Elizabeth was fond of hunting, and the nobility who entertained her in her different progresses made large hunting-parties, which she usually joined if the weather was favourable. “Her Majesty,” says a courtier, writing to Sir Robert Sidney,[67] “is well and excellently disposed to hunting, for every second day she is on horseback, and continues the sport long.” At this time her Majesty had just entered her seventy-seventh year, and she was then at her palace at Oatlands. And oftentimes, when she was not disposed to hunt herself, she was entertained with the sight of the pastime. At Cowdray in Sussex—the seat of Lord Montacute—one day after dinner, we read in Nichols’s “Progresses,” how her Grace saw from a turret “sixteen bucks, all having fayre lawe, pulled down with greyhounds in a laund or lawn.” And many other accounts have been left us of the interest Elizabeth always took in the chase.
James I. found much enjoyment in hunting, and it was a common expression of our ancestors on taking leave of their friends, “God’s peace be with you, as King James said to his hounds.”
Scaliger observed of him, “The King of England is merciful except in hunting, where he appears cruel. When he finds himself unable to take the beast, he frets and cries, ‘God is angry with me, but I will have him for all that.’” “His favourite pastime once nearly cost him his life, for he was thrown headlong into a pond, and very narrowly escaped drowning. On another occasion his bad horsemanship nearly proved fatal to him, for Mr. Joseph Meade writes to Sir Martin Stuteville, 11th January 1622: ‘The same day his Majesty rode by coach to Theobald’s to dinner, ... and after dinner, riding on horseback abroad, his horse stumbled, and cast his Majesty into the New River, where the ice brake; he fell in so that nothing but his boots were seen. Sir Richard Young went into the water and lifted him out.’” Indeed, Sir Richard Baker informs us the King’s riding was so remarkable that it could not with so much propriety be said that he rode, as that his horse carried him. He often hunted in Cranbourne Chase, and in a copy of Barker’s Bible, printed in 1594, which formerly belonged to the family of the Cokers of Woodcotes, in the Chase, are entries of the King’s visits: “The 24th day of August, our King James was in Mr. Butler’s Walke, and found the bucke, and killed him in Vernedich, in Sir Walter Vahen’s Walk.”
In the painting of Queen Anne of Denmark in her hunting costume, her dogs are introduced by Van Somers; they wear ornamental collars, round which are embossed in gold the letters, A. R.; they are dwarf greyhounds. The Queen holds a crimson cord in her hand in which two of these dogs are linked, and it is long enough to allow them to run in the leash by her side when on horseback. A very small greyhound is begging, by putting its paws against her green cut-velvet farthingale, as if jealous of her attention.
Catherine of Braganza, Queen-Consort of Charles II., loved sport, and from all accounts her hunting establishment was carried on in an elaborate manner, for mention is made of “the master of her Majesty’s bows,” with a salary of £61 attached to his office; “a yeoman of her Majesty’s bows,” “a master of her Majesty’s bucks,” &c. At Oxnead a venerable oak was long pointed out, beneath which, according to local tradition, King Charles and his Queen stood when they shot at the butts. In the year 1676 a silver badge for the marshal of the fraternity of bowmen, of which she was the patroness, was made, weighing twenty-five ounces, with the figure of an archer drawing the long English bow to his ear, with the inscription, “Reginæ Catharinæ Sagitarii,” having also the arms of England and Portugal, with two bowmen for supporters.
James II. oftentimes hunted two or three times a week, and a contemporary thus writes: “His Majesty to-day, God bless him! underwent the fatigue of a long fox-chase. I saw him and his followers return, as like drowned rats as ever appendixes to royalty did.” In the year 1686, when pursuing the dangerous designs which led to his expulsion, he still indulged in the chase, and Sir John Bramston in his Autobiography tells us how on the 3rd of May James hunted the red deer near Chelmsford with the Duke of Albemarle, Prince George of Denmark, and some of the lords of his Court. After a long chase, the King was in at the death between Romford and Brentwood. The same night he supped at Newhall with his fellow-hunters; and on the next day he hunted another stag which lay in Newhall Park, and a famous run they had, for “the gallant creature leaped the paling, swam the river, ran through Brampfield, Pleshie, and the Roothings, and was at last killed at Hatfield.” On this occasion, too, James was in at the death, although most of the lords, including the Duke of Albemarle, were thrown out, much to his delight. But as his horse was spent, and royalty in some need of a dinner, Lord Dartmouth advised to make for Copthall, the seat of the Earl of Dorset, and accordingly he sent a groom to apprise his Lordship that his Majesty would take family fare with him that day. It happened that the Earl was dining out at Rockholts, and the Countess about to pay some visits in the neighbourhood, when the messenger met them, stopped the coach, and announced the royal intent. As her cook and butler were gone to Waltham fair, she would have excused herself on the plea that her lord and servants were out, but a second messenger following close on the heels of the first, she drove home, and sent her carriage to meet his Majesty.
She exerted her energies to excellent purpose, and on his Majesty’s arrival a handsome collation was prepared for him. Well pleased, the King set forth for London, and on the road met the Earl of Dorset returning from Rockholts, who, alighting from his coach, offered his regrets that he had not been at home to entertain his Majesty.
“Make no excuse, my lord,” replied the King, “all was exceedingly well done, and very handsome.”
King William’s favourite diversion was hunting, or rather coursing. In a letter to Lord Portland, dated from Windsor, 1701, his Majesty displays the keen relish he took in this sport: “I am hunting the hare every day in the park with your dogs and mine. The rabbits are almost all killed, and their burrows will soon be stopped up. The day before yesterday I took a stag in the forest with the Prince of Denmark’s hounds, and had a pretty good run as far as this villainous country permits.” It may be remarked that King William’s uncomplimentary epithets touching England and the English have been made the subject of strong comment; but, as it has been observed, the abhorrence of the land he ruled “was not founded on moral detestation of its vilest diversions, in the worst of which he partook.” As shown elsewhere, he was a desperate gambler, and Count Tallard, the French ambassador, mentioning some of his doings, thus writes: “On leaving the palace King William went to the cock-fight, whither I accompanied him. He made me sit beside him.”
Queen Anne’s principal amusement was hunting. On the 31st of July 1711 Swift writes to Stella from Windsor: “The Queen was abroad to-day in order to hunt, but finding it disposed to rain, she kept in her coach. She hunts in a chaise with one horse, which she drives herself, and drives furiously, like Jehu, and is a mighty hunter, like Nimrod.”