[ENGLISHWOMEN AND SPORT.]
In all ages of the world's history, women have taken part in the out-door recreations in which men have ever delighted, the extent to which they have joined in these health-giving exercises being regulated, by the amount of freedom and independence allowed to the sex, by the unwritten laws of the spirit of the age. In a consideration of the subject that is rather suggestive than attempting to deal with the matter in any final sense, we can perhaps trace in the easiest way the position held by women in the world of sport, at different epochs of our history, by seeing how the subject was regarded by the authors of the period.
In the romances of the middle ages—to go no further back in our researches—sport for all divisions of the upper classes of society was regarded with a favourable eye. The nobles, the superior clergy, and the dames of high degree had their deeds of prowess in the field extolled by the literary lights of the time. For a noble not to care for hunting was considered nothing less than a disgrace, while the clergy were expected to require the relaxation of the chase, and to them was given the right to hunt in their own parks and enclosures. Of this privilege they seem to have availed themselves to some purpose, as at the time of the Reformation the see of Norwich is said to have possessed no less than thirteen deer parks. The wives of the nobles and those who ruled over the religious houses for women, seem to have had an almost equal amount of liberty in sharing in these recreations, and in organising hunts for themselves. The doings of these gay dames—for the religious habit seems to have made but little difference—are extolled by the poets, and if the feats recorded of them are true, they must not only have been accomplished horsewomen but very keen and determined huntresses. On many occasions, we are told, they organised hunting parties, "winding the horn, rousing the game and pursuing it by themselves." Nor, in spite of what it is the fashion of the present time to say of that period of our history, do the stay-at-home embroidery-loving dames come in for the same share of praise at the hands of the old writers.
In hawking especially women were proficient, and one scribe even tells us that they excelled their husbands and brothers in the knowledge and exercise of the art of falconry, from which, however, he deduces the ungallant conclusion that the pastime was to be regarded as "frivolous and effeminate."
At the time of the great revival of letters, the art of falconry was at the height of its popularity, and both in England and in other countries of Europe it was the rule for women of noble birth to train, handle, and fly their own hawks. It was the seventeenth century which saw the decay of this sport as a royal and aristocratic amusement, for though in the early years of the age it was still the most popular form of recreation in the field, by the time the following century had dawned it was all but extinct.
After this, during the eighteenth century, there is no doubt that the prowess of women in the field suffered an eclipse, and the few bold spirits who from time to time broke through the trammels that restrained their less enterprising sisters, were regarded with a certain amount of suspicion and distrust. To come to the days when the writings of Sir Walter Scott opened up a new field of enchantment to his readers, we know that his creation of Di Vernon needed excuse at the hands of the author for her sport-loving tastes, as the presumption was against her being a true specimen of the "womanly" woman, in the best sense of the word.
Whyte Melville, entirely devoted to the chase as he was himself, is yet doubtful of the place of his heroines in the hunting field, and in his well-known novel, Kate Coventry, he seems to consider it a reasonable condition on the part of the man Kate is about to marry, that she should give up hunting when she becomes his bride. In the pages of Surtees, which give such a vivid picture of the fox-hunter's life in the first half of the century, the woman who hunts is nearly always an adventuress, while in the social sketches of Trollope sport has no place in the life of his otherwise charming heroines.