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.