STATUE OF COLLEONI BY VERROCCHIO IN VENICE
The stories that have been told of this, the first of the famous Eastern sires, are numerous, and, as is usual in such cases, the majority of them are apparently untrue.
One of the most widely circulated of the misstatements was to the effect that the price paid by King James to Mr Markham for this particular Arab sire was not less than £500, and in papers and books almost innumerable, in which the Markham Arabian is mentioned, this false statement is repeated.
That it is false beyond dispute is proved by the actual entry of the purchase that may be seen to this day in the Exchequer or Receipt Order Books in the Public Record Office. The entry runs as follows:—
“Item the 20th of December, 1616, paid to Master Markham for the Arabian Horse for His Majesty's own use, £154, 0. 0.”
It is almost inconceivable that anyone can seriously have believed that £500, or any sum approaching it, could have been paid for this sire, for at that period no sum approaching £500 ever was paid for any horse, the purchasing value of money being until after the reign of James I. so much in excess of its purchasing value some two centuries later.
That several thoroughbred Eastern sires were bought by James is well known, among the last to which reference is made by the historians being the famous Villiers Arabs, which the king does not appear to have acquired until towards the end of his reign.