We find them, according to this representation, in the open fields winding the horn, rousing the game, and pursuing it, without any other assistance: this delineation, which is by no means singular, is taken from a manuscript in the Royal Library, written and illuminated early in the fourteenth century. [157] We may also observe, that, upon these occasions, the female Nimrods dispensed with the method of riding best suited to the modesty of the sex, and sat astride on the saddle like the men; but this indecorous custom, I trust, was never general, nor of long continuance, even with the heroines who were most delighted with these masculine exercises. An author of the seventeenth century speaks of another fashion, adopted by the fair huntresses of the town of Bury in Suffolk. "The Bury ladies," says he, "that used hawking and hunting, were once in a great vaine of wearing breeches" which it seems gave rise to many severe and ludicrous sarcasms. The only argument in favour of this habit, was decency in case of an accident. But it was observed that such accidents ought to be prevented, in a manner more consistent with the delicacy of the sex, that is, by refraining from those dangerous recreations. [158]
Queen Elizabeth was extremely fond of the chase, and the nobility who entertained her in her different progresses, made large hunting parties, which she usually joined when the weather was favourable. She very frequently indulged herself in following of the hounds. "Her majesty," says a courtier, writing to Sir Robert Sidney, "is well and excellently disposed to hunting, for every second day she is on horseback and continues the sport long." [159] At this time her majesty had just entered the seventy-seventh year of her age, and she was then at her palace at Oatlands. Often, when she was not disposed to hunt herself, she was entertained with the sight of the pastime. At Cowdrey, in Sussex, the seat of lord Montecute, A. D. 1591, one day after dinner her grace saw from a turret, "sixteen bucks all having fayre lawe, pulled downe with greyhounds in a laund or lawn." [160]
The hunting dresses, as they appeared at the commencement of the fifteenth century, are given from a manuscript of that time, in the Harleian Collection. [161]
5. Hunting Dresses.—XV. Century.
XII.—PRIVILEGES OF THE CITIZENS OF LONDON TO HUNT AND HAWK.
The citizens of London were permitted to hunt and hawk in certain districts. And one of the clauses, in the royal charter granted to them by Henry I., runs to this purport: "The citizens of London may have chases, and hunt as well, and as fully, as their ancestors have had; that is to say, in the Chiltre, in Middlesex, and Surry." [162] Hence we find, that these privileges were of ancient standing. They were also confirmed by the succeeding charters. Fitzstephen, who wrote towards the close of the reign of Henry II., says, that the Londoners delight themselves with hawks and hounds, for they have the liberty of hunting in Middlesex, Hertfordshire, all Chilton, and in Kent to the waters of Grey, [163] which differs somewhat from the statement in the charter. These exercises were not much followed by the citizens of London at the close of the sixteenth century, not for want of taste for the amusement, says Stow, but for leisure to pursue it. [164] Strype, however, so late as the reign of George I., reckons among the modern amusements of the Londoners, "Riding on horseback and hunting with my Lord Mayor's hounds, when the common-hunt goes out."
This common-hunt of the citizens is ridiculed in an old ballad called the "London Customs," published in D'Urfey's Collection, [165] I shall select the three following stanzas only.