A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE of flannell, is. id. ; for empynge 1 ould Haggard, 2J. ; my expenses when Jerkin was lost, is. $d. ; my horse shoeing, is. $d. ; two mallards, is. id. ; two sheeps heartes, id. ; crossing the river, 2d. ; charges for horse and self when Haggard was lost, is. ; paid unto one for taking up Haggard, d. ; meate for Spanyells, 12s. ; bells, jesses, buetts, hoods, etc., 6s. Sd. When on a country house visit in those days it was customary for the falconer with his hawks to accompany his master. William Clayton's expenses when accompanying the first Earl of Salisbury on a visit of four days to Windsor amounted to 29*. 8d., and the items appear among the Hatfield records. Constant references are also made in these old records to the giving and receiving of choice hawks as presents, to the wonderful exploits they performed (one having killed three partridges at one flight) and as to the best places for procuring them. Sir Nicholas Welshe of Dublin gave an eyrie of falcons to the Cecil family, and other cele- brated hawks were purchased in Denmark. Sir Robert Cecil's son kept up the sport of hawking with great zest, and regularly took his hawks to Newmarket, apparently to fly matches against other falconers. A large number of spaniels were kept at Theobalds and Hatfield for the purpose of finding the game for the falconers. The Hatfield hawks appear to have been held in high esteem, for we find that the Earl of Rutland, writing to Lord Salisbury, begs him to send some of his hawks, saying, ' I beseech you for your hawks, I hear you over fly all England, I will promise you game in great quantity ' ; and in another letter he asks him again to bring his hawks, ' for I have no falconer, though a very great falconer myself ; but you shall hear me, au plus fort de la nutlet in my profession, in your bed without more trouble, but the hearing the jubets of hunts- men, the horns and the cry of the hounds, and my little girl's crying " Whoo, whoop." Then in the afternoon I shall wait on you in another shape or dress ; the horn a has, the lute comes on and in lieu of the loup one, the soyez, soyez, resondes.' In 1826 Sir John Sebright of Beechwood (whose son Thomas was master of the Hert- fordshire hounds) wrote a treatise on the mode of treating and managing of the several kinds of hawks used in falconry.' He writes of the science of hawking as being at that time nearly extinct, and alludes sadly to the fact that he knows of but one surviving falconer able to practise the ancient art according to the old school of falconry. When using a falcon for partridge hawking, it is necessary, he says, to select open country for the sport, but should enclosed country be unavoidable, he advises that one of the smaller hawks, for instance a goshawk, should be used ; but he is strongly opposed to the use of the goshawk for partridges, knowing that probably only the young and immature birds would be killed by the hawk, and that the full grown ones would be able to fly fast enough to escape their pursuer. He describes partridge hawking as follows : ' When the partridge is marked down or pointed, the hawk is unhooded and cast off. He will fly round the falconer and if a good one mount a considerable height, the higher the better. He hovers and makes his point. The falconer then approaches alone and with great care and by whistling, as at feeding time, he grasps the falcon while his prey is in his talons, he is given the head of the partridge to eat and is then hooded again.' STEEPLECHASING One of the most conspicuous sporting figures in Hertfordshire was the celebrated trainer, Tommy Coleman. He first came into the county in 1816 and trained race- horses at Brocket Hall Park until about 1820, when he moved to St. Albans and re-built and re-named the Chequers Inn in Chequers Street. As the ' Turf Hotel ' this inn for the next twenty-five years became the head- quarters of all kinds of sport on the northern side of London. Here Mr. Osbaldeston played billiards for a 1 Mending broken pinion. whole week with a noted billiard sharper and lost 3,000. Here Lord George Bentinck, Prince Esterhazy, Mr. Gully, Mr. Tattersall, Colonel Charritie, Mr. Heathcote and others kept their racehorses. From here Coleman collected 30 (each magistrate of the St. Albans bench contributing i) to get the notorious fight between Deaf Burke and the Irish champion, Simon Byrne, held on No Man's Land on June 2, 1833, and after which Byrne died. Here were also the headquarters of the eccentric Lord Huntingtower, and of Captain Becher of steeplechase notoriety, after whom 364
