large entry do 
 not strike upon the ear agreeably. It is, however, eminently 
 practical, and better perhaps than some of our names, which 
 are quite senseless. I am reminded of a story of a gentleman 
 who heard his huntsman cheering a hound by the name 
 of ' Lyman.' ' What,' he asked, ' does Lyman mean '? ' 
 ' Lord, sir,' said the huntsman, ' what does anything mean ? ' 
 It was a very wet afternoon, but the establishment struck 
 me as being purpose-like and practical. They do not enter 
 their young hounds until February, as they usually come in 
 from the walks in poor condition. I noticed two things 
 particularly about the Halatte hounds — their ability to gallop 
 fast with their noses down, and their whip sterns. As to the 
 latter, I said to myself, here at last are the whip sterns which 
 were Charles Davis's secret, and which gave the Queen's 
 hounds their particular distinction in the days of the giants. I 
 was much disappointed when I found that their racy appear- 
 ance was the result of scissors and a ioitnightly trinmiing. As 
 to the other point, I instanced it to a hunting gentleman with 
 whom I ti-;i veiled up IVom Cliantilly two or three days later. 
 
THE EMPIRE AND THE REPUBLIC 269 
 
 and he said he had observed the very contrary, and that, 
 thanks to scent lying on the bushes more comfortably than 
 on the ground, their tendency was to look for it breast high. 
 I do not know how this may be ; and I dare say he is right 
 and I am wrong. My preference is to let things strike me 
 through the eye, and to be satisfied with what I see if the 
 sight is pleasant. Anyhow, I will not be robbed by my 
 reason-giving travelling companion of the picture left upon 
 my memory of the whip-sterned seuriots and magpies witlr 
 their noses to the ground, racing under the high beeches. 
 
 At Chantilly we had a good hunting run of about three 
 hours, and killed. It was a very bright sunny day, and the 
 scent was moderate. There was a long check at ' la table 
 du roi,' which carriages, conversation, and luncheon baskets 
 Inade very tolerable for many of us. Our hunted stag had 
 contrived to associate several other deer with his difficulties, 
 and the horns blew the accompagne from every point of 
 the compass. How^ever, tactics and venery prevailed. They 
 managed to cut him out again, and hunted him cheerfully 
 at a steady pace until he stood to bay. The scent, I 
 thought, improved in the afternoon, and I hazarded this 
 rather conventional observation to the head piqiieur. He 
 said ^ Alt contraire,' and gave reasons which he politely 
 explained, but which I imperfectly grasped. They certainly 
 ran with more cry and confidence, but I dare say they were 
 closer at him. Fortunately there is no inevitable agreement 
 about scent, people, novels, and sermons.^ 
 
 Perhaps it may be well to say a word or two here upon 
 
 ' H.Il.H. the Due cle Chartves most kindly sent me the foot of this good 
 stag beautifully mounted, with a plate bearing the particulars of the day, as 
 follows : 
 
 ' Eendezvous a la baraque Nibert ; attaque au ti'ou des Braconnicrs ; pris au 
 poteau St. Leonard apr^s 4 h. de chasse ; laisser courre par Cheri. 
 27 Nov. 1895. 
 Les houneurs du i^ied a Lord llibblesdale.' 
 
270 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 the qualities and defects of French hounds, and the quaHties 
 and defects of English hounds according to French ideas. 
 
 French tradition clings to line hunting, drawing and 
 perseverance. It has little patience with the arrogance 
 and fling of a foxhound. M. de Chezelles, a high authority, 
 thinks that a good modern hdtard, which is to all intents 
 the French hound, hunts more gaiement than an English 
 hound. He is busier : throws his tongue incessantly, and 
 wishes everybody to share in his opinions, perplexities, and 
 triumphs ; and there can be little doubt that a good hdtard 
 is probably a better hound for forest hunting than a draft 
 hound from the Holdernesse or the Tedworth. I have 
 already referred to my predecessor, Colonel Thornton. 
 The Colonel, although he tells us that his hounds always 
 outpaced the French hounds — in spite of their rather 
 confined quarters in the travelling carriage with Mrs. T.'s 
 trunks and bonnet boxes — and that he himself performed 
 feats, and exhibited a fertility of resource which made his 
 hosts stare, acknowledges very handsomely that the French 
 surpass us in science. Without pausing to inquire whether 
 or not hunting is a science, be it in France or anywhere 
 else, I am quite willing to agree with the Colonel that 
 now as then the French know a great deal about woodland 
 hunting and woodland hounds. The same candour, how- 
 ever, compels me to say that they have some strange 
 prepossessions about English hunting, English hounds, and 
 English requirements. 
 
 As Lord Byron said of the Venetian ladies, the French, 
 as regards their hounds, have ' awful notions of constancy.' 
 A hound must stick to a hunted deer like a limpet. They 
 think that in England a change on to a fresh fox is not only 
 connived at, but encouraged, and English blood is always 
 looked upon with suspicion as willing to cheerfully compound 
 such felonies. Some of the characteristics of English hounds, 
 
THE EMPIRE AND THE REPUBLIC 271 
 
 as noted by writers of authority on sporting subjects in France, 
 are novel and astonishing. According to one authority we care 
 Httle for music, or for the way a hound draws, or for his 
 staunchness on a scent. The foxhound is represented as a 
 sort of sylvan hedonist. His morals are indifferent, and his 
 character selfish. Tested by French standards of hound 
 probity, it appears that he detests thick cover, and under 
 such circumstances merely follows the ridings, and cuts m 
 with the other hounds or with the deer when they leave it. 
 If the deer stays in cover, he often abandons the pursuit 
 altogether. Bested by slower but more virtuous hounds 
 which have the knack of straining through the wealth of 
 bramble and blackthorn and ajoncs which distinguish a 
 French forest, he makes the most of ?i dehncher, goen straight 
 up to the front, stays there, and spanks along at such a pace 
 that he makes the industrious hdtards, faint but pursuing, 
 bleed from the nose. He only likes a plain-sailing hunt, 
 hates a twisting deer and a stale scent ; one boar is quite as 
 good as another— although it is admitted that his courage 
 makes him a good boar-hound— and he is useless for roe- 
 deer hunting. Here is another bit of news about necks and 
 shoulders : the experience of an expert. It appears that the 
 English insist upon a hound with a long neck, so that he can 
 stoop to a scent ; this is a proof, according" to the oracle, that 
 most of our foxhounds have not very good noses. The 
 Saintonge hound^an ancient and eminent French breed — 
 hunted with his head up {le nez au vent), without deigning 
 to stoop. This is still a characteristic of a well-bred hound — 
 both in pointers and hounds — but M. de Chabot goes on to 
 say that he has often remarked slow-looking hounds keep 
 right up at the lead, and throw their tongues admirably 
 owing to the way they carried their heads and the way 
 their heads were put on. In our love of drive and pace 
 the French think we have sacrificed nose ; and nose has for 
 
2/2 STAG-H(\YTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 centuries been the hon sang ne pent mentir test in France. 
 
 Le Eklais Volant 
 
 Thus M. de Li^aiiville tells us how a neighbour of his in 
 Lorraine had a mfdin — which I take to be a half-niastilf, 
 
THE EMPIRE AND THE REPUBLIC 273 
 
 half-hound or pointer animal — which was a capital tufter ; 
 but he goes on to say that he never saw a tufter speak to a 
 line at three o'clock on a hot afternoon which was not ' a 
 highly and a nobly ' bred one. The French judges do not 
 like our catlike feet — a Saintonge hound has a hare's foot — 
 and the lameness which besets English hounds after four 
 or five seasons' work in France is attributed to the shape 
 of our foxhounds' feet. After all, if they get four or five 
 seasons out of a hound, he owes very little at the price 
 Wilton sold him ' to go abroad.' 
 
 M. de Couteulx is a great believer in the assured future 
 of tlie French hound. In his Manuel de Venerie he says : 
 ' Nous commen^ons a ne plus etre tributaires de I'Angleterre,. 
 et je vois avant peu le moment ou celle-ci pourra bien nous 
 prendre plus de chiens que nous ne lui en prendrons.' This 
 is a comfortable and patriotic conjecture, but still in the 
 region of prophecy. 
 
 x\t Chantilly they still hunt with relays. This leads to 
 hounds getting scattered, semes as they say, over a wide 
 area. Like Virgil's seamen, apparent rari, all over the 
 place and quite unexpectedly, many of them taking but a 
 partial interest in the chase. 
 
 In this country we had given up relays as far back as 
 the seventeenth century. M. de Ligniville cites this with 
 approval as a point of acute difference between English and 
 French hunting principles of his day. At Chantilly they 
 are rather a pale survival of more splendid Bourbon days, 
 when relays of hounds with their gaily dressed valets, led 
 horses with their attendants, gamekeepers and foresters, all 
 contributed pomp and circumstance, purple and gold to the 
 scenic display. Under the Empire they were still popular 
 stage properties. Valets de chiens, in their grey-blue worsted 
 stockings and buckle shoes ; extra horses, in check cotton 
 quarter-sheets, for the swells and the hunt-servants, military- 
 
 T 
 
274 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 looking greenclad gardes, lent colour and animation and 
 importance to the alleys and carrefours of Fontainebleau or 
 Compiegne. I remember well the relais volant — it sounds like 
 an inn sign or the title of a ghost story — that is, the mounted 
 yeoman pricker, with five or six couple of hounds, theoretically 
 straining on plaited hair rope but really much embarrassed 
 by his horse's heels. But the relais volant was always an 
 exciting apparition, as he hastened hither and thither on the 
 spur in response to some distant challenge from his compeers 
 of the horn. To judge by the appearance of the little band, 
 it was hot work for all parties. 
 
 Now that hounds are bred and entered to hunt together, 
 it is hardly possible to defend the relay system, and its vogue 
 is very limited. The objections are numerous and obvious. 
 It is difficult enough under any circumstances to keep fifteen 
 or eighteen couple of hounds together in varied and extensive 
 woodlands, even when they are laid on all at one time. It 
 must be nearly impossible to keep twenty-five or thirty 
 couple together laid on at different times, and laid on in a 
 way which must be offensive and disappointing to high- 
 mettled, painstaking hounds ; for a relay is always laid on, if 
 possible, with the leading hound as he crosses an alley, and 
 a clever valet de cliiens is the man who can get all his relay 
 off and on the line at the very head of the hunting pack. 
 
 Kelays, apart from pageantry, may have had their uses 
 in old days, before constant crosses of Enghsh blood bred 
 the fast bdtard of to-day. The old French hounds hunted 
 all the better for being in great numbers. They were 
 always uttering speech and certifying knowledge to one 
 another ; the chain of communication could hardly be too 
 long. In voice and gesture there was little to choose between 
 the leading and the tail hounds, and a deer was probably 
 seldom at the pains of exerting himself. They killed him 
 very possibly as often, or oftener, than the faster packs of the 
 
THE EMPIRE AND TEIE REPUBLIC 275 
 
 present day, but they killed him by the same means as the 
 tortoise defeated the hare. His self-confidence led him to 
 take liberties with their perseverance. 
 
 The French are an exact people. You should, I am told, 
 read high mathematics in French, rather than in Enghsh 
 or in German, because the French language and the French 
 imjenium guarantee a correct nicety of expression. They 
 are, as we know, in arts and crafts, sticklers for form and 
 precision. Hunting procedm-e is no exception. It has a 
 formidable grammar and a prosody. Even to freeing the horn 
 from the results of your efforts, there is an ascertained right 
 and wrong way of doing everything. The late Vicomte H. 
 de Chezelles, a most competent authority, devotes some 
 pages of his interesting book to what he calls the grandes 
 faqons handed down in certain families of professional 
 huntsmen from generation to generation. M. de Chezelles 
 instances the Namurs, Obrys, Duvals, under the Monarchy, 
 La Trace and La Feuille of the Imperial Yenerie, as all 
 having the grand style, but La Trace is his Charles Davis. 
 When Napoleon III. reconstituted the Yenerie, La Trace 
 was growing vegetables, and marrying people who wished 
 to marry, as the mayor of his native town, Dangu. His 
 country and his Emperor's need called him, like another 
 Cincinnatus, to higher things. The manner in which he 
 made his report to the Grand Yeneur, the noble simpHcity of 
 his approach, the poise of his whip, the elegant gesture of his 
 saluting hat, the bow with which he decorated the instruc- 
 tions he might receive or inspire, were things, M, de Chezelles 
 tells us, once seen never to be forgotten. 
 
 Now, I dare say I may have missed the subtleties of 
 doffing the lampion, or of the deployment of the whip-lash. 
 They would appear to be things only to be spiritually 
 perceived. But there is a certain kind of form which is 
 quite independent of dress regulations and the classical 
 
276 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 unities. You will encounter and recognise what I mean 
 in a stage-coachinan, or a shikari in the Himalayas ; in a 
 cricketer or a waiter ; in a gondolier or in a jockey— some- 
 thing which distinguishes the individual from his fellows- 
 craftsmen, which jumps to your eyes and your brain and 
 makes you say, ' This is the real thing.' I admit it may be 
 an external, that often, like many ideals, things are not what 
 they seem. The apparent Crichton breaks down in practice ; 
 the bright particular star gives no better light than the 
 meaner people of the skies. But I am only laying stress on 
 externals, and, tried by that test, I saw no La Trace during 
 my stay in France. The eternal principles of French venerie 
 —once the pack has settled to a deer— seem to offer but few 
 opportunities of emerging from a mere character part ; and 
 the professional huntsmen I saw^ made none for themselves. 
 At his best the huntsman appeared to be a mounted and 
 pictm-esque master of the ceremonies, the Lord High 
 Chamberlain of the Forest ; at his worst he is a peasant 
 or a stableman dressed up in an opera-comique attire. 
 
 Although Arthur Young was given a white pony and a 
 pointer and a gun when he was quite a Httle boy, and enjoyed 
 the usual outdoor opportunities of EngHsh country life, I do 
 not think he ever quite liked hunting. Possibly he could 
 not have loved farming so well had he done so. 
 
 When he went to France he was shocked at ' the mis- 
 chievous animation of a vast hunt ' which the great properties 
 exhibited, at the sovereignty of the game, and the privileges 
 of the capitaineries. 'The crop of this country,' he said of 
 the district round Senlis and Chantilly, ' is princes of the 
 blood — that is to say, hares, pheasants, deer, and boars.' He 
 is always noting and regretting the absence of farm buildings 
 and farming energies. At the expense of his political 
 economy, a cowhouse at Chanteloup gives him more satis- 
 faction than Conde's hunting stables at Chantilly with their 
 
THE EMPIRE AND THE REPUBLIC 277 
 
 240 English horses, and the trade they meant to the Enghsh 
 breeder. He calls the cowhouse * noble,' and he means what 
 he says ; but all the beauties of Versailles and St. Germains 
 make no amends for royal and noble indifference to the 
 complete system of turnip cultivation which he held so near 
 his heart. But the most utilitarian side of Mr. Morley's 
 * wise and honest traveller ' would have been gratified by 
 the forests of to-day. Thrift and forestry have tamed 
 Chantilly and Halatte, but especially Chantilly, until it is 
 difficult to trace a vestige of what we understand over here 
 by natural woodland. Even the Scotch firs are shaven to 
 the geometrical alignment of the alleys and to the perspective 
 of a point of sight. I could not help feeling that the deer 
 were a sort of well-to-do colonists hving under an ordered 
 dispensation and ascertained conditions. Fontainebleau is 
 different : in spite of economics there are desolations of sand 
 deserts and heather, confusions of grey rock, splashes of lonely 
 water, which belong of right to the tall deer, and which still 
 set at nought the estimates and votes on account of a 
 department. 
 
 I have said little or nothing in this chapter about horses 
 and riders, and I have confined myself to observations upon 
 the hounds. In France the hound is the Paramount. In the 
 next chapters I will try to contrast French and Enghsh 
 ideas of horses and riding, suggested by my own personal 
 experiences. 
 
278 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 CHAPTEK XVI 
 
 FRENCH HORSEMANSHIP 
 Jamais boii veneur ne fut mauvais capitaine 
 
 Having nothing else to ride, I determined to renew my youth 
 by riding a hirehng at Fontainebleau, and I carried this 
 sentimental. resolution into effect through the telephone of 
 the Hotel Continental. It is not a modern improvement I 
 understand, but, after the interchange of many ' Holas,' 
 ' qui est-ce?' ' est-ce vous ? ' the evening before, I had at last 
 been brought into relations w^ith the local Percival, and ex- 
 pounded my wants, my inches, and my weight ; a reassuring 
 ' Comptez sur moi ' concluding the transaction. 
 
 The next morning broke like a hunting day. Tender 
 grey clouds brooded low over the Tuileries gardens, and 
 moved slowly across a spacious rain-washed sky. The Gare 
 de Lyon was not as animated as Paddington or Euston on a 
 hunting morning. Well-cleaned — even badly-cleaned — boots 
 and breeches are an immediate introduction to the platform 
 of a London terminus and most provincial stations. They 
 secure at once the particular attention of the guard, the 
 smartest services of the porters, and a meed of goodwill and 
 interest all round. But the general public in France have 
 no part or lot in hunting. It has never been popular in the 
 Latin sense of the word. The chasse a courre is a vestige of 
 privilege which has outstayed the ancient regime. Over here 
 the public bunts by right. Over there the individual hunts 
 by invitation. 
 
FRENCH HORSEMANSHIP 
 
 ■79 
 
 In this country the varied vicissitudes of the hunting- 
 field are the playground of anecdote and imagination. Even 
 if we have not ourselves owned him — and at times most of us 
 have done so — we are all familiar with the exploits of the 
 old horse. He has invariably only given his owner one fall ; 
 even that, poor old chap ! was not his fault. Or worse still 
 — for in her case the tender grace of a day that is dead 
 encourages more elaborate sentiment — the old mare ; she 
 has never turned her head or missed her turn. Indeed, she 
 often insists upon anticipating it in conversation. 
 
 Mr. Disraeli's fine observation told him that something 
 to do with riding across country and falling on your head 
 must come into any true picture of English society in the 
 most national and unrestricted sense of the word society. 
 What can be better than the steeplechase in ' Coningsby,' the 
 after-dinner discussion over its impromptu conditions, and 
 the emergencies of the water-jump ? I do not know whether 
 people read Mr. Disraeli's novels now. They should. But, 
 in this particular book, nine Englishmen out of ten will 
 admit Mr. Guy Flouncey to be a more lifelike figure than 
 Sidonia, merely because his horse lay across his diaphragm 
 in the brook. Although upon one occasion he settled the 
 field on his Arabian — a mare, of course — I cannot suppose 
 that Mr. Disraeli had any personal experience of steeplechase 
 riding ; yet his artistic sense enables him, as it were, to ride 
 a capital race home, and indeed gets him over some little 
 solecisms, such as the yeoman's white mare making the run- 
 ning at a severe pace, lying at the time third or fourth — which 
 would have been fatal to a less gifted writer. All this sort 
 of thing, which makes the characters breathe, and which 
 oxygenises the atmosphere in a story of English life, can 
 contribute nothing to a French novel. So far from that, I 
 even remember M. Octave Feuillet playing the deuce with 
 the disturbing conception he had given me of one of his most 
 
28o STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 charming heroines, by taking her out riding. After hearing 
 that she ' bondissait legerement sur sa selle,' I confess I took 
 less interest in her perplexed future. 
 
 There is no room either for horses in the French novel 
 heroes, excepting perhaps for the brougham horse who devours 
 the paved street on his way to an assignation. Provincial 
 celebrities like the stout yeoman's white mare in ' Coningsby ' ; 
 character parts like Mr. Sponge's Multum in Parvo or 
 like Marathon in ' Market Harborough,' can never hope to 
 emerge into real life from the horse community as they 
 do here. The French have never had — it is equivalent to 
 saying that they have never wanted — a Whyte Melville or a 
 Surtees. There is never any story in modern French books 
 about hunting. They discourse of its etiquette and techni- 
 calities. To warrant his writing at all, a French writer 
 on sport must write as a scientist, and evolve a text- 
 book. Nor is this to be wondered at. Kate Coventry, Lord 
 Scamperdale, the Hon. Crasher, would be unintelligible 
 marionettes in a French novel. Mr. Sponge would never 
 have set out upon his tour, Mr. Jorrocks never have left 
 Great Coram 'Street. Hunting and all that has to do with 
 it is popular in England, in the sense of its being in the bone 
 and sinew of the people at large. In France it is the ex- 
 clusive amusement of a small class and in no sense national, 
 Mme. Bovary and M. de Camors, Sappho and Bel Ami did 
 not hunt. Their tastes and talents lay in other directions. 
 
 However, I must remember I have a train to catch. 
 Three or four gentlemen in moderate boots and velvet caps 
 were unostentatiously keeping their toes warm on the plat- 
 form. On the other hand, the observed of all observers, two 
 sportsmen with high-hammered pin-fire guns en bandouliere, 
 and a pigeon-toed liver-and-white pointer called Byron, had 
 gathered around them a knot of well-wishers. Byron mean- 
 while assiduously quartered the platform in fine style, in spite 
 
FRENCH HORSEMANSHIP 281 
 
 of being repeatedly called to heel. I overheard snatches of 
 an evidently exciting conversation. Notes of an excellent 
 breeding season were being freely exchanged. ' Chez nous,' 
 said one, ' ce qn'il y a d'extraordinaire c'est le faisan ' ; in our 
 part of the world said some one else, ' le lievre est en masse.' 
 It is true that the arrival of my linen apron created some 
 little interest in favour of horse and hound, but although 
 it was quite courteous, I cannot flatter myself that it was 
 altogether respectful. Even in England, outside a twenty- 
 mile radius of Melton, the compulsions of leathers in this 
 matter of aprons are but imperfectly understood. 
 
 I arrived .at the Hotel de France in ample time for a 
 capital breakfast. Here things looked more Hke business, 
 and the waiter recommended me a Graves which he assured 
 me was much esteemed by the gentlemen of the hunt. The 
 meet was at the Belle Croix, within half an hour's ride of 
 Fontainebleau, and at the telephone-appointed hour I was 
 informed that my horse was at the door. I have never yet 
 got over the pleasurable feeling caused by this familiar 
 announcement — I hope I never shall — so I rushed out full 
 of curiosity. ' Le cheval de Monsieur ' proved to be a fine 
 bay Prussian. A brand-new bridle with many buckles 
 caparisoned . his lusty neck; a glossy ultramarine frontlet 
 adorned a pensive brow; a burly saddle surmounted his 
 thick withers. The manager of the livery stable had cour- 
 teously ridden round in order to show me the way, and we 
 looked him over together before mounting. I remarked 
 with deprecation upon his very German appearance, at the 
 same time paying a flattering tribute to the nice horses bred 
 in France. ' Now this horse,' I said, ' was never bred in the 
 Nivernais ' — this happened to be the only district which 
 occurred to me at the moment ; ' a heavy horse like this can 
 only be a Prussian.' I saw at once that I had made a point. 
 ' 9a se voit que Monsieur est connoisseur. Dame, c'est un 
 
282 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 cheval qui vient d'un pen partout.' From that moment the 
 manager and I understood each other, and we set off together, 
 excellent friends. The manager himself, who sat as he should, 
 was riding a gay little brown horse with a cock-tail, all 
 qualit5% and quite a stag-hunter. As I watched his gay 
 movement and the vein tracery starting into relief on his 
 clean neck, I made up my mind to swop horses, and so to 
 be quit of the cosmopolitan. After some more slighting 
 remarks upon the Prussian, I explained within the limits 
 of my French that he was riding my sort of horse, and that 
 he ought to have sent him^ for me instead of the Teuton. 
 ' But,' objected my companion, ' you said you weighed over one 
 hundred kilos.' This was the telephone guess at my weight 
 made by my representative at the Continental. ' That is 
 so/ I admitted, * but blood and action carry weight. Can you 
 expect either from "un cheval qui vient d'un peu partout " ? ' 
 He knew quite as well as I did that it was not to be done. 
 And after loyally citing the merits of my mount as a 
 ' cheval de retraite,' an equine t3q3e that needed explanation, 
 but which turned out to be a good hack home, he agreed 
 to change horses at the Belle Cruix after he had shown 
 the brown horse to a client. The client was not out, so we 
 changed at once. I had a charming ride, which, as he assured 
 me the brown horse was ' parfait pour les dames,' was not 
 to be wondered at. 
 
 The Belle Croix stands high and deserves its name, but 
 
 I will not depict the landscape. ' D n description ; it is 
 
 always disgusting ' — I am sure my readers will agree with 
 Lord Byron. 
 
 After the ceremonies of introduction and compliment. 
 Monsieur Lebaudy invited me to go with him to see the 
 stag unharboured. As I was anxious to see his huntsman 
 Hurvari at work, I very willingly did so. Hurvari, who 
 was for many years the Due d'Aumale's huntsman at 
 
FRENCH HORSEMANSHIP 283 
 
 Chantilly, has the reputation of being a sort of residuary 
 legatee of the ' grandes fa9ons ' to which I alluded in the 
 last chapter. I can offer no opinion on his woodcraft. As 
 I have already said, the strict ' laissez-faire ' principles of 
 French hunting and the colourless conditions of riding ' to 
 hounds in these large forests give httle opportunity to the 
 huntsman of singHng himself out, and a stranger is hardly 
 competent to appreciate the niceties of scientific venery. 
 Even on an average day, every huntsman in this country 
 has at least one or two chances of signalising himself by 
 some cast of daring talent, luck, or folly, or by the successful 
 liberties which he takes with a clever horse and forbidding 
 obstacles. Indeed, to professional or amateur alike, the con- 
 ditions of an English country make a day's hunting a ' carriere 
 ouverte aux talents.' Thus Snob's plucky horsemanship and 
 the little bay cocktail get him asked to dinner by the Melton 
 swells wdth whom he tries conclusions in the famous pages 
 of the 'Quarterly.' In the alleys and carrefours of a French 
 forest he could not have hoped to enjoy so pleasant a recog- 
 nition of his performances. 
 
 Hurvari wears, I believe, with perfect professional pro- 
 priety, long and flowing whiskers of the old Piccadilly weeper 
 sort. His style was decorous to the point of frigidity. He 
 belongs, I should imagine, to the older school, which looks 
 upon the horse as a mere means of getting about. Hurvari 
 was riding the only really well-bred hunt horse I saw ; but the 
 animal seemed very stale, and they never abandoned a trot. 
 His mind seemed singularly unclouded by enthusiasm. To 
 make up for this, M. Lebaudy and one of the piqueux never 
 stopped galloping from point to point, crossing and recrossing 
 each other incessantly, M. Lebaudy addressing abrupt inter- 
 
 ' I remember reading in a hunting classic of a French huntsman who 
 told an English visitor, when they arrived together at a bank and ditch, that 
 it was no part of his bond to jump. Mr. Beckford — for I think it is in his book 
 — is highly indignant about it ; but after all we all shrink from the unfamiliar. 
 
284 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 pellations and questions to anybody he happened to encounter. 
 It is true he never waited for an answer, but this always 
 looks business-like, and I dare say he lost nothing. 
 
 There were very few people out, but within an hour or 
 so we were joined by a contingent of officers in smart un- 
 dress uniform, riding flippant horses in plain saddles and 
 bridles. Several ladies graced the scene, and I was pleased 
 to recognise a well-preserved specimen of the ' Princesse ' 
 habit of my youth, thought by some to be extinct. 
 
 Fontainebleau is a large garrison and school of military 
 instruction. A great deal has been done in late years to 
 encourage unprofessional riding in the French army. ' Le 
 dresseur le plus sage instruit en amusant,' and the French 
 authorities are of that opinion. Our late Military Attache in 
 Paris, General the Hon. E. Talbot, who now commands the 
 Cavalry Brigade at Aldershot, writes to me in this connection : 
 ' The old haute ecole seat, as practised in France, has given 
 way to a hunting seat modelled upon the English style of 
 riding in the hunting-field. The man sits back on his horse, 
 rides with a shorter stirrup, and with a bent instead of a 
 straight leg. Instead of riding upon the bit with a tight 
 curb, men are instructed to use both bit and snaffle, the 
 former being less severe, with a comparatively loose curb. 
 The man who made a revolution in French riding was 
 General L'Hotte, who introduced the hunting seat and made 
 jumping and riding across country take the place of the 
 manege and haute ecole style of riding. He was backed up 
 by General de Gallifet and all the best cavalry officers in 
 France. He altered the whole system of instruction at the 
 Cavalry School of Saumur, which is now as good a military 
 school of riding as can be imagined. There are about four to 
 five hundred thoroughbred horses kept specially for teaching 
 young officers to ride. Every cavalry officer has to spend 
 twelve months at Saumur after being a year with his regiment. 
 
FRENCH HORSEMANSHIP 
 
 285 
 
 During this twelve months' course he has to ride four or 
 five different horses every day. One horse is a trained 
 charger of his own ; a second is a young thoroughhred horse 
 which he has to handle from the first, and break and make into 
 a charger ; the other two or three horses are varied every 
 day, and chosen by the instructors. Great attention is given 
 to jumping and out-of-door training. On all the roads round 
 Saumur there are jumps along the sidings. Steeplechases 
 
 
 M. DUTECH CLEAEING THE GaTE AT A LeVEL CkOSSING UPON PaPILLON 
 From ' Le Sport Universel Illustri' December 1, 189G. 
 
 are constantly run, prizes given by the Government, and the 
 officers are allowed to ride Government horses. I consider 
 that the present generation of cavalry officers below the 
 rank of colonel ride remarkably well, with graceful easy 
 seats and light hands as a rule. I do not think that there 
 are nearly so many really fine riders as in the English 
 cavalry, but there is more uniformity. Young fellows who 
 are clumsily built and unlikely to make cavalry soldiers are 
 not allowed to enter the cavalry, instead of, as with us. 
 
286 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 being eliiiiiiiated subsequently, often after man}' years' 
 service.' 
 
 In the English army it is always taken for granted that 
 the major will know how to ride. Thus some of the mounted 
 officers of an Infantry Brigade at Aldershot, or rather the 
 vagaries of their seats and of their chargers, are often exceed- 
 ingly diverting. I remember occasions when they have 
 made quite tolerable the interminable pauses and contra- 
 dictions of a review in the Long Valley or a field-day on 
 the Fox Hills. "We were often grateful to these eccentric 
 horsemen. Nothing is taken for granted about riding, or 
 indeed about anything else in France. A momited officer 
 must know how to ride his horse. The French cut of booted 
 over-all rather smothers a plain saddle, and their short- 
 waisted many-buttoned tunic seems to cock a man too much 
 up on his horse. Indeed, with the exception of the long 
 undress frock-coat and close over-all of our own hussars, no 
 uniform looks really well with civilian saddlery. But I have 
 no hesitation in saying that the forty or fifty officers I saw 
 out with Monsieur Lebaudy's hounds rode quite as well 
 as, mutatis mutandis, the corresponding contingent from 
 Aldershot do with Mr. Garth or the Queen's. 
 
 But to return to my captains and colonels and subalterns 
 and the glades of Fontainebleau. Uniform out hunting was 
 not unfamiliar to me. In the old days ' mon capitaine ' or 
 ' mon colonel ' occasionally came out hunting, but his punctilio 
 was tremendous. I am not at all sure he did not always wear 
 his sword. At all events he maintained throughout a strictly 
 barrack-square demeanour, or at the best seemed to be bent 
 on a reconnaissance. When we encountered this image of 
 war, at a carrefour, ' le brave Isidore,' as he was honourably 
 dubbed at ' Le Cheval Noir ' and other houses of call, used 
 instinctively to pull himself together, straighten his leg, drop 
 his heel and right arm, and coerce into an extra curve his left 
 
FRENCH HORSEMANSHIP 287 
 
 wrist. All this is changed. I feel certain that had it been 
 our lot to be translated into a gallop over the Berkshire banks, 
 the military would have given an excellent account of them- 
 selves. One young officer in particular, on a sticky, inquisi- 
 tive, clean-bred chestnut horse, rode the actual line of hounds 
 all day, and squeezed him in and out of the man-traps of the 
 rock-strewn Yallee de la Sole in a way which looked like getting 
 the very last stride out of a Lanercost at the judge's box. 
 
 Now, a word or two on what I will call secularised French 
 riding. As far back as 1878, M. Le Jeune, in a pleasant 
 article in ' Lippincott,' devoted some attention to estabhshing 
 the existence of a bruising school of French horsemanship, 
 and he records almost controversially, in support of his 
 proposition, several moving incidents by flood and field. 
 Such, for instance, as a M. de Fully pounding two 
 Lincolnshire fox-hunters in Le Berri by swimming the 
 Creuse on a cold November day, and of the same gentleman 
 — who appears to have been quite a customer — being all but 
 drowned in a mill-race. And here it may be observed that 
 the French are almost over-conscious of the fact that a well- 
 rided forest involves a lack of suitable risk and adventure. 
 It was evidently supposed that every Englishman is thirst- 
 ing for a five-barred gate or some equally congenial obstacle. 
 Most courteous apologies were frequently made to me for the 
 absence of these luxuries, and as nothing I could say to the 
 contrary seemed to dispel this flattering hypothesis of my 
 habits, I at last threw myself into the spirit of the thing, 
 acquiesced in all sorts of foolhardy desires, and rode over some 
 enormous places in the course of much conversation. In- 
 deed, when at last we got out into the open I was quite 
 reheved at seeing there was nothing to jump. 
 
 But to go back to M. Le Jeune's contention. Without 
 in any way generalising from the signal exploits of indi- 
 viduals, I feel there can be little doubt that the old school of 
 
288 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 horsemanship, whether mihtary or civihan.has been gradually 
 superseded. Early in the sixties hunting dress began to 
 change, and new dress regulations found their way into the 
 hunting text-books. Many of the gentlemen who hunted 
 with the Imperial pack and M. Aguado's boarhounds had at 
 this time taken to scarlet coats, blue bird's-eye neckcloths, 
 cords of a horrid ochre hue, and top-boots. Neither they 
 nor their valets managed very well at that time, and the 
 result was neither one thing nor the other. They would 
 not have looked right at Kirby Gate, and somehow they 
 looked wrong at La Croix du Grand Veneur. Style and 
 saddlery followed suit — the whip was carried differently, no 
 longer up like a drawn sword, or poised to a discreet parallel 
 with your horse's crest and pointing to a future between 
 his ears. By 1870 the rigour of the game had relaxed. 
 Haute ecole may still have reigned, but it no longer 
 governed. Personally I am rather sorry that its glory should 
 have departed. France used to be its Shiloh. Henri HI., 
 one of the few Valois who did not hunt, when he heard that 
 the Duke of Burgundy had accused him of living like a 
 monk, rode a school horse over a high leaping-bar in the 
 presence of a gentleman of Burgundy, and bade him go back 
 and tell his master what he had seen the monk do. The 
 Duke of Newcastle in his book on manege-riding instances five 
 French gentlemen ' as the best of his acquaintance and in the 
 world.' The Connetable Montmorency, he tells us, invented 
 a bit and spurs which were unrivalled. A school horse com- 
 manded a higher price in France than anywhere else. The 
 Due de Guise bid the Duke, then plain Mr. Cavendish, six 
 hundred pistoles for a grey leaping horse ' who could cut 
 surpassing caprioles, take the highest and justest leaps with- 
 out assistance,' and throw himself ' terrii a terra ' an incre- 
 dible number of metres in the riding-school. The main ob- 
 jection Addison's Tory foxhunter urges against France is 
 the loss of a man's hunting seat. The whole vocabulary of 
 
FRENCH HORSEMANSHIP 289 
 
 the manege is French. As I watched the young officers cram- 
 ming their horses along in a way which argued complete inde- 
 pendence of the riding-school and the classics, I wondered 
 whatM. Triboulet, a well remembered figure of my boyhood, 
 would have said of it all. M. Triboulet was the respected 
 riding- and fencing-master of the town. He was also versed 
 in the theory of gymnastics and a shrewd exponent of the 
 arcana of dumb-bells. These were his gods, and he had 
 grown old and grey and poor in their service. I am afraid 
 he never had many pupils. To make up for this he exacted 
 from himself all the disciplines he would have imposed upon 
 others, and luckily a clever wife and the popularity of a 
 little cafe facing the barrack gates helped out the arts and 
 sciences. The ' Spectator ' would have proposed him for 
 his club, Daudet in his more clement mood would have in- 
 troduced him to us, Stevenson must have included him in 
 his 'Memories and Portraits.' Perhaps, though, Sir Walter 
 Scott would have understood him best of all, and done justice 
 to his faithfulness over a few things. Winter and summer 
 his costume never varied. A black velvet postillion cap with 
 a very high crown, a short black justaucorps, tight pepper-and- 
 salt over-alls, square-toed boots, formidable swan-necked spurs, 
 a long rapier-hke cutting whip, grey beaver gloves, a high 
 1830 black stock admirably tied— for, like Beau Brummell, he 
 never had a failure — lent suitable dignity to the inflexible 
 featuresof an ideal martinet. He hved and thought in cautions, 
 words of command, and well-imagined affairs of honour. 
 They w^ere the chosen companions of his leisure. Triboulet 
 disapproved of hunting, and looked upon the gay company 
 who swept through the alleys as so many lords and ladies of 
 misrule ; but he spent much of his time on horseback, and 
 he never spared himself, or the old milk-white flowing-tailed 
 Arab, or the streets or the landscape any one of the due 
 observances of the riding-school. 
 
 U 
 
290 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 CHAPTEE XVII 
 
 FRENCH HORSES 
 
 Quant a moi, je suis bien asseur^, qu'il n'y a rien d'universel dans la 
 cavalerie, ni aucume autre chose que je scbache . , . Mes voeux seront pour les 
 noble cavallerizzes, a ce qu'ils puissent garder cette profession honorable 
 exempte de taches et blemissures, afin de s'attirer I'estime des plus grands 
 Roys et Princes. — Methode et invention nouvelle dc Dresser les Chevaux, par 
 le Prince Guillaume, Marquis et Comte de Newcastle, &c. (Anvers, 1658.) 
 
 M. Le Jeune laments, in the article I have already referred 
 to, the absence of any hunters of French stock with the 
 fashionable packs round Paris. Everything, he says — this 
 was in 1878 — is English. To some extent this is true now. 
 Just as American ladies must buy their clothes in Paris — it 
 is an obligation to be applauded by every man of taste who 
 has not to pay their bills — the cream of Chantilly and Com- 
 piegne like to have their horses from England. A French- 
 man quite enjoys telling you that the horse he is riding 
 distinguished himself at the Dublin Show, or that he was bred 
 in ' le Yorkshire.' It is a not unpleasing fact, too, tliat in a 
 show class of harness or half-bred riding horses, the odds are 
 still in favour of the pick of the basket being an English horse. 
 Yet at the same time the average 60/. or 70Z. English horse, 
 which is sold in Paris at 120/. or 140/., is not a better 
 animal, tested by English standards of quality and action, 
 than the home-bred horse which can be bought for very 
 much less money in France. 
 
 Put what does M. Le Jeune mean by French stock? 
 
FRENCH HORSES 291 
 
 When was there such a thing as a distinct French riding 
 horse ? How far must we go back to find the famous breeds 
 of Auvergne and the Limousin, of Navarre and Perigord, in 
 their integrity and vigour ? 
 
 These are questions which were scrupulously investigated 
 by a strong Commission ' which went into the whole ques- 
 tion of horse-breeding and remounts in 1873. The able and 
 attractive report drawn up by M. Edouard Bocher, who at 
 that time represented Calvados in the Senat, a great horse- 
 breeding district, is capital reading. The general conclusion 
 arrived at is summed up in one sentence of that Keport : 
 ' Elles [the famous French strains] n'ont jamais ete que 
 I'objet de souvenirs et de regrets.' Even in Louis XIII.'s 
 reign a M. de Charnizay, in his 'Pratique du cavalier,' 
 anticipates M. Le Jeune and many subsequent waiters of 
 authority, and bewails the absence of French-bred riding 
 horses. ' Our own best strains,' says M. de Charnizay, ' are 
 by this time either " abatardies " or lost.' - 
 
 If M. Le Jeune is thinking of a Limousin or a Navarrois 
 when he sighs the lack of native-born horses, he will find 
 himself, historically speaking, in the excellent company of 
 Louis XIV. The Preamble of the ' Arret du Conseil ' of 1665, 
 
 ' Commission charg^e d'examiner la proposition de loi de M. Delacour sur 
 les Haras et les Remontes, Assemblee Nationale, annee 1873. The Loi Organique 
 des Haras, 1874, is based upon the Keport of this Commission. 
 
 - For what a Yorkshire show catalogue would style ' Eoad or Field,' we 
 were at this time little or no better off in England. Eacing appears to have 
 flourished. The satirical writings of Bishop Hall give evidence of a turf 
 sufficiently scientific to ruin a promising nobleman like the Earl of Cumber- 
 land. But there are constant anxieties about the scarcity of what we now call 
 —the phrase rather suggests a treatise on Political Economy—' general utility ' 
 horses. Coaches were introduced in Elizabeth's reign, and occasioned a sudden 
 demand for horses. The House of Lords rushed to the rescue, and suitably 
 debated whether it would be best to bring up the supply of horses to the new 
 coaches, or to bring down the coaches to the horses. Sir E. Harwood, an 
 authority in Charles I.'s time, laments the increasing scarcity of ' able ' horses, 
 and deprecates the growing popularity of racing, and the consequent breeding 
 of horses for speed and not burthen. 
 
 u 2 
 
292 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 which provided for the estabhshment of Haras throughout 
 the kingdom, sets forth the urgency of the horse-breeding 
 question, and the steadfast determination of the king to come 
 to the rescue of a perishing industry by a large measure of 
 State aid, ' de telle sorte.' says this ' Arret,' ' que les sujets de 
 sa majeste ne soient pas obliges de porter leurs deniers dans 
 les pays etrangers pour achats de chevaux.' 
 
 Both Louis XIV. and Louis XV. got their horses from 
 England. Their hackneys came chiefly out of Suffolk, and 
 their hunters from Yorkshire — the latter were called ' Court- 
 aults ' from having their ears cropped, and were docked very 
 short. Eight hundred francs was an average price given 
 for hunt horses, and if Oudry's pictures are to be trusted, the 
 royal stud got good value for its money. 
 
 The Duke of Newcastle's beautiful book, of which the 
 still more beautiful MS. is now at Welbeck, was published 
 in 1667. It is significant that in his vivid descriptions, or 
 rather narratives, of the various breeds of riding horses, their 
 qualities and their points, he makes no mention of a distinct 
 French breed, whilst he devotes a separate chapter apiece 
 to the ways and uses of the Polander, the Swede, and the 
 Frisian. This is the more significant in view of the ascen- 
 dency of French horsemanship at the time. As we have 
 already seen, the Duke of Newcastle makes most special 
 mention of individual French horsemen and of French riding 
 generally, but says not a word about French horses. * Barbs,' 
 he told Don John of Austria with happy courtesy, when he 
 was presented to him at Amsterdam, ' are the gentlemen of 
 horse kind, and Spaniards the Princes.' The Duke also held 
 the Naples courser in honourable esteem, but for his own 
 riding he preferred Barbs, Spaniards, and, it sounds strangely 
 in our ears, Dutch-bred horses. 
 
 M. Fran9ois de Guise, Grand Veneur to Francois II. and 
 Charles IX., agreed witli tlie ])uke of Newcastle in liking 
 
FRENCH HORSES 293 
 
 Spanish horses best, and they were iDopular in England. 
 Don Diego Salgado speaks of them, in a book dedicated to 
 our Charles II., as ' incomparably nimble and pretty.' The 
 Spaniard, till, say, 1G50 or so, was probably the best animal 
 to go hmiting on. But there are now, and were then, 
 Spaniards and Spaniards. In spite of the sprightly ballotade 
 he is throwing, I never quite liked the shoulders of the 
 animal the magnificent Olivarez is riding so bravely in the 
 great Velasquez at Madrid ; but Olivarez evidently rode a 
 great weight, and so had to ride the wrong class of Spaniard. 
 We may feel certain that Eosinante had plenty of quality, 
 for Don Quixote tells Sancho that you can always recognise 
 a gentleman by the smoothness of his seat. This rather 
 formidable and arbitrary formula depends at least as much 
 on the breeding of the horse as on the gentihty of the man. 
 It is a Quixotic and therefore attractive way of saying that 
 well-bred people insisted on well-bred horses. They always 
 should. Cumberland remarks that there seems a pleonasm 
 in the manes and tails of Velasquez' horses. There is cer- 
 tainly a want of shoulders; but Sir W. Stirling Maxwell 
 points out that Velasquez was an Andalusian who painted 
 according to the ideas of Andalusia, not of Newmarket ; and, 
 speaking of the equestrian portraits of Philip lA^. and 
 Olivarez, he goes on to say that they enable us to judge 
 accurately of the Spanish horse of the seventeenth century. 
 
 The bounding steeds tbey pompously bestride, 
 Share with their lords the pleasure and the pride. 
 
 (^Hcc. vol. ii. p. 15.) 
 
 Odd colours were at this time in great favour: and 
 the old strain of piebalds and skewbalds still flourishes in 
 Holland. Utrecht Fair, held on Easter Monday, is the great 
 market for them, and a great many come over here. They 
 have many merits, and make capital coach-horses. ' Soupe 
 de lait,' a sort of cream colour, ' Tigre ' (fleabitten) and 
 
294 STAG-HUNTIAG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 ' porcelaine ' were colours in great request. Louis XIV. him- 
 self always rode a pied horse on parade or at state ceremonies, 
 and would give a high price for a really conspicuous charger. 
 
 M. Bocher speaks of the system of Haras instituted by 
 Colbert being maintained with a high hand (' puissamment ') 
 for over a century. Louis XIV. certainly liked having things 
 his own way. Yet the measures taken do not appear to have 
 effected the objects in view. They failed most conspicuously 
 in making France independent of the foreign supply. In 
 1717 a State paper/ after a sonorous prelude to the effect 
 that a supply of horses sufficient for all its wants is the chief 
 wealth and honour of a v/ell-governed State, gives practical 
 reasons for further subsidies to the State Haras. The j)ublic 
 service, runs the text, is still far from being self-supporting ; 
 ' Ton s'est vu reduit a traiter I'argent a la main avec des 
 marchands Juifs pour tous les besoins de la cavalerie, des 
 dragons, de I'artillerie et meine de la maison du roi.' 
 
 If the Jews acted as middlemen, I dare say the needs of 
 the public service were much better supplied in this way 
 than by the mismanaged Haras, although the objection taken 
 to the ready-money element by the M. de Calonne tj^^e 
 of Finance Minister is easily understood. But ' Juifs ' here 
 may only mean exorbitant. Fond as they are of horses and 
 of riding, I do not think the Jews of Europe have ever 
 seriously turned their gifted attention to horse-dealing. At 
 the same time, it was a Jew who sold Ivanhoe the black 
 horse he did so well with at Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Sir Walter 
 Scott would never have got the horse into Isaac of York's 
 hands unless he had some historical authority. 
 
 In 1790, State-aided horse-breeding as organised by Sully 
 and Colbert was done away with. It was swept away in the 
 catastrophe of institutions, and I imagine it had altogether 
 failed to justify its existence. Besides, to be powerless for 
 
 ' ' M6iiioire du Conseil en dedans du Kovaume.' 
 
FRENCH HORSES 295 
 
 good at that time in France often meant the same as being 
 powerful for mischief, and the Haras system was rife with 
 abuses. The Haras du Koi, which were in theory, at all 
 events, the equivalent of the present well-managed stallion 
 depots, should have done well enough. Perhaps they even 
 tried to do well : at all events, Arthur Young,' who visited 
 Pompadour, makes no direct charge against them. So might 
 the Haras maintained by great noblemen, like the Haras de 
 Chambord and of Eocroy, which professed to be as advan- 
 tageously at the service of the public as the State establish- 
 ments. Their regulations and conditions of service seem 
 reasonable and well considered. But the ' approuve ' stallion 
 played the deuce with everything — that is, the staUion 
 owned by a private gentleman and subsidised by the State 
 on prescribed conditions of standard and service had become 
 an intolerable burden and abuse. The conditions were 
 only nominal — a mere question of filling in forms and 
 affixing a signature. The advantages to the stallion owner, 
 on the other hand, were distinctly real. The owner of an 
 ' approuve ' or, as he was styled, a ' garde-etalon,' became 
 at once entitled to considerable remissions of direct and 
 indirect taxation, and to complete exemption from local 
 rates. It will be admitted, particularly in these days of agri- 
 cultural depression, that these were temptations not hkely 
 to be easily resisted. 
 
 All the collaterals of the nobles, as well as the nobles 
 
 ' Speaking of the Pompadour Haras, A. Young says : ' There are all kinds of 
 horses, but chiefly Arabian, Turkish, and English. Three years ago four 
 Arabians were imported which had been procured at the expense of 72,000 
 louis [£'.S,149]. The price of serving a mare is only three louis to the groom. 
 The owners are permitted to sell their colts as they please, but if these come 
 up to the standard height, the King's officers have the preference, provided they 
 give the price offered by others.' He goes on to say that all the horses had to 
 be taken up at night on account of wolves, which were so common about Pom- 
 padour as to be a plague to everybody. On the other hand, he had a very poor 
 opinion of the Chambord Haras^he speaks of it as an extravagant and wretched 
 concern, with ' not a tendency but to mischief.' 
 
296 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 themselves, owned stallions, and thereby shifted their rates 
 and taxes in a seemly way to other people's shoulders. The 
 effect of the operation is put by M. De la Font Pouloti in a 
 way which most ratepayers will appreciate, without much 
 knowledge of French or of the incidence of taxation. ' Les 
 privileges et exemptions des Garde-Etalons sont tres onereux 
 aux communautes, parce qu'etant presque toujours des 
 grands proprietaires, le rejet de leurs impositions sm' les 
 autres contribuables cause une augmentation considerable en 
 retombant sur le peuple.' 
 
 This was in 1789. No fewer than 8,800 stallions were 
 registered, yet horse-breeding for many years prior to that 
 date had been in a languishing condition. The whole system 
 was a whited sepulchre. Production annually decreased, yet 
 the ' approuves ' and ' garde-etalons ' annually multiplied. 
 Every day, too, some fresh and vexatious restriction upon 
 private enterprise came to the further assistance of the ' garde- 
 etalon.' Cunningly drawn regulations, police supervision, 
 pains and penalties denied to private enterprise the bare neces- 
 sities of life. It is neither to be wondered at nor regretted 
 that this ' ensemble de privileges et de rigueurs,' again to quote 
 M. Bocher's eloquent Report, received short shrift at the 
 hands of the statesmen and economists of the Revolution. 
 
 However, the horse-supply question soon thrust itself 
 again upon the attention of statesmen. The Haras and the 
 garde-etalons had been got rid of, but the practical difficulty 
 of working up a supply of useful horses to an increasing 
 demand still remained. In the year X. of the Republic, 
 Huzard, in a minute printed and circulated by order of the 
 Minister of the Interior, again calls attention to the decadence 
 of the ancient French breeds. Maledon, in 1803,' holds 
 mucli the same language, l3ut decorates it with poignant 
 
 ' li^ffcxions stir la lii'orf/airisatioii des Haras, par M. de Maledon, Paris, 
 1803. 
 
FRENCH HORSES 297 
 
 sentiment. He laments the Limousin in quite a broken- 
 hearted strain. ' Le coeur saigne quand on pense qu'elle 
 n'existe phis que dans quelques rejetons 9a et la,' and, with 
 a burst of patriotism which is worthy of M. Le Jeune, he 
 goes on to declare that no country in the world can lay 
 claim to a breed equal to the Limousin, or worthy to be 
 compared to it for quality, stamina and good looks. 
 
 Something had to be done, and in 1806 there was a man 
 at the head of affairs quite able to do it. That year Napoleon 
 insisted upon the importation of a large number of Mecklen- 
 burg, Hessian, and Baden horses. This recollection was 
 the only thing, indeed, which reconciled me for the moment 
 to the Prussian I had to mount in front of the Cour des 
 Adieux, and in view of the long windows of the room in 
 which he signed his abdication a very few years later. The 
 direct and personal interest which the Emperor (who knew 
 little about horses, and was a bad rider) took in the horse 
 question was from the military, or, rather, the national point 
 of view. National, that is, in the best sense. His de- 
 spatches abound in special instructions to his cavalry generals 
 to make the most of their horses ; to Murat especially, who 
 had Kupert-like conceptions of possibilities and functions of 
 cavalry, and the waste of horseflesh in his campaigns was 
 enormous. Bat the industrial requirements of the country 
 were evidently also present to him when, in 1806, he appointed 
 and drew the instructions of a Commission to investigate 
 and report upon the alleged scarcity of serviceable horses, 
 the extinction of the ancient strains, and the best means of 
 reconstructing a State system of horse-breeding. 
 
 It is not my intention to pursue the more modern history 
 of State-aided horse-breeding any further. Suffice it to say 
 that the recommendations of the Report of 1806 were given 
 effect to, that they were amplified in 1815, and again in 
 1820. Between the year 1830 and the year 1863, when the 
 
298 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Haras system was demolished almost as ruthlessly as in 
 1790, horse-breeding had a good deal to put up with. 
 According to the Bocher Eeport, it suffered many things from 
 incessant changes of Government, from the freaks of depart- 
 mental administration, and from the absence of any con- 
 tinuity of policy. At one time its affairs were committed to 
 the Beaux-Arts, at another to the Minister of ' Marine.' 
 
 In 1874 there was another reconstruction based upon the 
 Keport of the Bocher Coixunission ; and the troop-horse at 
 Chalons or Saumur to-day is the best test which can be 
 applied to the soundness of the conclusions then affirmed, 
 and given effect to by the ' Loi des Haras ' of 1874. He stands 
 it well. It might not do to ask what he now costs or has 
 cost the country to bring to good effect since Louis XIII. 
 instituted a State Haras. But there he is, ' Per varios casus 
 et tot certamina rerum,' a very different animal to the 
 'Cheval Normand ' of Lord Malmesbury's good story. ^ At 
 the same time, I should not say that any of the cavalry 
 horses I saw out hunting were quite up to the best mark of 
 picked troop-horses from the ranks of a crack light cavalry 
 regiment. The conditions of modern warfare have taught 
 
 ' ' In 1829, he [Louis Napoleon] used to have several old officers of his 
 uncle, the emperor, about him — men who seemed to me to be ready for any- 
 thing. I recollect one, an old cavalry officer, who had seen the whole Penin- 
 sular war, relating the following anecdote. One day he was reconnoitring with 
 three or four troopers when they came suddenly upon a young English officer, 
 mounted on a superb thoroughbred horse and similarly occupied. Summoned 
 by the colonel to surrender he quietly cantered away, laughing in the French- 
 man's face. The dragoon pursued at full gallop of his heavy steed, and when 
 the Englishman had allowed him to get quite close he kissed his hand, and leav- 
 ing him behind, shouted, pointing to his horse, "Cheval Normand, monsieur." 
 Again the Frenchman pursued, threatening to shoot his enemy if he did not 
 surrender, and pointed his pistol at him, but the weapon missed tire. With a 
 roar of laughter, the young officer siiouted again, " Fabrique de Versailles, 
 monsieur," and giving the thoroughbred his head, was seen no more. It was 
 most amusing to hear the old colonel tell this stcry and describe his rage, add- 
 ing, however, that he had always felt glad that he had not shot " ce brave 
 farceur." ' 
 
FRENCH HORSES 299 
 
 us that a cavalry horse can hardly be too good an animal. 
 It is true that he has not to jump fences, but he has to carry 
 a weight which from a hunting point of view would be 
 restrictive ; and he must possess all the qualities of a fourteen- 
 stone grass-country hunter, blood, bone, stoutness, action, 
 and no lumber. To manage his job at all he must be able, 
 as dealers say, ' to move himself.' Breechloaders have done 
 away with the shock action of cavalry and the corresponding 
 advantages of heavy impetus. Job's war-horse, his neck 
 clothed with thunder, is as much a thing of the past as 
 the shouting captains he either carried or unhorsed. Lord 
 Cardigan led the Light Brigade up the Valley of Death on a 
 chestnut horse which had often cut out the work amongsi 
 the strongly-fenced enclosures of Northamptonshire, and a 
 hunting man could pick a stud of horses out of, say, any two 
 squadrons of any Dragoon or Hussar regiment now stationed 
 at Aldershot, which he might take down to Tarporley or 
 Market Harborough without any hesitation as regards looks, 
 quality, or action. I am not sure that he could quite do this 
 from the troop stables at Chalons, but I should consider the 
 horses I saw quite up to the average animal. With one or 
 two favourable exceptions, like the shifty, long-tailed chest- 
 nut I mentioned before, they were all of the same type and 
 class, and there appears to be a reliable supply of well-bred, 
 native-born horses, with plenty of scope and quality, good 
 legs and feet, and particularly good backs and middle pieces. 
 Shoulders throughout perhaps left a little to be desired. 
 They often do. Indeed, they were so much of one model 
 that Gericault and Kosa Bonheur, Fromentin and Meissonier 
 might perhaps complain of individual character being too 
 much merged in a general type : but I imagine the French 
 cavalry horse is a better animal now than he has ever been, 
 and that he would go faster, carry more weight, and stand 
 the strain of a campaign very much better than the under- 
 
300 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 sized Arabs so much esteemed before the war of 1870, or 
 the plain-headed trooper M. Detaille draws so admirably. 
 
 I really think the nicest horse I saw in France — not 
 excepting the one I rode at Chantilly, which had won in a 
 strong four-year-old class at Dublin — was a French-bred 
 horse. He was the property of a M. Kulb, with whom I rode 
 home three or four miles after my day with the Halatte hounds 
 to a village called Fleuriner, where a most excellent refection 
 was laid out for ' messieurs et mesdames les chasseurs,' hot 
 spiced claret and noble baked apples being novel and attractive 
 features of our entertainment. This was a bright chestnut 
 horse, a little on the leggy side, perhaps, but aristocratic and 
 mettled enough for the Quorn Hunt stables under their present 
 sumptuous regime, or to head the Eoyal Procession at Ascot 
 races. M. Kulb told me that ' fond ' was the prime essential of 
 a French hunter. I do not suppose this can be translated by 
 what we mean by staying power— that can only be tested 
 by having to go fast — but rather by cheerful resistance to 
 long dragging days on springless sand, which must often be 
 very dull for the horses. You do not have to go fast with 
 French woodland packs. Most of the hunt horses I saw 
 must have been as slow as tops. Hurvari, as I have said, 
 trotted about to his hounds. Unless you happen to make a 
 mistake or get into the open, a slow canter with the eye cast 
 well forward, to sec if the deer crosses, keeps you comfortably 
 abreast of the leading hounds. And I was hunting with the 
 fast packs. The hounds of the Saintonge, or the Vendean, 
 or the Bleu Gascon breed walk their deer to death. M. de 
 Carayon Lacour's beautiful pack, which I should nnich like 
 to have seen, take five or six hours to bay their stag. A 
 good walker, says M. Le Jeune, can keep up with them. 
 
 In France the field do not, in our sense, compete. The 
 huntsman or the master sets the pace, usually at a Kotten 
 Kow canter, and the tic^ld in Indian fijc^ or hero and there in 
 
FRENCH HORSES 301 
 
 sociable couples follow suit. The only time I saw a hunt- 
 servant really gallop he did so very much in spite of himself. 
 I suppose the man had got thrown out, and was rejoining 
 us from the rear. The procession was at the time ambling 
 along a narrowish alley, conforming to the painstaking 
 operations of Hannibal and Nicanor on our right flank, when 
 the chestnut horse he was riding took matters into his hands 
 and came through us like a shot out of a bow. Fortunately 
 we were warned of his irresistible approach by the lusty 
 shouts of the rider. We found him at the next carrefour, 
 mopping the honest sweat from his brow, and well satisfied 
 with his adventure. 
 
 An open galloping country makes a fast horse, and a fast 
 horse makes a fast hound. We have only to look at Stubbs's 
 and Wootton's and Seymour's pictures ' to see that our fast 
 half-bred horse had at least a century's start of the same 
 animal in France. The fox-hunting gentry, like the Osbaldi- 
 stones in ' Eob Eoy,' rode galloping horses long before this 
 class of animal was realised in France, which is only quite 
 lately. But the French — witness the cavalry horses I have 
 just been speaking about, and M. Kulb's conspicuous chest- 
 nut — are quickly making up for lost time. 
 
 ' I have two or three pictures at Gisburne of members of my family on 
 horseback, coursing and hunting, painted about 1720 or so. The horses are 
 exceedingly well bred and full of character, but narrowish and not up to more 
 than twelve stone. They all show much more Eastern blood in their heads 
 —the bump on the forehead, the full eye, which we only find here and there 
 in an individual now. They were, of course, much nearer the blends of Arab 
 and Arabian blood to which we are indebted for everything we prize most in 
 horseflesh. J. Ward's best horses are quite a different stamp. By that time we 
 had somehow or other got more substance and size into our breed. 
 
302 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 But I must get back to England and to Berkshire from my 
 agreeable wanderings across the Channel, and so, as far as 
 these pages are concerned, I will take my leave of the 
 Queen's Hounds, and of Her Majesty's lieges who ride to 
 them. I feel certain that fine runs, a hard-going tireless 
 pack, and — best of all — the old names year after year in the 
 deer-paddock, will continue to do credit to the keenness and 
 experience of the Queen's Huntsman and to the smartness 
 and competence of the whole staff. Nor can I pass by this 
 opportunity of especially thanking the landowners and tenant- 
 farmers of Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, for their unvary- 
 ing generosity and goodwill. I bade them all good-bye with 
 sorrow in the summer of 1895. Now that I have finished 
 this book, in the same month of June, 1897, and within a 
 week of the same day, I wish them all prosperity, not only 
 on my own behalf, but for the sake of my companions, 
 who, in an unbroken succession, have held the office of 
 Master of the Buckhounds from the reign of Edward III. 
 until this great and acceptable year of grace, and thank- 
 fulness, and Jubilee. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 LIST OF MEETING PLACES OF BOYAL HUNT 
 
 (See Map) 
 
 Berks 
 
 1. 
 
 Maidenhead Thicket. 
 
 
 10. 
 
 Warfield. 
 
 2. 
 
 Brick Bridge. 
 
 
 11. 
 
 White Hart, Winkfield. 
 
 3. 
 
 Twyford Station (G.W.R.) 
 
 12. 
 
 Ascot Heath. 
 
 4. 
 
 White Waltham. 
 
 
 13. 
 
 Bracknell. 
 
 5. 
 
 Shottesbrook Farm 
 
 and 
 
 14. 
 
 Wokingham. 
 
 
 Park. 
 
 
 15. 
 
 Swinley. 
 
 6. 
 
 Hawthorn Hill. 
 
 
 16. 
 
 King's Beech. 
 
 7. 
 
 New Lodge. 
 
 
 17. 
 
 South Hill Gate. 
 
 8. 
 
 Warren House. 
 
 
 18. 
 
 Cricketers Inn (Bagshot). 
 
 9. 
 
 Einfield. 
 
 Bu 
 
 3^S 
 
 
 19. 
 
 High Wycombe. 
 
 
 29. 
 
 Farnham Royal. 
 
 20. 
 
 Holtspur Heath. 
 
 
 30. 
 
 Stoke Common. 
 
 21. 
 
 Beaconsfield. 
 
 
 31. 
 
 Iver Heath. 
 
 22. 
 
 Gerrard's Cross. 
 
 
 32. 
 
 Two- Mile Brook. 
 
 23. 
 
 Red Hill. 
 
 
 33. 
 
 Salt Hill. 
 
 24. 
 
 Denham. 
 
 
 34. 
 
 Slough Station (G.W.R.^ 
 
 25. 
 
 Chalfont St. Peter's. 
 
 
 35. 
 
 Langley Broom. 
 
 26. 
 
 Great Marlow. 
 
 
 36. 
 
 Horton Manor House. 
 
 27. 
 
 Wooburn Green. 
 
 
 37. 
 
 Richings Park. 
 
 28 
 
 Farnham Common. 
 
 Midc 
 
 Ilesex 
 
 
 38 
 
 Uxbridge. 
 
 
 39. 
 
 Harefield. 
 
 Surrey 
 
 40. Sunningdale Station i 42. Chobham. 
 
 (L. & S.-W.R.) 43. Woking Station (L. & 
 
 41. Broomhill Hut. I S.-W.R.) 
 
 Hampshire 
 44. Yateley Green. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Ar.AiK, IVrr., 27 
 
 Addison, 11 
 
 Adolphus, Prince, 41 
 
 Aguado, M. M., 261, 288 
 
 Aldersliot Common, 65 
 
 Alfonso XI. of Castile, 7, 8 
 
 Althorp, Lord, 36 
 
 Amboise conspiracy, 24(5, 247 
 
 Ambroise Pare, 249 
 
 Anderson, horse-dealer, 67 i', 71i, 242 
 
 Anet, Diane de Poitiers' estat;', 244 
 
 Anne, Princess, 234 
 
 Anne, Queen, 33, 200 
 
 Arabian horses imported into FriUice. 
 295 
 
 Aragon, King of, 250 
 
 Army riding in England and France, 
 284-286, 289 
 
 Arnold ('Budge'), 144; his death, 
 145 n 
 
 Arscott of Tedcott, his famous fox- 
 hunt, 120 n 
 
 Ascot Heath and Course, 39, 70, 78, 
 108, 156, 158 ; the position of its 
 stands, 213-218 ; names of stands, 
 214 ; and races, 216 ; soil and turf, 
 218 ; the responsibilities of the 
 M.B.H. at, 219, 220 ; a curious 
 incident there, 221, 222 
 
 Ascot Kennel, 48, 49, 118, 123, 139, 
 140 ; established by Queen Anne, 
 201 ; kennel lameness at, 201, 202 ; 
 its cure, 202 ; description and 
 plans of the establishment, 202, 
 203 ; the Queen's visit to, 203 
 Ashburton, Lord, 97 
 
 Bai)E\ horse in France, 297 
 Badminton, 32 
 
 Bagot, Colonel Josceline, 232 
 
 Baillie, Billie, 147 
 
 'Baily's Magazine,' 60 n, 71, 77. 
 
 238 
 Bapst, M., 227 
 Barbs, 292 
 Barraud, 70, 71 
 Barry, Mr., 121 n 
 Barrymore, Lord (' Hellgate '), 49 
 Bartlett, George, 56, 60 
 Bartlett, Kobert, 97, 132 
 Bartlett, William, 172, 198, 201, 
 
 202 -T-- - 
 
 Batchelor, valet to George IV., 51 
 Bateman, Lord, Master of the Buek- 
 
 hounds, 237 
 Beaconsfield, Lord. See Disraeli, Mr. 
 Beam, Vicomtes de, 5 
 Beaufort, Duke of, 70, 98 n, 207 
 Beaufort, Francois de, 254 
 Beaurepaire, 3, 10, 18, 21 
 Beers, Frank, 76 
 Belle Croix, 282 
 Bellingham, Mr., 233 
 Belvoir, 32 
 
 Bentinck, Lord George, 224 n 
 Bentinck, Lord Henry, 140 
 Beresford, Lord Bill, 151 
 Berkeley, Lord, 32, 154 n, 230 
 Berkshire, as a hunting country, 175, 
 
 183, 209, 302 
 Bessborough, Lord, Master of the 
 
 Buekhounds, 143, 223 n, 240 
 Billesden Coplow run, 180 
 Billingbear, meet at, 41 
 Blessington, Lady, 226 
 Bleu Gascon hounds, 300 
 Blunt, Miss Martlia, 42 
 Bocase stone and tree, 14 
 
3o6 
 
 5 TA G -HUN TING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Bocher, M. Edouard, 291, 294, 296, 
 298 
 
 Boleyn, Anne, 222, 227, 229 
 
 Boleyn, George. See Eochforcl, Lord 
 
 Boleyn, Mary, 227 
 
 Boleyn, Sir Thomas, 227 
 
 Bonheur, Rosa, 299 
 
 Borhunte, Sir John de, 10, 11 
 
 Borhunte, Mary de. See Roches, Mary 
 
 Borhunte, Thomas de, 11, 15 
 
 Bourbon, Anne of, 252 
 
 Bracknell country, 64, 65 
 
 Bramshill hounds, 225 
 
 Brantome, 249 
 
 Bretigny, Peace of, 7 
 
 Brighton, George IV. and, 200, 201 
 
 Broad Moor, 65 
 
 Brocas family and the hereditary 
 mastership, 1 
 
 Brocas, Comte de, 4 n 
 
 Brocas, Ann, 12 
 
 Brocas, Anne, 18 
 
 Brocas, Bernard, 18 
 
 Brocas, Sir Bernard, 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 13, 
 20, 23, 2.22, 229 
 
 Brocas, Sir Bernard, (II.) 9, 12, 17 
 
 Brocas, Edith, 12, 18 
 
 Brocas, .John, 12 
 
 Brocas, John (II.) 12 
 
 Brocas, Sir John de, 3, 6, 7 
 
 Brocas, Sir Oliver, 7 
 
 Brocas, Sir Peter Arnald de, 5 
 
 Brocas, Sir Pexall, 12. 19, 20 
 
 Brocas, Thomas, 12, 21 
 
 Brocas, William (I.) 12, 16 
 
 Brocas, William (II.) 12 
 
 Brocas, William (III.) 12 
 
 Brocas Chantry, 1, 10 
 
 Brocas College, 19 
 
 ' Brocas March,' the, 4 
 
 Brocklesby, 32 
 
 Bromley Davenport, Mr., 175 
 
 Brown (of the Old Berkshire), 199 
 
 Browning, Mr., 2.50 n 
 
 Brummell, Beau, 224 u 
 
 Brunswick, Duke of, 59 n 
 
 Bryant, Charles, 211, 212 
 
 Buckhounds, Royal ; hereditary 
 masters : the Brocas family, 1-21 ; 
 Mr. Hore's history of, 3 ; list of the 
 hereditary masters, 11, 12 ; during 
 the Georgian period, 22-57 ; lemon- 
 pyei;. tan, 56, 57 ; Davis's, manage- 
 ment of, 59-81 ; the question of 
 their retention, 82-91 ; masters of, 
 222-243 
 
 Buckinghamshire,hunting in, 172-175, 
 183, 208, 209, 302 
 
 Bude, his treatise on Vtnerie, 245 
 Burghersh, Sir Bartholomew, 8 
 Burgundy, Duke of. 251, 253, 288 
 Burke, his letters, 36 
 Burrows, Mr. Edward, his story of the 
 
 hereditary masters, 1-21, 23 
 Burrows, Captain Montagu, his 
 
 ' Brocas Family,' 1 n, 222 
 Buscott Reservoir, 198 
 Butler, Rev. William, and George IV., 
 
 52 
 Butt-Miller, Mr., 131 
 Byron, Lord, 226, 263 
 
 Canning, Lord, 69 
 
 Canterbury, Archbishop of (Dr. 
 
 Temple), 88, 210 
 Canterbury, Archbishop of (Matthew 
 
 Parker), and Lord Leicester, 230, 
 
 231 
 Cardigan, Lord, 69 
 Carlyle, Mr., as a horseman, 227 
 Caroline, Queen, 27, 38, 39 
 Carrington, Lord, 127 
 Carter, George, 137 
 Castelnau, his letter to Henry III., 
 
 229 
 Cato, the Prince of Wales's black boy, 
 
 49 
 Cattistock country, 182 
 Cavalle. on the hunting expenses of 
 
 Franvois I., 246 
 Chabot, M. de, 271 
 Chalon, picture by, 121 
 Chalons troop stables, 298, 299 
 Chambord, Haras at, 295, 295 n 
 Chandos, the Duke of, 155 
 Chandos, Sir John, 250 
 Chantilly, 30, 266, 269, 273. 276, 
 
 277 
 Chantonnay, 246, 247 
 Chapman, Mr., 170, 171 
 Charles I., 21 
 Charles II., hunting reminiscences of, 
 
 20, 206, 232, 293 
 Charles III. of Burgundy, 254 
 Charles IX. of France, 248-250, 292 
 Charles X. of France, 225 
 Charles XII. of Sweden, 250 n 
 Charles the Bold, 247 
 Charlotte, Queen, 46 
 Charlton run, 48. 121, 121 n 
 Charnizay, M. de, 291 
 Chartres, Due de (Philippe l-^galitt). 
 
 54, 149, 266, 269 
 Cheruel, quoted, 230 
 
INDEX 
 
 307 
 
 Chesterfield, Lord, the celebrated, 34, 
 35, 49 
 
 Chesterfield, Lord, Master of the 
 Buckhounds, 238, 231» 
 
 Chezelles, M., 270 
 
 Chiffinch, James IL's letter to, 233 
 
 Chillinghani deer, 107 
 
 Christian. Dick, 48, 1()9. 182, 239 
 
 Christian, H.li.H. Prince. 216 
 
 Chute. Mr., his hounds, 225, 226 
 
 Clanricarde, Lord, 240 
 
 Clark, Kev. C. ('the Gentleman in 
 Black'), 71 
 
 Clement, Major, 218, 219 
 
 Clergyman, hunting, 173, 174 
 
 Clergymen, hunting in France, 253, 
 254 
 
 Clermont, Lady, 54 n 
 
 Cleveland, Duke of, 174 
 
 Clewer-Brocas, 1 
 
 Clisson, Oliver de, 8 
 
 Coaches, the introduction of, 291 n 
 
 Cobden, Mr., tailor to George IV., 55 n, 
 56 n 
 
 Colbert, institutes the system of horse- 
 breeding in France, 294 
 
 Collyns, Dr., 115, 120 
 
 Colson, Walter, 153 
 
 Colville, Lord, 147-149, 207 
 
 Com.ins.the Queen's Huntsman, 140 n, 
 167 
 
 Common hunt, the, 29, 30 
 
 Compton, Mr., 69 
 
 Connaught, Duke of, 96, 156 
 
 Conyngham, Lady, 52 
 
 Conyngham, Lord Albert, 50 
 
 Cook, Captain, 164 
 
 Cope, Sir John, 65, 162, 223 
 
 Cordery, Mr., 63, 63 71, 65, 163 
 
 Cork, Lord, Master of the Buckhounds, 
 112, 134, 143, 145, 147, 149, 151, 
 185, 199, 202, 238 
 
 Cornwallis, Lord, Master of the Buck- 
 hounds, 237 
 
 Cosmo \. de Medicis, Grand Duke, 
 245, 246 
 
 Costumes, hunting, 156, 157, 288 
 
 Courtaults, 292 
 
 Couteulx, M. de, 273 
 
 Coventry, Lord, Master of the Buck- 
 hounds, 32 n, 83, 156, 243 
 
 Coverley, Sir Eoger de, 11 
 
 Cox, Mr. F., 151 
 
 Crane, Will, 121 n 
 
 Cre^y, 3, 7, 8 
 
 Crichel, George IV. at, 52 
 
 Croft, Dr., his hunting reminiscences, 
 ,59, 63, 72, 79, 101, 171, 239, 240, 243 
 
 Cumberland, Duke of (Ernest), 53, 
 
 54 
 Cumberland, Duke of, 237 
 Cumberland, on Velasquez' pictures, 
 
 293 
 Cumberland Lodge, stabling and 
 
 stud-grooms at, 202, 204-207, 209- 
 
 212 
 Cuttenden, Mr., 30 
 
 D'Albkpzt, 5 
 
 Daniel, his ' Rural Sports,' 118 
 
 Danvers, William, 11 
 
 Darby, Mr., 122 n 
 
 d'Argenson, Marquis, 54 
 
 d'Aumale, Due, 139, 252, 282 
 
 Davis, Charles, and the new school of 
 stag-hunting, 48, 50, 55-58; descrip- 
 tion of, 59 ; adopts hunting as a 
 profession, ()0 ; letter to Sir John 
 Halkett,62, 63 ; Dr. Croft on, 63 ; Mr. 
 Cordery on, 65 ; some of his experi- 
 ences as a Queen's Huntsman, 66 n, 
 67 ; Mr. Bowen May and, 67 ; Colonel 
 Thomson and, 6s ; '.Esop's ' anecdote 
 concerning, 70 ; pictures and en- 
 gravings of, 70, 71 ; memoir of, in 
 'Baily's Magazine,' 71, 72; personal 
 appearance and dress, 72 ; his abste- 
 miousness, 73 ; disapproval of ladies 
 in the hunting-field, 73 ; as a disci- 
 plinarian, 73, 74 ; his racing tastes, 
 74 ; as a huntsman and horseman, 
 75-80 ; private character, 80, 81 ; 
 other hunting reminiscences of, 92, 
 100, 101, 121, 131, 132, 147, 148, 
 150, 160, 168, 171, 200 n, 201, 202 
 238, 239, 264, 268 
 
 Deer, things necessary for a successful 
 run, 92 ; scent and country, 92 ; 
 methods of noted deer, 92-98, 101 
 102, 108, 109 ; the ' run ' the true 
 sport, 98, 99 ; not to be hunted like 
 a fox, 99 ; management of deer, 101 ; 
 tricky deer and how to manage them, 
 101-104 ; when hounds fail to realise 
 deer, 103, 104 ; wet ditches and water- 
 meadows spoil sport, 105 ; young 
 deer, 105, 106; the Swinley herd'i 
 106 ; breed, situation, and other 
 influences on deer, 107, 108 ; lying 
 out and its effects, 109 ; some 
 master deer and their exploits, 109, 
 110; liking for society, 110, 111 • 
 luxurious life at Swinley ; the pad'- 
 dock staff. 111-113; exerci.se, 113 
 
3o8 
 
 ^- TA G-Hl WTIXG RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Deer, noted : 
 
 Bartlett, 93-96. 107 «, 110. 112, 
 188 
 
 Blackback, 96-98, 110, 194,198, 
 199 
 
 Bramshill, 178 
 
 Compton, 39, 45 
 
 Guy Fawkes, 102, 110, 186, 188 
 
 Harkaway, 112 
 
 Hawthorn, 108 
 
 Hide and Seek, 162 
 
 Highdyer, 45 
 
 Highlander, 134 
 
 Lord Clanwilliam, 100, 108-110 
 
 Miss Headington, 154 
 
 Moonshine, 45, 46 
 
 Princess, 98 n 
 
 Kichmond Trump, 67, 68 
 
 Runaway, 110 
 
 Sepoy, i)3 
 
 Starlight, 45 
 
 Sulky, 102 
 
 The Miller, 100 
 
 Winchelsea, 103 
 De la Font Pouloti, M., 296 
 De la Rue, M., 264 
 Deloraine, Lady, 27 
 Derby, Lord, 63 
 Dessy. the trainer, 77 
 Detaille, M., 300 
 Devon and Somerset (Old) Staghounds, 
 
 116, 122, 123 
 d'Humi^res, M., 247 
 Dillon, Abbe, on hunting, 253 
 Disraeli. Mr , 36, 227, 242, 279, 280 
 Dixon, Mr. Hepworth, 228 
 Dom Miguel, 224 n 
 Don John of Austria, 292 
 Donovan, Mr. T., 108 
 d'Orsay, Count, 226, 238, 239 
 Drake, Rev. Mr., 173, 174 
 ' Druid,' the, 44, 48, 77, 79, 93, 107, 
 
 183 
 Dufferin, Lord, 60 n 
 Du Fouilloux, 111 n, 249. 253 
 Duhallow hunt, 243 
 D'Urfey, 29 
 D'Yanville's works on Venerie, 253 
 
 Edward II. and the Brocas family, 2, 
 
 4 », 5 
 Edward III., 2-8, 23, 302 
 Edward the Black Prince, 8, 9, 10 
 Edwards, the trainer and jockey, 74 
 F^gham Heath, meet at, 73 
 Egreniont, Lord, 60 
 Eleanor of Guienne, 4 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, hunting reminis- 
 cences of, 18, 19, 21, 29, 229-232, 
 248, 291 n 
 
 Emerson, Mr., 72 
 
 Enclosures Acts, their effects on stag- 
 hunting, 23 
 
 English horse in France, 295 n 
 
 Enghsh hounds, 270, 271 
 
 Enguerrand, 260 
 
 Epping Forest Hounds, 48, 122 ?j, 
 130 
 
 Eton College, 3 
 
 Evelyn. 232 
 
 Exmoor deer, 111 
 
 Feunei-ey, his pictures, 32 
 
 Fetherstonhaugh, Sir H., 77 n 
 
 Feuillet, M. Octave, 279 
 
 ' Field,' the, 156 
 
 'Finsch, Ned,' 24 
 
 Firr, 150 
 
 Fitt, Mr., his ' Covert-side Sketches,' 
 116. 121 
 
 Fitzhardinge, Lord. 30 
 
 Fitzherbert. Mrs., 52 
 
 Flambeau. 260. 261 
 
 Fontainebleau, 30. 265. 266. 284, 286 
 
 Forest, the, and forest hunting, pre- 
 liminaries of a day's hunting, 158 ; 
 characteristics of, 158-160 ; Charles 
 Kingsley and. 160-165 ; ' Nimrod ' on 
 Sir John Cope's country, 162 ; diffi- 
 culties of riding forest run, 165- 
 167 ; hounds and horses in the 
 forest, 167-171 
 
 Fowle, Rev. Mr., George III. and, 
 173 
 
 Fox, Charles James. 52 
 
 Fox-hounds and fox-hunting. 32, 92, 
 93, 99, 101. 119, 121. 131, 132. 137, 
 1.55. 163, 164, 167, 188 
 
 France, England's relations with, in 
 1734, 38 ; hunting costume of the 
 Second Empire, 44 ; the Enghsh 
 hound in. 117. 130 ; the Duke of 
 Wellington hunting in. 225 ; stag- 
 hunting in. in the sixteenth century, 
 244 ; during Francois I.'.s reign. 244- 
 246 ; in the time of I'ranvois II.. 
 246-249 ; and Charles IX., 248-250 ; 
 hound-breeding in France, 251. 252 ; 
 I'rench books on Venerie, 252 », 
 253 n ; M. de Ligniville. 253-257 ; 
 changes since the taking of the 
 Bastille, 257 ; a few days' hunting 
 around Paris, 258-277 ; horseman- 
 
INDEX 
 
 309 
 
 ship in France, 278-289 ; and horses, 
 2!»0-301 ; modern hunting in, 300, 
 301 
 
 Franvois I., his Court, 244-240 
 
 Francois II. and the Guises, 246, 248, 
 2<)2 
 
 Freeman, Professor, 88 
 
 Freeman, J., whip to Queen's hounds, 
 102, 200 «, 240 
 
 Freeman, Luke, 60 
 
 French horsemanship, 278 ; the French 
 novel on, 279, 280 ; Hurvari at work, 
 281-284; military schools of in- 
 struction in riding, 284-287; secu- 
 larised French riding, 287-289 
 
 French horses, M. le Jeune and M. 
 Ed. Bocher on, 290-292, 296; 
 English hackney and hunting horses 
 used by Louis XIV. and XV., 292 ; 
 State - aided horse - breeding in 
 France, 292-298 ; the modern 
 cavalry horse, 299 ; M. Kulb on 
 French hunters, 300 
 
 French hounds, 251, 267, 268, 270 
 
 Froissart, quoted, 5 
 
 Fromentin, 299 
 
 Froude, Eev. John, 123 
 
 Gainsborough, painter, 28 
 
 Gallifet, General de, 284 
 
 Garth, Mr., 163, 165. 223 
 
 Garton, Thomas de, 7 
 
 Gaston, the Seneschal de, 252 
 
 Gates, Mr., 77 
 
 Gaucher, High Almoner, 250 
 
 George I., characteristics and reminis- 
 cences of, 23-25, 33 
 
 George II., reminiscences of, 25-27, 
 31, 33, 38, 39, 53, 121 
 
 George III., reminiscences of, 23, 35, 
 39, 43-45, 48-50, 60, 63, 116, 117, 
 123, 130, 251 
 
 George IV., reminiscences of, 42, 48- 
 52, 200, 224 n 
 
 Georgian stag-hunting. See Stag- 
 hunting 
 
 G^ricault, 299 
 
 Gilbert, Miss, 73 
 
 Gilbev. Sir Walter, 49 11 
 
 Gladstone, Mr., 82, 102 u, 227, 250 n 
 
 Guhrde, his picture, 24 
 
 Goldsmith, Mr., of Kemble, 195 
 
 Goodall, Frank, 57, 72. 149, 150, 151, 
 153, 154, 202, 203 
 
 Goodall, Stephen, 51 71 
 
 Goodall, William, 135 
 
 Goodrich, Sir Harry, 122 
 
 Goodwood, 32 
 
 Goodwood hounds, 4H, 49 
 
 Gordon Boys' Home, 160 
 
 Gosden (yeoman pricker), 40 
 
 Gould, Mr. Baring, 120 n 
 
 Grafton, Duke of, 26, 32, 44, 54. 180 
 
 Graham, Sir Bellingham, 174, 178 
 
 Graham, Miss Catherine, 235 
 
 Graham, Colonel James, Master of 
 
 Charles II.'s Buckhounds, 232-235 
 Granby, Manjuis of, 95 
 Grant, Sir F., 78, 156, 158 
 Grantham, Lord, 38 
 Granvelle, Cardinal de, Chantonnay's 
 
 letter to, 247 
 Granville, Lord, reminiscences of, 
 
 68 n, 69, 71, 83 n, 222, 223 n, 240- 
 
 243 
 Great Western Eailway Company, 190 
 Green, Mr. J. E., on George I., 25 
 Grenville, Lord, 44 
 Greville, Mr. Charles, 51, 54, 237 
 Gronow, Baron, 51 
 Guest, Mr. Merthyr, 128 
 Guildford stud, 6 
 Guilford, Lord, 182 
 Guise, Dues de, 246, 288, 292 
 Gwyn, Colonel, 45 
 
 Halatte, hunting at, 265, 266, 268, 
 
 277, 300 
 Halkett, Sir Arthur, 63 n, 74 
 ! Halkett, Sir John, 60, 74, 201 
 j Hall, Bishop, 291 n 
 1 Hamilton, Duke of, 234 
 I Hampshire Hunt, the, 52 
 : Hampton Court stud, 24 n, 25 n, 58 
 [ Haras system in France, 294-298 
 I Hardwicke, Lord, Master of the Buck- 
 ! hounds, 151 n, 154, 243 
 Hare-hunting in the Georgian times, 
 
 32 
 Hargreaves, Mr. John, 165 n 
 Harriers, Royal, 59 
 Harrow country, its departed glories, 
 142 ; reasons for its decline dis- 
 cussed, 143 ; jumping parties from 
 Harrow School, 144, 145 ; hunt- 
 ing during Lord Cork's master- 
 I ship, 145, 147, 149, 151-153 ; Mr. 
 Higgins's account of a run in the 
 I forties, 146, 147; Lord Colville 
 I overcomes difficulties, 147, 148 ; 
 his experiences in 1867 and 1868, 
 149, 1.50; Frank Goodall's testi- 
 mony, 149, 153-155 ; effect of 
 railways on hunting,-155, 156 ; the 
 
3IO 
 
 ^' TA G-HUNTING RECOL LECTIONS 
 
 question of costume, 15(), 157 ; a 
 foggy day in, 189-193 
 Harry's Wood, 13 
 Harvey, Queen's huntsman, 89, 138, 
 
 139, KitJ, 173, 195, 197, 203 
 Harwood, Sir E., 291 n 
 Hayman's Lodge, 205 
 Hemans, Mrs., Ill 
 Henri II. of France, 247, 248 
 Henri III. of France, 229, 288 
 Henri IV. of France, 249, 254 
 Henry I., 29 
 Henry II.. 12 
 Henry IV., 17, 229 
 Henry VI., 18 
 
 Henry VIII., 18, 20, 227-229 
 Hervey, Lord, 26, 31, 37-39, 53 
 Hessian horse in France, 297 
 Hevsham, Mr. F. (' ^sop '), 52 n, 57, 
 
 70 
 Higgins, Mr., 146 
 Hoare, Charles, 179 
 Holland, Robert, 8 
 Hollande, Conitesse de, 9 n 
 Holrovd, Miss Maria, cited, 3(3 
 Holtspur Heath, 209 
 Holyrood Day, 41 
 Hompesch, Baron de. Master of 
 
 WiUiam III.'s Buckhounds, 234 
 Hoppner, his pictures, 53 
 Horace, 192 
 
 Hore, Mr. J. P., his history of the 
 Boyal Buckhounds, 3, 22, 23, 26, 
 27, 30, 49 n, 235 n 
 Horse, the cream, 24, 25 
 Horse-breeding, State-aided in France, 
 
 294-298 
 Horses and forest-hunting, 169-171 ; 
 thoroughbreds as hunters, 183, 184, 
 Horses, noted hunting and other : — 
 
 Agitator, 169, 192, 193 
 
 Bayard, 7 
 
 Black Bess, 182 
 
 Cardinal, 150, 151 n, 154 
 
 Catalina, 2(;i 
 
 Chance, 203, 208 
 
 Charlie. 207 
 
 Clipper, 67 
 
 Columbine, 70, 75 
 
 Countess, 154 
 
 Crusader, 150, 151 n 
 
 Curricle, 51 
 
 Dartmoor, 124 
 
 Dunce, 154 
 
 FireHy, 207 
 
 Hermit, 70, 75-79 
 
 Hobby, 43 
 
 Lanercost, 102 
 
 Horses— con<. 
 
 Lebryt, 7 
 
 Lockington, 207 
 • Lottery, 80 
 
 Mignonne, 2()0 
 
 Milkmaid, 173 
 
 Norman, 151 n 
 
 Paddy, 207, 208 
 
 Perfection, 43 
 
 Pomers, 7 
 
 Q. C, 207 
 
 liadical, 181, 182 
 
 \\\h. 121 n 
 
 Komeo, 195 
 
 Ilosslyn, 154, 203 
 
 Rural Dean, 207 
 
 Stag, 128 
 
 Thornton, 207 
 
 Tiger, 53 
 
 Tobacco Stopper, 53 
 
 White Boy, 154 
 
 William, 94, 140, 169, 196, 198, 199 
 Houdemarre, Baron, 105 
 Hounds, French and English, 267, 
 
 268, 270, 271, 273, 274 
 Hounds, noted, and other dogs : — 
 
 Baude, 252 
 
 Byron, 280 
 
 Cardigan, 137 
 
 Charlie, 113 
 
 Cheerful, 103, 104 
 
 Dash, 122 
 
 Falkland, 105, 139 
 
 Ganymede, 201 
 
 Garland, 134 
 
 Glory, 134 
 
 Greffier, 122 
 
 Hercules, 164 
 
 Hotspur, 166 
 
 Luxury, 118, 118 11 
 
 Merkin, 118, 121, 122 
 
 Minos, 56 
 
 Mouille, 254, 255 
 
 Nellie, 139 
 
 Nemesis, 140 
 
 Norman, 151 ;; 
 
 Notion, 104, 198 
 
 Needful, 94 
 
 Remus, 137 
 
 Rhapsody, 133 
 
 Rhetoric, 118. 119, 133 
 
 Shot, 122 
 
 Souillard, 251, 252 
 
 Splendour, 172 
 
 Wellington, 94 
 
 Windsor, IKi, 121 
 
 Woodnum, 139 
 Howard, Miss Dorothy, 232 
 
INDEX 
 
 31 
 
 Huish, cited, 00 
 
 Hunter's Coppice, 13 
 
 Hunter's Manor, 10-18, 15 
 
 Hurvari, Due- d'Aumales huntsman,. 
 
 282, 283, 300 
 Huzard on horse-breeding in France, 
 
 296 
 
 Isle of Wight, 139 
 
 Islington ticlds, huntinu in, 21) 
 
 ' Jacoh Ojixium,' 30 
 
 James I., 19, 21 
 
 James II., 200, 232-234 
 
 Jenison, Mr. Ralph, Master of the 
 Buckhounds, 27, 44, 121, 237 
 
 Jerningham, Lady, cited, .")3 
 
 Jersey, Lady, 52 
 
 Jersey, Lord, Master of the Buck- 
 hounds, 74, 237 
 
 Jews as horse-dealers, 294 
 
 Jockey Club and the Hampton Court 
 stud, 58 ; and the stands at Ascot, 
 214-210 
 
 John, King of France, 8, 250 
 
 Johns, Eev. C. A., 160, 161 
 
 Johnson, Dr., on Sir Joshua Eey- 
 nolds, 28 n ; 37, 56 n 
 
 Johnson (the King's huntsman), 39, 
 40 
 
 Joinville, Prince de, 266 
 
 Jowett, Dr., 22 
 
 Kejipshot, George IV. at. 51, 52, 57 
 
 Kendal, Duchess of, 24 
 
 Kennel lameness, 200 
 
 Kennels, at Ascot, 200-203 
 
 King, Harry, first whip, 77, 78, 81. 
 
 148, 149, 202, 207, 240 
 King, Mr. and ilrs. James, 66 11 
 King-King, Captain, 63 n ♦ 
 
 King's Beech, 75 
 Kingscote, Mr. Henry, 179 
 Kingscote, Colonel Sir Nigel, 207 
 Kingsley, Charles, his love of hunting. 
 
 160, 161, 163 ; expressed in i^oetry, 
 
 and prose, 163, 164 
 Kinnaird, Lord, his Mastership, 107, 
 
 239 
 Kintore, Lord, 99. 100 
 Kulb, M., 300, 301 
 
 Lacoui!, M. de Caiuvon. his hounds, 
 
 300 
 Lade, Lady, 42, 42 n, 56 n 
 Lade, Sir John, 56, 56 n 
 
 La Fcuille, French huntsman, 275 
 
 Lambert, Baron, 261, 263, 264, 267 
 
 Lansdowne, Lord, 83 
 
 La Trace, French huntsman, 275 
 
 Leatherhead, stag-hunt at, 44 
 
 Lebaudv, M. M., 266, 282, 283 
 
 Lecky, Mr., 23 
 
 Leicester, Lord, Master of the Buck- 
 hounds, 222, 229-232 
 
 Leicestershire horses, 182 
 
 Le Jeune, M., on horsemanship and 
 horses, 287, 290, 297, 300 
 
 Lely, Sir Peter, his picture of Col. 
 Graham, 234, 235 
 
 Les Ormes Kennels, 54 
 
 Levens, Westmoreland, 232 
 
 Ldvriers, of Queen Elizabeth's time, 
 230 
 
 L'Hotte, General, 284 
 
 Lichfield, Lord, Master of the Buck- 
 hounds, 238 
 
 Lieven, Madame de, 242 
 
 Ligniville, M. Jean de, 120, 132, 253- 
 2.57, 272, 273 
 
 Limousin, 291, 297 
 
 Little Weldon, 12-16, 19-21 
 
 Loddon Bridge meets, 209 
 
 Loudon, Lord Mayor of, 29 
 
 Lonsdale, Lord, 77, 131, 167 
 
 Lord's Walk, 13 
 
 Lorraine as a hunting country, 253 
 
 Louis XL, 247, 251 
 
 Louis XIIL, 250, 291, 298 
 
 Louis XIV., 251 71, 261, 291, 292, 294 
 
 Louis XV., 30, 44, 49, 51, 54, 2-52, 292 
 
 Louis XVI.. 257 
 
 Lovel, John, 11, 12, 14, 15 
 
 Lovel, Margaret, 11, 15 
 
 Lovel, Osborne, 11, 12 
 
 Lovel, William, 11 
 
 Lucas, Mr., 122 
 
 Luttrell, 234 
 
 M.^CHKLL. Captain, 217, 218 
 
 Makepeace, 147 
 
 Maledon on horse-breeding in France, 
 296 
 
 Malmesbury, Lord, 69, 298 
 
 Mandeville. J., 200 n 
 
 Mar, Lady, 42 
 
 Markham, Gervase, 120 
 
 Marlborough, Sarah, Duchess of, 206 
 
 Martin, Sir Theodore, on Lord Gran- 
 ville, 243 
 
 Mary, Queen, 18, 21, 231 
 
 Mary Queen of Sco s, 248 
 
 Maryborough, Lord. .Sec Mornington 
 
312 
 
 5 TA G-HUN TING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 Mason, Jem, KO, !S1, 147, 150, 152, 17(5 
 Massy Buckhounds. 116, 120 
 
 Master of the Buckhounds, the office 
 of, considered, 82_i)2 ; his stand at 
 Ascot, 214 ; character of the office, 
 222 ; distinguished men as riders, 
 223-227 ; particulars concerning 
 past masters, 227-243 
 
 Matthews, Keuben, 211, 212 
 
 Matthews, Mr. Thomas, 1<J4 n 
 
 Maxwell, Sir W. Stirling, 293 
 
 May, Mr. Bowen, 60 ?^, 63 n, 67, 02, 
 157, 190 
 
 Mecklenburg horse in France, 297 
 
 Medicis, Catherine de, 248 
 
 Meissonier, 299 
 
 Mellish, Mr., 48, 122 
 
 Melvill, Sir James, 231 
 
 Meynell, Mr., the ' Hunting Jupiter,' 
 54, 77 n, 121 ?i, 180 
 
 Miles, Josiah, stud groom at Cumber- 
 land Lodge, 210, 211, 212 
 
 Milton, horse-dealer, 53 
 
 Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 42 
 
 Montague, Mr., 82 
 
 Montfurt, Earl Simon de, 5 
 
 Montmorency, Connetable de, 247, 288 
 
 Moore, Joseph, 194, 194 n, 195, 199 
 
 Morbeque, Sir Denis de, 8 
 
 Mornington, Lord, Master of Buck- 
 hounds, 50, 66 n, 167, 237 
 
 Morrell, Mr., 164 
 
 Mount Charles, Lord, 50 
 
 Murat, Prince, 139 
 
 Musters, Mr. Chaworth, 30 
 
 Mytton, Jack, 177, 178 
 
 Najara, 3, 8 
 
 Napoleon I., his horsemanship, 223 ; 
 
 and the importation of horses into 
 
 France, 296 
 Napoleon III., his hunting morals, 
 
 263-265 ; reconstitutes the Venerie, 
 
 275 
 National drag-hunt, proposed, 88 
 Naunton. Sir Robert, 231 ji 
 Neeld, Elliot, 144 
 Negus, Colonel Francis, Master of the 
 
 Buckhounds, 26 
 Nevill, Mr. Benjamin, 124 
 Nevill, Mr. T., 9Hvi, 115, 124-127, 130 
 Newcastle, Duke of, 206, 288, 292, 293 
 New Forest, stag-hunting in the, 68, 69 
 Ney, Comte Edgar, 264 
 Nicholls, Colonel, 131 
 'Nimrod,' 32, 99, 100;/, 122, 123, 130, 
 
 162,174,178,224% 
 
 Norden, his Survey of Windsor Foi-est, 
 
 205, 235 n 
 Norfolk, Duke of, 229 
 Nottage (yeoman pricker), 40 
 
 Odiham stud, 6 
 
 Old Berkshire country, a day's stag- 
 hunting in, 194-199 
 
 Olivarez, equestrian portrait of, 293 
 
 Oliver, Tom, 80, 81 
 
 Orr-Ewing, Master of the Old Berk- 
 shire, 194, 199 
 
 Orthez, 5 
 
 Osbaldistone breed of pointer, 122 
 
 Osbaldistones, the, in ' Rob Roy,' 32 
 
 Oudry's pictures, 292 
 
 PAiiis, hunting in the neighbourhood 
 
 of, 225, 258 
 Parsons, Alderman Humphrey, 30 
 Peacocke, Captain, 139 
 Pecche, John, 4 n, 10 
 Pedro the Cruel, 8 
 Peel, Sir Robert, as a horseman, 
 
 227 
 Pembroke, Lord, 44, 225 n 
 Penton, Captain, 173 
 Pepys, 200 
 Pexall, Lady, 12 
 Pexall, Ralph, 12, 18 
 Pexall, Sir Richard, 12, 18, 19, 20, 21 
 Philip I V.,^ equestrian portrait of, 293 
 Philippe Egalit^. Sec Chartres, Due 
 
 de, 54 
 Plantagenet, Lady Joan, 9 
 Plato on hunting, 90 
 Pliny on deer. 111 ?^ 
 Poitiers, battle of, 3, 7, 8 
 Poitiers, Diane de, 244 
 Poland, state of, in 1734, 38 
 Pompadour, the Haras of, 295, 295 n 
 Ponsonby, Fred, 240 
 Pope, 34, 37, 42 ; his ' Essay on Fals 
 
 Taste,' 155 
 Porter, Mr., 77 n 
 Portsmouth, Earl of, 98 n 
 Poyntz, :\Ir., 53 
 Prince Consort, 243 
 Prince Imperial, 154. 264 
 Pytchlev, 14 
 
 QuANTocK Hill deer. 111 
 Queensberry, Duke of (' Old Q '), 37, 54 
 Queen's hounds, the, 131-141 
 Quorn Hunt stable, 300 
 
INDEX 
 
 313 
 
 Kadcliffe, Mr. Delmi', 155 
 Railways, their effect on horses and 
 
 hunting. 155, 156 
 Eatford. stud-groom to George IV., 54 
 Ileade, Mr. George, 194 n 
 Eeynolds, Sir Joshua, his pictures, 27, 
 
 28, 37, 42 n, 44. 54 n 
 Rich, Charles and James, VM\. 11)7, IDlt 
 Richard II., 2, 11 
 Richmond, Duke of, 48, 51 », 67, 118 «, 
 
 121 
 Rivers, Lord, 6!) 
 Robinson, Mrs. (' Perdita '), 53 
 Roche Court, Manor of, 10 
 Rochefoucauld, M. de la, 251 n 
 Roches, Mary, 10, 11, 12 
 Roches, Sir John de, 10, 11 
 Rochford, Lord, Master of Henry 
 
 VIII.'s Buckhounds, 20, 222, 227- 
 
 229 
 Rockingham, Lord, Master of the 
 
 Buckhounds, 12, 20, 21 
 Rockingham Castle and Forest, 13, 14 
 Rocroy Haras, 295 
 Roden, Mr. John, 129, 130 
 Roe-deer hunting, 139 ; in France, 
 
 254 
 Rogers, Samuel. 85 
 Romans, hunting among the : their 
 
 wanton slaughter of animals, 115 n 
 Ros, Thomas de, 8 
 Rose, Edmund, 7 
 Rosey Brook, 194, 195, 199 
 Rossendale Harriers, 139 
 Rosslvn, Lord, Master of Buckhounds, 
 
 68 7i, 72, 146, 239 
 Rothschild, Baron Ferdinand de, 155 
 Russell, Lord John, 36, 242 
 Russell, Rev. Mr., 123, 124 
 Rutland, Duke of, 118 n 
 
 St. Edmund's Chapel, 4, 11 
 
 St. Giles' fields, hunting in, 29 
 
 St. Hubert staghounds, 124, 125, 126, 
 128, 130, 136, 251 
 
 Saintonge hound, 271, 273, 300 
 
 Salgado, Don Diego, 293 
 
 Salisbury, Lady, 43 
 
 Salisbury, Marquis of, 88, 154 
 
 Salt Hill, the meet at, and objections 
 to it, 175 
 
 Samways, Charles, 191, 192, 199 
 
 Sanders. Mr., 153 
 
 Sandhurst College, 160 
 
 Sandpit gate, royal menagerie at, 55 
 
 Sandwich, Lord, Master of the Buck- 
 hounds, 39, 237 
 
 Sangrado's treatment of deer, 123 
 Sartorius, his pictures, 120 
 Sault, 2, 5 
 
 Saumur. cavalry school at, 284, 
 I 298 
 
 Savage, Sir Richard. 12 
 ; Saxty, Mr., 240 
 Schauinberg-Lippe, Prince, 25 n 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 247 
 Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, 8 
 Selwyn, George, 29, 34, 37 
 Seymour's pictures, 301 
 I Shackle, Mr., 175 
 I Shard, Mr.. 122, 123, 237 
 ' Sharpe, George, huntsman, 48, 52, 57, 
 117, 121, 200-202 
 Sheffield, Lord, 36 
 Shelley, Sir Thomas. 17 
 I Sheward, Mr., 153 
 j Shirley (senior), 152, 153 
 I Shirley (junior), 238 
 i Shuldham, Lady, 42 
 
 Simmonds, Mr. F., 106 n 
 j Simpson, Sir Henry, 209, 210 
 Sixteen-String .Jack, 42 n 
 Slough country unsuitable for hunt- 
 ing, 175 
 Smith, Mr. Assheton, 69, 70, 133, 140, 
 
 141, 180-182 
 Smith, Mr. Noble, 190 
 Smith, Tom. 73 
 
 Smith, Mr. Thomas, 99, 136, 137 
 ' Smyth, Sir R., 37 
 
 Snyder's pictures, 230 
 I Somerville, poet, 163; and Master of 
 Hounds, 30, 32 n 
 South, Mr. Nim, 223, 224 
 : Sowter, Mr., 207 
 i Spanish horses, 292, 293 
 : ' Spectator,' 159 
 ! Spencer, Lady Charles, 28 
 I 'Sporting Gazette,' 129 
 I ' Sporting Magazine,' 39, 42, 43, 110, 
 117, 121, 200, 223 
 ' Sporting Review,' 118 n 
 Staghound, the, literature of the sub- 
 ject, 114 ; predecessors of the 
 modern staghound, 115 ; Lord 
 Wolverton's and Mr. T. Nevill's 
 packs. 115, 124, 127; the old Devon 
 and Somerset staghounds. 11(5 ; the 
 hound Windsor, 116; points of a 
 modem hound, 117 ; Royal hounds 
 taken to France by Colonel Thorn- 
 ton, 117; Merkin, Luxury, Roman, 
 and Rhetoric, 118, 119; the southern 
 and northern types, 119, 120; the 
 Yorkshire breed, a foxhound type, 
 
314 
 
 STAG-HUNTING RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 120 ; the ' old Goodwood sort,' 121 ; 
 Colonel Thornton's hounds, 121 ; 
 the pointer strain, 122 ; Mr. Mellish's 
 lemon-pyes and the Old Devon and 
 Somerset hounds, 122, 123; Lord 
 Wolverton's, 127-130; the 'pie' 
 and ' black-and-tan ' varieties, 130 ; 
 the staghound of the present day : 
 the Queen's, 131-141. Sec also 
 Hounds, noted 
 
 Staghound of Queen Elizabeth's time, 
 230 ; the effect of forest-hunting 
 on, 168 
 
 Stag-hunting, Eoyal, 22 ; under George 
 I., 23-20, 30; under George II., 
 36-39 ; and George III., 3«)-50 ; the 
 new school, George IV. 's interest 
 in, 48—57 ; William IV. 's experi- 
 ences, 57, 58; breaking up. of the 
 Hampton Court stud, 58 ; Charles 
 Davis as Huntsman, 59-81 ; the 
 ethics of the sport, 82-91 ; things 
 necessary for success, 92 ; a run 
 from Hawthorn Hill to Stanford 
 Dingley, 93-95; from Aldershot to 
 Sutton, 95-98 ; mettle and fettle 
 a requisite, 98 ; fox-hunting v. 
 stag-hunting, 99 ; Davis's method, 
 100, 101, hunting tricky and sulky 
 deer, 102-106 ; good deer only 
 should be hunted, 106, 107 ; a run 
 from Cobham, 109 ; in the Harrow 
 country, 142-157 ; in the Forest, 
 158-171 ; the banks and ditches 
 of Bucks and Berks, 172-188 ; 
 masters, 222-243 ; hunting in 
 France : venerie and the Valois, 
 244-257 ; under the Empire and the 
 Kepublic, 258-277 
 
 Staines, stag-hunt in, 41 
 
 Stanhope, Lord. 233 
 
 Stanhope, Mr., 178 
 
 Stanhope, Sir John, 20 
 
 Stanley, 'Ben,' the Whig Whip, 228 n 
 
 Starkie, Colonel Legendre, 122 
 
 Stevens, Nancy, 52 
 
 Strathavon grouse moor, 122 
 
 Strathfleldsaye coverts, 225 
 
 Stratton, Kev. Mr., 84, 88-90 
 
 Strickland, Charles, 185 
 
 Stubbs, his pictures, 42, 70, 120, 122, 
 301 
 
 Sturges, Mr., 196 
 
 Suflield, Lord, Master of the Buck- 
 hounds, 154 «, 243 
 
 Suffolk, Duchess of, and Queen Eliza- 
 beth, 231 
 
 Suffolk. Ladv, 2() 
 
 I Suffolk and Berkshire, Lord, 235 
 
 i Sully, organiser of State-aided horse 
 
 i breeding in France, 294 
 
 Sutton, Sir Kichard, 71 
 
 Swift, 200 
 
 Swinley, 45, 93, 131, 235-237, 201 ; 
 paddocks, 106, 106 n 
 
 Sykes, Sir Tatton, 77 
 I Symons, Sir E., 122 
 
 Tailby, Mr., 149 
 
 Talbot, General the Hon. E., 284 
 
 Talbot, Mr., 153 
 
 Talbots (hounds), 130 
 
 Tankerville, Lord and Lady, 27 
 
 Tattersall, Mr., on Black Bess, 182 
 
 Tattersall, Mr. Edmund, 79 
 
 Thackeray, Mr., 46, 55 
 
 Thistlethwaite, Dr., 37 
 
 Thomson, Colonel Anstruther, 63 n, 
 
 68, 72, 240 
 Thornton, Colonel, 30, 117, 121, 130, 
 
 258, 259, 270 
 Thrale, Mr. and Mrs., 56 n 
 Throckmorton. Sir Eobert, 68 n, 248 
 Titian, his ' Charles V.,' 70 
 Tornabuoni on Fran(;'ois I., 245, 246 
 Triboulet, M., 288 
 Trouttes, Bernard de, 8 
 Tubb, Mr. John, 126, 127, 157 
 Turberville on staghounds, 115 n 
 Turkish horse in France, 295 n 
 Tuscany, Grand Duke of, 121 n 
 
 Utrecht F.ur, 293 
 Uxbridge, the water at, 66 n 
 
 V.\L0N, M. le Marquis de, 266, 267, 
 
 268 
 Vaudemont, Comte de, 254 
 Vavasour, Agnes, 10 
 Velasquez, painter, 28, 70, 230, 244, 
 
 293 
 Vendean hounds, 300 
 Venerie and the Valois, 244-257 
 Venour, Hamon le, 11, 12 
 Vernon, Diana, 32 
 Verulam, Lord, 74 
 Victoria, Queen, her visit to Ascot 
 
 Kennel, 203 
 Vine hounds, 225 
 Virginia Water, 40 
 Vitry, M. le Conite dc, 254 
 Vyner, Mr., 201 
 Vyse, Captain (Dicky), 147, 240 
 
INDEX 
 
 315 
 
 Wales, Prince of (Albert Edward), 
 149, 156, 207 
 
 Wales, Prince of (Frederick), 49, 53 
 
 Walpole, Horace, 2(5, 27, 42, 54 n, 82, 
 235 
 
 Walpole, Sir Robert, 2«, 27, 31, 35, 
 38, 39, 53 
 
 Waltham Common, meet at, 43 
 
 Waltham stud, (J 
 
 Ward, Captain Henry, 127 
 
 Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 'M\ 
 
 Warham, Geor^^e, 12 
 
 Warner, Dr., 34, 35 n 
 
 Waterer, Mr., his ' Nurseries,' 160 
 
 Watson, Sir Lewis. Sec Rocking- 
 ham, Lord 
 
 Waveney, Lord, 28 
 
 Webb, Byron, 79, 182 
 
 Weldon. Sec Little Weldon 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, 5, 50, 55, 223- 
 225 
 
 Wellington College, 65 
 
 Westminster Abbey, 4, 11 
 
 Westminster, Duke of, 208 
 
 Weyer, Mr. Van de, 176, 194 
 
 White, Captain J., 122 
 
 White, Mr. J., 180 
 
 Whitfield, Mr. Robert, 194 n 
 
 Whvte Melville, Major, 129, 132, 142, 
 192 
 
 William the Conqueror, 3 
 
 William of Wykeham, 6, 7 
 
 William IIL, 33, 121 71, 223, 234 
 
 Wilham IV., 57, 237 
 
 Williamson, Mr., Iiis hunting experi- 
 ences, 179 
 
 Wilson, Mr. Griffin, 41 
 
 Wilton, Lord, 224 n 
 
 Winchester, Marcjuis of, 21 
 
 Windham, Mr., 56 n 
 
 Windsor Castle, 2, 3. 175 
 
 Windsor Forest, a Royal hunt in, 40 
 
 Windsor Great Park, hunting in, 59 n 
 
 Windsor Park, stud in, 6, 7 
 
 Woburn deer, 107 
 
 Wolverton, Lord, 115, 127. 130 
 
 Wolves in France, 295 
 
 Woodland Pytchley, 167 
 
 Woodstock stud, 6 
 
 Wootton, his pictures, 49, 120, 301 
 
 Wraxall, his description of George 
 IV., 53 
 
 Wyattville, Sir Jeffry, 206 
 
 Wycherley, Mr., 34 
 
 Wyndham, Sir William, Master of the 
 Buckhounds, 35, 222 
 
 Xenophon, 114?;, 161, 256 
 
 York, Duke of, 74, 232 
 Yorkshire breed of hound, 120 
 Young, Arthur, 54, 251, 253 
 295 
 
 276, 
 
 Zoological Gardens, o7 
 
 Umwde A: C: Printers, Neic-stieet Square, London. 
 

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