We now take leave of our Elizabethan instructors and come to records relating to a generation later. In the Herbert MS., published as vol. xx. of the Montgomeryshire collection, we find on page 148 an estimate of the cost of horsing an expedition which was being fitted out to enforce the claims of the Prince Palatine, son-in-law to James I., to the Crown of Bohemia. This estimate was laid before the Privy Council on January 13th, 1620. Ten thousand men were to be despatched from England; it was calculated that the baggage of this army would weigh 1,150 tons, to transport which as many carts each carrying one ton, would be needed, and for each waggon eight cart horses. It was further estimated that for the conveyance of the officers, the sick and the wounded, 380 waggons would be wanted, and that three horses must be provided for each of these vehicles. The scheme laid before the Privy Council proposed that part, at least, of the 10,412 cart horses thus required should be taken up where they could be hired by the day “in the Low Countries or where they may best be hadde. They with the carters to drive and keep them.” The hire was estimated at 2s. per diem, while the cost of the horses, if bought outright, “with harness and furniture,” would, it was anticipated, be £9 apiece. The framers of this estimate appended thereto a note or recommendation which reflects the comparative merits of English and foreign cart horses at the time. “We think it necessary that, besides, 200 strong cart horses such as cannot be hired should be bought or continually kept for the use of the ordnance and munition.” The cost of these Strong or Great Horses was put down at £15 per head—the modern equivalent of that seemingly modest sum being perhaps £100—and the lieutenants and deputy-lieutenants of counties throughout England were to be required to certify what proportion of horses fit for this service “each sheire canne affourd upon all occasions on enterprise.”

Among the leaders of this expedition was the Duke of Arenberg, whose portrait, painted by Vandyke, is in the collection of the Earl of Leicester, at Holkham Hall, and from which the accompanying engraving is taken. In Smith’s Catalogue of Painters, vol. iii., p. 148, this is described as one of the great artist’s most successful equestrian portraits. Vandyke is believed to have visited this country in 1620 and to have executed commissions for James I. who conferred upon him a pension and a safe conduct which enabled him to travel without hindrance through all continental countries whose sovereigns were friendly to England. The picture affords interesting proof of the close resemblance of the English war horse in the first quarter of the seventeenth century to that portrayed by Albert DÜrer more than one hundred years earlier. The colour is different; but in all material points it is practically identical with the white Great Horse of the German painter. The similarity of character is not confined to the horse on which the Duke is mounted; in the background a body of cavalry is represented, and an engraving on large scale of this portion of

the picture shows the stamp of animal to be the same.