Kitabı oku: «Horses Past and Present», sayfa 2

EDWARD II. (1307-1327)

Edward II. devoted both energy and money to the task of improving our horses. We have record of several horse-buying commissions despatched by him to the Champaign district in France, to Italy and other parts vaguely described as “beyond seas.” One such commission brought home from Lombardy thirty war horses and twelve others of the heavy type. There can be no doubt but that the foreign purchases of Edward II. were destined for stud purposes; the more extensive purchases of his successor, Edward III., suggest that he required horses for immediate use in the ranks.

Husbandry in England was at a low ebb during the thirteenth century, but towards the end of Edward II.’s reign it began to make progress in the midland and southwestern counties. The high esteem in which English wool was held caused large tracts of country to be retained as pasture for sheep for a long period, and while farmers possessed this certain source of revenue the science of cultivation was naturally neglected.

EDWARD III. (1327-1377)

Edward III., to meet the drain upon the horse supply caused by his wars with Scotland and France, bought large numbers of horses on the Continent; more, it would appear, than his Treasury could pay for, as he was at one time in the Count of Hainault’s debt for upwards of 25,000 florins for horses. These were obviously the Great Horses for which the Low Countries were famous; all the animals so imported were marked or branded. Edward III. organised his remount department on a scale previously unknown in England. It was established in two great divisions under responsible officers, one of whom had charge of all the studs on the royal manors north of the Trent, the other exercising control of those south of that boundary; these two custodians being in their turn responsible to the Master of the Horse.

There is ample evidence to prove that Edward III. took close personal interest in horse-breeding, and it is certain that the cavalry was better mounted in his wars than it had been at any previous period. The Great Horse, or War Horse, essential to the efficiency of heavily armoured cavalry, was by far the most valuable breed and received the greatest meed of attention; but the Wardrobe Accounts of this reign contain mention of many other breeds or classes of horse indispensable for campaigning or useful for sport and ordinary saddle work – palfreys, hackneys, hengests, and somers, coursers, trotters, hobbies, nags, and genets.

The distinction between some of these classes was probably somewhat slight. The palfrey was the animal used for daily riding for pleasure or travel by persons of the upper ranks of life, and was essentially the lady’s mount, though knights habitually rode palfreys or hackneys on the march, while circumstances allowed them to put off for the time their armour. The weight of this, with the discomfort of wearing it in the cold of winter and heat of summer, furnished sufficient reason for the knights to don their mail only when actually going into action, or on occasions of ceremony.

“Hengests and somers” were probably used for very similar purposes, as more than once we find them coupled thus: these were the baggage or transport animals, and were doubtless of no great value. “Courser” is a term somewhat loosely used in the old records; it is applied indifferently to the war horse, to the horse used in hunting, and for daily road work, but generally in a sense that suggests speed. “Trotters,” we must assume, were horses that were not taught to amble; and the name was distinctive at a period when all horses used for saddle by the better classes were taught that gait. Edward III.’s Wardrobe Accounts mention payment for trammels, the appliances, it is supposed, used for this purpose, and at a much later date in another Royal Account Book, we find an item “To making an horse to amble, 2 marks (13s. 4d.).” The amble was a peculiarly easy and comfortable pace which would strongly commend itself to riders on a long journey. Hobbies were Irish horses, small but active and enduring; genets were Spanish horses nearly allied to, if not practically identical with, the barbs introduced into Spain by the Moors. The animal described as a “nag” was probably the saddle-horse used by servants and camp followers.

RICHARD II. (1377-1399)

Richard II. was fond of horses and did not neglect the interests of breeding; though he on one occasion displayed his regard in a fashion which to modern minds is at least high-handed. There was a scarcity of horses in the early years of his reign, and prices rose in conformity with the law of supply and demand. Richard, considering only the needs of his knights, issued a proclamation (1386) forbidding breeders to ask the high prices they were demanding. This proclamation was published in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Yorkshire.

Passing mention may be made of an Act which was placed on the Statute Book in 1396. In those days all travelling was performed on horseback, and the equivalent of the coach or jobmaster of much later times was the hackneyman, who let out horses to travellers at rates of hire fixed by law. The hackneymen were in the very nature of their business liable to be imposed upon by unprincipled persons, who would demand horses from them without tendering payment, on the false plea that they were royal messengers journeying in haste on business of the State. Not infrequently, too, the hirer or borrower was none other than a horse-thief, who rode the animal into some remote country town, and sold him to whoever would buy. Richard II.’s Act of 1396, aimed at suppression of these practices, laying penalties upon anyone found guilty of them; and it further called upon the hackneymen to help themselves by placing a distinctive mark on their horses. Any animal bearing such a mark might be seized by the hackneyman if he found it in possession of another, and no compensation could be claimed by the person from whose custody it was taken.

The earliest account of a race that we can trace (apart from the sports at Smithfield) refers to the year 1377, the first of Richard’s reign. In that year the King and the Earl of Arundel rode a race⁴ (particulars of conditions, distance, weights, &c., are wanting!), which it would seem was won by the Earl, since the King purchased his horse afterwards for a sum equal to £20,000 in modern money.

For nearly a hundred years after the deposition of Richard II., the available records throw little or no light upon our subject. The Wars of the Roses (1450-1471) were productive of results injurious alike to agriculture, stock breeding, and commerce. During a period when horses for military service were in constant demand, and were liable, unless the property of some powerful noble, to seizure by men of either of the contending factions, it was not worth any man’s while to breed horses, still less to try to improve them. The fifteenth century, therefore, or at least a considerable portion of it, saw retrogression rather than progress in English horse-breeding.

HENRY VII. (1485-1509)

Henry VII., in 1495, found the horse supply of the country so deficient, and the prices so high, that he passed an Act forbidding the export of any horse without Royal permission, on pain of forfeiture, and of any mare whose value exceeded six shillings and eightpence; no mare under three years old might be sent out of the country, and on all exported a duty of six shillings and eightpence was levied.

Under the old “Statutes of Arms” Henry VII. established a force known as Yeomen of the Crown. There were fifty of these; each yeoman had a spare horse and was attended by a mounted groom. In times of peace they acted as Royal messengers carrying letters and orders. In disturbed times they formed the backbone of the militia levies.

HENRY VIII. (1509-1547)

Henry VIII. went a good deal further in his efforts to foster and promote the breeding of good horses. In 1514 he absolutely forbade the export of horses abroad, and extended the prohibition to Scotland. He obliged all prelates and nobles of a certain degree, to be ascertained by the richness of their wives’ dress, to maintain stallions of a given stature. He made the theft of horse, mare, or gelding a capital offence, and deprived persons convicted under this law (37 Henry VIII., c. 8) of the benefit of clergy. And by two Acts, the gist of which will be found on page 5 et seq. of Ponies Past and Present, he made a vigorous attempt to weed out the ponies whose small size rendered them useless.

It is to be borne in mind that the King’s legislation against the animals that ran in the forests and wastes aimed definitely at the greater development and perfection of the Great Horse. Armour during Henry VIII.’s time had reached its maximum weight, and a horse might be required to carry a load of from 25 to 30 stone;⁵ hence very powerful horses were indispensable.

Henry’s interest in horseflesh was not confined to the breed on which the efficiency of his cavalry depended. He was a keen sportsman, who took a lively pleasure in all forms of sport, and he appears to have been the first king who ran horses for his own amusement. It would hardly be correct to date the beginnings of the English Turf from Henry VIII.’s reign, as the “running geldings” kept in the Royal Stables at Windsor seem to have been run only against one another in a field hired by the king for the purpose.

The Privy Purse Expenses contain very curious scraps of information concerning the running geldings, their maintenance, and that of the boys retained to ride them. There is mention of “rewardes” to the keeper of the running geldings, to the “children of the stable,” and also to the “dyatter” of the running geldings. This last functionary’s existence is worth notice, as it indicates some method of training or dieting the horses. Nearly seventy years later – in 1599 – Gervaise Markham produced his book, “How to Chuse, Ryde and Dyet both Hunting and Running Horses.”

In the year 1514, the Marquis of Mantua sent Henry VIII., from Italy, a present of some thoroughbred horses; these in all probability formed the foundation stock of our sixteenth-century racehorses. The Privy Purse Expenses quoted above refer to “the Barbaranto hors” and “the Barbary hors,” which are doubtless the same animal. A hint that it was raced occurs in the mention of a payment to Polle (Paul, who as previous entries show, was the keeper of this horse), “by way of rewarde,” 18s. 4d., and on the same day (March 17, 1532), “paid in rewarde to the boy that ran the horse, 18s. 4d.”

That curious record, The Regulations of the Establishment of Algernon Percy, Fifth Earl of Northumberland, which was commenced in the year 1512, gives us a very valuable glimpse of the private stud maintained by a great noble in Henry VIII.’s time. The list of the Earl’s horses “that are appointed to be in the charge of the house yearly, as to say, gentell horseys, palfreys, hobys, naggis, cloth-sek hors, male hors,” is as follows: —

“First, gentell horsys, to stand in my lordis stable, six. Item, palfreys of my ladis, to wit, oone for my lady and two for her gentell-women, and oone for her chamberer. Four hobys and nags for my lordis oone (‘own’ in this connection) saddill, viz., oone for my lord, and oone to stay at home for my lord.

“Item, chariot hors to stand in my lordis stable yerely.

“Seven great trottynge horsys to draw in the chariot and a nag for the chariott man to ride – eight. Again, hors for Lord Lerey, his lordship’s son and heir. A gret doble trottynge hors called a curtal, for his lordship to ride out on out of towns. Another trottynge gambaldyn hors for his lordship to ride on when he comes into towns. An amblynge hors for his lordship to journeye on daily. A proper amblynge little nag for his lordship when he goeth on hunting and hawking. A gret amblynge gelding, or trottynge gelding, to carry his male.”

In regard to these various horses, it may be added that the “gentell hors” was one of superior breeding; the chariott horse and “gret trotting horsys” were powerful cart horses; the “curtal” was a docked great horse; the “trottynge gambaldyn” horse one with high and showy action, and the “cloth sek” and “male hors” carried respectively personal luggage and armour.

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

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

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

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

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