The king is said to have expressed it as his opinion that under the circumstances Philip Herbert's self-restraint came near to being heroic!
As James's fondness for racing increased, so did the great majority of his nobles, his barons and his courtiers profess to grow fonder of the sport, while many soon took to gambling with great recklessness.
This the king apparently encouraged them to do, for we learn that he was “wont to laugh heartily when told that some of his sycophants had lost exceptionally large sums of money,” or, as was frequently the case, that one or other of them had been compelled to part with a portion of his estates in order to meet debts of honour. The women of the court also aped the king at this time, as indeed they appear to have done in almost every age. Yet their losses were small by comparison with the sums lost on the Turf by their daughters and granddaughters in the reign of Charles II., half-a-century or so later.
Two years after James I. had ascended the throne there set in one of the coldest winters this country has ever known, with the result that a long stretch of the River Ouse became frozen over and so afforded the king an opportunity, of which he was quick to avail himself, of organising a race-meeting on the ice.
Drake tells us that the course extended “from the tower at the end of Marygate, under the great arch of the bridge, to the crane at Skeldergate Postern.”
But even so early as this in the reign of King James the opponents of horse racing began to raise indignant protests against “the folly and wickedness of betting on running horses,” protests to which but scant attention was paid.
Not until some years later did the extremely zealous clergyman named Hinde set seriously to work to denounce the practice of gambling in any and every form, and he appears then to have spoken and written so forcibly that many persons of intelligence and education—I quote from a trustworthy source—gathered round and strove to encourage him to the best of their ability.
Racing in particular he waged war against, declaring it to be “an exercise of profaneness diligently followed by many of our gentlemen and by many of inferior rank also.” Great injury, he maintained, was done by men of rank and others “who of their weekly and almost daily meetings, and matches on their bowling greens, or their lavish betting of great wagers in such sorry trifles, and of their stout and strong abbeting of so sillie vanaties amongst hundreds, sometimes thousands, of rude and vile persons to whom they should give better, and not so bad example and encouragement, as to be idle in neglecting their callings; wasteful in gaming, and spending their means; wicked in cursing and swearing, and dangerously profane in their brawling and quarrelling.”
These observations, and many more to the same effect, are to be found in the “Biography of Bruen”; yet in the long run the diatribes made but little difference, for the passion for gambling had taken a firm hold of the people of almost all classes, and while it lasted it flourished exceedingly.
We do not hear of many famous horses during the reign of James I., save the sires which the king himself imported; yet it is certain that the popularity of the horse increased during the first two decades of the seventeenth century, quite apart from the popularity that betting upon horse races continued to acquire.