Page:King Edward VII. as a sportsman by Watson, Alfred Edward Thomas.djvu/50

 following this, which has acquired the title of "The National Sport," the King, in honouring the Turf with his patronage, is observing immemorial tradition. It may be assumed that in days of yore the monarch generally came to be possessed of the best horses. We know, indeed, that it frequently was so, and that their speed was tested on what then did duty as a racecourse. Nothing is more certain than that racing must have existed from the time when horses were first ridden; for when two men were mounted and cantering side by side, we may be sure that the horses themselves would suggest the idea and increase their pace.

Seeking authorities for the belief that Kings of England were as a rule devoted to sport, the only difficulty, without being tediously diffuse, is to select authenticated instances. One finds in Strutt's Sports and Pastimes of the English People the statement that before Alfred the Great was twelve years of age he "was a most expert and active hunter, and excelled in all the branches of that most noble art, to which he applied with incessant labour and amazing success," The words "that most noble art" will be noted as showing in what estimation sport was held. Edward the Confessor, the same author declares, "would join in no other secular amusement"; but, on the evidence of William of Malmesbury, it was his greatest delight "to follow a pack of swift hounds in pursuit of game, and to cheer them with his voice." Whether the death of William Rufus was a murder or an accident, historians have failed to prove; at any