With regard to Mary's horses, her two chief favourites would appear to have been Rosabelle—the animal at one time worshipped by a proportion of the body of minor poets!—and Agnes, called after Agnes of Dunbar, a countess in her own right. This palfrey—almost all the horses of the period of Mary Queen of Scots are spoken of as “palfreys”—apparently came as a gift from her brother, Moray, and though it does not appear to have been a steed of exceptional quality she was extraordinarily fond of it. We find it referred to occasionally as Black Agnes.
Then, though all the evidence obtainable tends to convey the impression that Mary Queen of Scots must have been a clever horsewoman, she does not appear to have been very fond of hunting, in consequence of which two at least of her biographers go so far as to hint that her alleged distaste for the chase tended in a measure to increase Elizabeth's hostility towards her.
From what early historians tell us, Mary probably looked far better on a horse than Elizabeth ever did—the slimness alone of Mary's figure by contrast with Elizabeth's may have been in a measure responsible for this—and the knowledge must have vexed Elizabeth, who took particular pride in her riding and was desirous above many other things to be deemed a finished horsewoman. How vast a number of horses must have been owned by the nobles and by other persons of wealth who dwelt scattered over the whole of England may be gathered from the statement of Ralph Holinshed that Queen Elizabeth alone required, when she travelled, some 2400 animals, almost all of which had to be provided by residents in the districts in which she moved.
The majority of these horses were employed to drag the great carts which contained the queen's baggage, yet we are told that “the ancient use of somers and sumpter horses” having been “utterly relinquished, causeth the trains of our princes in their progresses to show far less than those of the kings of other nations.”
Naturally it must be borne in mind that the weight of the baggage of persons of rank in the sixteenth century was excessive, especially when it was added to the weight of the clumsy carts that were used for the conveyance of such baggage, so that four, six and even more horses were often enough harnessed to a single cart when it was fully loaded.
Then, too, the roads were for the most part in so bad a state of repair—many of them could not, properly speaking, be called roads at all—that frequent changes of horses were necessary.
In Drayton's well-known “Polyolbion” we have a horse that is very famous in romance. Arundel by name—a name that is said to have been originally a corruption of the French word, hirondelle—it was “swifter than the swiftest swallow.” This horse belonged to Bevis of Southampton, “the remarkable knight,” and apparently it had as many good points as any animal can possess. In the sixteenth century almost every horse of note actually living, or in romance, took its name from one or other of its chief characteristics. Thus in Tasso's “Jerusalem Delivered” we find Raymond's steed, Aquiline, that was bred on the banks of the Tagus, particularly remarkable for what we should to-day call a Roman nose.
Aquiline figures largely in “Jerusalem Delivered,” and Raymond, who was Count of Toulouse and commander of some 4000 infantry, and who, in addition, was remarkable for his wisdom and coolness in debate, is shown to have owed a measure of his success to Aquiline's phenomenal sagacity. Indeed Aquiline probably saved him from destruction upon more than one occasion.
We come upon other horses in several portions of “Jerusalem Delivered,” especially in connection with the slaying by Raymond of Aladine, the cruel old king. The stirring description of this incident, and of the planting of the Christian standard upon the tower of David by Raymond, is to be found in the twentieth book; but as we know that the Holy Land was being ruled by the Caliph of Egypt at the very time Raymond is supposed to have been attacking King Aladine, it at once becomes obvious that the narrative must have been fictitious.