Queen Elizabeth’s Time
Holinshed gives a valuable account of the heavy horses of Queen Elizabeth’s time (1558-1603). From his record we gather that at this period the Great Horse was no longer reserved exclusively for military purposes, but was in general use for farm and draught work. Holinshed’s reference to the transport required by the Queen’s retinue when she made her frequent progresses through the kingdom is testimony to her inordinate love of pageantry and display. Coaches, according to Stowe, had been introduced into England by FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel, 1580 (though Queen Mary had had one built for herself in 1556), but this mode of conveyance does not appear to have commended itself to Queen Elizabeth. She was, as history tells us, an admirable horsewoman, and we know that she rode behind her Master of Horse when she went in state to St. Paul’s. The following passage from Ralph Holinshed’s Chronicle will be found in book ii., chapter i. of the folio edition printed in London, 1587:—
“Our horses, moreover, are high, and, although not commonlie of such huge greatnesse as in other places of the maine, yet, if you respect the easinesse of their pase, it is hard to saie where their like are to be had. Our cart or plough horses (for we use them indifferently), are commonlie so strong that five or six of them (at most), will draw three thousand weight of the greatest tale with ease for a long journeie—although it be not a load of common usage—which consisted onlie of two thousand, or fiftie foot of timber, fortie bushels of white salt, or six and thirtie of baie, or five quarters of wheat—experience dailie teacheth, and [as] I have elsewhere remembered. Such as are kept for burden, will carie four hundred weight commonlie, without any hurt or hinderance. This furthermore is to be noted, that our princes and nobilitie have their carriage commonlie made by carts; whereby it commeth to passe, that when the queenes majestie dooth remove from anie one place to another, there are vsuallie 400 carewares, which amount to the summe of 2,400 horses, appointed out of the countries adioining, whereby her cariage is conveied vnto the appointed place. Hereby, also, the ancient vse of somers and sumpter horsses is in a maner vtterlie relinquished; which causes the traines of our princes in their progresses to shew far lesse than those of the kings of other nations.”
The loads so respectfully described by Holinshed do not at first sight appear to indicate any very remarkable draught power on the part of a team of five or six horses; rather the contrary. In regard to this, however, we must bear in mind that three hundred years ago the roads were so bad and rutty that an empty waggon would be harder to draw in those days than a heavily loaded wain on a modern road.
The accompanying portrait of Sir Walter Hungerford, Knight, of Farley Castle, Heytesbury, is engraved from a picture in the possession of Sir R. Hungerford Pollen, Bart., at Rodbourne, Malmesbury. Sir Walter was the eldest son of Baron Hungerford, who was beheaded July 28th, 1541. Upon the accession of Queen Mary, Walter Hungerford obtained a reversal of the attainder imposed on his father, and recovered the family estates; but the peerage was not revived. Sir Walter retired from political life and court intrigue, and, choosing for his motto, Amicis Amicissimus, devoted himself entirely to country pursuits. He became widely known for the excellence of his stud; and the picture here engraved bears the following inscription, “Sir Walter Hungerford, Knight, had in Queene Elizabeth’s tyme, the Second of her Raine, for foure yere together, a baye horse, a blacke greyhounde, a lanerett.A This offer was for foure yere together, to all Eynglande, not above his betters, he that shoulde showe the best horse for a man of armes, a greyhounde for a hare, a haucke for the reyver, to wine III hundred poundes, that was a hundery the poundes apese. Also he had a gerfalcon for the herne in Her Majesty’s tyme, that he kept XVIII. yere; and offered the lyke to flye for a hundred pounde, and were refused for all.”
This offer of Sir Walter’s gives us the right to assume that the type here represented was the one acknowledged at the date to be that most approved in the English Great Horse; whilst the special function of that horse was, still, to carry “a man of armes.” It can be seen that—though the hair, both of the mane and legs, has been manipulated to suit the fashion—the tail still shows the characteristic abundance. Sir Walter Hungerford’s horse is certainly of the type of Albert Dürer’s Great White Horse, though it shows more evidence of spirit and high action.
Instructive particulars concerning the horses of this period are to be found in a curious little black letter volume, entitled, The Art of Ryding and Breaking Greate Horses, written by Thomas Blundeville of Newton Flotman in Norfolk, and published in 1566; a second edition of which, “newlie corrected and amended of manie faults escaped in the first printing” was issued in 1580; the latter including chapters on breeding horses. We may quote from Blundeville’s pages a few passages which throw light upon our subject:—
“Some men have a breed of Great Horses, meete for warre and to serve in the field. Others have ambling horses of a meane stature for to journey and travel by the waie. Some again have a race of swift runners to run for wagers or to gallop the bucke. But plane country men have a breed only for draftes or burden.”
From the foregoing it would appear that the lesser breed of agricultural horses (stots and affers) was still in existence, though the extract on page 34 appears to show that mares of the Great Horse breed were used for draught purposes. It will be remembered that at an earlier age churchmen were enjoined to use mares that the horses might be at the service of soldiers. Thomas Blundeville mentions as the “most worthy” breeds:—
“The Turke, the Barbarian, the Sardinian, Napolitan [commonly called the courser of Naples], the Jennet of Spain, the Hungarian, the high Almaine, the Frizeland horse, the Flanders horse, and the Irish hobbie.”
He describes these in turn: those that come within our purview are the Napolitan, high Almaine and Flanders: the first of these is:—
“a trim horse being both comelie and stronglie made and of so much goodness, of so gentle a nature and so high a courage as anie horse is. Known from other horses by his no lesse cleane than stronge makinge.”
The high Almaine (modern Allemagne, German: King John’s importations from the banks of the Elbe at once recur to mind) is:
“commonlie a great horse, and though not finelie yet verie stronglie made and therefore more meete for the shocke [of battle] than to passe a cariere or to make a swift manege because they be verie grosse and heavie, yet by industrie they are made lighter behind than before, for their rider do use in their maneging to make them to turne alwaies with their hinder parts and not with their fore parts like jackanapes on a chaine, whereby they keep their horses heads alwaies upon the enimie.”
The Flanders horse differed little from the “high Almaine” or North German breed save that it was for the most part of greater stature; the disposition of these two heavy horses was “not evill;” on the contrary the animals are stated to be “verie tractable.”
Thomas Blundeville’s suggestions for breeding, based as they undoubtedly were on experience, throw light upon the ancestry of our heavy horses:—
“I would wish him that seeketh to have a race of good horses, meet to serve in the field to get a Napolitan stallion if it be possible, if not let him take the high Almaine, the Hungarian, the Flanders, or the Frizeland Horse, so that he be of convenient stature well proportioned and meete for the purpose. The mares should be of an high stature, stronglie made, large and fair, and have a trotting pace as the mares of Flanders and some of our own mares be. For it is not meete for divers respects that horses of service should amble.”
The “Napolitan stallion,” coming from a greater distance and being more costly, was comparatively seldom imported; whence the author’s reservation “if it be possible.” There is no doubt but that the English Great Horse owed far more to importations from more northern countries than to those from Italy.
A “horse of service,” we are informed, should be able to
“trot cleane and loftilie, to stop lightlie, to turn on both hands readilie, to gallop stronglie, to manege with single turne surelie and last of all to passe a cariere [i.e., “do a smart spin”] swiftlie; and in all his doings from the beginning to the ending to reine well and to bear his head steddilie.”
The “cariere” was to be of specified length; for a “mightie puissant horse great of stature” a shorter one was recommended.
In the chapter headed “How to ride a Horse to the best shewe before a Prince”—how to show him off to the best advantage, as we should say—there is a very suggestive remark which proves how necessary were the endeavours of horse-loving sovereigns to improve the breed:—
“Maneging and doubling after a cariere belongeth to a horse of greate force, which indeed should represent in his doings the verie order of fight observed in the field which is but little used now a daies because of the general weaknes of our horses.”
In the earlier edition the writer speaks with admiration of the Great Horse,
“not finelie yet stronglie made he is of great stature. The mares also be of a great stature; strong, long, large, fayre and fruitful; and besides that, will endure great labour in their wagons, in which I have seene two or three mares to go lightly away with such a burthen as is almost uncredible.”
“But now to content the countryman his desire, which seeketh to breede horses for draught or burthen, where should I wysh him to provyde hymselfe of Mares and Stallions better than here in Englande.”
“I have knowne some carriars that go with carts, to be so exquisit in their choyse of horses, as onlesse been as commely to the eye as good in their worke they would not buye them; insomuch as I have seen somtyme drawing in their carts better proportioned horses than I have knowne to be fynely kept in stables, as jewels for the saddle. The horse that is meete for the cart, may serve also for the burthen, bycause he is strong and able to beare much.”
In the second edition, however, we find the recommendation to the countryman to provide himself with stock of English raising qualified by a remark which confirms the author’s reference to the general weakness of the war horses of the time, and indicates that the “misfits” of the Great Horse breed, as we might suppose, were relegated to the waggon and the plough. The passage “But now to content... better than here in Englande,” continues:—
“whereas he maie easilie find a number of strong jades more meet for that purpose than for the saddle, and all for lack of good order of breeding which if it might be once observed in this realme I believe there would be so good and so faire horses bred here as in anie place in Christendome.”
The need of more legislation on the subject, or better administration of the existing laws, is here very plainly indicated.
When discussing the advantages of gelding horses for use on the road, Blundeville incidentally bears out what we already know, viz., that the animals used by heavily armoured cavalry were entires. “Our light horsemen here in England,” he says, “do in like manner serve upon geldings in the warres... partly for servants to ride on and to carie their males [mail] and cloke bagges.”
The invention of gunpowder and its application to hand firearms produced the inevitable effect upon heavy armour in the last quarter of the sixteenth century. Sir John Smythe writing in 1589, the year after the famous Spanish Armada fiasco, says contemptuously of the cavalry of Spain: “Their horsemen also serving on horseback with launces or any other weapon they think very well armed with some kind of headpiece, a collar, and a deformed light bellied beast.” The introduction of coaches at this time, and the encouragement of racing at a somewhat later period also tended to encourage the breeding of lighter horses in England.