Mahomet encourages horse-breeding—Procopius; a misstatement—Early
allusion to horse races—Figures of horses cut on cliffs—Roland
and his horse, Veillantiff—Orelia, Roderick's charger—Trebizond,
Alfana; Odin's mythical horse, Sleipnir—Horse fighting in
Iceland—Some horses of mythology: Pegasus, Selene, Xanthos,
Balios, Cyllaros, Arion, Reksh—Arab pedigrees traced through
dams—Influence of the horse upon history—Courage of Julius
Cæsar's horses
The coming of Mahomet, who announced himself prophet about the year
611 A.D., marks an epoch in the history of nations, and it serves also
as a landmark, if one may express it so, in the horse's progress in
its bearing upon the world's history.
At intervals throughout the Koran, which Mahomet compiled probably
about 610, we come upon direct allusions to the horse in the part it
played at that time in the growth of what must be termed civilisation.
Probably Mahomet realised more fully than any of his contemporaries
how indispensable to the human race the horse had by this time become,
for in one passage in the Koran he puts a strange utterance into
the mouth of the Almighty, whom he represents as apostrophising the
horse, telling it that it shall be “for man a source of happiness and
wealth,” adding, “thy back shall be a seat of honour, and thy belly
of riches, and every grain of barley given to thee shall purchase
indulgence for the sinner,” while in another place he declares that
“every grain of barley given to a horse is entered by God in the
Register of Good Works.”
He describes in an interesting way the horse of the Archangel Gabriel,
to which the name Haizum was given, also Dhuldul, the peerless steed
of his son-in-law, Ali, and his own milk-white mule, Fadda. All this
is the more remarkable when we bear in mind that in the centuries that
preceded Mahomet's birth the Arab race was practically a nonentity
in so far as the continual struggles for supremacy in Egypt and in
Western Asia were concerned, when the great Assyrian, Babylonian,
Egyptian, Persian, Median, Roman and Macedonian tribes fought with
such dogged determination and proved each in turn more or less
victorious.
Yet it is more than likely—some of our leading historians pronounce
positively upon this point—that if in the years just before Mahomet's
birth the tribes had not become possessed of a staunch race of horses,
and devoted much time to perfecting themselves in horsemanship in the
true meaning of the term, Islam would have remained unchanged instead
of almost revolutionising the world in the way it did.
Small wonder, therefore, that Mahomet was enthusiastic—unduly
enthusiastic many even among his disciples maintained him to be—in
striving to promote among his own people a fondness for horses.
Undoubtedly it was owing to this that when at last Mahomet died some
of the best-bred steeds in existence were to be found among the horses
in the region of Nejd.
In Mahomet's era it was that stirrups first came to be used regularly
by both cavalry and what were termed “private horsemen”—the latter we
should to-day call civilians. True stirrups most likely were invented
and introduced by the Teutonic people of the Lower Rhine and the
region adjoining, for we know there was no Latin or Greek term for a
stirrup, and as the Teutonic tribes were large men of heavy build they
naturally would be much more likely to feel the need of assistance
when mounting than would men of small stature, light and agile, who
must have been able to vault on to their horses without difficulty.
The English term “stirrup” probably is a contraction of the early
English “stige-rap,” a word that comes from “stigan,” to mount, and
“rap,” rope—in short, a mounting-rope. In the eighth century A.D. the
Angles were using saddle horses in large numbers, according to the
Venerable Bede, some of whose writings, however, are said not to bear
the impress of strict veracity. Yet it is probable that he speaks
of what he knew when he tells us that about the year 631 A.D. “the
English first began to saddle horses,” while many of the horsemen who
opposed the incursion of the hordes of Romans are known beyond dispute
to have been mounted on saddled horses.
Mention of the mare, Alborak, called also Borak, must be made—though
only a mythical animal—as she was said to have carried Mahomet from
earth into the seventh heaven. “She was milk-white,” we are told,
like Fadda, the mule, with “the wings of an eagle and a human face
with a horse's cheeks,” while “every pace she took was equal to the
farthest range of human sight.” In Arabic the word means literally
“the lightning.”
Procopius, who wrote in the sixth century A.D., is looked upon
generally as a dependable authority, and probably upon most occasions
he wrote the truth. Yet he would seem to have made one or two rather
grave misstatements when speaking of the horse in its relation to the
history of his time.
In an interesting way he describes certain stirring scenes in the war
between the Angli who had settled in Britain and the Varni—the Werini
of the “Leges Barbarorum”—whose region lay chiefly east of the Rhine.
The direct cause of this war was the positive refusal of the king of
the Varni to marry an Anglian princess to whom he had been affianced
for a considerable time.
“These islanders,” wrote Procopius, referring to the Angli, “are the
most valiant of all the barbarians with whom we are acquainted, and
they fight on foot. For not only do they not know how to ride, but
it is their lot not even to know what a horse is like, since in this
island they do not see a horse, even in a picture, for this animal
seems never to have existed in Britain. But if at any time it should
happen that some of them, either on an embassy, or for some other
reason, should be living with Romans or Franks, or with anyone else
that hath horses, and it should there be necessary for them to ride on
horseback, they are unable to mount, but other men have to help them
up and set them on their horses' backs; and again, when they wish to
dismount, they have to be lifted, and set down on the ground. Neither
are the Varni horsemen, but they too are all infantry. Such then are
these barbarians.”
Clearly he misstated facts in this instance, for it is beyond dispute
that horses were known in Britain at the time to which he refers. For
the rest the description may be considered more or less accurate.
It is interesting to note in this connection that whereas in the tombs
of the Anglo-Saxons the shield and the weapons of the buried warrior
are usually discovered, bits and harness are found in these tombs in
rare instances only. On the other hand in the Scandinavian barrows
in Scotland the bones of men and horses mixed have been discovered
frequently.
* * * * *
Perhaps the first historical allusion to horse racing, as we
understand it now, and to “running” horses, as race horses continued
to be called for many centuries afterwards, is the one that occurs in
the ninth century A.D., when Hugh, the founder of the royal house of
Capet, in France, made a present of running horses to King Athelstan
in the hope that in return the king might allow him to wed his sister,
Ethelswitha.
Hengist and Horsa are said by some historians to have displayed
interest in horse racing, but the statement is not based upon
indisputable evidence, any more than the assertion that because
Hengist and Horsa are alleged by one historian at least to have given
the order that forms of horses should be cut upon the chalk hills of
Berkshire therefore all the Saxon banners must have borne as a device
a white horse.
The white horse at Wantage other historians declare to have been cut
in commemoration of Alfred's great victory over the Danes at the
battle of Æscendun or Ashtreehill, during the reign of his brother,
Ethelred I. Its length is 374 feet, and even at a distance of nearly
fifteen miles it is distinctly visible in clear weather. This recalls
to mind the device of the House of Hanover—a white horse galloping;
and of the House of Savoy—a white horse rampant.
Mention must here be made of the immortal Roland and his equally
famous horse, Veillantiff, though owing to the pair have figured so
largely in romance the actual truth about them can be traced only with
difficulty.
We may take it for granted, however, that Roland was the son of Milo,
Duke of Aiglant; that he was Count of Mans and Knight of Blaives;
and that his mother was Bertha, the sister of Charlemagne. Orlando
is the name by which he is known in Italian romance; Vegliantino the
name of his horse; and he figures prominently in Theroulde's “Chanson
de Roland,” in the romance, “Chroniq de Turpin,” and of course in
Ariosto's epic of Mad Roland and Boiardo's “Orlando in Love.” He was
said to be eight feet tall and to have “an open countenance which
invited confidence and inspired respect,” also to have been “brave,
loyal and simple-minded.”
The story of his slaying at Fronsac, in single combat, the Saracen
tyrant and giant, Angoulaffre, as described in “Croquemitaine,”
naturally is fiction. He desired, it was said, by way of reward to
marry Aude, the fair daughter of Sir Gerard and Lady Guibourg, but
Roland was slain at Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees during the return
march from Saragossa, while in command of the rear-guard, being caught
“together with the flower of the French chivalry” in an ambuscade and
massacred to a man. Aude is said to have died of grief upon hearing
the news.
Roland's horse, Veillantiff, must have been an incomparable charger
and more intelligent than even his master, for it is related that
whenever Roland was hard pressed Veillantiff obtained knowledge of the
fact in some mysterious way and at once carried Roland out of danger
so far as he was able.
Equally intelligent in this respect was the charger named Orelia,
owned by Roderick, the last of the Goths. According to Southey this
horse too was renowned for its shape and speed. Indeed Southey based
the story of his famous epic upon the historical record of the defeat
of Roderick in 711 A.D., at the battle of Guadalete, near Xeres de la
Frontera. Roderick, the thirty-fourth and last of the old Visigothic
kings, himself attributed his victories in a great measure to the
courage of his horses, and apparently he was proud of all his horses
for we read that he “bitterly bemoaned the death of any one of them.”
Another remarkable and famous steed was Trebizond, the grey charger
of Admiral Guarinos, one of the French knights taken prisoner at
Roncesvalles.
Alfana, the clever mare mentioned in Ariosto's “Orlando Furioso” as
belonging to Gradasso, King of Sericana, whom Ariosto describes as
“the bravest of the Pagan knights,” has many legends attached to it.
Thus upon occasions Gradasso who, though famous as a knight, was an
unconscionable bully, would treat Alfana with grotesque kindness, at
other times beating it unmercifully; and when, with 100,000 vassals in
his train, “all discrowned kings”(!) who never addressed him except
upon their knees, he went to war against Charlemagne, the mare,
Alfana, played a prominent part.
* * * * *
Though in these pages but few allusions have been made to the horses
of mythology, modern interest in mythological history being at a very
low ebb, the mysterious eight-legged grey steed of Odin, chief god
of Scandinavia, must not be passed unnoticed. His name was Sleipnir,
and inasmuch as he could travel over earth and ocean he was deemed
to be typical of the wind that blows over land and water from eight
principal and far-distant points.
According to Beowulf—composed probably in the eighth century—the
Scandinavians set great value upon their steeds, especially upon
their dun-coloured horses, their apple-dun horses and their white
horses. Therefore it seems almost odd that the early Norse settlers in
Iceland should have indulged as largely as they undoubtedly did in the
brutal “sport” of horse fighting, a form of amusement that to this day
is in vogue in parts of Siam.
The saga of Burnt Njal, with its scene laid in the tenth century,
refers repeatedly to incidents in which the horse plays a chief part.
The description of the mighty encounter between the horse of Starkad
and the horse of Gunnar of Lithend is peculiarly disagreeable, but as
it gives us probably a very accurate idea of the way in which these
horse battles were arranged and carried out, it is worth quoting
almost in full.
Starkad, we are told, had “a good horse of chestnut hue, and it was
thought that no horse was his match in fight.” The horse that Gunnar
of Lithend decided to pit against it was a brown. It is practically
upon the result of this fight that the famous tragedy turns.
“And now men ride to the horse fight,” we read, “and a very great
crowd was gathered together. Gunnar and his friends were there, and
Starkad and his sons.... Gunnar was in a red kirtle, and had about
his loins a broad belt, and a riding rod in his hand. Then the horses
ran at one another, and bit each other long, so that there was no
need for anyone to touch them, and that was the greatest sport! Then
Thorgeir and Kol made up their minds that they would push their horse
forward just as the horses rushed together, and see if Gunnar would
fall before him.
“Now the horses ran at one another again, and both Thorgeir and Kol
ran alongside their horse's flank. Gunnar pushed his horse against
them, and what happened in a trice was this, that Thorgeir and his
brother fell flat down on their backs, and their horse atop of them!”
Soon after this the horse battle developed into a serious encounter
between the partisans of the respective animals, with the result that
Gunnar's horse had an eye gouged out by Thorgeir. In the library at
Reykjavik a very interesting picture representing a horse battle of
this kind is still to be seen.
* * * * *
We have now seen how, from the very earliest time until the eve of
the Norman Conquest, the horse played a prominent part in the world's
history. More than any other animal it had helped, either directly or
indirectly, to bring about great victories, to develop and strengthen
the courage of nations, to mould the character of men, and to add in
several ways to life's pleasure.
That the horse should have been almost worshipped by the very
tribes who offered up living horses as sacrifices to their gods has
been pronounced paradoxical by some writers; yet there was nothing
inconsistent about this, for in all times when sacrifices have been
common those offering sacrifice have given what they most cherished or
esteemed.
What is remarkable is the fact that, of all animals known to have
existed in the different countries and in the different regions of
those countries to which reference has been made, the horse stands
alone as man's direct assistant, one might say ally; and, in addition,
the horse is the one animal with a history traceable through the early
centuries, owing to the almost unbroken line of references made to it
in the story of the human race and progress towards civilisation.
How far advanced the world would have been at the time of the
Conqueror's landing, how far advanced it would be to-day, had the
horse not played so prominent a part in its development, none can say.
There can be no doubt, however, but that the human race would have
advanced far more slowly had the employment of horses been withheld.
Of mythical horses that have “existed,” the name is legion. To deal
at length with these strange creatures would need a volume half as
large as this is. I have mentioned that few save scholars to-day take
interest in mythology, so I shall refer only to some half-a-dozen of
the many horses of fable and of mythology whose names are household
words.
Pegasus, the winged horse of Apollo and the Muses, is perhaps the best
known by repute. The name of course is Greek, and means, more or less,
“one born near the ocean,” and according to the famous fable Perseus
rode Pegasus when rescuing Andromeda.
Frequently in history we find a ship alluded to as “Perseus' flying
horse.” Thus in the story of the destruction of Troy, “Perseus
conquered the head of Medusa, and did make Pegase, the most swift
ship, which he always calls Perseus' flying horse,” while Shakespeare
in _Troilus and Cressida_ speaks of “The strong-ribbed bark through
liquid mountains cut ... like Perseus' horse.”
How Perseus beheaded Medusa, chief of the Gorgons, and how everyone
who afterwards looked at the head with its hair turned into snakes by
the jealous goddess Minerva was then and there transformed into stone
is too well known to need repetition at length here.
Selene, the moon goddess, usually represented in a chariot drawn by
fiery white horses—to some extent this is inconsistent, seeing that
from time almost immemorial white horses have notoriously been the
least fiery of any—must be mentioned, for the famous cast or model
of Selene's horse shown in the British Museum indicates clearly
the stamp of animal that was most highly prized about that period.
According to Greek mythology, Selene was in love with the setting sun,
Endymion, and bore him fifty daughters in addition to those she bore
the god Zeus.
Achilles' remarkable steed, Xanthos, was, we are told, “human to all
intents.” When “severely spoken to” by its master because on the
battlefield it had deserted Patroclos, the horse first “looked about
him sadly,” and then, according to the “Iliad,” it told Achilles with
a reproachful expression in its eyes that he too would soon be dead,
for that this was “the inexorable decree of destiny”—a prophecy that
came true.
Achilles owned also the wonderful horse, Balios, which first of all
Neptune had given to Peleus. The sire of Balios, like the sire of
Xanthos, was the West Wind, its dam the harpy, Swift Foot.
According to Virgil the famous horse of Greek mythology, Cyllaros,
belonged to Pollux, and was named after Cylla, in Troas. Ovid, however
affirms that it belonged to Castor, for in his “Metamorphose” he
says, when speaking of Cyllaros, that “He, O Castor, was a courser
worthy thee ... coal-black his colour, but like jet it shone: His legs
and flowing tail were white alone.” Then, Adrastos was saved at the
siege of Thebes by a horse famous for its speed and given to him by
Hercules. Its name was Arion, and Neptune was said to have caused
it to rise out of the earth, using his trident as a magic wand. The
name is Greek for “martial,” hence the signification, “war horse,”
given to it in this instance. We read that “its right feet were those
of a human creature,” “it spoke with a human voice,” and “ran with
incredible swiftness.”
Perhaps one of the most notorious horses of Persian mythology is
Reksh, a steed that belonged to Rustam, the Persian Hercules, son of
Zal, and Prince of Sedjistan. Rustam became famous chiefly on account
of his great battle with the white dragon, Asdeev. The description
of Rustam's deadly encounter with his son, Sohrab—it ended in the
latter's death—is described in Matthew Arnold's poem, “Sohrab and
Rustam” in very fine language.
* * * * *
But even these few references to horses of mythology may be pronounced
dull reading in this prosaic age, so for the present I will leave the
subject and come down to earth once more. It is interesting to learn
that the Arab race, apparently from the time when it first began to
breed horses, was wont to trace the pedigrees of its horses through
the dams and not through the sires, in the same way that in ancient
days this people traced its own lineage. The reason the Arabs did so
remains to this day a moot point, though it would seem almost certain
that in common with the Veneti they believed the selection of the dam
to be of more vital importance than the selection of the stallion in
order to secure good stock.
Indeed even now there are races who hold this view, and to confirm
their opinion they quote Aristotle, who also maintained that pedigrees
ought by rights to be traced through the female line. Nor are they at
all peculiar, for some of the foremost among modern breeders of horses
hold that in almost every case the qualities of the dam descend more
directly than do those of the sire.
We have now come to what may be termed the second period of the horse
in history—the period that begins with William the Conqueror's reign
and ends with the Stuart Period. From very early centuries down to the
coming of Christ, and from the coming of Christ down to the Norman
invasion, all the records bearing directly upon the horse in its
relation to the world's progress are necessarily open to criticism,
for almost all historical records of that period have to be accepted
with some reserve.
It may be said, indeed, that no two historians prior to the Conquest
can be found who agree in detail one with the other, while some there
are whose statements are almost diametrically opposed. In compiling
these pages, therefore, I have tried to use discretion.
* * * * *
Apparently an impression is prevalent amongst historians that the
horses of the centuries before the Conquest, and therefore presumably
also the horses of the period that preceded the birth of Christ, lived
longer than those of later times.
What can have given rise to this idea it is hard to say, and that
the belief most likely is fallacious we are led to infer from the
statements of those early writers who state definitely the ages at
which their favourite chargers died.
Yet at least two of our modern historians assert that the horses of
the early Greeks and Romans lived to the age of thirty-five or more,
upon an average.
That such misstatement should continue to be handed down is very
regrettable; while equally to be deprecated is the habit common more
especially among the younger school of French historians of applying
the principles of the higher criticism in cases where such criticism
_ipso facto_ cannot hold good, the result being that conclusions are
arrived at which in many instances are wholly false.
To take a single case in point—rather a well-known Continental
antiquary mentions in his historical essays that during the period
approximately between the coming of Christ and the reign of William
the Conqueror horses practically the world over “went out of use more
and more.”
By “the world over” he means, of course, as much of the world as was
known in those days, but the statement is none the less incorrect,
and it seems clear that he must have come to this false conclusion
through inferring that because in certain regions the designs upon the
ancient monuments, and in some instances the figures upon the coinage,
represent a horse, or horses and chariots, the monuments and coins of
a later date show only an unmounted warrior.
The true reason of this, however, probably is that the later monuments
were erected, and the later coins struck, at a period when neither
famous battles were being fought nor great contests of skill decided.
Students of history well know, indeed, that the monarchs as well
as the great chiefs and leaders in the early centuries before the
Conquest, and to some extent in the centuries after it, almost
invariably commemorated upon their monuments, coins and parchments
such events as happened to be of importance at the moment, or, as we
should say to-day, of passing interest only.
Indeed, as I have endeavoured to show, one of the most noticeable
features about the horse in its relation to history is the manner in
which it gradually influenced the development of the various nations.
The early Libyan horses were famous for what must be described
as their gentleness and their intelligence, characteristics which
apparently marked some of the Libyan races.
The horses of Europe, on the other hand, were vicious in various ways,
and less tractable, but also they were less timid than the Libyan
horses.
It is curious to read, then, that the European races that owned these
horses had several characteristics in common. In addition it is well
known that in the _mêlée_ of a battle the horses of the contending
armies quite commonly bit savagely one at another, and some of the
early writers whose utterances can be relied upon maintain that even
in the thick of the fight such horses but rarely bit or savaged horses
other than the enemy's, and the enemy themselves.
Another point worth noting is that though often in the early ages
horses were immolated, yet deliberate cruelty to a horse upon other
occasions was almost universally condemned by law. No precautions,
however, were taken for the prevention of cruelty to any other sort of
animal.
This is, in itself, significant, for it can hardly be supposed that
unnecessary cruelty to horses was condemned from the standpoint of the
humanitarian. Probably it was the horse's usefulness to mankind that
served to guard him against ill-usage, and, as we shall see presently,
it was this same usefulness that protected him from ill-treatment in
centuries long after the Conquest.
Indeed there are parts of the world where to this day horses are well
treated because to ill-use them is deemed unwise policy. Thus in no
part of the Western States of America have I ever seen a horse flogged
unmercifully, and upon several occasions when attention has been drawn
to this the reply has been practically the same: “If we served them
badly we should get less work out of them,” an observation that some
Englishmen, plenty of Frenchmen, and very many Italians, who have to
do with horses, might with advantage bear in mind.
* * * * *
The physical strength of horses in the very early centuries must have
been prodigious. If the details we have of the way in which the early
war chariots were constructed are accurate, then at least three of our
twentieth-century horses would be needed to accomplish the work, one
might almost say perform the feats, that a pair of horses could do
twelve or thirteen centuries ago.
Even as late in the world's history as the period of Julius Cæsar the
staying power of some of the war horses in Britain was amazing. Men
who have been in action in our own times will tell you that a wounded
horse gives in at once, that he seems to have no heart. Yet in Julius
Cæsar's time, and in earlier epochs, an arrow or a javelin wound, if
not too severe, apparently had the effect of setting a war horse upon
his mettle rather than of causing him to give in.
Can the horse's temperament, then, have changed within the last ten
centuries? Is he a less courageous animal than he was? Is he more
highly strung, less intelligent, less strong physically, and of a
weaker constitution? Such problems have to do with the history of
the horse rather than with the horse in history, and, so far as I am
aware, they have not as yet been solved.
PART II
FROM THE CONQUEST TO THE STUART PERIOD
CHAPTER I
The Conqueror's cavalry—Horse fairs and races at Smithfield—King
John's foolish fad—The Persians and their horses—Relics of Irish
art; what they indicate—Simon de Montfort the first master of
foxhounds—The king's right to commandeer horses—Sir Eustace de
Hecche; Battle of Falkirk—Marco Polo and white horses; curious
superstitions—Edward III. and Richard II. encourage horse
breeding—Battle of Crecy
The beginning of William the Conqueror's reign marks a turning-point
in the story of the horse's influence upon the British nation, also,
incidentally, in the general development of the horse.
Roger de Bellesne, Earl of Shrewsbury, who is said to have been an
accomplished horseman—as fine horsemanship was understood in those
days—obtained leave of the king to import from Spain a number of
stallions of great value.
These stallions, indeed, were said at the time to be “the best
procurable in Spain,” and we are told that when King William beheld
them he displayed great delight, at the same time “expressing his
approval in a very forcible way.”
The king himself apparently was not a finished horseman; yet he had
a strong liking for horses, possibly in the same way that “he loved
the great deer of the forests as though he had been their father”(!)
Most likely he was too heavily built a man to make a graceful rider,
though it is said that upon the arrival of Lord Shrewsbury's stallions
he went on horseback to inspect them, and, as we know, towards the end
of the sixteenth or the beginning of the seventeenth century the poet
Drayton praised very highly the progeny of these same horses.
Naturally this importation of valuable stallions greatly improved the
breed of horses in Britain, and from the time of the Conquest onward
the improvement was distinctly noticeable.
* * * * *
Though some historians tell us that the Anglo-Saxons rode on
horseback, others maintain that they did not ride. There can be no
doubt, however, that they did not fight on horseback. The well-known
scene on Bayeux tapestry that represents the battle of Hastings shows
us Harold fighting on foot when the arrow strikes him in the eye.
A comparatively modern historian has tried to disprove the popular
story of the Normans shooting their shafts high into the air so
that in their descent these shafts might pierce the heads of the
enemy, but the old narrative is still believed by the great body of
modern students.
King William's warriors were, of course, almost all mounted—of that
there cannot be a doubt. Had they not been the Saxons would most
likely have won the day, even though the enemy was clad in mail. Also
it should be remembered that the cavalry brought over by King William
was practically of the stamp that some three centuries earlier had
resisted very firmly the Moslem attack at Poictiers. The chargers
were of the same stock, and therefore it may with truth be said that
the famous Norman Conquest and the great and important events that
followed it in the history of this country were directly due to the
simple fact that the Normans possessed war horses and knew thoroughly
how to manage them.
Of precisely what stamp the Normans' chargers were that were imported
at this time cannot be said for certain. Without doubt, however, they
were tall and heavily built animals, for the armed men they had to
carry were all of very great weight.
For ten, or possibly twelve centuries a breed of great horses had been
multiplying largely in the northern and western regions of Europe, so
the inference is that the cavalry of the Normans must have been of
that breed.
Also the saddles they are represented as wearing were extremely
massive and presumably of great weight. Those shown on the Bayeux
tapestry have a deep curve which must have made them difficult to
fall out of, and we are told by Giraldus that saddles almost exactly
similar, and provided with stirrups, were in use in Ireland a century
or so later. The riders at that time wore high boots, prick spurs, and
hauberk.
[Illustration: BAYEUX TAPESTRY SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT THE BATTLE OF
HASTINGS. 1066]
* * * * *
A monk of Canterbury, William Stephanides, writing early in the
reign of Henry II., alludes to various kinds of horses used in Great
Britain, and among these there undoubtedly were some of the stamp that
the Normans imported.
“Without one of the London city gates,” he tells us, “is a certain
smooth field”—no doubt the site known to-day as Smithfield—“and every
Friday there is a brave sight of gallant horses to be sold. Many
come from the city to buy or look on—to wit, earls, barons, knights
and citizens. There are to be found here managed or war horses
(_dextrarii_), of elegant shape, full of fire and giving every proof
of a generous and noble temper; likewise cart horses, horses fitted
for the dray, or the plough, or the chariot.”
From other sources we are able to gather that at this time there must
have been many war horses in England, and that they were for the most
part animals of great size and strength. Consequently the cavalry of
the period were extremely unwieldy. On the other hand we know that
the rest of the horses distributed throughout the country were but
little bigger than cobs, and we read that though attempts were made
to mount men-at-arms on some of them all such attempts had soon to be
abandoned, the horses being “oppressed by the weight of the armour and
the heavy accoutrements.”
Probably this was the reason such strenuous efforts were presently
made by the various reigning monarchs, and by the parliaments that
were in power between the reign of Henry II. and the reign of
Elizabeth, to breed bigger and heavier horses, “great horses” as they
came to be called, and are often termed still.
Some of the Latin records of the Mediæval age contain interesting
allusions to these great horses, _dextrarii_ and _magni equi_ they
were called. The horses of this stamp do not appear to have been very
intelligent animals, but their physical strength was colossal, and
in selecting them particular attention was paid to their power of
endurance, or, as we call it to-day, their staying power.
Apparently Henry II. and Richard I. were partial to chestnut and dark
brown stallions, but King John, and later Queen Elizabeth, preferred
black. Indeed we are told that in the beginning of his reign King
John vowed he would have his courtiers ride none but black horses,
and that the sums he had to pay to enable him to gratify so foolish
a fad—it may have been mere vanity—were quoted among the acts of
extravagance that later incensed his barons and led ultimately to
their making him sign Magna Charta.
As the size and strength of the war horses grew greater in all
countries, so did the weight and strength of the armour steadily
increase. Towards the end of the twelfth century the Norman hauberk
that for many years had proved effective, and that even the most
far-seeing of the warriors firmly believed could not be improved upon,
began to make way for the heavy chain mail—the most picturesque armour
ever adopted by any nation—which, when first introduced, was said to
render the warrior almost invulnerable.
But as time went on, and the strength of both men and horses further
increased, and the weapons of war became more deadly still, the
armour again underwent a change, so that about the beginning of the
fourteenth century we find the “perfect armour,” as it had come to be
called, being in its turn discarded in favour of the hideous plate
armour that less than a hundred years afterwards was adopted by
practically every “civilised” nation in Europe.
A monk of Canterbury, by name FitzStephen, who in the reign of
Henry II. was secretary to the famous Archbishop à Becket, refers
incidentally to some rather primitive horse races which took place
at Smithfield towards the end of the twelfth century, and in doing
so he quaintly tells us that “the jockeys, inspired with thoughts
of applause, and in the hope of victory, clap spurs to the willing
horses, brandish their whips, and cheer them with their cries!”
Reference is made to these races in several other of the early
documents, and though they are among the first horse races of which
descriptions have been handed down to us, it seems clear that they
attracted a great concourse of spectators and gave rise to much
reckless wagering. That the animals entered were all practically
untrained is made apparent.
King Richard I. is said to have been a good judge of a horse and to
have owned a number of swift-running steeds. Upon one or two occasions
he endeavoured to establish horse racing as a national pastime, but
the country was not yet ripe for it, and his attempts met with but
scant encouragement.
It is said that his courtiers strove to serve their royal master by
having recourse to threats in those districts where the introduction
of horse racing was opposed, but all to no purpose.
King John, upon ascending the throne, devoted much time to hunting
and similar sports, and valued good horses so greatly that in some
instances he insisted that the fines he was so fond of extorting
should be paid in horses instead of in money.
Then, following in the footsteps of William the Conqueror, he imported
a number of stallions, among them many of the Eastern breed, and on
the pastures in Kent where the town of Eltham and the village of
Mottingham now stand he established the famous stud from which so many
of the horses owned in after years by Queen Elizabeth were directly
descended.
Worthy of mention here is the coincidence that the early days of some
of the most celebrated thoroughbreds of recent times were spent in
the very paddocks where King John's foals and imported horses were
disporting themselves some seven centuries earlier.
On the subject of the great horses of the Middle Ages it is
interesting to read that while British rulers were striving to
breed animals which would be both bigger and stronger than their
predecessors, the Persians in their country were endeavouring to breed
and rear horses on lines precisely similar, and with the same objects
in view.
How successful the attempts of the latter proved may be gathered from
the fact that, in the centuries that followed, the Persian horses
became renowned the world over for their immense strength, though the
animals of this particular breed never became famous for their speed.
Indeed the chief victories won by the Persians in their terrific
encounters with the Turks in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
were due in a great measure to the superior size and strength of the
Persian war horses, though, of course, the fact that the Turks had
only their shields with which to protect themselves must have helped
the Persians materially.
Perhaps some of the most interesting and accurate representations of
the horses of about this period are those to be found in parts of
Ireland among the remains of Irish art. These remains, rather let us
call them relics, are almost matchless, and they represent horses
driven in chariots, and some mounted by riders.
Thus three horsemen in addition to two chariots with horses harnessed
are to be seen on the two panels of the plinth of the historic North
Cross at Clonmacnoise in King's County. The wheels of these chariots
have eight spokes, and the relic is believed by the foremost of our
antiquaries to date back to the tenth century.
A panel almost similar, dating back approximately to the same period,
is to be seen on an upright cross in a street in the town of Kells, in
County Meath, and on this cross not only are horsemen shown, but in
addition a hunting scene is clearly depicted.
Relics such as these help to demonstrate that the interest taken in
horses by the people of Great Britain, just before and just after
the Conquest, was shared by the natives of Ireland, though not until
several centuries had elapsed did the Irish show signs of becoming the
thoroughly horse-loving nation that they are to-day.
It is true that from a very early period they were fond of most kinds
of outdoor pursuits that need daring in addition to the exercise of
skill upon the part of those anxious to become proficient at them.
Also it is true that the horse has from first to last had much to do
with the moulding of the Irish character.
The horse's immediate bearing upon the history and progress of
Ireland begins, however, at a later date, and in the same manner the
importation of great horses, and the establishment of what must have
been the precursors of our modern stud farms, occur later in Ireland's
history than in England's.
* * * * *
With the accession of Henry III. we find upon the throne a king
keenly interested in all that had to do with horses, and devoted to
the chase as well as to “stirring contests between competing horses.”
For authentic particulars of the contests in which these “competing
horses” took part we may search the ancient records almost in vain.
Apparently the few race meetings organised were, to say the best we
can of them, not of great importance, not excepting those in which the
king and his nobles were directly interested. To afford opportunities
for wagering was, so far as one can gather, their principal _raison
d'être_, and such rules of racing as did exist most likely were almost
wholly disregarded.
In this respect the king would seem not to have been much more
particular than his subjects, though, as already said, information
obtainable upon the subject is of the scantiest, and is at best
unreliable.
* * * * *
In the history of Henry III.'s reign there occurs what we may take
to be the first direct reference to “a village named Newmarket,” in
Cambridgeshire. As I have already pointed out, the tribe that dwelt
on Newmarket Heath in very early times and was known as the Iceni
apparently was interested in horses and to some extent bred horses,
so it is not astonishing to learn that in the thirteenth century the
people then living in Newmarket and the neighbourhood still carried on
the traditions of the Iceni, even to boasting openly that steeds bred
upon the Heath could not be rivalled for speed “the world over.”
This, most likely, was an empty boast, for what could a small
community, that presumably travelled but rarely, know at first hand of
horses bred even in far distant parts of England?
It is true that Simon de Montfort had a high opinion of the horses
bred at Newmarket, for he tells us so in a letter written a few years
before his death—he was killed at Evesham in 1265. Presumably he
rode in the hunting field some of his horses that had been reared at
Newmarket, for he was as keen about hunting as about soldiering.
Historians have described him as “the great patriotic baron of his
period,” a description that is accurate if we are to judge from his
acts. I believe I am right in saying that Simon de Montfort was the
first master of foxhounds of whom mention is made in British history,
but upon this point I am open to correction. Certainly he is the first
of whose life we have authentic details. On his great seal attached
to a deed dated 1259, and now in Paris among the royal archives, he
is shown galloping beside his hounds, urging them on, and blowing
his horn. He is said to have hunted largely in Leicestershire and
Warwickshire, and as he lived in the thirteenth century the seal
referred to forms most likely the first picture we have of a _bonâ
fide_ run with foxhounds.
In Blount's “Ancient Tenures,” a volume that is extremely interesting
and in some respects amusing, we are told that “In the reign of
King Edward I. Walter Marescullus paid at the crucem lapideam six
horseshoes with nails for a certain building which he held of the king
_in capite_ opposite the stone cross.”
This recalls to mind that in the reign of Henry III., and even later,
horseshoes and horseshoe nails were frequently taken in lieu of rent.
Whether or no horseshoes were of exceptional value does not appear,
but we are led to suppose that they must have been from the fact that
in 1251 a farrier named Walter le Brun, who lived in the Strand, in
London, was granted a plot of land in the parish of St Clements “to
place there a forge, six horseshoes to be paid to the parish every
year for the privilege.”
In after years the same plot was granted to the Mayor and citizens of
London, who, it is said, still render six horseshoes to the Exchequer
annually.
According to the Statutes, 25, Edward I., c. 21; and 36, Edward III.
cc. 4, 5, the king could commandeer from his subjects as many horses
as he might need for his own service. By the nobles and barons this
was deemed a harsh measure, and frequently they rebelled against it.
Some of the more spirited even refused to acknowledge its validity,
with the result that a number were slain whilst attempting to retain
their horses by force; others were imprisoned; and a few were put to
death as rebels. Indeed at this period the theft of a horse ranked
second only to murder, and was punished as severely.
* * * * *
A horse upon whose history several more or less romantic stories and
poems have been based was the bay charger owned by King Edward I. that
Sir Eustace de Hecche rode in the battle of Falkirk in 1298. It had a
white stocking on its near hind leg, and according to one story its
sire and grandsire had each a white stocking almost exactly similar.
Some say that this charger—it had several names, apparently—was
killed in the battle, for it is known beyond dispute that many of the
chargers owned by knights, barons, valets and esquires were slain in
that great conflict.
Other reports, however, have it that Sir Eustace's mount came through
the fight without a scratch. Sir Eustace was singularly attached to
this particular horse and is said to have refused offers of large sums
if he would sell it. He is also accredited with the remark that in
courage and intelligence his bay charger eclipsed all other war horses
he had ever owned.
Much of interest to do with horses has been narrated by a
distinguished writer who flourished towards the end of the thirteenth
and in the beginning of the fourteenth centuries—namely, Marco Polo.
His remarks about the superstitions that were prevalent in his time
are exceptionally instructive.
Writing of the city of Chandu which was founded by Kublai and that
gave the name to the river known now as Shangtu, Polo tells us to
remember that the Kaan owned an immense stud of white horses and
mares, some 10,000 in all, “and not one with a speck or blemish
visible.” The milk of these mares was reserved for the Kaan and his
family, “and they drank a great deal of it,” the rest being given to
some of the more distant relatives of the tribe.
Upon occasions, however, a tribe named Horiad was allowed to drink of
the milk of the mares, “the privilege being granted them,” as Polo
says, “by Chinghas Kaan on account of a certain victory they long ago
helped him to win.”
Elsewhere Polo describes what may be termed the etiquette it was
essential the traveller should observe who chanced to come upon the
herd of white mares when they were travelling.
“Be he the greatest lord in the land,” he tells us, “he must not
presume to pass until the mares have gone by, but must either tarry
where he is, or go half-a-day's journey round, if need so be, so as
not to come nigh them, for they are to be treated with the greatest
respect.”
Non-observance of this unwritten law brought grief in its train, the
punishments inflicted being as varied as they were horrible.
Furthermore, every year, on the 28th of August, “the lord set out from
the park,” upon which occasion none of the mares' milk was drunk.
Instead it was collected in large-mouthed vessels kept expressly for
the purpose and the occasion, and after that it was “sprinkled over a
vast stretch of ground and in many different directions.”
This was done “on the injunction of the Idolaters and Idol-priests,”
who steadfastly maintained that if the milk were thus sprinkled once a
year “the Earth and the Air and the Gods shall have their share of it,
and the Spirits likewise that inhabit the Air and the Earth.... And
thus those beings will protect and bless the Kaan and his children,
and his wives, and his folk, and his gear, and his cattle, and his
horses, and his corn, and all that is his; and after this done the
Emperor is off and away.”
It is strange, also significant, that in almost every age allusion has
been made to the respect habitually paid to white horses, especially
pure white horses. From Homer we know that in his period, or towards
the latter part of the eighth century B.C., the Thracians, the
Illyrians and the people of Upper Europe spoke of white horses as
though they almost worshipped them as gods.
In those early times it was deemed criminal intentionally to wound a
white horse, while to kill one even by accident was thought to be but
little less blameworthy—save, of course, upon occasions when a white
horse was to be sacrificed to please the gods or to appease their
anger.
Some centuries later Herodotus virtually repeats what Homer has
already told us, and gives us to understand in addition that by that
time parts of Russia teemed with white horses, many of them of great
value.
Whether towards the end of the third and the beginning of the
second centuries B.C. the Russians treated even white horses with
ordinary humanity would appear doubtful, though we know that Russians
entertained superstitious and grotesque beliefs concerning horses that
were either white or cream-coloured.
Finally, some seven centuries later, Marco Polo comes with his
remarkable narratives of the Tartars' herds of white horses and their
strange beliefs concerning them. From other sources particulars may
be obtained of the barbarous practices these Tartars had recourse to
upon the occasions of their sacrificial ceremonies, particulars of too
revolting a nature to be given here.
And now again we find allusion to the Turf. Apparently Edward II.
disliked horse racing—such horse-racing as there was in his reign—and
all that appertained to it, for upon the feast of St George in the
year 1309 we find him interdicting “a tournament which was to be
held on Newmarket Heath”; an act that made him unpopular for the
moment, though when some years later he deliberately put a stop to
preparations in progress in connection with a similar tournament
nobody seemed much to mind.
That the people of England were none the less interested in horses
at about this time we may infer from the knowledge we have that John
Gyfford and William Twety had already issued their books upon horses
and hunting, books to be seen to this day among the manuscripts in the
Cottonian Collection, and that were, if one may express it so, widely
read when first written.
Strictly dissimilar were the views of Edward III. from those of his
predecessors where the subject of horses and the various forms of
sport in which the horse plays a prominent part were concerned. The
steps taken by Edward II. deliberately to foster general dislike of
certain branches of sport had not achieved the desired effect save
amongst his small circle of sycophants, and one of Edward III.'s first
acts upon succeeding him was to gather together a stud of the swiftest
running horses procurable.
This act it was that led the popular King of Navarre to select “two
swift-running horses of great beauty” from his stable and send them as
a present to Edward III.; a compliment which pleased Edward greatly
and that he quickly acknowledged.
In this reign, also in the reign of the succeeding monarch, Richard
II., Acts were passed which directly tended to encourage the breeding
and rearing of good horses. Indeed the sums spent by Edward III. in
connection with this must have been prodigious, for it is on record
that upon one occasion he purchased from the Count of Hainault alone
horses to the value of some 25,000 florins.
Many of the horses that he bought, however, came direct from the Low
Countries. Among the royal manors where he established large studs,
especially studs of war horses, were Woodstock, Waltham, Odiham, and
of course Windsor, a proportion of the expense of inaugurating and
supporting these stud farms being defrayed by the sheriffs, according
to royal command.
Yet, in spite of all this, the supply of horses obtainable was not
equal to the demand when the great war with France broke out. At the
battle of Crecy, in 1346, only a proportion of the army of Edward III.
and the Black Prince had horses, though we know that almost on the eve
of the campaign considerable sums were spent upon the purchase of
horses from the King of Gascony and from several large owners.
This seems stranger still when we remember that the English army at
Crecy was limited to some 36,000 men only, whereas King Philip's
forces numbered over 130,000.
Crecy, indeed, is one of the few historical battles in which the army
that was the best mounted did not win the day; but then all historians
admit that the bowmen the English brought into the field upon that
occasion were probably among the best disciplined and the most expert
that had ever before been seen in action.
On the other hand the horses of the opposing forces were not of the
best. Many had hardly been trained at all to arms, and many more had
been commandeered and hurried into the field almost at the eleventh
hour. Some historians hold that Philip's army would have fared better
had there been fewer men-at-arms in the fighting line, and it is
possible that upon this single occasion if the army had had fewer
horses it might have achieved success.
CHAPTER II
Richard II.'s horse, Roan Barbary—Thoroughbred English horses
characteristic of the nation—Chaucer; Cambuscan's wooden
horse—Don Quixote's Aligero Clavileno—Horse race between the
Prince of Wales and Lord Arundel—The Chevalier Bayard; his
horse, Carman—The Earl of Warwick's horse, Black Saladin—Joan of
Arc—King Richard's horse, White Surrey—Charles VIII. of France's
horse, Savoy—Dame Julyana Berners—Wolsey's horsemanship—Queen
Elizabeth's stud
“When the Pale was troubled by an eruption of the O'Byrnes and
O'Moores in 1372”—Professor Ridgeway writes in his interesting and
instructive work, “The Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred
Horse”—“who burned the priory of Athy, John Colton, the first Master
of Gonville Hall (now Gonville and Caius College) and successively
Dean of St Patrick's, Chancellor of Ireland, and Archbishop of Armagh,
raised a force of twenty-six knights and a large body of men-at-arms
and fell upon the Irish and defeated them with great slaughter.”
Upon referring to the records of this incident, to be found in several
of our histories, it becomes evident that in the Pale at that time
there must have been many horses of the stamp that to-day we speak of
as the “great” horse.
The insurrection alluded to so lightly as “an eruption of the
O'Byrnes and O'Moores” in reality was a serious affair, due, we are
told, mainly to the almost total disregard of certain just demands
made by O'Byrne, O'Moore and their followers. The Irish were for the
most part badly mounted and poorly armed, many of their horses having
been seized surreptitiously a short time prior to the outbreak, but
they appear to have made a very gallant defence.
John Colton's men-at-arms were, however, nearly all of great weight
and heavily armed, so it is not surprising to read that they “made
short work of the Irish rebels.” Remarkable would it have been had
they not done so, for we must bear in mind that their suppressors were
of immeasurably superior strength.
* * * * *
A horse foaled some years after this, which lived to become famous
in British history, was King Richard II.'s barbary, often called
Roan Barbary. The king, we are told in rather extravagant language,
“loved Roan Barbary as an only son,” and certainly it is true that
he was exceptionally fond of this particular horse which poets,
dramatists and writers of romance at various periods have all united
in immortalising.
Richard's grief and rage at hearing that Bolingbroke had chosen Roan
Barbary, of all horses, upon which to ride to Westminster when he
went there to be crowned, has many times been described, Shakespeare
himself referring to the incident in _King Richard II_. in the
well-known line, “When Bolingbroke rode on Roan Barbary, that horse
that thou so often hast bestrid.” Roan Barbary was a tall horse, well
shaped and well schooled, but of uncertain temper. The king “could
do with the steed whate'er he wished,” but some of the grooms hardly
dared approach to groom it “lest he sideways kick them.”
It is interesting to note here that the history of early times, when
it touches upon horses—which it does frequently—alludes upon many
occasions to the partiality of particular horses for certain persons,
and to their equally marked dislike for certain other persons.
The inference naturally would be that these particular horses were
partial to the men who treated them humanely and disliked those who
ill-treated them. If the early historians are to be believed, however,
the horses' likes and dislikes for various persons were irrespective
of the way they had been treated by such persons.
Particularly does this appear to have been the case with Roan Barbary,
for we are assured that all who had charge of him, or to do with
him in any way, treated him invariably “with kindness and great
cordiality” (!) the king having issued strict orders that they should.
In the British Museum there may be seen to-day a French metrical
history of the deposition of Richard II. which informs us that the
king owned “many a good horse of foreign breed.”
* * * * *
Mr J. P. Hore, the well-known authority, is of opinion that “the
thoroughbred English horse was characteristic of the nation” in the
reign of Richard II., and adds that “horses were then recognised and
their praises sung.”
There is no doubt that between 1377 and 1399 the interest taken in
horses in this country by persons of almost every class developed
rapidly. The agricultural community in particular had by then begun
to turn its attention seriously to the rearing of a better stamp of
horse, and we know that Chaucer, who lived from 1328 to 1400, tells us
that his famous monk had “full many a daintie horse in stable.”
Chaucer's interesting references to the various sorts of horse in use
in the fourteenth century are numerous, and they serve to show that
persons of different rank rode horses of different stamp. Thus on that
fine April morning when the motley party of pilgrims set out from the
Bell at Southwark upon their hasty journey we find the Knight mounted
on a big and powerful horse—naturally a knight wearing armour needed
such a beast to carry him—whereas the steed ridden by “the Clerk of
Oxenford” was “as leane as any rake.”
The Wife of Bath, on the other hand, with her “great spurs,” sat
astride an “amblere”; the Ploughman rode “a mere”; the Shipman from
Dartmouth rode “a rouncy as he couth”; while the Reeve “sat upon a fit
good stot that was all pomely gray, and highte Scot.” In the “Knight's
Tale” we find the King of Ynde riding “a horse of baye.”
Apparently at this time greater attention was paid to the breeding and
rearing of horses for war than for hunting or for “speed competitions”
or any other purpose. Evidently King Richard had become more fully
aware of the possibilities that existed for the use of powerful
cavalry than any of his predecessors had done. Indeed he is said to
have expressed upon one occasion a strong wish that his army might one
day consist of cavalry only.
He believed, too, that the heavier the chargers were the more
formidable the regiment must be, and so wholly did this belief obsess
him that upon occasions he betrayed a tendency to overlook the fact
that the heaviest horses in the world, the most finely trained—in
short, the best—must necessarily prove comparatively useless unless
their riders, in addition to being brave and well armed, were
thoroughly trained horsemen and well disciplined.
Referring again to Chaucer, we find in the “Squire's Tale,” which he
did not finish, the well-known story of Cambuscan's wooden horse, and
we find this also in “The Arabian Nights”—that series of delightful
narratives said to have been first made known by Antoine Gallard, the
French Oriental scholar. The famous brazen horse of romance is the
same, for it was Cambuscan's, and Cambuscan was King of Sarra, in
Tartary. Cambuscan possessed, so it was said, all the virtues that are
popularly attributed to a king, yet withal none of a king's vices;
also he was said to be passionately devoted to his queen, Elfeta, who
bore him two sons, Algarsife and Cambalo, and one daughter, Canace.
We are further told that the King of Arabia and India presented
Cambuscan with “a steed of brass, which between sunrise and sunset
would carry its rider to any spot on earth.” To make the horse do this
all that was necessary was that its rider should whisper into its ear
the name of the place to which he wished to travel, and that he should
then mount the horse and turn a pin set in its ear.
This done, the “animal” would go direct and at great speed to the
place required, whereupon the rider turned another pin and descended.
By turning a third pin it was possible to make the horse vanish and
not reappear until its presence was again needed.
Aligero Clavileno was the full name of the winged horse with the
wooden pin, the horse which Don Quixote rode upon the memorable
occasion of his rescue of Dolorida and her companions.
But enough of fairy tales and nonsense. Coming to the subject of horse
races in early times we find it gravely stated that “the earliest
description of a horse race _per se_ occurs in 1377,” though we know
that race meetings of a sort were held long before that date. The
whereabouts of the track where the races in 1377 took place has not
been ascertained, but it is known that some of the horses which ran
belonged to Lord Arundel, and some to the Prince of Wales, so soon to
become Richard II.
At this meeting it was that a match was arranged to take place between
the Prince and Lord Arundel, each to ride his own animal. The match
was run, and as the name of the winner has not, so far as I have been
able to ascertain, been handed down to us, we may conclude that the
Prince's horse was beaten. Had the winner been ridden by a Prince of
Wales some record of the victory would assuredly be extant.
That Richard II. was a fine horseman, as finished horsemanship was
understood in those days, there can be but little doubt. Yet it is
remarkable that the natural gift known as “hands”—that is to say the
power some men have of controlling a horse by delicate manipulation
of the reins as opposed to brute force—apparently was not taken into
consideration in the early centuries, or else was not understood and
consequently not cultivated. To-day, of course, a man with bad “hands”
is not deemed a horseman, properly speaking.
Thus it comes that we find some of the early instructors in
horsemanship deliberately advising the novice to catch hold of the
reins tightly in order to keep his seat with greater ease! Some of the
early pictures, too, of men on horseback show the rider with his hands
firmly clenched, even when the horse is walking, the reins held quite
tight.
It has been argued that men sheathed from head to foot in the heavy
plate armour of the fifteenth century could not have ridden gracefully
even had they wished to do so. Long before armour of that pattern
had come into vogue, however, the riders apparently were indifferent
horsemen inasmuch as they had for the most part bad “hands,” if we are
to judge from early pictures and descriptions.
* * * * *
Many stories to do with horses have been woven round the celebrated
French knight, Pierre du Terrail, Chevalier Bayard, and it is known
that whatever the qualities, fictitious or otherwise, may have been
that his horses are alleged to have possessed, Bayard was a fine
rider, “the boldest horseman of his period” as one historian describes
him.
Of medium height, slim, and a light weight, he was “of wholly
irreproachable character”; hence the description which still clings to
his memory—_Le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche_.
Truly remarkable are some of the feats of horsemanship attributed to
him still. Thus it is said that he could ride any horse bareback and
without a bridle, and that he rode in this way several savage animals
which, when saddled and bridled, several famous horsemen were not able
even to mount. But such stories must, of course, be believed only in
part.
Probably the best horse owned by this knight was the one named Carman,
or Carmen, a gift of the Duke of Lorrain. Particulars about its make
and shape apparently are not on record, but Carman carried Bayard
through several severe engagements, though thrice severely wounded.
It is said that Bayard was able to guide this horse by word of mouth
alone, when he found it advisable to do so, and that upon some
occasions the steed “would neigh in reply as though joyful at hearing
its master's voice.”
Furthermore he could ride Carman over country no matter how rough, and
the horse would never slip or stumble. It may in addition have been a
clever fencer, for we read that the knight “rode with reckless daring
at many obstacles” when mounted on his favourite steed.
In at least one work of fiction the Chevalier Bayard has been rather
amusingly confounded with the mythological steed of the four sons
of Aymon that bore the name Bayard and that used so conveniently to
grow larger when more than one of the four sons wanted to mount it at
the same time. The name is said to signify the colour of bright bay,
and the legend still obtains that a hoof mark of this mythical horse
remains to this day in the forest of Soignes, while another of its
hoof marks may be seen on a rock near Dinant. It was of this horse
that Sir Walter Scott wrote in _The Lady of the Lake_ the following
lines:—
“Stand, Bayard, stand! The steed obeyed
With arching neck, and bended head,
And glaring eye and quivering ear,
As if he loved his lord to hear.”
The Earl of Warwick's coal-black charger, Black Saladin, is eulogised
in almost every history of the Wars of the Roses; yet, when all is
said, Black Saladin does not appear to have done anything sufficiently
remarkable to have justified his earning the immortal reputation that
he undoubtedly has obtained. A big, powerful animal, it must in
justice be said of him that he carried his master creditably through
several rather bloody encounters before man and horse were killed in
the great conflict at Barnet.
According to Hume's “History of England”—and probably no history
extant is more accurate in detail—Warwick, when he received the fatal
thrust, was fighting on foot.
No trustworthy description is obtainable of the horse that Joan of
Arc rode when she led the French army so successfully against the
previously victorious troops of Henry VI. Only one indisputable
statement relating to her leadership upon that famous occasion has
been handed down to us, and that is that she rode astride.
Pictures innumerable have been painted that depict her as she is
supposed to have appeared in the heat of the fray, and others that
show her to us as she ought to have looked when the engagement was
over. By basing our impressions solely upon such pictures we might
well conclude that the Pucelle went into action riding a white horse;
that in the thick of the fight she changed first on to a dun-coloured
mare and then on to a bright bay mare; and that when the engagement
was over she once more changed horses in order to ride back triumphant
on a stallion as black as Black Saladin himself!
According to Mr Douglas Murray, whose “History of Joan of Arc,”
published recently, is the most exhaustive and authoritative work we
have upon the career of that heroic young woman, Joan would appear to
have been quite a good horsewoman. “She rode horses so ill-tempered
that no one else would dare to mount them.” The Duke of Lorraine, also
the Duc d'Alençon, after seeing her skill in riding a course, each
gave her a horse; and we read also of the gift of a war horse from
the town of Orleans, and “many horses of value” sent from the Duke of
Brittany. She had entered Orleans on a white horse, according to the
_Journal du Siège d'Orleans_; but seems to have been in the habit of
riding black chargers in war; and mention is also made by Chatelain of
a “lyart” or grey.
A story, repeated in a letter from Guy de Laval, a grandson of
Bertrand du Guesclin, relates that on one occasion when her horse, “a
fine black war horse,” was brought to the door, he was so restive that
he would not stand still. “Take him to the Cross,” she said; and there
he stood, “as though he were tied,” while she mounted. This was at
Selles, in 1429.
Two famous horses of the fifteenth century were King Richard's White
Surrey, and Savoy, the favourite steed of King Charles VIII. of
France, which was coal-black and took its name from the Duke of Savoy
from whom King Charles had received it as a present.
The king rode White Surrey frequently when travelling in state. That
he had many other white steeds seems obvious, and evidently he was
extremely partial to horses of that colour, for we find him telling
his nobles to use their influence to induce the wealthier section of
his subjects to breed and rear horses “white and grey.”
Savoy, though what we should to-day term a “good plucked” horse, is
said to have been “of mean stature,” also it had a blind eye. Charles
VIII. nevertheless rode it in preference to any other horse in his
stud, and that his stud was a very large one we are told by some of
the earlier historians.
Not a graceful horseman, he nevertheless had a firm seat, and it is
interesting to read that he was extremely sensitive upon the subject
of his horsemanship. So emphatically was this the case that upon one
occasion he severely rebuked one of his courtiers who had remarked
unwittingly in his presence that men existed who were physically
incapable of becoming good riders. According to this king, indeed, one
of the duties of every gentleman was to become proficient in the art
of horsemanship.
At about this time—that is to say towards the close of the fifteenth
century—a book that has since been rightly or wrongly described as
“the first work on sport ever issued in England” was published. When
first it appeared it attracted much attention. Printed for Dame
Julyana Berners, who evidently had much practical knowledge of horses
and the way to manage them, it mentions incidentally that every good
horse ought to possess the following fifteen “properties”:—
“Of a man:—bolde, prowde, and hardy.
Of a woman:—fayrbrested, fayr of heere, and easy
to leape upon.
Of a fox:—a fayr taylle, short eeres, with a good
trotte.
Of a haare:—a grete eye, a dry hede, and well
runnynge.
Of an asse:—a bygge chyn, a flatte legge, and a
good hoof.”
From the above list we may conclude that in spite of the unwieldy
appearance of most of the horses shown in the early drawings there
must have been plenty of active animals in England long before the
second half of the sixteenth century. Most likely the large and clumsy
horses belonged practically to the class that to-day we speak of as
shire horses, and that the majority were employed for carrying men in
armour, historians being unanimous in declaring that by the middle of
the sixteenth century a man of medium height could not, when sheathed
in armour, have weighed together with the armour worn by his horse
less than some thirty stone, and that often he must have weighed more.
This no doubt is the reason we read so frequently that in the
sixteenth century considerable attention was paid to breeding and
rearing great horses of Flanders, Friesland, France and Germany.
* * * * *
The majority of our historians seem not to have realised fully that
in Thomas Wolsey, afterwards Cardinal Wolsey, we had probably one of
the finest horsemen of the period of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. The
extreme brilliancy of Wolsey's public career possibly may have caused
his lesser accomplishments to be eclipsed or over-looked, for that he
possessed minor accomplishments is well known.
It was in Henry VII.'s reign, and probably about the year 1500, that
Wolsey first had occasion to display his horsemanship in rather a
prominent manner. For we read that “the king, having received a
communication from the reigning emperor, Maximilian, and being at a
loss as to how he should reply to it in the shortest possible time,
turned abruptly to Thomas Wolsey to solicit his advice, Wolsey being
at that time the king's chaplain; whereupon Wolsey replied without
hesitation that if the king would entrust him with a despatch he would
deliver it to the emperor with but little delay.”
After pondering the proposal for some moments, Henry accepted the
offer, and a little later handed to Wolsey a sealed packet, urging him
to convey it with all speed and not be hindered by anybody. This took
place, we are told, at Richmond, at about noon. Then and there the
chaplain mounted the horse he had ready, and rode away.
That he must have galloped almost all the way to Dover, changing
horses several times, is certain, for he arrived there on the
following morning before daylight. By noon on the day after he was
at Calais, and at nightfall he personally handed King Henry's sealed
dispatch to the Emperor Maximilian. Having received Maximilian's
reply, Wolsey at once mounted a fresh horse that had been saddled for
him and set out once more for Calais, which town he reached on the
same night, so that by the following evening he was again at Richmond.
The king, however, had already retired to rest, and Wolsey therefore
was compelled to wait until the morning to deliver Maximilian's
reply. It so happened that he was walking in the park when presently
the king overtook him and at once began to upbraid him for his delay
in starting for France. Wolsey remained silent and collected until
the king had stopped speaking, then, without a word, he produced the
despatch that he had brought from Maximilian.
King Henry, we are told, was thereupon “both amazed and delighted,”
and with great rapidity the story of the chaplain's remarkable ride to
Paris and back again was noised abroad.
Wolsey's reputation for horsemanship was firmly established from that
time forward, and Henry, to mark his appreciation of the chaplain's
exploit, bestowed upon him the deanery of Lincoln, and not long
afterwards made him his almoner. Thus did the man obtain his first
step to power who one day was to become the all-powerful Cardinal.
I have not been able to find in any books or documents particulars
concerning the horses ridden by Wolsey in that famous journey. From
what has been said, however, we may conclude that he rode horses of
a stamp very different from the heavy, clumsy animals so plentiful
in England at the time, for to have covered so many miles in so few
hours the horses must have been of the swiftest, especially when it is
remembered that the roads at that period were of the roughest possible
description.
In later years, owing partly to his increasing weight, Wolsey almost
entirely gave up riding. Yet the interest that he had always taken
in horse breeding remained, and though his many and arduous duties
occupied much of his leisure he nevertheless found time to devote some
of his attention to the rearing of riding and driving horses, and to
the breeding of shire horses.
Some of his Eastern sires, indeed—and we know that he had a large stud
of them—are said to have been among the most valuable of the breeding
stock that until then had ever been known, which may have been the
reason that in after years Queen Elizabeth expended such vast sums
upon increasing and still further improving the stud that had been
Wolsey's.
Elizabeth, however, as we shall presently see, upon the whole took
greater interest in “running horses” than in the clumsy shire
stallions, and though it is said that she never was actually present
at a race meeting held at Newmarket, she is known to have owned
a number of race horses the majority of which were stabled near
Greenwich and trained chiefly upon Blackheath.
In connection with Wolsey and his undoubted fondness for horses, it
is interesting to learn that he cared but little for any form of
gambling, though “the sight of a contest between running horses of
high spirit delighted him.” Until the period when he gave up riding he
preferred at all times to be himself on horseback rather than watch
others, a statement that has been misinterpreted by one writer to mean
that Wolsey preferred to ride in races rather than watch others ride
races for him!
I believe I am right in saying that Wolsey never rode in any race of
any kind, also that he took more active interest in the chase than in
the turf—such turf, that is to say, as there was in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries to take interest in.
Upon that point Henry VII. held views somewhat different from his
chaplain's. The spectacle afforded by a horse race gave him scant
gratification, and as a result he did little to develop and encourage
horse racing or to better the condition of the turf.
Probably the only ride in the nature of a horse race that did stir him
into displaying enthusiasm was Wolsey's race just described. This feat
Wolsey but rarely spoke about, save when questioned by friends. His
technical knowledge of horses is said to have been profound, so much
so that frequently men quite unknown to him would come many miles to
obtain his opinion upon the condition of a sick horse, and usually he
was willing to tender advice even to strangers.
Indeed his willingness to be of service when a horse was in distress
appears to have remained one of Wolsey's marked characteristics until
nearly the end of his life. Historians have for the most part depicted
him a stern, unbending man from the time he was made Cardinal; yet he
is known to have performed many small acts of kindness for which the
world probably did not give him credit.
Whether the advice he tendered in cases of horse sickness was
invariably sound is doubtful. The amazing ignorance of the anatomy of
the human body that prevailed four hundred years ago leads naturally
to the inference that ignorance of the anatomy of the horse must have
been even greater. Probably the advice tendered by Wolsey was about
upon a par in point of soundness with the advice that passed current
towards the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth
centuries for “wisdom in medicine and chirurgery.”
Certainly we do not find allusion made to such common modern ailments
in horses as spavins, navicular, ringbones and splints. Cracked heels
may have been a common frequent source of lameness, for the shoes
ordinarily used were clumsy, crude things knocked into shape in a
rudimentary way, even those with which the most valuable of horses
were commonly shod.
The horse breakers and trainers of the early part of the sixteenth
century seem to have been of one opinion as to the most effectual way
of, so to speak, bringing a horse to his senses, and that was the
simplest way of all—namely, by starving him!
That so barbarous, and, let it be added so wholly ineffectual a method
should have been resorted to where horses were concerned is perhaps
hardly to be wondered at when we bear in mind that only a little over
a century ago the same method was employed with lunatics who showed
signs of insubordination.
For the idea used to be—and it has not yet quite died out—that a high
temper must primarily be the outcome of high feeding. We read that
upon one occasion Henry VII. commanded that a horse he was to ride in
a public procession be left unfed for twenty-four hours, and as no
reason is assigned for the order we are justified in conjecturing that
he must have felt inwardly nervous, possibly that he feared the animal
might, if fed as usual, prove to be what we call to-day “a handful”!
In other respects the horses of some four hundred years ago would seem
to have been treated at any rate with ordinary humanity.
CHAPTER III
Inauguration and development of the Royal Stud—Exportation
of horses declared by Henry VIII. to be illegal—Sale of
horses to Scotsmen pronounced to be an act of felony—Riding
matches become popular—Ferdinand of Arragon's gift of horses
to Henry VIII.—Henry's love of hunting—King Henry stakes the
bells of St Paul's on a throw of the dice—Some horses of
romance—Horse-breeding industry crippled in Scotland
The accession of Henry VIII. to the throne, in 1509, marked the
beginning of a great development in the breeding and rearing of
valuable horses, for that erratic monarch, whatever his failings may
have been—and that he had a few failings we have reason to know—was at
heart a sportsman in the true meaning of the now frequently misused
term.
We read that soon after ascending the throne “he took steps to arrange
for the importation from Italy, Spain, Turkey and elsewhere, at
regular intervals, of the best stallions and some of the best mares
procurable.” That done, he set to work to establish at Hampton Court
the Royal Stud which later was to become so famous, and among the many
horses he received as gifts—the majority from men anxious to keep in
favour with a monarch so all-powerful—were the famous mares “perfect
in shape and size” that Francesco Gonzaga, the Marquis of Mantua,
sent over in 1514, a gift to which he soon afterwards added “a Barb
worth its weight in silver” which he declared he had taken great pains
to secure.
That Henry was deeply gratified is obvious from his remark that he
“had never ridden better trained horses,” and that “for years he had
not received such an agreeable present.”
* * * * *
As time went on, and the Royal Stud steadily increased, the fame of
Henry's horses spread not only throughout the kingdom, but also across
the seas and into remote parts of the Continent, with the natural
result that presently attempts were made to obtain surreptitiously
foals known to have been bred in the famous paddocks.
Henry, upon hearing this, became extremely angry, and this knowledge
it probably was that in a measure prompted him to render illegal the
exportation beyond the seas of mares or horses bred in England, and,
in addition, to threaten with severe punishment anyone discovered
making the attempt.
There cannot, indeed, be any doubt that before the passing of this Act
many horses had been sent abroad from various parts of the country,
and that in consequence the British stock probably would soon have
depreciated in value had Henry not thus effectually put a stop to the
practice at the outset.
Yet we are told that in spite of this the king's act greatly annoyed
several of the more powerful of his nobles, even that in some of the
provinces it led almost to open rebellion, many men of private means
having been in the habit of considerably augmenting their fortunes by
secretly exporting horses upon what was in those days deemed to be
rather a large scale.
So strong, indeed, did the feeling throughout the country gradually
grow, that in a short time it was decided to present the king with “a
request”—presumably what we should to-day term a petition—in the hope
that he might thereby be induced to revoke his rather arbitrary order.
Whether the request ever was presented does not appear, but certainly
Henry did not revoke the order.
On the contrary, soon after prohibiting the exportation of horses
beyond the seas he issued a supplementary edict which in effect
rendered the exportation of horses to any foreign port, with the
exception of Calais, a very grave offence; while the “exportation” of
horses into Scotland, and even the bare act of selling to any Scotsman
any horse without having first obtained the king's permission to do
so, became an act of felony alike to vendor and purchaser.
Of course so unjust a law as the latter soon stirred up a strong
feeling of resentment amongst Henry's subjects; yet in spite of their
bitter complaints they were compelled to comply with it.
Thus it soon came about that men who had been living comparatively in
opulence before the passing of these laws now found themselves reduced
to genteel poverty, whereupon, as if to add insult to injury, Henry
passed yet another statute—27, Henry VIII., c. 6.
This statute enacted that all farmers in receipt of a certain stated
income, also all owners of parks, as well as certain other persons,
should rear and keep a specified number of brood mares, of a height
not less than thirteen hands, the penalty for failing to comply with
the order being fixed at forty shillings a month.
The statute in addition commanded that upon every park of not less
than four miles in extent—this is understood to have meant four miles
in circumference—at least four mares should be kept, the same fine,
forty shillings a month, to be extorted from all who failed to keep
the law.
That these laws, though severe and unjust, achieved their purpose we
may conclude from the statement that soon after they had been passed
there were to be found in England five times more horses ready to be
put into the field in a case of emergency, and that these horses were
all of great value.
Yet once again an attempt was made to induce Henry to revoke his laws
forbidding the exportation of horses, and again the attempt proved
futile. The Scottish nation in particular felt deeply aggrieved at
what they somewhat naturally deemed to be an insult paid to them
by the king, but Henry, beyond threatening that if the complaints
continued he would put a stop to them in rather a forcible manner,
paid no heed whatever. And at just about this time it was that a
number of Lowlanders were, so it is alleged, severely punished for
purchasing horses of Englishmen in defiance of Henry's command.
And still the king remained unsatisfied. He had openly declared that
he would transform England into the foremost country in Europe for
valuable and well-bred horses, and to facilitate his doing so he
presently passed another statute.
In this statute he commanded that stoned horses under fifteen hands
were not to be put to pasture in any wood or forest in certain
counties (which he mentioned), the penalty for breaking the law to be
forfeiture to the Crown, while in certain other counties the law was
to apply to horses under fourteen hands.
Yet another statute which he drew up—33, Henry VIII., c. 5—enacted
that dukes and archbishops must maintain seven stoned trotting horses
for the saddle; marquises, earls and bishops, five; and viscounts and
barons with incomes of not less than 1000 marks, five.
In the same way subjects with an income of 500 marks were each to
maintain two of these trotting horses for the saddle, while men with
an income of 100 marks, whose wives should “wear any gown of silk, or
any French hood or bonnet of velvet, with any habiliment, paste or
egg of gold, pearl or stone, or any chain of gold about their necks,
or in their partlets, or in any apparel on their body,” were by the
law compelled to maintain one saddle horse, severe penalties being
inflicted if they failed to do so.
I have somewhere seen it stated that these Acts were repealed by
Edward VI., but they were not. They were developed by William and
Mary, and further developed by Elizabeth. Upon each occasion the
renewal and development of these statutes caused bad blood and brought
forth threats of retaliation, but the latter were not carried out.
That the obvious injustice of laws so arbitrary should have created
friction, is not to be wondered at; yet the benefit that subsequently
accrued to the country through passing them was enormous.
Indeed it is more than likely that if Henry VIII., William and Mary,
and Elizabeth had given way to the demands of a great body of their
subjects between three and four hundred years ago, England would not
have become famous above all other countries for its horses, as it is
to-day.
It was in the reign of Henry VIII. that riding matches first began
to acquire popularity, and to attract the attention of the “bloods”
of about that period. Several descriptions of the way in which such
matches were arranged and carried out are in existence, and perhaps a
brief account of rather a famous match that was ridden by Richard de
la Pole, the third Duke of Suffolk, against Seigneur Nicolle Dex, will
here prove of interest.
The Duke of Suffolk—“Blanche Rose” as his intimate friends called
him—was the third son of John de la Pole, his mother being the Lady
Elizabeth Plantagenet, Edward IV.'s and Richard III.'s sister.
In the year 1517, soon after the Duke had returned to Metz, the
popularity of the turf began suddenly to increase, and thus it
happened that the Duke presently became the possessor of a horse said
to be “very swift and of extreme value,” of which he boasted that it
could beat all comers. It was while talking thus in Metz one day that
Blanche Rose was taken at his word by the Seigneur Nicolle Dex, who
declared without hesitation that he could and would himself produce
and ride a horse against the Duke's “from the Elm at Avegney to within
St Clement's Gate,” for the sum of eighty crowns “and win easily.”
At once Blanche Rose accepted the challenge, promising at the same
time that he too would ride his own horse, and forthwith the stakes
were handed to “an independent and neutral person” by each of the
contestants.
Arrangements having been made that the match should be run early in
the morning of St Clement's Day, May 2nd, we read that, “a ce jour
meisme que l'on courre l'awaine et le baicon au dit lieu St Clement,”
the two riders, accompanied by many of their friends, went out through
St Thiebault's gate, which had been opened before the usual time to
suit their convenience, “and so passed into the field for the race.”
There was much wagering on the result, and, as we should to-day
express it, the Duke's mount was hot favourite. That Seigneur Nicolle
was no novice in race riding is made manifest by the statement that he
had taken the precaution to have his horse shod with extremely light
shoes, also that “he came into the field like a groom, in his doublet
and without shoes, and with no saddle but with a cloth tied round the
horse's belly,” whereas the Duke wore comparatively heavy clothing and
rode in a heavy saddle.
The Duke's horse, however, jumped away with the lead and retained
it during the first half of the race, “but when they were near St
Laidre his horse lagged behind, so that the Duke urged him on with
spurs until the blood streamed down on both sides; but it was in vain,
Nicolle gained the race and the hundred and sixty crowns of the sum.”
Several writers tell us that Nicolle Dex had trained his horse on
white wine, but the truth would seem to be that he himself trained on
white wine. We are informed, in addition, that the horse was not given
any hay.
“Le dit Seigneur Nicolle n'avoit point donne de foin a son chevaulx,
ne n'avoit beu aultre chose que du vin blanc.”
What the horses of four hundred years ago were chiefly fed on is
uncertain. We know that usually they were given hay, but we find
mention made repeatedly of “horse bread.” Probably this horse bread
resembled the modern oil cake upon which cattle is fed, for we read
that it tended to make the horses' coats “soft and glossy,” an
attribute of oil cake of which horse dealers are well aware.
It seems hardly necessary to mention in this connection that in
Henry VIII.'s time, and indeed down to a much later period, the art
of training horses, as we understand it to-day, was practically in
its infancy. Also we are able to infer that it was quite a common
practice to give a horse a drink of water just before running him in a
race, and that what we to-day allude to as the art of judging pace in
connection with race riding probably had never been even thought of.
In Henry VIII.'s reign the habit of naming horses after their breeder
on their previous owner would appear to have come into vogue rather
largely, and from that time onward, for some three centuries and a
half, to have remained in vogue. After that it became customary to
name race horses in rather a grotesque manner.
I have by me a list of names of race horses almost all of which must
have been animals well known in their time. It would be interesting
to hear what Messrs Weatherby would say if we asked them to-day to
enter a mare to run under the name “Pretty Harlot” or, better still,
“Sweetest when Naked”!
Among Henry VIII.'s famous barbs we find several mentioned by name,
and we read incidentally that “during four or six days the king rode
both Altobello and Governatore, but preferred Governatore.”
The Marquis of Mantua had been renowned for his skill in horsemanship,
as well as for the famous stud of horses that he possessed, for some
years before Henry VIII. came to the throne, and this stud is said
to have reached the acme of its excellence about the year 1517, when
Gonzaga, as the Marquis was generally called, received many more
requests for the service of his stallions than he was able to accede
to.
Many, if not actually the majority of the horses that proved most
successful upon the turf during the sixteenth century are said to
have been descendants of the stock bred so carefully and with so much
discrimination by Gonzaga or by King Henry, from which we may conclude
that the assertion made often that until the reign of Queen Anne there
were no race horses in this country worth speaking of is erroneous.
It is said, apparently with truth, that Gonzaga became extremely angry
when, in the year 1515—only a few months after he had presented Henry
with the valuable horses already referred to—Ferdinand of Arragon sent
Henry “a gift of two most excellent horses,” with the message that
he, Ferdinand, believed they would be found to outclass even the fine
horses already in the royal stables at Hampton Court.
An apparently trivial incident such as this helps to show how
thoroughly in earnest the men of fortune must have been who early in
the sixteenth century devoted much time and attention to the breeding
and rearing of valuable horses. It has been alleged that the Marquis
of Mantua made his initial present of horses to King Henry solely
in order to ingratiate himself in royal favour; but the anxiety he
clearly displayed upon several occasions when gifts of horses were
sent to Henry by men of rank and fortune leads to the belief either
that Gonzaga must have been of a jealous nature, or else that he was
inordinately proud of his own stud and extremely desirous that its
high reputation should be maintained.
The value of the two horses sent over by Ferdinand is said to have
been approximately 100,000 ducats. That would seem to be an impossible
sum to have paid in a period when money was worth many times more
than it is to-day; but when we read that both horses were richly
caparisoned (_regio ornatu_) we may well suppose that the sum named
included also the cost of trappings.
Under the circumstances it is perhaps not surprising that Ferdinand
of Arragon—Ferdinand the Catholic, as he was popularly called—should
have been deemed insane by a great body of his subjects when it became
known that he had sent so extravagant a gift to King Henry, his
son-in-law.
So prevalent, indeed, was this impression, that reasons were at once
put forward to account for the alleged lack of intellect. Thus the
incident of his having been poisoned two years before by his new
queen, Germaine de Fois, was mentioned amongst possible causes, the
serious illness that followed having proved almost fatal.
Particulars of this attempt upon the life of Ferdinand the Catholic
are to be found in one of the letters of Peter Martyr, though the
writer of the letter does not seem to think that any insanity with
which the king may have been afflicted towards the close of his
life can have been due to the cause assigned. Indeed in one of these
letters he directly attributes the king's death to over-indulgence
in hunting and matrimony, either of which, as he says, is liable to
hasten dissolution in a man over sixty years of age!
Not content with the very large and valuable stud that he now
possessed, Henry found it necessary in 1518 to send “a Bolognese
gentleman” out to Italy to choose still more horses for him there,
special instructions being given to him that the best animals he
could find in Italy must be bought at once, irrespective of cost,
and shipped across to England without undue delay—an order that
the Bolognese gentleman “obeyed implicitly and to the king's great
satisfaction as well as to his own.” There may well be a hidden
meaning in the last words!
We do not hear anything more that is of interest and that has to do
with Henry's stud until the year 1526, when we read that “eighteen of
the finest of his horses were sent by King Henry VIII. as a gift to
Francis I.” The reason he sent so many is not stated, nor are we told
if these were chargers, race horses or great horses.
After that the sending of gift horses apparently became an established
custom amongst men of rank and of wealth, as well as amongst
potentates, so much so that persons of quality vied one with another
in sending gifts of valuable horses to their friends.
The last present of the sort received by Henry VIII. consisted of
twenty-five Spanish horses sent to him by the emperor, Charles V., in
1539.
Hunting is known to have been one of Henry's favourite amusements, and
in a despatch dated 10th September 1519, written by Giustinian when
Venetian Ambassador to England, we are informed that when Henry hunted
he invariably rode several horses, or, in the words of the despatch,
“never took that diversion without tiring eight or ten horses, which
he caused to be stationed beforehand along the line of country he
meant to take.”
From this and similar statements it has been inferred that the hounds
Henry hunted with ran some artificial line, that otherwise the horses
could not have been stationed “beforehand along the line of country he
meant to take.” The probability, however, is that the king's horses
were stationed at different points all over the country to be hunted,
for it seems impossible that the king, heavy man though he undoubtedly
was, could alone have ridden eight or ten horses to a standstill in a
single day's hunting!
Indeed in Henry III.'s reign the men who hunted regularly most likely
rode more than one horse a day, just as most hunting men do now. At
that period the sport was, of course, very different from our modern
foxhunting, and from the descriptions of it that have been handed down
to us there is reason to believe that plenty of Henry's nobles hunted
not because they were fond of the sport, but because they deemed it
diplomatic to appear to be wholeheartedly as devoted to the chase as
the king himself most certainly was.
Yet the king apparently was not hoodwinked as easily as he may have
appeared to be, or feigned to be, for upon more than one occasion he
availed himself of opportunities to make some of his sycophants look
remarkably ridiculous in public.
In this connection an interesting little story is narrated of Sir
Miles Partridge, a knight who figured rather largely in Henry VIII.'s
reign. Apparently Sir Miles had more than once writhed in silence
beneath the king's gibes, though all the while impatiently awaiting an
opportunity to retaliate in a dignified way.
The opportunity came at last, when the king, in a merry mood,
suggested to the knight that he should dice with him. This happened at
about the time when the monasteries were being dissolved, and Henry's
coffers were in consequence unusually well replenished. At first the
king won persistently; then suddenly his luck deserted him, with the
result that in the end he lost control of his temper and with an oath
shouted at Sir Miles that he would stake upon a single throw of the
dice the great bells of St Paul's against a hundred sovereigns.
The dice were thrown, and Sir Miles won, and the bells, described by a
chronicler of the period as “the greatest peal in England,” were taken
away and melted down, to the knight's unfeigned delight.
It is said that the king never forgave Sir Miles Partridge for this.
Later Sir Miles was charged with some criminal offence and imprisoned,
and in 1551 he was beheaded on Tower Hill.
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the horse continued to figure
largely in romance, and thus it comes that we find horses, fictitious
and otherwise, playing important rôles in the works of fiction of the
principal authors of about that period.
Ariosto's immortal narrative of “Orlando Furioso,” written towards
the close of the fifteenth or in the beginning of the sixteenth
century, has given us “the little vigilant horse,” Vegliantio, called
Veillantif in the French romance, where Orlando appears as Ronald.
Then we have “the horse of the golden bridle,” Orlando's remarkable
charger, Brigliadoro, whose speed equalled Bajardo's; also Sacripant's
steed, Frontaletto, “the horse with the little head,” that was capable
of doing many extraordinary things. Sacripant, who was King of
Circassia, and a Saracen, held secret consultations with Frontaletto,
and the horse could understand its master's every word.
Rinaldo's horse, Bajardo, made famous in Ariosto's celebrated book,
was a bright bay and very fast, and at one time it had belonged to
Amadis of Gaul. When Malagigi, the wizard, found it in the cave
guarded by “a dragon of great size,” he at once, at considerable
personal risk, attacked the dragon, which in the end he succeeded in
slaying.
According to the legend, Bajardo is still alive, but under no
circumstances can man approach it, nor will any man ever do so. Though
Bajardo figures in several stories, it occurs first in “Orlando
Furioso.”
The original of Rinaldo was the son of the fourth Marquis d'Este,
and Malagigi was Rinaldo's cousin. The habit of drawing fictitious
characters to resemble closely living persons, or well-known persons
of a previous period, was very prevalent among the writers of the
sixteenth century, and therefore it often is difficult to disassociate
the real from the fictitious character.
This may be said too of the horses that we come upon in some of the
better-known of the old-world romances.
Indeed in several stories that could be named, the famous chargers of
notable princes can be recognised under several assumed names.
With the close of Henry VIII.'s reign—that is, in 1547—we come to
an end of what was without doubt a period in which the horse played
a more conspicuous part than it had done since the Norman Conquest.
Upon ascending the throne Henry had found the condition of horse
breeding in this country in rather a bad way. With others, as we have
seen, he had set to work in earnest to improve, to the best of his
ability, the breed of English horses, and though some of the statutes
that he enacted—also some of the methods to which he had recourse in
order to accomplish his object—undoubtedly were drastic, directly and
indirectly they helped to bring about the improvement he desired, and
for this the nation still owes him a debt of gratitude.
Henry's fondness for the chase was equalled only by the keen interest
he took in the rather primitive horse racing of his period, and
trustworthy chroniclers tell us that one of his most cherished
ambitions was to see established in England a stud of the fastest
horses the world had ever known.
When we bear in mind his fondness for horses of all kinds it seems
strange that he should not have been a first-rate judge of a horse.
Of knowledge of a horse's anatomy he had practically none, for
which reason his ignorance in this respect has been contrasted with
the knowledge that Wolsey possessed. Once, indeed, when taxed with
ignorance upon this point by one of his nobles he laughed heartily
and admitted the impeachment.
The order, already referred to, that horses should not be sent across
the border, or sold to Scotsmen, almost completely crippled the
horse-breeding industry north of the Tweed. True, some of the more
powerful of the Scottish clans still owned valuable breeding stock,
yet so strictly were Henry's laws enforced that the chiefs even of
those clans were, with but few exceptions, unable to buy English
stallions or to obtain their services at any time during Henry's reign.
As a well-known Scottish historian has aptly put it, “Henry VIII.
practically ruined Scotland so far as that country's prosperity had
to do with the rearing of horses for the field, an unfair form of
oppression that many Highlanders, and also Lowlanders, have not yet
quite forgotten.”
Perhaps it is worth mentioning here that so far as we are able to
judge from the records of the early historians the men of Scotland
have not, as a body, ever proved themselves to be such finished
horsemen as the English, and more especially the Irish.
This statement is not made in the least in a captious spirit. Why
should it be? Probably the reason the Scotch are, as a nation, less
finished horsemen, is that they are men of large bone, considerable
weight and great physical strength.
Historical records serve to show that no race of men so built ever
has been particularly famous for finished horsemanship. For a man to
be a finished horseman need not necessarily possess great physical
strength, and the man of heavy build almost invariably finds himself
at a disadvantage when on horseback by comparison with the man of
spare frame, small bone and “flat” thighs. Though this is something of
a truism, several of our early historians apparently forgot it.
A study of the world's history makes it clear that the tribes, races
and nations especially renowned for their horsemanship have been
composed for the most part of men of small stature.
CHAPTER IV
North America without horses when Columbus landed—Scarcity of
horses at the Conquest of Mexico—Francisco Pizarro; his cavaliers
terrify the Indians—Emperor Charles V. sends horses to King
Edward VI.—David Hume, “a man remarkable for piety, probity,
candour and integrity”; his practices in connection with horse
racing—Queen Elizabeth fond of racing; condition of the Turf
during her reign—Stallions fed on eggs and oysters—Lord Herbert
of Cherbury's antagonistic attitude towards the Turf—Some horses
in Shakespeare's plays—Performing horse and its owner publicly
burnt to death—Horses trained by cruelty
The continent whose history and progress have been the least
influenced by horses probably is Northern America, for it seems beyond
doubt that when Columbus discovered it horses were unknown there.
How then did they come to be there in such immense herds in later
years?
This question has been asked many times, and the reply generally is
that the horses subsequently introduced there by the Spaniards must
have bred with great rapidity.
Other solutions to the problem that have been put forward are hardly
worth considering seriously. So enormous did these herds become,
however, that down to half-a-century or so ago horses in their
thousands ran wild over the vast prairies of the western states. At
the present day such herds are practically extinct.
We read that when, in 1519, the renowned Hernando Cortes set out from
Cuba to conquer the empire of Montezuma, he took with him “sixteen
strong and picked horses.” Bernal Diaz, who was Cortes' comrade,
apparently was greatly devoted to horses, and in his famous account
of the Conquest of Mexico he describes in detail each of these
sixteen animals, and mentions in rather a quaint way the principal
characteristic that each possessed.
Seeing that Cortes' force consisted of some 660 trained men and about
200 Indians, the sixteen horses of course in no way approached the
number he would have liked to take, and the reason he took so few is
made clear by Diaz when he tells us that owing to the smallness of
the ships of that period and the limited amount of accommodation that
could be found on board them, even in proportion to their size, the
difficulty of transport was very great.
It was, indeed, owing chiefly to the difficulty of transporting horses
to Cuba and Hispaniola from Spain that the prices demanded even for
horses of inconsiderable value were so exorbitant. Even it seems
possible that this scarcity of horses directly led to a campaign
that was expected to last for only a few months being prolonged to
approximately two years; for though Cortes set sail with his little
army in February, 1519, the subjugation of Mexico was not completed
until nearly two years had elapsed.
There seems to be no doubt but that the redoubtable Francisco Pizarro,
who afterwards conquered so effectually the kingdom of the Incas, was
in Hispaniola as early as the year 1510, and he may have been there
even before that date. When, in 1524, he began to move southward from
Panama on his famous expedition, he travelled without horses, and the
attempt to reach the realm of gold proved futile.
His second expedition, however, was more successful, but then he had
with him a number of horses that he had taken the precaution to buy
before leaving Panama, and the expedition numbered, all told, about
160 men. The horses would appear to have been of the roughest, and
some of them in poor condition, yet Pizarro positively refused to give
leave for any of them to be destroyed, having apparently taken to
heart the lesson he had received from the reverse which had overtaken
him on his previous expedition when he was without horses.
It is probable, however, that even Pizarro was not prepared for the
extraordinary part that was presently to be played by those very
animals that he had with him.
For before he had advanced very far it became apparent to him that
the native Indians had never in their lives before set eyes upon a
horse, and thus it happened that when presently they beheld Pizarro's
advancing cavaliers, their attitude, which until then had been both
threatening and defensive, became almost immediately changed to one of
terror.
Pizarro was at first amazed at this. Then as the Indians suddenly and
of one accord turned and fled, uttering, as we are told, “strange and
shrill cries,” the truth flashed in upon him—his mounted men had been
mistaken by them for some kind of weird creature, possibly something
in the nature of a centaur!
As one writer says, “consternation seized the Indians when they saw
a cavalier fall from his horse, for they were not prepared for the
division into two parts of a creature that had seemed to them to be
but a single being.”
In a letter addressed to Henry Bullinger by Bishop Hooper there is a
statement to the effect that “two most beautiful Spanish horses” were
received by Edward VI. from the emperor, Charles V., on 26th March,
1550, and that the king expressed his delight at the gift by giving
way to “extravagant conduct.”
The incident is of interest because poor young Edward VI. was not
supposed to be fond of horses. Yet Camden, the famous antiquary, who
lived between 1551 and 1623 and was in a position that should have
enabled him to speak with authority, gives it as his opinion that the
lad took interest in horses of all kinds.
Hargrove, in his “History and Description of the ancient City of
York,” maintains that the origin of horse racing can be traced back
“even to the time of the Romans,” a statement apt to prove misleading
if we take it quite literally.
That horse racing of a sort can be traced back to a very remote period
has already been indicated, but, as we have also seen, almost the only
kind of racing in which the Romans took keen interest was chariot
racing, so there is reason to believe that some of the early allusions
to chariot races may unwittingly have been confused with horse races
by some of our later historians.
In a letter that appeared recently in a newspaper published in
Ireland, and that dealt at length with the supposed origin of horse
racing, the writer remarked with unconscious humour that “undoubtedly
the first races in England were held in Scotland.”
In this belief he was, of course, mistaken, though it is known that
the Scottish people have from very early times been fond of horse
racing, and that the great race meeting held in Haddington in 1552
attracted an enormous concourse of spectators from the Highlands and
Lowlands alike.
Later the Haddington race meeting came to be held annually, the
principal prize run for being “a silver bell of value.”
Rather an eccentric individual, named David Hume, was connected with
the Turf in Scotland about the middle of the sixteenth century. He
appears, indeed, to have been quite an interesting personality. A
resident of Wedderburn, where he died in or about the year 1575—the
early writers, while admitting that when he died he must have been
fully fifty years of age, yet disagree as to the exact date of his
death—he is especially worthy of mention because probably he was
typical of a particular stamp of man that during the latter half of
the sixteenth century was in a great measure responsible for the
development of the race horse.
Presumably David Hume owned property, for he is spoken of as “a
gentleman of good status in Berwickshire,” and in later years his son,
known as David Hume of Godscroft, wrote a book which became famous in
Scottish literature, the “History of the House of Douglas.”
The elder Hume is described as “a man remarkable for piety, probity,
candour and integrity.” How ironical that description unconsciously
was we shall see in a moment. The son, we are told, “seldom missed
an opportunity of speaking in still more laudatory terms of his
father,” but Mr J. P. Hore's opinion is to the effect that if some
such institution as the modern Jockey Club had been in existence when
Hume the elder was in his heyday, that gentleman would, in spite of
his alleged probity, integrity, and so forth, have been warned off the
Turf at short notice.
For we read that “so great a master in the art of riding was he that
he would often be beat to-day and within eight days lay a double
wager on the same horses and come off conqueror” (_sic_). No doubt
this paragon of honour has many emulators on the Turf to-day, but the
relatives and friends of the latter at least have not the effrontery
to tell us that such men are “strictly just, utterly detesting all
manner of fraud,” the statement made again and again about the elder
Hume by his kinsfolk.
Elsewhere we learn that sometimes he ran two horses in one race and
that upon occasions he was able to hoodwink the spectators assembled
into believing that a horse had tried hard to win when in reality it
had barely extended itself.