given his brother publican, Buckingham, a hint to make the man drunk and to keep him in the bar parlour as long as possible, Rochester went off in his female attire to the house of the drinker. Pretending to faint opposite its door, Rochester was charitably taken into the house, nursed and put to bed by the kind and hospitable beauty, who supposed him to be of the sex indicated by his apparel.

This is as much of the anecdote as it is necessary to tell here—much more is told by St. Evremond— and of its sequel it may be sufficient to say that when the husband had gradually become sober on the following day, had returned home, and had discovered what had happened during his absence, he hanged himself, a catastrophe which Rochester and Buckingham appear to have regarded in the light of a pleasant joke. Nor did this miserable affair end with the death of the husband. After a scandal of many days, if not of weeks, in which both Rochester and Buckingham took part, behaving as wickedly as the wickedest of the "wicked noblemen" of a tenth rate romance, they sent the widow to London, with the cool suggestion that it was time she should get another husband.

It was lucky for the neighbourhood when the king, stopping at the inn either to change horses or to obtain refreshments, discovered its hosts to be his two banished courtiers, delighted in the joke, restored them to favour, and insisted that both of them should accompany him to Newmarket.

~

That little town, with its mean houses, was little more than what would now be called a large scattered village; and the entry of the royal cavalcade, in all its smartness of clothes and of colour, with the Life Guards in their glittering armour, the mistresses in their gilded coaches, the courtiers and their retinues, to say nothing of the king and other royalties, to take up their quarters in such humble dwellings, must have been a curious and somewhat incongruous spectacle.

CHAPTER XVI.

NEWMARKET and its amusements entered very largely into the life of the literary rakes of Charles II. Evelyn says that he found at Newmarket "the jolly blades racing, feasting and revelling, more resembling a luxurious and abandoned rout, than a Christian Court". Indeed it was at Newmarket and at one other country place to be noticed presently -namely Tunbridge Wells-that the court played some of its wildest pranks. As to Newmarket, whether they raced or did not race, the king's courtiers had to spend a good deal of their time at that Rome of racing; and our two publicans, Rochester and Buckingham, were both owners of race-horses, or, as they were then termed, "runninghorses"; so the place must have been exactly suited to their tastes.

If the prices now given for race-horses would have amazed the horse-owners of the reign of Charles II., it must not be supposed that racing was then an inexpensive luxury. The best race-horses, if not most of the race-horses of those times, were imported, or, if not imported, had been the foals of imported horses. Many race-horses came from Spain, others

from Italy, and they were for the most part Barbs, or what were then called "Barberie horses," and "Turks," the name then given to Arabs. The Duke of Newcastle, who had a great breeding-stud at Welbeck Abbey, mentions, in his work on horsemanship, that Arabs had been purchased at as much as from £1,000 to £3,000 each, which he calls “an Intollerable and an Incredible price," as well he may, considering the value of a pound sterling in his days. In his opinion, the best race-horses were by Barb horses from English mares.

A well-known stud horse in the reign of Charles II., the Helmsley Turk, belonged to one of the heroes of the just-mentioned public-house adventure, namely the Duke of Buckingham, who seems to have had a great many horses in training. We hear of his running two horses in one race, the Town Plate, at Newcastle, when it is hinted that he was guilty of an infamous malpractice. Only these two horses started, and they were entered in the names of different owners, otherwise, by the conditions of the race, the Plate would not have been given: but it was said that both horses in reality belonged to Buckingham. If such an offence could be proved against an owner now, he would, of course, be warned off the turf, and cut by all his acquaintances.

Rochester won the Woodstock Plate, at Woodstock races, with a grey horse, on 16th September,

1S. P., Dom., Charles II., vol. cciii., Nos. 56, 120.

1679.1 Woodstock was a favourite race-meeting of the king's, and, as Rochester had the use of the Ranger's Lodge there, his victory is likely to have been popular at that meeting.

Races were then of an astonishing length. Sir Nicholas Armourer writes to Secretary Williamson that he is going to bring him "two gunnyes wch was improved on Thump's victory; won but a yard and soe straight the entire six miles".

The race for the Round Course Plate, at Newmarket, was run in heats, each heat being three miles, the weight twelve stone, "besides bridle and saddle". Half an hour was allowed between each heat, to rub the horses down. When the half-hour was ended, the riders were summoned by a drum or a trumpet. The jockeys were to be what are now termed gentlemen riders, who, more especially if pampered courtiers, must have found the three-mile heats somewhat fatiguing. No wonder that we read of the king, who frequently rode races, "being very much heated".2

The idea of a short flying scurry, at that time, was a race of the length of a mile and a half (or about that of our Derby course), as the following extract from a contemporary letter may demonstrate. Lord Conway wrote from Newmarket about a match between a horse of "Sir Rob. Car's and a

3

1 Lord Anglesey's Diary, MSS., Add. 18, 730.

2 Travels of Cosmo III.

3 S. P., Dom., Charles II., 5th April, 1682.