SO far as hunting was concerned, Henry VIII. was, as we know, a keen sportsman, and Queen Elizabeth would appear to have been almost an equally enthusiastic sportsman. Passionately devoted to the chase, nothing gave her greater pleasure than to see “the quarry broken up before her.” Statements to this effect are to be found in the works of three trustworthy writers at least, so we may take it that the records are approximately accurate. The queen “loved to be on horseback for its own sake,” and was fond of open air at all times.

It is in connection with Elizabeth's partiality for the chase that the story is told of a man named John Selwyn, for many years under keeper of the park at Oaklands, in Surrey, where some of the queen's hunters were usually stabled during the autumn and winter.

Selwyn must in several ways have been a remarkable character, but it is with his horsemanship only that we have here to deal. On the occasion, then, of a great stag hunt which the queen had arranged should take place in the park at Oaklands, Selwyn was “chief in attendance”—in other words, huntsman.

Suddenly, as we are told, a stag was started.

When it had been hunted only a short time, a fear was expressed by the queen that it would escape, “the animal having proved of such unusual swiftness that it was feared the hounds would not be able to overtake it.”

Determined that this should not happen, “Selwyn pressed spurs to his horse, and galloping at an angle, and sideways,” succeeded in coming alongside the stag as it was about to turn off abruptly.

At once the enthusiasm and excitement of the spectators, especially of the queen, became intense; nor did it abate when they saw Selwyn, still galloping at top speed, neck and neck with the stag, suddenly vault right off his horse's back on to the stag's, “where he kept his seat gracefully in spite of every effort of the affrighted beast to throw him off.”

Thus he galloped on for some yards, the queen and all the spectators wondering what he would do next. They were not kept long in suspense. Of a sudden Selwyn swiftly but calmly drew out his hunting knife. Then he began to prod the animal with its point, first on one side of its neck, then on the other, until at last he succeeded in forcing the stag to gallop round to a point within a few yards of the very spot where the queen sat waiting.

At last, when the animal was very near the queen, its rider suddenly plunged his knife deep into its throat, “so that the blood spurted out and the beast fell dead just by her feet.”

This display is said to have delighted the queen so greatly that she soon afterwards granted Selwyn several favours, and on the monument still to be seen at Walton-on-Thames he is portrayed in the act of stabbing, in the manner described, the stag slaughtered on that memorable occasion. Selwyn died on 27th March, 1587.

Of the famous horses of fiction and romance in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one or two more must be mentioned. Don Quixote's immortal squire, Sancho Panza, who, it will be remembered, rode upon an ass named Dapple, was Governor of Barataria.

Though endowed with common sense, and though his proverbs have become historical, he was wholly devoid of what is sometimes called “spirituality.”

Nevertheless Don Quixote and his horse, Rosinante—a name that means literally “formerly a hack”—came gradually to be renowned the world over.

To this day, indeed, “a perfect Rosinante” is the comment not infrequently passed upon a horse that is mostly skin and bone.

Peter of Provence's wooden horse, Babieca, is another “creature” whose name must not be omitted.

“This very day,” we read in Don Quixote, “may be seen in the King's armoury the identical peg with which Peter of Provence turned his wooden horse which carried him through the air. It is rather bigger than the pole of a coach, and stands near Babieca's saddle.”

Don Quixote himself rode astride the wooden horse, Clavileno, on the occasion when he wished to disenchant the Infanta Antonomasia and her husband shut up in the tomb of Queen Maguncia, of Candaya, and Peter of Provence rode it when he made off with beautiful Magalona.

Merlin was the name of its maker, and the horse was so constructed that it could be governed by turning a wooden peg in its forehead. The name means “wooden peg.” A comprehensive description of these incidents may be found in the fourth and fifth chapters of the third book of “Don Quixote,” but the description is not of sufficient interest to be quoted here.

The story of the Cid's horse, to date back to an earlier century, is almost as well known as the story of Rosinante. The Cid's horse died some two and a half years after its master's death, and during the whole of that period none rode it, the order having gone forth that under no circumstances was anybody to mount the animal. At its death its body was buried near the gate of the monastery at Valencia, two trees being planted close to the grave to mark its whereabouts.

According to the popular legend, the horse acquired its name through Rodrigo's having, when told in his youth that he might select a horse, chosen an almost valueless colt. His godfather, annoyed at this display of ignorance, at once nicknamed the lad “the dolt,” which nickname Rodrigo presently conferred upon the horse itself. Literally, however, “Cid” is Arabic for “lord.”

Among the few traits in the character of Mary Queen of Scots that have not formed subjects for controversy among the many biographers of that ill-starred sovereign, her undoubted fondness for animals stands out prominently.

From first to last I have read many biographies of Mary Queen of Scots, and it is remarkable that no two coincide consistently in their statements, from which we are forced to the conclusion that the majority of such works have been produced by writers who either were bigoted or deeply prejudiced, or else who had some private axe to grind.

With regard to Mary's horses, her two chief favourites would appear to have been Rosabelle—the animal at one time worshipped by a proportion of the body of minor poets!—and Agnes, called after Agnes of Dunbar, a countess in her own right. This palfrey—almost all the horses of the period of Mary Queen of Scots are spoken of as “palfreys”—apparently came as a gift from her brother, Moray, and though it does not appear to have been a steed of exceptional quality she was extraordinarily fond of it. We find it referred to occasionally as Black Agnes.

Then, though all the evidence obtainable tends to convey the impression that Mary Queen of Scots must have been a clever horsewoman, she does not appear to have been very fond of hunting, in consequence of which two at least of her biographers go so far as to hint that her alleged distaste for the chase tended in a measure to increase Elizabeth's hostility towards her.

From what early historians tell us, Mary probably looked far better on a horse than Elizabeth ever did—the slimness alone of Mary's figure by contrast with Elizabeth's may have been in a measure responsible for this—and the knowledge must have vexed Elizabeth, who took particular pride in her riding and was desirous above many other things to be deemed a finished horsewoman. How vast a number of horses must have been owned by the nobles and by other persons of wealth who dwelt scattered over the whole of England may be gathered from the statement of Ralph Holinshed that Queen Elizabeth alone required, when she travelled, some 2400 animals, almost all of which had to be provided by residents in the districts in which she moved.

The majority of these horses were employed to drag the great carts which contained the queen's baggage, yet we are told that “the ancient use of somers and sumpter horses” having been “utterly relinquished, causeth the trains of our princes in their progresses to show far less than those of the kings of other nations.”

Naturally it must be borne in mind that the weight of the baggage of persons of rank in the sixteenth century was excessive, especially when it was added to the weight of the clumsy carts that were used for the conveyance of such baggage, so that four, six and even more horses were often enough harnessed to a single cart when it was fully loaded.

Then, too, the roads were for the most part in so bad a state of repair—many of them could not, properly speaking, be called roads at all—that frequent changes of horses were necessary.

In Drayton's well-known “Polyolbion” we have a horse that is very famous in romance. Arundel by name—a name that is said to have been originally a corruption of the French word, hirondelle—it was “swifter than the swiftest swallow.” This horse belonged to Bevis of Southampton, “the remarkable knight,” and apparently it had as many good points as any animal can possess. In the sixteenth century almost every horse of note actually living, or in romance, took its name from one or other of its chief characteristics. Thus in Tasso's “Jerusalem Delivered” we find Raymond's steed, Aquiline, that was bred on the banks of the Tagus, particularly remarkable for what we should to-day call a Roman nose.

Aquiline figures largely in “Jerusalem Delivered,” and Raymond, who was Count of Toulouse and commander of some 4000 infantry, and who, in addition, was remarkable for his wisdom and coolness in debate, is shown to have owed a measure of his success to Aquiline's phenomenal sagacity. Indeed Aquiline probably saved him from destruction upon more than one occasion.

We come upon other horses in several portions of “Jerusalem Delivered,” especially in connection with the slaying by Raymond of Aladine, the cruel old king. The stirring description of this incident, and of the planting of the Christian standard upon the tower of David by Raymond, is to be found in the twentieth book; but as we know that the Holy Land was being ruled by the Caliph of Egypt at the very time Raymond is supposed to have been attacking King Aladine, it at once becomes obvious that the narrative must have been fictitious.

“The Faerie Queene” is another classic in which we find interesting allusions to horses, mostly the horses of romance.

One of the best known of these animals is Brigadore, called sometimes Brigliadore, which belonged to Sir Guyon, and was remarkable for a black mark in its mouth, in shape like a horseshoe.

Sir Guyon, who impersonated Temperance or Self-Government, was the companion of Prudence, and he alludes several times to Brigadore. His fame, as most scholars will remember, rests in a great measure upon his destruction of the enchantress, Acrasia, in the bower called the Bower of Bliss, which was situated in the Wandering Island.

The name Acrasia means self-indulgence, and this witch was particularly dreaded because of her partiality for transforming her lovers into monstrous shapes and then keeping them captive.

The story of Sir Guyon's stealthy approach while Acrasia lay unsuspectingly in her bower, and of the way in which he succeeded in throwing a net over her, subsequently in binding her firmly in chains of adamant, then in breaking down “her accursed bower” and burning it to ashes, is too well known to need description here, and of course it has no direct bearing upon Brigadore.

So far as we can judge, the horses of Anatolia and Syria must have been well known in Europe by about the middle of the sixteenth century, though one or two writers aver that they did not come over until later.

An artist who died about the year 1603, and whose name was Stradamus, produced, not long before his death, a series of drawings, and a set of these was subsequently issued under the title, “Equile Johannis Ducis Austriaci,” which means, “The Stable of Don John of Austria.”

It is interesting to note in this connection that practically all the horses and mares imported between the year 1660 and the year 1685 came from Smyrna, though the renowned Darley Arabian and several more came from Aleppo.

This is of particular importance in relation to the records of the horse in England's history, for there can be no doubt that a great part of our thoroughbred racing stock is descended from these very early importations.

That remarkable feats of horsemanship were performed in the reign of Elizabeth is beyond dispute, but unfortunately the particulars obtainable are extremely meagre.

Of Sir Robert Carey's historic ride upon the death of the queen, details worth recording are given. No sooner had the queen breathed her last, we are told, than Sir Robert Carey, notorious sycophant that he was, who for days and nights had been loitering about the queen's bed-chamber and displaying the keenest anxiety as to her condition, set off on horseback to convey to the heir, King James, the news of her death.

“So great was his desire to bring the news to King James before that monarch had heard it from any other source,” we read, “that with the lamentations of the dead queen's women still ringing in his ears he left the bedside of his kinswoman and benefactress and started to announce the important tidings to King James, an act quite as indelicate as it was wholly unauthorised.”

Sir Robert's indelicacy, or alleged indelicacy, however, is no concern of ours. As a feat of endurance, his ride was truly an extraordinary one, for he actually galloped the whole distance from London to Edinburgh, about 400 miles, in less than sixty hours, though during the journey he had at least one severe fall.

How many horses he rode I have not been able to ascertain, but that he had made in advance full preparations for this journey is more than likely, as it is beyond dispute that he had covered the first 160 miles by nightfall on the day after he started. The exact time at which he set out we are not told.

What made the feat more wonderful still was the condition of nearly all the roads in England during Elizabeth's reign, with the exception of the Roman roads and a few besides, some north of Doncaster being really little more than tracks.

That Sir Robert Carey was well repaid for his enterprise may be gathered from the statement that King James I. “rewarded him for being the first to bring him the glad news, by granting him signal favours.”

From about this period onward the horse may be said to have entered upon the third phase of its career in the history of all nations, but more especially in the history of our own nation. For, as we have seen, from very early times down to the period of the Norman Conquest the nations that had not horses had almost without exception been forced to take a secondary place in the world's progress.

From the period of the Norman Conquest down to the beginning of the accession of the House of Stuart—indeed, as we shall see presently, almost down to the period of the Commonwealth—the improvement and development of the horse as an “arm” in warfare had gone practically hand in hand with the improvement in the training of men to fight in battle. And from then onward, that is to say from the beginning of the period of the Stuarts and the Commonwealth, down to the present day, the horse has been connected with history in the capacity of charger or war horse, hunter or pleasure horse, and thoroughbred or race horse.

Let me state at once, then, that it is not my intention to describe at length, or even to mention by name, all the more or less famous, horses that have been owned by the more prominent or distinguished men at any time within the last three hundred years, for such a collection of names, or of descriptions, would not be likely to prove of interest to the modern reader. In addition comparatively few of the records concerning these animals bear the impress of truth.

As we come to the close of the nineteenth and the opening of the twentieth centuries historical records increase enormously in volume, so that now we find ourselves confronted by a mass of reports, many of which bear directly upon horses that are of no interest whatever, though they may have belonged to famous men whose names are still household words.

Thus in a single history of Napoleon I. we find two pages of descriptive matter to do with a horse of his called Wagram; two pages about Cyrus, another of his horses; a page about his horse named Emir; half-a-page about his Coco; three pages about Gongalve; two about Coquet; three about Tausis, and so on all the way through, while everything that is said about them could quite easily be condensed into three or four short sentences.

Indeed the biographers of the majority of our great military leaders have deemed it necessary to write long and verbose descriptions of the animals that were owned by these historical celebrities, apparently for no other reason than that they did belong to celebrities.

When all is said, it is difficult to imagine how or whence they can have obtained such circumstantial information. Granting, however, the truth of all the statements—and one cannot say definitely that any one of them is not true in every detail—was it worth while to tell us that Piers Gaveston owned a grey, or that Blucher remarked upon some uninteresting occasion that he had a horse that used to jib?

Yet trivial points of this sort are to be found mentioned in plenty of the so-called popular biographies of our great men.

Of more interest it would have been had the biographers succeeded in discovering, and then told us, what sort of bits Napoleon liked to ride his chargers in, and his reason or reasons for preferring them, or whether Blucher ever tried his grey in blinkers. Then the horses described at such weary length might possibly have taught us a lesson or two worth learning.

PART III

FROM THE STUART PERIOD TO THE PRESENT DAY