“Buy those horses, but do not give more than 18 or 20 pieces each for them, that is enough for Dragooners. I will give you 60 pieces for that Black you won [in battle] at Horncastle, for my son has a mind to him.
“Your friend,
“Oliver Cromwell.”
It is altogether improbable that the “dragooners” referred to were animals boasting the power and substance of the charger on which Vandyke has painted the Protector. Cromwell’s “Ironsides” were not clad in plate armour but in leathern jerkins, and for men so accoutred a much lighter stamp of horse would suffice.
In another letter written six months after, appears the following phrase:—“I will give you all that you ask for that black you won last fight.” Use of this term still survives in a negative form among the breeders of Cleveland Bays; whose favourite boast of their strain is that it contains “neither blood nor black.”
The actual value of the “piece” mentioned is not quite certain. Mr. Warwick Wroth of the British Museum (Department of Coins) to whom I referred the point writes: “I think that ‘piece’ must mean ‘broad piece,’ i.e., the gold sovereign (20s.) of the time called ‘Unite,’ ‘Broad’ or ‘Carolus’ (or if of James I. the ‘Laurel,’ ‘Jacobus,’ &c.). The only other coin that could be meant would be the silver crown piece (5s.) of Charles I., or possibly the ‘piece of eight,’ i.e., the Spanish dollar current in England about 1643, for rather more than 4s.” My informant kindly sends me a quotation from Rogers’ History of Agriculture and Prices, which confirms his cautious opinion that the “piece” was the gold piece, i.e., the sovereign. The quotation referred to possesses an interest germane to the subject under consideration apart from this special point; it runs:—
“There is very little change in the price of horses ... during the first thirty years of my period [1582-1702]. Then the price begins to rise for the next thirty years and, though the dear decade 1643-1652 does not represent the highest average of the whole, the exaltation over the thirty years that precede it is very marked. For the period 1673-1682 horses are decidedly dear. Thus in 1673 a horse is bought by All Souls College at £30 5s., and two others at Cambridge at £20 each. In 1674 Winchester gives £15 8s. 6d. for a saddle horse.”
Cromwell’s letter was written at the beginning of the “dear decade;” and as the prices quoted for individual purchases thirty years later appear “decidedly dear” in a general review of the period, it is highly probable that £18 or £20 was the amount Cromwell thought “quite enough for dragooners.” His offer of three times as much, £60, for “that Black you won” shows the superiority of the Great Horse.
Despite the prowess of Cromwell’s lighter cavalry, the day of the true Great Horse was not yet at an end. In the year 1658 the Duke of Newcastle published his classic volume—The Manner of Feeding, Dressing and Training of Horses for the Great Saddle and Fitting them for the Service of the Field in the Time of War. This very curious and instructive volume, which was originally published in French at Antwerp contains numerous elaborate copper-plate engravings, most of which represent horses of the one massive type with large limbs, heavy crest, silky haired fetlocks and flowing mane and tail. The Duke writes of the Northern Horses, using the term to distinguish the North German, Flanders and similar breeds from the lighter Oriental and Spanish horses:—“I have seen some, beautiful in their kind, genteel in all sorts of paces, and which have excelled all others in leaping. Moreover they have a peculiar excellence in the motion of their forelegs which is the principal grace in the action of a horse.” Thomas Blundeville in his book gives instructions for improving the action of a horse; he was to be taken into a ploughed field or soft ground and encouraged with voice and spur to trot; by which exercise he would learn to lift his feet.
The engraving of a dappled grey horse here given is from one of the latest works of Paul Potter; the original picture bears date 1652, and was therefore painted only six years before the Duke of Newcastle’s book appeared. Potter, who died at Amsterdam in 1654, made his great reputation by the infinite pains he bestowed on the study of cattle and sheep, and the success with which he gave the result of his observations on canvas; and it is only reasonable to suppose that he exercised equal
