James the Second is reputed to have been a good horseman, but his reign was too short and troublesome to permit him to indulge his inclinations as regards horses. He was a lover of hunting, and ever preferred English mounts, several of which he had always in his stables after he became an exile in France.
When William the Third ascended the throne, he not only added to the plates given at different places in the kingdom, but made every attempt at improving horsemanship. Though he was a monarch of considerable austerity, this king once matched a horse of his own for a stake of two thousand guineas.
Queen Anne continued the bounty of her predecessors, with the addition of several plates. Her Consort, George, Prince of Denmark, is said to have taken infinite delight in horse-racing, and to have obtained from the Queen the grant of several plates allotted to different places.
Towards the beginning of the eighteenth century a statute of Queen Anne was enacted with a view to the restriction of betting. Very great sums of money changed hands owing to a match run at Newmarket between the gentlemen of the South and those of the North. It is almost superfluous to add that the proverbial shrewdness of the Northerner was fully demonstrated on this occasion.
Queen Anne herself was, however, a supporter of the Turf, running horses in her own name in matches at Newmarket and York.
Towards the close of the reign of George the First he discontinued the plates, and in lieu of each gave the sum of one hundred guineas.
In the middle of the eighteenth century the Turf had fallen into some disrepute, but the Duke of Cumberland did much to revive the glories which had somewhat languished since the days of Charles II. He it was who first instituted the race meeting at Ascot.
The Duke was a born gambler, and used when out hunting to play at hazard with Lord Sandwich, throwing a main on every green hill and under every green tree whenever the hounds checked.
Though cheery enough in the hunting field, he was anything but tender-hearted when pursuing his avocation as a soldier; indeed his severity at times became cruelty, which gained for him the nickname of "the Butcher."
The day after the decisive battle of Culloden, in the year 1745, the General, or as he was popularly styled, Duke William, was riding over the scene of battle in company with his officers, among whom was Colonel Wolfe, afterwards the hero of Quebec, then a young man. Among the dead and dying stretched on the stricken field, one was so far recovered as to be able to sit upright. Looking at the poor wretch, the Duke said to the young Colonel by his side; "Wolfe, shoot me that rebel." Wolfe glared back at his prince and commander, and, with a flushed countenance which showed his indignation, replied: "Your Royal Highness, I am a soldier, not an executioner." The Duke turned his back upon Wolfe and did not utter another word.