44
THE BIRDS OF ESSEX.
example, the king went to Newmarket against the advice of his
physicians to see some hawks flown.
A French falconer had arrived in London with a present of
hawks, horses, and setting-dogs from Louis XIII. Chamberlain,
writing to Sir D. Carleton on January 17th, from London says :—" He
made a splendid entry with his train by torchlight, and will stay till
he has instructed some of our people in this kind of falconry, though
he costs his Majesty £25 to £30 a day." Accordingly we find
entries of the following payments :—
" Expensis of the diet of Mons. Bonavons, a falconer at Royston and New-
market, in the months of Jan. and Feb. viz., at Waltham Cross, £34 17s. 8d.;
Royston, £41 7s. 7d. ; Newmarket [where a prolonged stay was made] £215
11s. 6d. Then on the return journey, Royston, £43 10s. 2d. Waltham Cross
£49 8s. 9d. ; and London £354 11s. 9d., thirty-five days in the said months
amounting altogether to the sum of £739 7s. 4d." (Exchequer L.T.R. Wardrobe
Accounts, Cofferer. Ser. iii, box E. Rot. 45, P.R.O.)
It is to be regretted that no record has been found of the nature
of the instruction imparted by the French falconer in return for all
this outlay.
It is not surprising that Essex was a favourite hunting-ground
with many of our kings and queens, seeing the great extent of woods
which once covered the greater portion of the county, and long har-
boured plenty of deer* and the open heaths and marshes which
afforded excellent and varied sport for the falconer.
One such place was the common at Stock, which even in Morant's
day (1768) was "pretty large, and almost joined with Gallows
Common on the north, and Ramsden on the south-west." It was
here, in 1665, that the Lord Petre of that day, who kept hawks at
Thorndon, lost a valuable falcon, for the recovery of which a reward
was offered in The Newes of November 9th, 1665. The advertise-
ment ran as follows :—
" Lost on the 28th October last, betwixt Stock and Billerica, in Essex, a white
Goshawk,† having upon its varvels ‡ the name of the Right Hon. William Lord
Petre. Whoever shall deliver the said hawk safe into the house of the said Lord
Petre, at Thorndon, in Essex, or to Mr. Andrews, at the " White Horse " in Drury
Lane, shall beside his charges defraied, have 40s. for a rewarde."
It is not unlikely that this hawk had been flown at a Kite, for at
that date Kites were not uncommon on the open heaths, wastes, and
* See Fisher, The Forest of Essex, chapter iv ; and J. E. Harting on the " Deer of Epping
Forest," Essex Naturalist, vol. i. pp. 46-62.
† By this term was meant a Jerfalcon. See Sir A. Weldon's Court and Character of King
James, p. 104.
‡ The small flat rings, generally of silver, attached to the hawk's jesses, and having the
owner' name engraved thereon.