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SPORT IN THE OLDEN TIME 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR WALTER GILBKY, Bart. 
 
 VINTON & CO., 8 BREAM'S BUILDINGS, CHANCERY LANE, E.G. 
 
LOAN STACK 
 GIFT 
 
6s- 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 No pastime has ever held in England the 
 position which was held for centuries by cock- 
 fighting. 
 
 Cock-fighting was, to quote the title of 
 an old treatise, "the pleasure of Princes"; 
 it was practised by the highest of the nobility and 
 by the ht/rf blest peasant. Love of "cocking " 
 permeated so^ty from top to bottom 
 
 It is unpleasant to dwell on the shortcomings 
 of our ancestors, more especially upon a defect 
 which gave zest to their amusements ; for the 
 institution whose history is traced in the follow- 
 ing pages was hardly less cruel than bull-baiting 
 and bear-baiting 
 
 The interest this now discredited institution 
 has for us in modern days arises from its former 
 popularity. There is no feature of social history 
 which sheds so much light upon our ancestors' 
 manners, customs and ways of thought 
 
 It is difficult for us to enter into the feelings 
 of men who indulged in cock-fighting and 
 framed such rules as those which governed the 
 conduct of a 4t main " 
 
 048 
 
Some of these rules betray a callousness almost 
 incredible ; but they express the mental attitude 
 of a rude age towards physical suffering. The 
 rules are what might be expected of the times 
 in which cocking flourished 
 
 Men do not realise how far they have travelled 
 on the road to humanity within the last hundred 
 and fifty years and a hundred and fifty years 
 is a short chapter in the history of a nation 
 
 Our laws show the change that has gradually 
 come over us. On the 6th April, 1763, Anne 
 Bedingfield was burned alive for the murder of 
 her husband under the savage law against 
 44 petty treason " 
 
 Nowadays the death penalty is seldom in- 
 flicted upon a murderess however inhuman her 
 crime. A hundred years ago and less the 
 appalling condition of our prisons and asylums, 
 and the extraordinary combination of brutality 
 and neglect with which prisoners and the insane 
 were treated make us w r onder whether we are 
 reading of days when the fathers of many 
 among us were alive 
 
 When men were thus indifferent to the 
 sufferings of their fellow creatures it was not 
 singular that they should be callous where the 
 brute creation was concerned; and perhaps a 
 
case might have been made out for organised 
 cock-fighting in the clays before artificial spurs 
 came into use 
 
 It is not necessary to dwell upon the case for 
 the defence; it may be admitted that it is in the 
 nature of cocks to fight, and that if a bird did 
 not choose to fight he could not be forced to do 
 it ; but nobody has yet ventured to argue that 
 arming cocks with metal spurs was a natural 
 proceeding 
 
 The case of the fighting cock was at least a 
 degree less unenviable than that of the baited 
 bull. His first fight was very often his last, and 
 if injured he was carefully nursed and tended 
 
 The unfortunate bull or bear dragged from 
 fair to fair covered with neglected wounds 
 from the teeth of the dogs set against him 
 lived a life of torture from which only age 
 or decrepitude released him 
 
 The number of words and phrases in daily 
 use prove in striking fashion the place cocking 
 occupied in the thoughts of the people 
 
 No amusement, no occupation has furnished 
 the English language with so many current ex- 
 pressions. "Cocky"; "cocksure" "cock of 
 the walk "; " that beats cock-fighting "; "live 
 like fighting cocks " bear their origin on the 
 face of them 
 
We use some phrases unconscious of their 
 source, but their origin is not less clear : 
 " battle royal " still describes a general quarrel ; 
 "pounded" is still used on the turf in its old 
 cockpit sense of hopelessly beaten 
 
 No cocking phrase is in more frequent use 
 than "pit against." To " show a clean pair of 
 heels " is referable to the craven cock which ran 
 away without striking a blow and showed his 
 heels (i.e. spurs) unstained with blood 
 
 The common way of expressing a young 
 man's fitness for the Army or the Navy is to 
 say he is " cut out " for it, an echo of the cock- 
 pit where a bird was " cut out " or clipped for 
 battle 
 
 To "die game " is surely a cocking phrase. 
 In Mexico and Arizona, and no doubt, in other 
 parts of cattle-raising America, a cowboy is said 
 to be "heeled" when he carries arms, as the 
 fighting cock was said to be " heeled "when the 
 spurs, or " heels " were put on him for battle 
 
 Having regard, then, to the place formerly 
 held by cock-fighting among the English people, 
 it has seemed worth while to compile this brief 
 sketch of its history 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 EARLY COCK-FIGHTING ... ... ... ... ... j 
 
 SHROVETIDE COCKING ... ... ... ... ... 2 
 
 COCK-FIGHTING IN PLANTAGENET TIMES 5 
 
 COCK-FIGHTING IN TUDOR TIMES 6 
 
 ROYAL COCK-PITS 8 
 
 COCK-FIGHTING IN STUART TIMES ... ... ... 13 
 
 GAME-FOWL IN STUART TIMES ... 17 
 
 TRAINING COCKS FOR BATTLE 23 
 
 PROHIBITION OF COCKING BY CROMWELL 27 
 
 CHARLES II AS A COCKER 29 
 
 ROYAL COOKINGS AT NEWMARKET 31 
 
 LONDON COCKING UNDER CHARLES II 35 
 
 PROVINCIAL COCKING ... ... ... ... ... 39 
 
 COCKING IN JAMES IPs REIGN 41 
 
 COCKING IN WILLIAM Ill's REIGN ... ... ... 42 
 
 VARIOUS KINDS OF MAINS ... ... ... ... 44 
 
 COCKING AND RACING ... ... ... ... ... 45 
 
 FIRST RECORD OF ARTIFICIAL SPURS 46 
 
 TRAINING IN QUEEN ANNE'S TIME 47 
 
 "SHAKE-BAGS" ... ... ... ... ... ... 51 
 
 LONDON COCKING IN ANNE'S REIGN 53 
 
 COCKING IN THE GEORGIAN DAYS 56 
 
 GAME-FOWL BREEDING IN GEORGIAN TIMES ... ... 64 
 
 THE COCK FEEDER 69 
 
 MAINS BETWEEN COUNTIES AND TOWNS 70 
 
 RULES OF COCK-FIGHTING 72 
 
 COCK-FIGHTING AND DISORDER 73 
 
 COCKING IN THE MIDLANDS 74 
 
 GEORGE III AND COCKING 75 
 
 LONDON COCKING UNDER GEORGE III 76 
 
 AGITATION AGAINST COCKING 78 
 
PAGE 
 
 POPULARITY OF COCKING ... ... - - 79 
 
 FAMOUS COCKERS ... ... ... & l 
 
 TRAINING IN GEORGE Ill's TIME 82 
 
 "SUBSCRIPTION" MAINS $5 
 
 COCK-FIGHTING DURING THE REGENCY 86 
 
 COCKING IN GEORGE IV's REIGN 9 2 
 
 LAST DAYS OF COCKING 9 6 
 
 ILLEGAL COCK-FIGHTING ... ... ... .- 9^ 
 
 MODERN SALE OF COCK SPURS ... ... ... 100 
 
 SUPERSTITIONS OF THE COCK-PIT... ... ... ... 101 
 
 MODERN USE OF OLD COCK-PITS 103 
 
 APPENDIX A 
 RULES AND ORDE-RS FOR COCKING ... ... ... 104 
 
 APPENDIX B 
 GENERAL RULES AND ORDERS FOR COCKING ... ... 108 
 
 APPENDIX C 
 THE "MATCH BILL" 112 
 
 APPENDIX D 
 RULES FOR COCKING IN ITS LATEST DAYS ... ... 114 
 
 APPENDIX E 
 
 FORM OF ARTICLES FOR A COCK MATCH ... ... 116 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BRITISH GAME-FOWLS Frontispiece 
 
 GAME-COCKS Facing 
 
 AN OLD PAIR OF "HOTS" 
 
 I'AGK 
 
 24 
 
 GINGER RED AND BIRCHIN YELLOW ,, 35 
 
 THE ROYAL COCK-PIT, BY WM. HOGARTH 5 o 
 
 SET OF Six PAIRS OF SILVER SPURS OR " GAFFLES" ,, 64 
 
 COCK-FIGHTING 70 
 
 THE COCK-PIT ROYAL, 1796 S 2 
 
 TOM HINES, THE BIRMINGHAM COCK-SETTER .. ,, 94 
 
SPORT IN THE OLDEN TIMES 
 
 EARLY COCK-FIGHTING 
 
 COCK-FIGHTING is said by old writers to have 
 been introduced into this country by the Romans, 
 who had adopted it from the Greeks 
 
 It is hardly worth while pausing to enquire 
 whether this view of the origin of English cock- 
 fighting is correct or not; but it may be pointed 
 out that cock-fighting has been practised from 
 the very earliest times among people who never 
 came under either Greek or Roman influence 
 
 Cornish tradition maintains that the Phoeni- 
 cians, who came to obtain supplies of tin, intro- 
 duced cock-fighting into that part of England, 
 and claims for Cornwall the distinction attaching 
 to the earliest home of English cocking 
 
 It is highly probable that the natural pug- 
 nacity of cocks afforded amusement to the 
 inhabitants of this country long before the 
 Phoenician traders discovered Britain or the 
 Romans invaded us B 
 
SHROVETIDE COCKING 
 
 The earliest reference to cock-fighting in 
 England occurs in William Fitzstephen's Latin 
 tract describing London and the amusements 
 of the citizens in the time of King Henry II 
 (1154-1189). This old writer refers to the 
 cocking on Shrove Tuesday which remained 
 a schoolboy institution for centuries 
 
 " Every year_also at Shrove Tuesday^ . . . . 
 the schoolboys do bring cocks of the game to 
 their masters and all the forenoon they delight 
 themselves in cock-fighting ; after dinner all 
 
 _ - O ..Q; ' 
 
 the youths go into the fields to play at the ball " 
 It is easy to understand why cock-fighting 
 should have been considered a peculiarly appro- 
 priate amusement for schoolboys. During the 
 ages when soldiers met hand to hand in battle, 
 personal courage and indifference to pain and 
 injury were held in the esteem those qualities 
 deserve : and the unflinching valour of the 
 game-cock, w T hich would fight to his last gasp, 
 furnished an object lesson by which youth 
 might profit 
 
 Various records exist to throw sidelights on 
 the manner in which the sport was conducted 
 in former days 
 
 Queen Elizabeth granted statutes for Hartle- 
 bury Grammar School which provided that 
 
" The school master and ushers shall and may 
 have use and take the profits of all such cock- 
 fights ... as be commonly used in schools " 
 
 The Congleton (Cheshire) Town accounts 
 for the year 1601 show, for example, that John 
 Magge was paid fourpence for " dressing" the 
 school at the great cock-fight 
 
 Mr. William Henderson* says that the 
 master of Sedbergh Grammar School in York- 
 shire was entitled to receive fourpence half- 
 penny a year from each boy on Shrove 
 Tuesday, this being the levy to buy fighting- 
 cocks ; the practice continued until the days of 
 the Regency 
 
 The regulations of the Kendal Grammar 
 School made the establishment free to all boys 
 resident in the parish " excepting a voluntary 
 payment of a cock penny as aforetime at 
 Shrovetide " 
 
 At Grange-over-Sands, custom required the 
 parents of the boys at the grammar school to 
 contribute according to social standing ; the 
 " cock pence " thus given at Shrovetide in the 
 early years of the last century ranged from 
 half a crown to five pounds 
 
 * Folklore of the Northern Counties of England (1879). 
 
The school master directed the battles in the 
 school or in the pit attached, and the bodies of 
 the slain were his perquisite : in this connection 
 it may be noticed that the meat of a cock killed 
 in fight was held in particular esteem for the 
 table. The school master also claimed as his 
 perquisite any cock which refused battle when 
 put on the pit : this bird was called a " fugee," 
 and w T e may safely conjecture had his neck 
 wrung without compunction 
 
 The "cock pence" sometimes amounted to 
 a considerable sum ; at Applecross, Rosshire, 
 in 1792, the minister was the school master and 
 the " cock-fight dues " were equal to a quarter's 
 payment for each scholar * 
 
 Henry Miller the celebrated geologist, gives f 
 a description of cock-fighting at the Cromarty 
 Grammar School which he attended. Miller 
 was born in the year 1802 ; his remarks there- 
 fore apply to the period 1812-15 or thereabout 
 
 14 The school, like almost all other grammar, 
 schools in Scotland, had its yearly cock-fight, 
 preceded by two holidays and a half during 
 which the boys occupied themselves in 
 collecting and bringing up the cocks. And 
 
 * Statistical Account of Scotland, Sir John Sinclair (1792). 
 I My Schools and School Masters 
 
5 
 
 such always Was the array of fighting birds 
 mustered on the occasion that the day of the 
 festival from morning till night used to be 
 spent in fighting out the battles 
 
 li For weeks after, the school floor retained 
 its deeply stained blotches of blood, and 
 the boys would be full of exciting narratives 
 regarding the glories of gallant birds who had 
 continued to fight until their eyes had been 
 pecked out, or who in the moment of victory 
 had dropped dead in the cock- pit " 
 
 Shrove Tuesday cocking by schoolboys was 
 not a minor feature of the sport. It was an 
 institution that contributed much to obtain for 
 cock-fighting the place it held for centuries 
 among our ancestors. The taste acquired by 
 boys in their schooldays remained with them 
 throughout life, and the knowledge acquired in 
 early years made the cock-pit the natural resort 
 of men 
 
 COCK-FIGHTING IN PLANTAGENET TIMES 
 
 There is dearth of information about cocking 
 for many years after Fitzstephen wrote. 
 The next mention of it occurs in a letter 
 written by King Edward III to the Sheriffs of 
 London, on i2th June 1365 * 
 
 * History of London. By Wm. Maitland, F.S.A. (1739). 
 
This letter called upon the City authorities 
 to forbid by Proclamation various pastimes of 
 which cock-fighting was one ; the object being 
 to compel all able-bodied men "at leisure times 
 on holidays to ... learn and exercise the art 
 of shooting " with long-bow* and cross-bow 
 
 Some authorities assume that this, and later 
 prohibitions, indicate disapproval of cocking 
 as a sport, but this assumption will not stand ; 
 cock-fighting was placed in the category with 
 hand-ball, foot-ball, bandy-ball, hockey, and the 
 throwing of weights as an amusement which 
 distracted attention from the citizen's very 
 necessary duty of learning to shoot 
 
 COCK-FIGHTING IN TUDOR TIMES 
 
 As may be supposed, not everyone considered 
 cock-fighting a suitable amusement for school- 
 boys. When Dr. John Colet, chaplain to 
 Henry VIII, established and endowed St. 
 Paul's School in i 509, he included among the 
 " Ordinances and Appointments " of the new 
 school one in these terms : " That the scholars 
 use no cock-fighting nor Riding about of 
 
 * The number of ancient yews, the wood of which 
 was principally used for making long-bows, remaining 
 in the churchyards of England and Wales, shows the 
 importance attached to this tree in ancient times ; and 
 reflects the importance attached to skill with the 
 long-bow 
 
Victory nor Disputing at St. Bartholomew's ; 
 which are but foolish babbling and loss of 
 time " 
 
 Dr. Colet was a divine of great force of 
 character and held views out of harmony with 
 the spirit of his age. When, in 1513, England 
 was making active preparation for war with 
 France, he asserted that "an unjust peace was 
 better than a just war " ; and had the courage 
 to preach a sermon in this sense before the 
 King and his Court 
 
 There can be no doubt that adults as well as 
 youths passed at the cock-pit time that might 
 have been better employed ; in 1570, the Court 
 of Aldermen in London, being greatly alarmed 
 by a visitation of the plague ordered that all 
 " masterless men " caught frequenting places 
 of common assembly including gaming houses, 
 cock-pits and bowling alleys should be banished 
 from the City 
 
 The wording of this ordinance points to the 
 existence of public cock-pits in London. The 
 only place of the kind to which definite 
 reference is made was the cock-pit at West- 
 minster. This is said to have been built by 
 Henry VIII (1509-1547) 
 
 * History of London. By Wm. Maitland, F.S.A. 
 
ROYAL COCK- PITS 
 
 George Wilson in the earliest known treatise 
 on the sport* says that Henry VIII 
 
 " did take such pleasure and wonderful 
 delight in the cocks of the game that he 
 caused a most sumptuous and stately cock 
 pit to be erected in Westminster, wherein 
 His Majesty might disport himself with cock 
 fighting among his most noble and loving- 
 subjects who in like manner did affect that 
 pastime so well, and conceived so good an 
 opinion of it ... that they caused cock pits 
 to be made in many cities, boroughs and 
 towns throughout the whole realm " 
 In 1619, William Sixth Earl of Derby made 
 a cock-pit at Chester in a garden under 
 St. Johns. Many pits in various parts of the 
 country were built by the local authority of the 
 town which wanted one : such were known as 
 " Corporation Cock-pits " 
 
 Henry VIII took part in many field sports 
 and was much addicted to gaming ; but it is a 
 curious fact that his Privy Purse Expenses* t 
 covering the period November 152910 Decem- 
 ber 1532, contain no single mention of money 
 
 * The Commendation of Cocks and Cock-fighting. By 
 George Wilson of Wretton in Norfolk (1607). 
 
 f By Sir H. N. Nicolas 
 
paid in connection with cock-fighting. There 
 are numerous entries of sums paid into " the 
 hand of the King's Grace " for gaming : his 
 losses at dice, cards, " tables," shovelboard, 
 " Pope July game," and shooting matches are 
 recorded ; the sums paid to falconers, pheasant 
 breeders, to horse trainers and the riding boys 
 of the royal racing stables are set down, but 
 there is no mention of cocking 
 
 The absence of payments in connection with 
 cocking or the cock-pit seems to indicate that 
 Henry VIII did not take any personal part in 
 the sport 
 
 Before going further it is well to point out 
 that there were three cock-pits at Westminster 
 at different times. The earliest, that attributed 
 to Henry VIII, was part of Whitehall Palace, 
 and occupied the site of the present official 
 residence of the first Lord of the Treasury 
 No. 10 Downing Street. The building was 
 used as a theatre by King Henry VI IPs 
 successors Queen Elizabeth, King James I 
 and King Charles I 
 
 In those days the street we know as White- 
 hall did not exist ; the grounds of Whitehall 
 Palace were bounded by the Thames on the one 
 side, and on the other lay the Park, on whose 
 northern side stood St. James's Palace 
 
10 
 
 The cock-pit gave its name to a whole group 
 of buildings including residential quarters. 
 When, in 1683, Princess Anne of York was 
 married to Prince George of Denmark, the 
 uncle of the bride, Charles II, gave her " that 
 adjunct of Whitehall which was called the 
 cock-pit " as a residence * 
 
 Whitehall Palace was destroyed by fire in 1 697, 
 and a Privy Council room was built on the site of 
 the buildings which had included the old cock -pit 
 It is an interesting example of the tenacity 
 of names that Treasury papers for over a 
 hundred years after this Privy Council room 
 was built were often headed "The Cock-pit," 
 while in popular language the Privy Council 
 itself was sometimes called " The Cock-pit " 
 so recently as the year 1806 f 
 
 The Westminster cock-pit was at the north- 
 western end of Dartmouth Street ; this was the 
 scene of battles for a long period of years until 
 1816, when it was pulled down. The " Cock- 
 pit steps " out of Birdcage Walk remain to 
 indicate the site. The ground whereon the 
 Westminster cock-pit stood was owned by 
 Christ's Hospital ; and on the day the lease 
 expired the Governors and Trustees met at the 
 
 * Strickland's Queens of England 
 
 '\ MSS. of the Earl of Lonsdale. Hist. MSS. Comm. 
 
II 
 
 cock-pit to pass the resolution that the sport 
 should immediately cease on their property * 
 
 Cockers then built by subscription " the 
 Royal Cock-pit " in Tufton Street, which 
 remained their head-quarters until 1833, when 
 it was made illegal f to keep a house for cock- 
 fighting in London 
 
 The Plumpton Letters afford us a glimpse of 
 cocking at the end of Henry VIIl's reign. 
 Sir Henry Saville writes on 5th May, 1546, to 
 v his cousin Plumpton asking him to come to 
 Sheffield and " see our good cocks fight, if it 
 please you to see the manner of our cocking. 
 There will be Lancashire of one part and 
 Derbyshire of another part and Hallamshire of 
 the third part. I perceive your cocking varieth 
 from ours for ye lay but the battle ; and if our 
 battle be but ^10 to ^"5, there will be ^10 to 
 one lay or the battle be ended " 
 
 From which it appears that even at this date 
 cock-matches between counties were in voinie. 
 
 o 
 
 During Queen Elizabeth's reign (1558-1603) 
 cocking flourished. In Philip Stubbes' Ana- 
 tomy of Abuses, published 1583, we read that 
 " people flocked thick and three-fold to the 
 cock-fights " which were held on appointed 
 
 * Light Come, Light Go. By Ralph Nevill (1909) 
 f 3 Wm. IV, C. 19, sec 29 
 
12 
 
 days, Sunday being one. The cock match at 
 a public pit was announced by "hanging out 
 flags and ensigns to give notice of it " ; also 
 " proclamation goes out to proclaim the same " ; 
 by which it will no doubt be correct to under- 
 stand that the entertainment was announced by 
 the street crier 
 
 Philip Stubbes has been called "the first of 
 the Puritans." He attacked all the amuse- 
 ments of the age, with the greater vigour 
 because Sunday when fairs and markets were 
 held was the great clay of the week for bear- 
 baiting, cocking, hawking, hunting and the like 
 
 The old moralist goes to extremes in his anger, 
 including football among what he calls "devilish 
 pastimes " ; but it is for cocking that he reserves 
 his worst epithets. In the cock-pit "nothing 
 is used but swearing, forswearing, deceit, fraud, 
 collusion, cozenage, scolding, railing, convitious 
 talking, fighting, brawling, quarrelling, drinking, 
 and w r hich is worst of all robbing of one 
 another of their goods and that not by direct but 
 indirect means." This last refers to betting, 
 concerning which Stubbes held very strong 
 opinions 
 
 The attitude towards cocking of Roger 
 Ascham, a famous scholar of this period, was 
 representative of the vast majority. Ascham 
 
was tutor to the Princess Elizabeth 1548-1550, 
 and filled the same office in 1558 when she 
 became Queen. In his work "The School- 
 master," he avowed his love of cock-fighting 
 and his intention of writing "a Book of the 
 Cock-pit" in which "all kinds of pastimes fit 
 for a gentleman " should be described 
 
 Unfortunately Ascham did not live to carry 
 out his purpose. Camden attributes the poverty 
 in which Roger Ascham passed his later clays 
 to excessive indulgence in cocking and dicing 
 
 George Wilson, to whose work on cocking 
 reference has already been made, appears to 
 have had Stubbes' diatribe in mind when he 
 wrote twenty-four years later. The opening- 
 passages read as though they had been penned 
 in direct refutation of Stubbes' charges. 
 Wilson's book, however, referring as it does to 
 cocking in the days of James I, must be 
 noticed in a fresh chapter 
 
 COCK-FIGHTING IN STUART TIMES 
 
 George Wilson is at pains to declare that 
 the atmosphere of the cock-pit was one of 
 order and fair dealing : 
 
 " In this pleasant exercise there is no 
 collusion, deceit, fraud or cozenino- tolerated, 
 
nor any used (as in most other games and 
 pastimes customarily there is), neither is 
 there any brawlings or quarrels suffered in 
 those places ; but all men must there use 
 civil and good behaviour what degree or 
 calling soever he be of" 
 
 Swearing and blasphemy were strictly 
 forbidden, and offenders were liable to punish- 
 ment prescribed by the nobility 
 
 Wilson was a country gentleman, and he 
 wrote of the sport as it was carried on in the 
 eastern counties. The "nobility" referred to 
 were those who pitted their birds in the royal 
 cock-pit at Westminster, and set the fashion. 
 No mention is made of rules for the sport itself, 
 evidently none had yet been found necessary 
 
 This writer's account of the enthusiasm 
 roused by the successes at Bury St. Edmunds 
 of a cock called Gipsey, bred by himself, sheds 
 interesting light on the position cock-fighting 
 then held in England. This bird 
 
 " fought so courageously, that after many 
 admirable and almost incredible acts achieved 
 by him, divers gentlemen, my very good 
 friends, in commendation of him, caused 
 his picture to be drawn and painted 
 
upon a cloth, whereupon these, or the like, 
 words were written : 
 
 O noble Gipsey such a cock art thou, 
 As Bury Town did ne'er contain till now ; 
 Wherefore to praise thy worth and spread 
 
 thy fame 
 We make this show in honour of thy name 
 
 "So soon as the painted cloth was thus 
 finished the cock was put into a pretty fine 
 cage which two men carried betwixt them, 
 the cloth being borne a good distance before 
 them ; and in this wise, having the w^aits 
 (band) of the town with us, the trained 
 soldiers, the cock masters and clivers others, 
 we marched to and fro throughout the whole 
 town ; which being clone we returned to the 
 cock-pit again where the cock was no sooner 
 set down but all the soldiers discharged their 
 pieces over him, which w T e thought would 
 have daunted and discouraged him for ever ; 
 yet notwithstanding all the noise they made, 
 he was nothing dismayed, but in the very 
 middle of the volley of shot he clapped his 
 wings and crowed " 
 
 A famous fighting cock in those clays was 
 regarded much as a great race horse is regarded 
 in our own time 
 
16 
 
 Stowe, in his Survey of London, 1603, says ; 
 " Cocks of the game are yet cherished by 
 diverse men for their pleasure, much money 
 being laid on their heads when they fight in 
 pits, whereof some be costly made for that 
 purpose " 
 
 Cock-fighting about this time would have 
 received stimulus, if any were needed, from the 
 patronage of royalty. James I (1603-1625) 
 was particularly fond of it. Mons. Le Fevre de 
 la Boclerie, French Ambassador to England 
 from 1606 to 1611, says that the King amused 
 himself with cocking, regularly two days a 
 \veek 
 
 When the King paid a visit to Lincoln in 
 1617 cocking formed one of the diversions 
 arranged for his amusement. On Wednesday, 
 2nd April, in that year " His Majesty did come 
 in his caroche (coach) to the sign of the George 
 by the Stonebow to see a cocking there, where 
 he appointed four cocks to be put on the pit 
 together, which made his Majesty very merry " * 
 
 Here perhaps was the crude beginning of 
 that form of cock-fighting afterwards known as 
 the u Battle Royal " to which reference will be 
 made later 
 
 * MSS. of the Corporation of Lincoln. Hist. MSS. Comm. 
 
GAME-FOWL IN STUART TIMES 
 
 During James I's reign, the first instructive 
 
 book on the subject was published. Wilson's 
 
 work, already noticed, consisted largely of 
 
 quotations from Greek and Roman writers, and 
 
 was what its title declared : a book in praise of 
 
 cocking ; it contained little practical information. 
 
 The work now under notice was of a different 
 
 character : it was written by Gervaise Markham 
 
 in 1614, and its title "The Pleasure of 
 
 Princes " plainly refers to James I's love of the 
 
 sport. Like Wilson, Markham begins with a 
 
 few lines in praise of the sport for its purity : 
 
 " Since there is no pleasure more noble 7 
 
 delightsome or void of cozenage (free from 
 
 trickery) and deceit than this pleasure of 
 
 cocking is ; and since many of the best 
 
 wisdoms of our nation have been pleased to 
 
 participate with the delights therein, I think 
 
 it not amiss ... to declare in a few lines 
 
 the election, breeding and secrets of dieting 
 
 the fightino- cock, which, having been con- 
 
 o o o 
 
 cealed and unwritten of, is for our pleasure 
 sake as worthy a general knowledge as any 
 delight whatsoever 
 
 Markham proceeds to describe the character 
 and qualities to be sought in the " cock for 
 battle." The first point to be considered was 
 
18 
 
 the size ; cocks too large or too small were 
 condemned, those of middle size being recom- 
 mended as "most matchable, strong, nimble 
 and ready for your pleasure." The huge cock 
 was not only difficult to match : it was 
 "lubberly and afforded small pleasure in his 
 battle." 
 
 Such over-sized birds at this period were 
 called " turn-pokes " (a term which at a 
 somewhat later date was replaced by u shake- 
 bags ") a sufficiently expressive way of describ- 
 ing the bird, which was released by turning the 
 bag or poke upside down on the pit 
 
 The undersized cock was also objected to as 
 hard to match; the bird of average size was 
 sure to find opponents 
 
 The fighting cock, according to Markham, 
 should be " of a proud and upright shape with 
 a small head like unto a spar-hawk (sparrow 
 hawk), a quick large eye and a strong beak, 
 crooked and big at the setting on " ; the colour 
 of the beak should match that of the plumage, 
 as also the colour of the legs, which we're to be 
 *' very strong in the beam." The spurs, long, 
 rough and sharp, and a little bending and 
 looking inwards 
 
 o 
 
 It is of interest to notice the colours- 
 indicative of strain or breeding which were 
 
preferred at this time ; also to compare their 
 small number with the wealth of prized strains, 
 which were developed as time went on and the 
 importance of careful breeding became more 
 and more generally recognised 
 
 Markham says that the best were u the grey 
 pile, the yellow pile or else red with the black 
 breast." The pied bird was not esteemed, 
 "and the white and dun are the worst." The 
 *' red with the black breast " were without 
 doubt the strain known at a later date as the 
 " black reel " 
 
 Redness above the head indicated lust, 
 strength and courage ; pallor the reverse ; but 
 the principal clue to a bird's courage lay in the 
 way he moved ''the pricle of his going" in 
 the walk, and by the frequency of his crowing 
 in the pen 
 
 Breeders at this period crossed their game 
 fowl with the common barn-door breeds ; the 
 theory was that in such crossing all depended 
 on the hen : u the perfect hen from a Dunghill 
 cock will bring a good chicken ; but the best 
 cock from a Dunghill hen can never get a good 
 bird." He cites the two most famous cocks 
 that ever fought in his time, Noble and 
 Grissell, which from ill-bred hens begat many 
 very bad cocks. Markham adds that it is of 
 
20 
 
 course preferable to breed from pure blood on 
 both sides 
 
 Wilson ; already quoted, condemns half-bred 
 cocks altogether 
 
 Markham's advice on the treatment of the 
 hen is worth notice : March was held the best 
 month in which to breed game-fowl ; >v one 
 March bird is ever better w r orth than three at 
 any other season." The delicate constitution 
 of the birds is insisted on ; the nest, of soft 
 and clean straw, was to be in some warm place, 
 and the hen carefully tended that she might not 
 leave her eggs too long uncovered : the chicks 
 first hatched were to be wrapped in wool and 
 kept near the fire, until the rest of the eggs 
 hatched out, when the brood was to be restored 
 to the hen, and all kept very warm, " for they 
 be so tender (delicate) that the least cold will 
 kill them " 
 
 Hen and brood were kept indoors in a large 
 room with a boarded floor till the chicks were 
 a month old ; feeding on oatmeal, cheeseparings. 
 " chilter meat " and the like. After the first 
 month the chicks might be allowed to run in 
 some grass court, where there were no foul 
 puddles or dirty water, such being the u greatest 
 poison " to game-fowl 
 
2 I 
 
 When the chicks were old enough to distin- 
 guish sexes, the beginnings of combs and 
 wattles were cut away and seared close, the 
 sores being anointed with butter until the place 
 healed. "' This will make them have fine, 
 small, slender and smooth heads ; whereas to 
 suffer the comb to grow to his bigness and then 
 cut it away, will make him have a gouty thick 
 head with great lumps " 
 
 The chickens were separated when they 
 began to peck at one another, and sent to 
 separate walks 
 
 Here it may be observed that until compara- 
 tively recent times, landlords used to insert in 
 leases a clause binding tenants to run game- 
 cocks for them. It may be doubted whether 
 such clauses were very necessary in the clays 
 when cock-fighting was every man's sport. 
 Tenants would be only too eager to receive 
 and care for a well-bred fighting cock 
 
 Much stress was laid on the necessity for 
 isolating game-birds from common poultry : 
 the sitting hen was kept where the barn-yard 
 fowls could not disturb her ; and when the 
 young birds were old enough to be sent to 
 their walks, the quietest places were held the 
 best: "Wind-mills or Water-mills, Grange- 
 houses and such like, where he (the cock) may 
 
22 
 
 live with his hens without the offence or 
 company of other cocks " 
 
 The cock master always fed his birds on soft 
 ground, that their beaks might not be blunted 
 by contact with stones 
 
 The cock that began to crow before he was 
 six months old, or crowed at unseasonable 
 times, was not esteemed : premature or irregular 
 crowing being held a symptom of cowardice. 
 " For the true cock is very long before he gets 
 his voice and when he hath it he observes his 
 hour with the best judgement " 
 
 Three hens were considered enough to run 
 
 o 
 
 with one cock 
 
 Special attention was devoted to the perches 
 in the roost : it was to be thick as a man's arm 
 and level, a thin, crooked, or ill-placed perch 
 tending to make the bird " uneven heeled " 
 when he would never be a good striker. " The 
 perches should be near the ground and short so 
 that your cock may with care go up to them, and 
 being set, must of force (perforce) have his legs 
 stand near together, for it is a rule that he 
 which is a close sitter is ever a narrow (accurate) 
 striker.'' The ground below the perches should 
 be soft that the birds might not hurt their feet 
 in jumping clown 
 
TRAINING COCKS FOR BATTLE 
 
 At two years old the cock was considered 
 ready to fight, "complete in every member"; 
 and the process of training began 
 
 The old cock masters had their own methods 
 of feeding and preparing birds for battle, and 
 were very secretive about them, with good 
 reason ; an untrained cock would have as little 
 chance against a trained bird as an untrained 
 horse against one which has undergone proper 
 preparation. 
 
 The birds to be trained were taken up 
 at the end of August (from which time till 
 the end of May was the cocking season) 
 and, being " sound, hard feathered and full 
 summed " were put into separate pens ; each 
 pen about tw r o feet square and three feet 
 in height, barred and made to open in front, 
 the sides close boarded so that one cock should 
 not be able to see his neighbours 
 
 The training in Markham's time lasted six 
 weeks. During the first three or four days 
 the cock was fed on ''old maunchet" (the best 
 white bread) cut into small pieces, a large 
 handful three times a clay ; four days of this 
 diet was held enough to scour him thoroughly. 
 This preliminary dieting over, the cock had his 
 
first bout of sparring with another, the spurs of 
 either bird being muffled in " hots " which 
 were '' soft bumbastecl rolls of leather " so that 
 they could not hurt one another 
 
 After the sparring bout, which took place in 
 the early morning at the time when, ordinarily, 
 food was given, the bird was 4< sweated," i.e., put 
 into a basket made for the purpose, covered 
 with straw and allowed to " stove and sweat." 
 Before he was put into the '* stove," he was 
 given a condiment made of butter, rosemary 
 finely chopped and white sugar candy mixed 
 together, as large as a man's thumb. After 
 four o'clock in the afternoon the bird was taken 
 out, and his head and eyes having been licked 
 over with the cock master's tongue, he was 
 restored to his pen and received his first meal 
 that clay 
 
 The bread used during the training was of a 
 special kind, made of wheatmeal and oatmeal 
 mixed into a stiff paste, with ale, eggs and 
 butter ; this dough was well worked up, rolled 
 out into thin cakes and kept for three or four 
 days before use. Some cock masters mixed 
 aniseed, licorice, or other spices with the 
 dough, but the practice was not approved by 
 all as tending to heat the blood 
 
An old pair of "Hots" 'muffs) for muffling the spurs cf Cock: 
 
After the sweating, the cock had a clay's 
 rest; and then he was given Cheats": the 
 trainer took the bird out upon some enclosed 
 plot of grass, and showing him a common cock, 
 carried in his arms, enticed the game-cock to 
 give chase, now and again allowing him a 
 stroke at the common bird. He was kept 
 running up and down in this way for half an 
 hour 
 
 This routine, sparring, sweating and heating 
 was continued for six weeks ; three days' rest 
 being allowed before he was brought into the 
 cock-pit 
 
 It is a tribute to the soundness of this 
 author's training- maxims that more than eighty 
 years afterwards (in 1697) T r e g o n we 1 1 
 Frampton transcribed them almost verbatim 
 as the rules which from long experience he had 
 found the best 
 
 Frampton was master of the race horses and 
 game-cocks to King William III and his 
 successors 
 
 In Markham's clay, cock-fighting had not 
 reached the state of organisation to which it 
 
 o 
 
 attained later. Cocks were not matched bv 
 
26 
 
 ascertained weight but by judgment. This 
 authority says : 
 
 "In your matching there is two things to 
 be considered ; that is the length of cocks 
 and the strength of cocks ; for if your 
 adversary cock be too long, yours shall 
 hardly catch his head and then he can neither 
 endanger eye nor life ; and if he be the 
 stronger, he will over-bear your cock and 
 not suffer him to rise and strike with any 
 advantage ; therefore for the knowledge of 
 these two rules, though experience be the 
 best tutor, yet the first, which is length, you 
 shall judge by your eye when you grip the 
 cock about the waist and make him shoot 
 out his legs in which posture you shall see 
 the utmost of his height, and so compare 
 them in your judgement. . . . Now for his 
 strength, which is known by the thickness of 
 his body, for that cock is ever held the 
 strongest which is largest in the girth, you 
 shall know it by the measure of your hands 
 gripping the cock " 
 
 Artificial spurs had not at this time come 
 into use. To prepare the cock for battle the 
 beak and spurs were smoothed and sharpened 
 with a knife ; the " mane " was clipped off 
 close to the neck, from head to setting on of the 
 
shoulders ; the tail was clipped to the rump, and 
 the wing feathers cut " slope wise with sharp 
 points, that in his rising he may endanger the 
 eye of his adversary ' 
 
 It is impossible to read the old author's 
 pages without being impressed by the minute- 
 ness of his instructions to the cocker from the 
 very first stage of the breeding part of the 
 business to the last the treatment of wounded 
 cocks. There is nothing like it in contemporary 
 literature nor for generations afterwards ; clear 
 proof of the importance of the place cock- 
 fighting held in the daily life of our ancestors 
 three hundred years ago 
 
 No rules for the conduct of cock-fights had 
 come into use when Markham wrote in 1614. 
 This seems certain from the author's omission 
 to mention rules 
 
 PROHIBITION OF COCKING BY CROMWELL 
 
 During the Commonwealth public cocking 
 was made illegal, the Statute in this sense being 
 passed in the year 1654 
 
 The times were disturbed and the wording 
 of the Act shows that it was not the sport to 
 
which the authorities objected, but to the 
 political mischief which might be hatched 
 under pretext of meetings for sport : 
 
 " Whereas the public meetings and assem- 
 blies of people together in divers parts of 
 this nation, under pretence of matches for 
 cock-fighting, are by experience found to 
 tend many times to the disturbance of the 
 public peace ... it is ordained . . . that 
 from henceforth there shall be no public or 
 set-meetings or assemblies of any persons 
 within England or Wales upon matches 
 made for cock-fighting " 
 
 Horse racing, it may be observed, for the 
 same reason was forbidden for a term of six 
 months from 6th July in the same year. 
 Similar edicts against the " disaffected " were 
 issued in 1655 and 1659. The former states 
 that it is at horse races, cock-fights and bear- 
 baitings that "rebellion is usually hatched " 
 
 Under an Act passed in 1656, persons who 
 " by playing at cards, dice, tables, tennis, bowls, 
 or shovelboard, cock-fighting or by horse 
 races," or by betting thereon, won money 
 were made liable to forfeit double the amount 
 won 
 
 The fact that betting on cock-fio-htinof was 
 
 O O t"> 
 
 made a punishable offence, shows that the sport 
 
29 
 
 itself was not forbidden, as some authorities 
 have maintained 
 
 CHARLES II AS A COCKER 
 
 Charles II (1660-1685) was an enthusiastic 
 cocker ; the pile cocks, introduced by this 
 monarch were "held in high estimation among 
 numerous breeders at this day," says a writer * 
 of admitted authority, in 1819 
 
 Annual mains were instituted at the West- 
 minster cock-pit in Charles II 's time, and these 
 continued until the days of the Regency or 
 later f. The earliest code of laws governing 
 the sport are attributed to this period. The 
 brief rules transcribed on p. 30 are assigned J to 
 the rei^n of Charles II, but there are reasons 
 
 O 
 
 for believing that they are not authentic 
 
 They do not mention the curious method of 
 deciding a match known as "pounding" which 
 
 * Article on Cock -fighting in Recs' Cyclopaedia, by 
 Thomas Bourne, a famous Cornish cocker, known as 
 "Tommy the Sweep'' 
 
 t Ibid 
 
 :i; These " Rules relating to the Matching and Fighting 
 of Cocks in London " are given in Heber's Sporting 
 Calendar for 1751 : prefaced with the statement that they 
 "are said to have been in practice there ever since the 
 reign of King Charles II ;; 
 
was in vogue in 1663, as shown in the passage 
 in Samuel Pepys's Diary quoted on pages 36-7 ; 
 and the directions for matching birds indicate 
 actual weighment in scales, a practice which 
 was certainly not universal in Charles II's time 
 
 " The methods of fighting a main are : 
 
 " To begin the same by fighting the lightest 
 pair of cocks (which fall in March) first, pro- 
 ceeding upwards, to the end ; that every 
 lighter pair may fight earlier than those that 
 are heavier 
 
 "In matching (with relation to the battles) 
 it is a rule always in London 
 
 " That after the cocks of the main are 
 weighed, and the Match Bills are compared 
 
 4 ' That every pair of dead, or equal, weight 
 are separated and fight against others, pro- 
 vided that it appears that the main can be 
 enlarged, by adding thereto either one battle 
 or more, thereby " * 
 
 As regards the period when matching cocks 
 by careful weighing came into vogue, Dr. 
 Robert Plott writing in 1686, the year after 
 Charles II's death, describes, and gives a 
 drawing of, an ingenious appliance for gauging 
 
 * See Appendix C 
 
the length and girth of cocks which was 
 invented by Sir Richard Astley of Patshull. 
 The cock to be measured was secured by the 
 body on a central movable pedestal, his head 
 made fast to a fixed perch and his feet to 
 another perch sliding in a frame, marked 
 in eighths of an inch. Nothing is said by 
 Dr. Plott of the introduction of weighing which 
 would have rendered Sir Richard Astley's 
 contrivance obsolete 
 
 The last rule directing the separation of 
 birds of " dead or equal weight" to prolong 
 the main needs explanation. Cocks which 
 weighed within one ounce of each other were 
 
 o 
 
 said to "fall in, " and if there were enough of 
 such cocks of even weight shown, these fought 
 the main battles among themselves, the lighter 
 and heavier cocks being thrown into the byes. 
 But if the cocks thus "falling in" were few, it 
 was usual to separate and pit them against the 
 lighter and heavier birds, so as to increase the 
 number of battles and decrease the number of 
 byes which did not count in scoring 
 
 ROYAL COOKINGS AT NEWMARKET 
 
 It was during his visits to Newmarket that 
 Charles II appears most prominently as a 
 cocker. On I3th April, 1676, Mr. Secretary 
 
32 
 
 Coventry writes, dating his letter 9 p.m., to 
 Mr. Secretary Williamson : " We have been 
 almost all day, morning and afternoon, in the 
 field, and his Majesty is at this time at the 
 cock-pit by candle-light " 
 
 The cockings at Newmarket were often 
 advertised in the London Gazette. The follow- 
 ing appeared in that journal of February 2Sth/ 
 March ^th, 1678 : 
 
 4 ' These are to give notice that there will 
 be two great Matches of Cocking fought in 
 His Majesty's Cock-pit at Newmarket, the 
 one in Easter week next and the other in the 
 week following ; and all gentlemen concerned 
 therein are desired to send their cocks 
 accordingly. The Grand Match will be in 
 the week after Easter " 
 
 Another announcement in the London Gazette 
 of February 5th/Qth, 1679. throw r s light on the 
 progress of the sport : 
 
 "The Masters of His Majesty's Cock-pit 
 do desire all gentlemen that love the game 
 to send in their cocks to the pit at New- 
 market in such seasonable time as they may 
 be fit to fight, they intending to begin the 
 said Cock match on the i5th day of March : 
 and there shall be feeders ready to take 
 care of their cocks " 
 
33 
 
 This is the earliest mention of " feeders " or 
 trainers of fighting cocks : the sport under 
 royal patronage was assuming organisation 
 
 The appeal to intending cockers to send 
 their birds " in seasonable time, that they may 
 be fit to fight " lends point to a maxim of 
 cocking well understood in those days. Travel 
 upset the fighting cock ; no matter how care- 
 fully the birds might be conveyed, they required 
 several days rest to recover from the effects of 
 a journey; and this rest would have been 
 particularly necessary at a time when wheeled 
 vehicles were still of the rudest description and 
 jolted over execrable roads 
 
 If the cocks were carried on horse-back, 
 their travelling plight in cock-bags would have 
 been no better. Hence the notice early in 
 February to send birds in good time for the 
 matches to take place in the middle of March 
 
 On 1 4th March, 1683, the Duke of York at 
 Newmarket, writing to the Countess of Lich- 
 field, says, the weather has been so bad "cock- 
 fighting has been almost the only thing we 
 could do here, and that for the most part we 
 have twice a day " 
 
 Sir John Reresby in his Memoirs, writing in 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 March, 1684, describes a day in King Charles 
 II's life at Newmarket : 
 
 " Walking in the morning till 10 o'clock. 
 Then he went to the cock-pit till dinner 
 time ; about three he went to the horse- 
 races ; at six to the cock-pit for an hour ; 
 then to the play, though the comedians were 
 very indifferent ; next to the Duchess of 
 Portsmouth's till bed time, and then to his 
 own apartments to bed " 
 
 From Stuart times onward, racing and cock- 
 
 o 
 
 fighting went hand in hand until the law 
 practically made an end of the latter. Race 
 meetings afforded an opportunity for cock 
 matches between individuals, towns and coun- 
 ties ; and of these our ancestors took advantage 
 until the early years of Queen Victoria's reign 
 
 The first Racing Calendar (Cheney's, 1727) 
 contains particulars of cock-matches fought at 
 various meetings, and such are given in every 
 ensuing volume down to that of 1840 
 
 There was a Royal cock-pit at Windsor ; 
 the London Gazette in 1684 advertises a " Great 
 Match of Cock-fighting between Two Persons 
 of Quality " to be held there, with the intima- 
 tion that " it will last the whole week." There 
 were also Royal pits at York and Dublin 
 
35 
 
 Gaming was carried to excess after the 
 Restoration, and the public cock-pits, like other 
 places open to the world, were the haunts of 
 bad characters ; hence the inclusion of cock pits 
 in Charles II's law (16 Car. 11., c. 7) of 1664 
 against "disorderly and excessive gaming." 
 This was an endeavour to suppress cheating 
 and " welshing " at cards, dice, tables, tennis, 
 bowls, " kittles " (skittles), shovelboarcl, cocking, 
 horse-racing, dog matches and foot-races 
 
 Any person who " by unlawful devise or ill 
 practice" should win money over these sports 
 and games was to forfeit thrice the amount of 
 his winnings 
 
 O 
 
 LONDON COCKING UNDER CHARLES II 
 
 Samuel Pepys gives an occasional glimpse 
 of the sport as he saw it in the public cock-pits 
 of London. These being open to all by pay- 
 ment it is not surprising that the crowd and its 
 behaviour invited criticism. On 2 1 st December, 
 1663, he writes : 
 
 " Being directed by sight of bills upon the 
 walls, I did go to Shoe Lane to see a cock 
 fighting at a new pit there, a sport I was 
 
36 
 
 never at in my life ; but Lord ! to see the 
 strange variety of people from Parliament 
 man ... to the poorest 'prentices, bakers, 
 butchers, brewers draymen and what not ; 
 and all these fellows one with another in 
 swearing, cursing and betting " 
 
 Pepys says he soon had enough of it, and 
 yet he was o-Jad to have seen a main once 
 
 J o 
 
 "It being strange to observe the nature 
 of these poor creatures, how they will fight 
 till they drop down dead upon the table, 
 and strike after they are ready to give up the 
 ghost, not offering to run away when they 
 are weary or wounded past doing further, 
 whereas where a Dunghill brood (bred one) 
 comes, he will, after a sharp stroke that pricks 
 him, run off the stage, and then they wring off 
 his neck without more ado, whereas the other 
 they preserve, though the eyes be both out, 
 for breed only of a true cock of the game 
 
 "Sometimes a cock that has ten to one 
 against him will by chance give an unlucky 
 blow, will strike the other starke dead in a 
 moment, that he never stirs more ; but the 
 common rule is, that though a cock neither 
 runs nor dies, yet if any man will bet ^"10 to 
 
o/ 
 
 a crown and nobody take the bet, the game 
 is given over and not sooner * 
 
 " One thing more it is strange to see how 
 people of this poor rank, that look as if they 
 had not bread to put in their mouths, shall 
 bet three or four pounds at one bet and lose 
 it, and yet bet as much the next battle (so 
 they call every match of two cocks), so that 
 one of them will lose \o or 20 at a 
 meeting " 
 
 Pepys refers to the cock-pit in Shoe Lane as 
 
 "new": it is probable that he uses the word 
 
 in the sense of restored or re-opened after the 
 
 Commonwealth, for a cock-pit existed in Shoe 
 
 Lane during the time of James I. It was 
 
 there that Sir Thomas Jermin, a famous cocker 
 
 who died in 1644, played the knavish trick 
 
 recorded.')- Meaning, says the chronicler to 
 
 "make himself merry and gull all the 
 
 cockers, he sent his man to the pit in Shoe 
 
 Lane with an hundred pounds and a dunghill 
 
 cock neatly cut and trimmed for the battle ; 
 
 the plot being well laid, the fellow got another 
 
 * This was called " pounding. " The spectator who 
 offered the bet laid his hat or glove on the pit as a token 
 of challenge ; if anyone took up the wager he also laid 
 his hat or some other article on the pit ; and both 
 " tokens" lay till the bet was decided 
 
 f Harleian MSS. 6395, Temp. Jac. i 
 
33 
 
 to throw the cock in, and fight him in Sir 
 Thomas Jermin's name, while he betted his 
 hundred pounds against him ; the cock was 
 matched and, bearing Sir Thomas's name, 
 had many bets laid upon his head ; but after 
 three or four good brushes he showed a pair 
 of heels : everyone wondered to see a cock 
 belonging to Sir Thomas cry craven, and 
 away came the man with his money doubled " 
 
 Pepys's reference to " the common rule " 
 that though a cock neither ran nor died, yet if 
 any man w r ould bet i o to a crown and nobody 
 took it, the game was given over, " clearly 
 shows that "pounding" was a well-established 
 cock law, early in Charles II 's reign, though it 
 is not mentioned in the laws quoted on p. 30 
 
 The Code in which this rule is included, is not 
 to be found among contemporary publications ; 
 it was published, as already stated, in Heber's 
 Historical List of Horse Matches in 1751 
 
 Pepys makes mention of three cock-pits 
 besides that in Shoe Lane. There was one in 
 Drury Lane, another in Aldersgate Street, and 
 a third, which he calls " the New Cock-pit," 
 by the King's Gate in Holborn. The White- 
 hall cock-pit is referred to also, but only as the 
 lodging of the Duke of Albemarle, with whom 
 
39 
 
 the diarist's official duties brought him in 
 frequent contact 
 
 Pepys paid two visits to the New Cock-pit 
 in Holborn. The first time he went he was 
 deterred from going in by the rabble about the 
 doors ; on the second occasion he came away 
 after seeing two battles. Cock-fighting in his 
 opinion was "no great sport," but he was 
 again deeply impressed by the courage of the 
 birds 
 
 The diarist does not refer to the cock-pit in 
 Jewin Street. This was one of the buildings 
 which escaped destruction in the Great Fire of 
 London, 1666, and for some years after, until 
 the churches* were rebuilt, it served as the 
 religious meeting-house of one Grimes and his 
 followers 
 
 Another cock-pit was that behind Gray's Inn ; 
 this was put in order after the Restoration, 
 having been apparently closed during the 
 Commonwealth ; it continued in existence 
 certainly for a hundred years. It is shown on 
 Strype's map of London dated i 754 
 
 PROVINCIAL COCKING 
 
 Cock-fights were occasionally held in the 
 church at this time. The parish register of 
 
 * Eighty-eight churches, including St. Paul's, were 
 destroyed in the Great Fire 
 
40 
 Hemingf boron o-h, Yorks, contains this entry : 
 
 o o ' ^ 
 
 " February 2nd 1661. Upon fastene (fasting) 
 day last, they came with their cocks in to the 
 church and fought them in the church namely, 
 Thos Middleton of Cliff, John Coats, Ed 
 Nidhouse and John Batley " 
 
 It must be remembered that few churches 
 were furnished with pews at this period, and 
 there was thus ample space for the business 
 
 Cock-fighting was slow in reaching Scotland. 
 It was introduced into that Country in the year 
 1 68 1, by the Duke of York, and speedily 
 found favour. Two years later, in 1683, a 
 cock-pit was built at Leith, and the matches 
 fought evidently attracted larger audiences than 
 the Edinburgh authorities, anxious lor the 
 moral and worldly welfare of the citizens, could 
 approve 
 
 In 1/04, an attempt was made by the Town 
 Council to close the Leith cock-pit as an 
 " impediment to business " ; and in the event, 
 one day's sport a year w T as sanctioned 
 
 It is hardly necessary to describe the cock- 
 pit and its surroundings : the pit itself was a 
 circular table or mound of earth about the 
 height of an ordinary dinner table, about 20 
 feet in diameter, covered with matting and 
 having a board barrier eight or ten inches high 
 
enclosing it. The audience crowded round the 
 pit and occupied rising tiers of seats 
 
 Matches out of doors were always fought on 
 the grass, and when they took place in a room 
 in the country, where such preparation was 
 feasible the floor was spread with sods of turf. 
 This not being practicable in London and 
 large towns whose pits were in constant use, 
 matting, at a later elate carpet, was used in place 
 of turf; nevertheless, so closely was the grass- 
 covered pit associated with the sport, that " the 
 sod '' bore to cocking the same significance as 
 " the turf ' bears to racing in our clays 
 
 COCKING IN JAMES II 's REIGN 
 
 Cock-fighting continued to flourish during 
 the brief reign of James II (1685-88), though 
 that monarch does not appear to have taken 
 interest in the sport 
 
 The following letter, written in April, 1687, 
 by Bridget Noel to her sister the Countess of 
 Rutland, shows the interest taken by ladies in 
 the sport at this period : 
 
 " I am extremely sorry it is not possible 
 for us to wait on my dear sister sooner than 
 the 28th and 2Oth of May, for there is a 
 cocking and horse matches which we have 
 
promised to be at. My Lord Toumand 
 (Thomond) will be at the great cocking, and 
 (Lord) Barney and Lord Grandson and a 
 great many more Lords that I do not 
 know their names. It is said here it will 
 be as great a match has ever as been. 
 Barney intends to back our cocks with 
 some thousands for he is of our side " * 
 
 Men of good social standing made matches 
 which were fought in public, but as a rule the 
 names of the principals were not published. 
 The London Gazette of 22nd May, 1690, 
 notifies ''a great match of cock-fighting 2 gs. 
 and 50 gs., between Two Persons of Honour at 
 the cock-pit, Clerkenwell Close " 
 
 COCKING IN WILLIAM Ill's REIGN 
 
 Mons. Misson, a French gentleman who 
 paid a visit to this country about 1690 or 1691, 
 and wrote an account of all he saw, says : 
 
 li Cock-fighting is one of the great English 
 diversions : they builcl Amphitheatres for 
 this purpose and Persons of Quality some- 
 times appear at them. Great wagers are 
 
 * MSS. of the Duke of Rutland at Belvoiv Castle. Hist- 
 MSS. Comm. 
 
43 
 
 laid ; but I am tolcl that a man may be 
 damnably bubbled if he is not very sharp " * 
 
 William III (1694-1702) was an ardent 
 cocker. He spent much time at Newmarket, 
 and on wet days the cock-pit was " enclosed 
 by stars and blue ribands " ; which suggests that 
 cocking in the presence of royalty was a function 
 attended by the Court and distinguished visitors 
 in full dress 
 
 It is at this period that the term " Battle 
 Royal " is first employed. It was used to 
 describe the fight when a number of cocks 
 turned into the pit together. The Postman of 
 20/22 April, 1699, thus chronicles such a 
 battle : 
 
 " On 1 8th April, His Majesty hunted and 
 in the afternoon went to the cock-pit where 
 a Battle Royal of 9 cocks together at once 
 upon the pit was fought : most of them were 
 killed and two brothers carried the victory 
 after fighting as long as both could stand by 
 the other " 
 
 The celebrated Tregonwell Frampton, 
 Master of the King's Race Horses and Game- 
 cocks, became a prominent figure about this 
 time. In April, 1698, a match was arranged 
 
 * Misson's Memoir. Ozell's Translation 
 
44 
 
 between Lord Rcss and Mr. Frampton, 25 
 cocks a side at 5 guineas the match and ^500 
 the odd. The King was present at the first 
 day's sport, w r hich comprised six battles ; the 
 main was continued daily until the whole 
 twenty-five matches had been fought out. 
 Mr. Frampton's cocks won sixteen out of the 
 twenty-five 
 
 VARIOUS KINDS OF MAINS 
 
 A ;< long main " lasted four days or more ; a 
 '' short main " consisted of two or three days' 
 cocking. A " Welsh main " was fought out 
 in the same way as a modern coursing match ; 
 eight or sixteen cocks, all about the same 
 weight, viz., about 4 Ibs. 4 ozs., were entered 
 and drawn to fight in pairs ; and the winners 
 in each match were paired until the two 
 surviving winners met in the final. The 
 Welsh main at a later period was most popular 
 in the North of England 
 
 The ' Devonshire main " seems to have 
 been peculiar to Devon and Cornwall. In this 
 the matches were fought by "set weight." A 
 pair of birds each of 4 Ibs. were matched, then 
 a pair of 4 Ibs. i oz., then a pair of 4 Ibs. 2 ozs , 
 and so on, each pair weighing announce each 
 more than the last till the maximum of 
 
45 
 
 5 Ibs. 3 ozs. was reached. The Devonshire 
 main was, in effect, a refinement of the orthodox 
 system 
 
 The Battle Royal and the Welsh main were 
 the features of cocking to which its opponents 
 most strenuously objected : they were peculiar 
 to English cocking 
 
 The usual system was to make a main consist 
 of an uneven number of battles 9, 15, 21 or 
 25, in order that one competitor might win a 
 majority 
 
 COCKING AND RACING 
 
 The great majority of cockers " fed," i.e., 
 trained their own birds : wealthy men employed 
 their own feeders ; but there were also feeders 
 who made it their business to train the cocks 
 of patrons for payment, as race-horse trainers 
 do now. The Duke of Rutland's accounts for 
 June, 1695, include this item: 4i To the cock 
 feeder at Leicester, for feeding 3 cocks, 7/6 " 
 
 Ic is interesting to notice the relative im- 
 portance of racing and cocking in William Ill's 
 time. In March, 1699, racing and cock-fighting 
 were advertised to take place at S waff ham in 
 Norfolk. The racing consisted of one event, 
 a plate of 30 guineas ; the cocking lasted three 
 days. In regard to this it must be remembered 
 
4 6 
 
 that a single race run in heats, as the practice 
 then was, would provide sport for the better 
 part of a March afternoon ; but the devotion 
 of three days to cocking clearly indicates the 
 general popularity of the sport. Men whose 
 means fell far short of indulgence in racing 
 took active part in cocking 
 
 FIRST RECORD OF ARTIFICIAL SPURS 
 
 It is impossible to discover the exact date 
 when artificial spurs first came into use. It 
 may be taken for granted that they were 
 unknown in Charles H's time, or Pepys would 
 not have failed to remark upon them. They 
 had come into vogue a few years afterwards, 
 and were used in William Ill's reign, as 
 appears from an entry in the personal accounts 
 of the then Duke of Rutland; "6th April, 
 1698, paid Mr. Sherburne for 6 pairs of cocks 
 spurs at Newmarket, ^3 " * 
 
 In the year 1703, a Quaker named Kingston 
 published at Exeter a book or pamphlet in 
 which he vehemently condemned cock-fighting 
 as brutal, and at the time he wrote had become 
 in his judgment yet more barbarous by reason 
 of the use of " metal spurs " 
 
 * MSS. of the Duke of Rutland at Belvoir Castle. Hist. 
 MSS. Comm 
 
47 
 TRAINING IN QUEEN ANNE'S TIME 
 
 Cocking Hourished during Queen Anne's 
 reign (1702-1714) and some curious variations 
 were introduced at some resorts. Before 
 noticing these it is necessary to draw attention 
 to the changes which had grown up in the 
 system of preparing birds for the pit, as shown 
 in a book * published at this time. The writer 
 of this work did not put his name to it 
 
 The prolonged training- of six weeks with 
 the severe sweatings or "stovings" recom- 
 mended by Gervaise Markham had been given 
 up ; a fortnight's " dieting " was held enough 
 for a small cock, and three weeks or more for 
 a large one ; a mild sweating of 3 or 4 hours 
 once or twice a quarter was recommended in 
 place of the prolonged ordeal which lasted from 
 early morning till four in the afternoon 
 
 The comb was no longer cut close to the 
 skull as in former days, but "smoothly cut into 
 the shape of a half moon," so that it served 
 both for mjard and ornament. No doubt there 
 
 o 
 
 was much to be said in favour of the change, 
 which left the cock's head some slight protec- 
 tion from the beak of its foe, but fashion or 
 regard for appearances also seems to have had 
 
 * The Royal Pastime of Cock-fighting. By R. H., 
 A Lover of the Sport. (1/09) 
 
4 8 
 
 something to do with it, as The Royal Pastime 
 of Cocking says " close cutting makes them 
 appear sneaking." Close cutting was also 
 objected to on the ground that it weakened 
 the bird's beak. It may be doubted whether 
 it produced this effect 
 
 The greater exactness which had been 
 arrived at in breeding is shown by the impor- 
 tance this authority attaches to " close heeling " 
 or "sure pointing," in other words, to accurate 
 striking. There were " many ways to help a 
 cock and make him point well," but the 
 cocker's great object was to breed from a strain 
 of "sure heelers," avoiding birds that were 
 "dull heeled, wide, or short stricken." Hence 
 the scrupulous care bestowed upon the feet : 
 perches wrapped round with straw ropes to 
 give safe and comfortable foothold were used 
 with the object of keeping them in good order. 
 
 As for the natural spurs to which paramount 
 importance attached in previous days, these 
 naturally became of no moment now artificial 
 weapons had come into general use. They 
 were cut short, the " heel " if used at all, 
 serving as a foundation on which to place the 
 metal spur 
 
 The spur was not by any means always put 
 on exactly where the natural " heel " grew ; on 
 
49 
 
 the contrary ; an important part of the trainer's 
 duty was to closely observe his birds while 
 sparring and decide the exact place where the 
 weapon could be fixed with greatest advantage. 
 " There can be no certain rule about heeling. 
 Some cocks want heels very high, others very 
 low." It depended on the individual bird's 
 method of striking 
 
 The author of The Royal Pastime of Cocking 
 had no preferences in the matter of colour, 
 by which we may safely understand that he 
 was not a believer in any particular strain or 
 breed: ''That is the best which you fancy 
 most, be it black or white, red or dun, grey 
 or piled or any other colour whatever " ; 
 but it is probable that contemporary cock 
 masters would not have agreed with him on 
 this head 
 
 If this authority had no prejudice in favour of 
 one strain or another, he held strong views con- 
 cerning the size of cocks. He had no opinion of 
 the large cock that weighed 9 or 10 Ibs. or more, 
 and was from 36 to 40 inches long. Such a 
 bird was not, in his judgment, fit to encounter 
 the smaller cock ; with a 6 Ib. or 8 Ib. bird the 
 cocker might fight the largest, the odds being- 
 two to one on the little one, which " not only 
 lies under and secure from blows which pass 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 over, but has the advantage of under holds, 
 and, having strength to strike home and close, 
 seldom fails to win " 
 
 Equally, he disapproves of very small cocks ; 
 holding it almost impossible for a 3-lb. cock to 
 beat one of 5 Ibs. ; the larger bird |' takes him 
 in the rising and commonly nicks him at the 
 first coming in " 
 
 Apropos of the relative merits of large or 
 small cocks the author of The Royal Pastime 
 of Cocking says: ''It is all the mode of late 
 to weigh them." He did not approve of the 
 practice, because the scales paired together 
 cocks of widely different shape ; a small bird 
 might be matched against a tall and thin one, 
 which did not make for a good fight ; and he 
 thought the old method of measuring birds by 
 hand and eye the better one of the two, pro- 
 vided the man who handled the cocks was 
 skilled in his business 
 
 This authority insists upon the necessity for 
 making cocks gentle and fearless in the hand : 
 a bird that has been handled by a clumsy feeder 
 or a rough one never appears to advantage ; 
 he is likely "to skut [scoot] and basely quit 
 the pit, and that more for fear of being handled 
 by the feeder." Any roughness in handling- 
 was condemned as making the birds wild and 
 
5 1 
 
 shy, a serious defect in the fighting cock 
 however courageous in actual battle 
 
 Opinions at this period differed concerning 
 the amount of sparring a young bird should be 
 allowed to do while training. Most cock 
 masters of this period considered frequent 
 sparring hurtful 
 
 " SHAKE-BAGS " 
 
 Only the very large "the giant or Her- 
 culean "cock was called a "shake-bag" in 
 Queen Anne's time. According to Dr. Wilde, 
 a famous cocker of the age, the name originated 
 in Scotland, being used to describe the cocks 
 preferred by Dutchmen 
 
 The Dutch preference for large birds was 
 due to the fact that they could be fought with- 
 out weighing or matching at any inn or drinking 
 resort ; the Dutchman's habit was to " steep his 
 brains in brandy" till he was past judging 
 of a cock's size, and past handling him. These 
 cockers neither saw the cock they were to fight 
 with beforehand, nor laid a hand upon their 
 own after he was brought into the pit, " but 
 take the bag by the bottom and shake the 
 
52 
 
 cock out upon the pit and so let him go at 
 his adversary " 
 
 The cocker of the poorer classes preferred 
 the shake-bag ; the owners of inns and ale- 
 houses gave prizes, and their patrons favoured 
 a large bird, which they thought would fight 
 anything. Such cockers were urged to choose 
 birds that weighed from 6 to 8 Ibs. when 
 brought up from walk ; their fighting weight 
 would be less after training 
 
 At a later date the term "Shake-bag'' 
 acquired more definite meaning, being applied 
 to cocks which exceeded 4 Ibs. 8 ozs. in weight; 
 such birds also known as " Turn-outs " 
 were seldom matched by weight. The term 
 " Turn-out " recalls that used in Gervaise 
 Markham's day "Turn-poke " 
 
 The author of The Royal Pastime of 
 Cocking much preferred the fighting methods 
 of the small cock to those of the large : the 
 latter he says, " Like elephants, when down find 
 it difficult to rise. They seldom strike but 
 when their hold is strong, and then with their 
 broad lances they dig such orifices in each 
 others bulky sides," they are soon exhausted 
 from loss of blood. The lancet-shaped spur 
 was used for arming these large cocks 
 
53 
 LONDON COCKING IN ANNE'S REIGN 
 
 Various kinds of spurs were used in Queen 
 Anne's time, as the following advertisement 
 shows : 
 
 "On Wednesday a single battle will- be 
 fought with sickles after the East India 
 manner, and on Thursday a Battle Royal, 
 one cock with a sickle and four cocks with 
 fair spurs. Friday a pair of shake-bags with 
 fair spurs, and four matchable cocks which 
 are to tight with sickles, lancet-spurs and 
 penknife-spurs, the like never yet seen, for 
 the entertainment of Foreign Ambassadors 
 and gentlemen " 
 
 Cocking always had its opponents, and in 
 Queen Anne's reign there was agitation to 
 make an end of it. This we learn from a 
 remark in the preface to The Royal Pastime 
 of Cocking. The author " would fain know, 
 shall an innocent pastime be forbidden to all 
 because some particular persons make ill use 
 of it " 
 
 The sport had far too strong a hold on all 
 classes to be in any danger of abolition ; men of 
 every class, from one extremity of the social 
 scale to the other, bore part in it. The prize 
 
 * Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne. J. Ashton 
 
54 
 
 for a match varied from a fat pig at the 
 public-house pit to a thousand guineas at a 
 fashionable resort 
 
 Foreign visitors took a keen interest in 
 English cocking, and purchased game - fowl 
 from us then as they buy horses now. King 
 Christian V of Denmark was a great lover of the 
 sport ; he not only held cock-fights at appointed 
 times but " always hung out costly ensigns and 
 rich flags whereon is portrayed both the place 
 (of cocking) and very gestures of the cock " 
 
 This King had music to play " martial airs " 
 when the cocks were brought upon the pit ; and 
 the birds and the weapons which were to be 
 fastened upon their heels were displayed to the 
 spectators before the cocks were set to. Sir 
 William Corby, Resident at the Danish Court, 
 testified to the esteem in which English game- 
 fowl were held in Denmark 
 
 It was an age of gaming and high play, and 
 large stakes were sometimes put up on cocking 
 matches. The largest stake advertised during 
 Queen Anne's reign was 10 guineas the battle 
 and 500 guineas the odd. This was a main 
 fought at the " Old Red Lyon Cock-pit,'* 
 behind Gray's Inn Walks, between the Gentle- 
 men of Essex against the rest of Great Britain 
 it lasted a week 
 
55 
 
 The Red Lion Cock-pit to adopt modern 
 spelling was a fashionable resort during 
 Queen Anne's reign. In March and April, 1704, 
 the Gentlemen of Essex and Cambridgeshire 
 matched their cocks against those of London 
 and Surrey: 10 guineas a battle and 200 
 guineas the odd 
 
 This pit was burned down in 1708 under 
 circumstances which go to show 7 the care good 
 feeders took of their birds. There had been 
 cocking on a Saturday and, the weather being- 
 cold, two feeders named Compton and Day 
 remained all night with their cocks to make sure 
 they were warm. A candle accidentally falling* 
 among the straw the building caught fire and 
 one of the men was burned to death 
 
 Where wagering ran high, as round the cock- 
 pits, there were always blacklegs and welchers 
 bent on defrauding their neighbours if oppor- 
 tunity served. The cockers' law for dealing 
 with such men was peculiar. In every cock- 
 pit was a large basket to which was fastened a 
 rope passed through a pulley in the roof. The 
 welcher was put into the basket, drawn up and 
 kept there until the sport was over, when he 
 was lowered and, we need not doubt, received 
 very rough handling. ll Basketing," as this 
 was called, continued until the early years of 
 
56 
 
 the nineteenth century. It had nearly gone 
 out of use in 1803*, cockers contenting them- 
 selves with turning the offender out-of-cloors 
 with cuffs and kicks. Hogarth's well-known 
 picture the scene of which is the Westminster 
 Cock-pit shows the basket in use 
 
 The full text of this rule will be found in 
 Appendix A 
 
 COCKING IN THE GEORGIAN DAYS 
 
 The last year of George I's reign saw 
 publication of the first regular annual record 
 of cocking in Britain, at least in so far as 
 important matches are concerned. John Cheney 
 produced his Historical List of all Horse 
 Matches Run in 1726, and included, as an 
 appropriate adjunct to Turf records "a List of 
 the Cock Matches of the Year " f 
 
 These records throw a certain amount of 
 light on the methods of the time. Ardent 
 cockers might agree to meet and pit their cocks 
 annually for a number of years. Thus, at 
 WesLon in Cheshire (always a great cocking 
 county), in 1727, Mr. S teat ham fought 
 
 * Sporting Dictionary. Wm. Taplin. (1803) 
 
 f The term " main " has been used in the foregoing 
 pages as a matter of convenience ; this word, however, 
 did not come into use until about 1727. " Cock match ' 
 was the term till then applied to a battle or series of 
 battles; from 1727, "main" was increasingly used 
 
57 
 
 Mr. Poole, each "showing" 21 cocks for 
 6 guineas a battle, and 20 guineas the odd ; 
 won by Mr. Steatham ten battles to six. These 
 two gentlemen at the same time (first week in 
 April, 1727) fought seven pairs of shake-bags 
 for 10 guineas the battle and 20 guineas the 
 odd ; won by Mr. Poole four battles to three 
 
 Messrs. Steatham and Poole fought a return 
 match at Leek in Staffordshire, in May, 
 21 cocks a side, for 6 guineas and 20 guineas ; 
 won by Mr. Poole nine battles to five. 
 Seven pairs of shake-bags were also pitted, 
 Mr. Steatham winning four to three. They 
 further agreed to fight each other once at 
 Weston and once at Leeke every year for the 
 next seven years, "every time showing 21 
 match or battle cocks, and to fight seven 
 pairs of shake-bags, and for the same sum " 
 
 Messrs. Gumzere and Fridenberg arranged 
 to fio-ht a series of mains twice a year for five 
 
 o J 
 
 years, each to show 41 cocks, 6 guineas 
 a battle and 100 guineas the main. The record 
 of these ten matches is not complete ; the last 
 two were fought in 1750 at the Old Red Lion 
 pit at the back of Gray's Inn 
 
 Matches between counties were an institution; 
 Cheshire fought Lancashire, 31 cocks a side 
 for 5 guineas and 50 guineas ; frequently 
 
a town would fight a county, as when Hamp- 
 shire fought Reading, 41 cocks a side, for 
 4 guineas and 40 guineas 
 
 Sometimes a single cocker fought a town or 
 a whole county, as when Sir Jonathan Jenkins 
 fought Derbyshire in July, 1727, showing 21 
 cocks a side, for 2 guineas a battle and 
 20 guineas the odd. Derbyshire was totally 
 outmatched on this occasion, Sir Jonathan 
 winning thirteen or fourteen of the battles 
 and the county only two or three 
 
 The difference between the number of cocks 
 " shown " on either side and the number of 
 battles fought will be remarked ; in the main 
 last mentioned sixteen battles were fought and 
 five byes ; the method of separating birds to 
 fight battles and byes respectively was explained 
 on page 3 1 
 
 Cheney's account of the three matches fought 
 in Cumberland (another great cocking county), 
 shows the advantage enjoyed by the cocker 
 who fought his birds at home ; in other words, 
 to the upsetting effects of travel on the cocks. 
 One of the three matches was fought at 
 Whitehaven by the gentlemen of that town 
 against Carlisle and Penrith ; the second at 
 Penrith against Carlisle and Whitehaven ; and 
 the third at Carlisle against Whitehaven and 
 
59 
 
 Penrith ; each match consisting of 26 cocks 
 a side for 2 guineas and 20 guineas 
 
 In each of these three matches the home birds 
 won : the Whitehaven cocks won at White- 
 haven, the Penrith cocks at Penrith, and the 
 Carlisle cocks at Carlisle, despite the fact that 
 in each case the home birds had to meet the 
 pick of the two other towns, " which seems, 
 says the record, " to support the opinion of 
 cocks receiving great damage by being far 
 carried " 
 
 The stakes in such matches were not extra- 
 vagantly high. The largest mentioned in the 
 list of matches fought in 1727 were in the 
 main fought between Preston and WakefielcL 
 Thirty-one cocks were shown : 10 guineas a 
 battle and 180 guineas the odd. Twenty 
 battles were fought, of which one was drawn, 
 and the pecuniary result was as follows : 
 Preston, 12 battles won at 10 guineas = 
 i 20 guineas, plus 180 guineas = 300 guineas ; 
 Wakefield, 7 battles won at 10 guineas = 
 70 guineas. Net result, Preston won 300 
 guineas less 70 guineas = 230 guineas. The 
 wagering would have been out of all proportion 
 to the stakes 
 
 The rage for cocking gave use to many 
 satires, lampoons and caricatures. A once 
 
62 
 
 "The stage on which they fight is round 
 and small. One of the cocks is released and 
 struts about proudly for a few seconds. He 
 is then caught up and his enemy appears. 
 When the bets are made one of the cocks is 
 placed on either end of the stage ; they are 
 armed w r ith silver spurs, and immediately 
 rush at each other and fight furiously. It 
 is surprising to see the ardour, strength and 
 courage of these little creatures, for they 
 rarely give up till one of them is dead 
 
 " The spectators are ordinarily composed 
 of common people, and the noise is terrible ; 
 it is impossible to hear yourself speak unless 
 you shout. At Whitehall cock-pit, on the 
 contrary, where the spectators are mostly 
 persons of a certain rank, the noise is much 
 less ; but would you believe that at this 
 place several hundred pounds are sometimes 
 lost and won ? 
 
 " Cocks will sometimes fight a whole hour 
 before one or the other is victorious ; at 
 other times one may get killed at once. 
 You sometimes see a cock ready to fall and 
 apparently die, seeming to have no more 
 strength, and suddenly it will regain all its 
 vigour, fight with renewed courage, and kill 
 its enemy 
 
 " Sometimes a cock will be seen vanquish- 
 ing its opponent and, thinking it is dead (if 
 
63 
 
 cocks can think), jump on the body of the 
 bird and crow noisily with triumph, when 
 the fallen bird will unexpectedly revive and 
 slay the victor. Of course such cases are 
 very rare, but their possibility makes the 
 fight very exciting. Ladies never assist at 
 these sports " 
 
 Mons. de Saussure was referring to the 
 Royal Cock-pit when he wrote of silver spurs : 
 these, being less fatal than spurs of steel, were 
 always used at the St. James's resort, when the 
 stake on the battle was ^5 or more, unless 
 special conditions were made to the contrary ; 
 the object being to prolong the fight 
 
 Daniel Defoe, writing four years earlier,* 
 says he attended several cock matches and 
 never saw a cock run away. He did not care 
 about cocking, regarding it as a " remnant 
 of the barbarous customs of this island, and 
 too cruel " to please him, by reason of the use 
 of steel spurs, which he says were called 
 "gaffles" 
 
 There are in the Elsenham collection a set 
 of six pairs of silver spurs in a sharkskin 
 case ; such a set of uniform pattern by the 
 same maker is very rare. The initials of the 
 maker, stamped on the blade sockets, are 
 
 5 Jouvney through England. (1724) 
 
6 4 
 
 " P.C.," indicating a member of the Clay family 
 the members of which were famed for the 
 beauty, quality and finish of the cock spurs 
 made by them. These spurs, of which an 
 illustration is given, were made in 1755 
 
 The leathers for attaching the spurs to the 
 legs of the cock are stamped " N.P. " ; these 
 were the initials of Nehemiah Paucson, one of 
 the busiest patrons of the cock-pit at that 
 period : he fought a number of great mains 
 with other famous cockers of the day 
 
 The leathers are in bad repair, but the spurs 
 remain as they were taken from the heels of 
 the cocks which last fought in them 
 
 Defoe, like others who have recorded their 
 impressions of cocking, refers to the con- 
 tinuous uproar round the pit. One writer of 
 this or a rather later period says it was worth 
 coming to England if only to be present at an 
 election and a cock match ; at each of which is 
 displayed a " spirit of anarchy and confusion 
 which words cannot paint " 
 
 GAME-FOWL BREEDING IN GEORGIAN TIMES 
 
 Ideas on the subject of game-fowl breeding 
 were changing in George 1 1 's time. The old 
 theory, upheld by Gervaise Markham, that 
 
given a true game- hen she would produce 
 good fowl to any barn-yard cock was still held 
 by many, and more advanced cock masters 
 were now endeavouring to correct it 
 
 In the year 1/44, Thomas Dixon, of York, 
 an authority at once practical and thoughtful, 
 produced a book,* in which he sought explana- 
 tion of the deeply-rooted conviction that every- 
 thing depended on the hen, and gave his own 
 sensible views on the subject. 
 
 Cocks, he points out, were continually in 
 training, were "harassed about" by journeys, 
 which, together with the wounds received in 
 battle, impaired their constitutions and brought 
 upon them the premature old age which affects 
 vigour and reproductive power. Hens, on the 
 other hand, were not subject to these influences 
 and, living quietly at home, retained their con- 
 stitution and breeding powers unimpaired. In 
 a word, that hens led a natural life, whereas 
 cocks did not 
 
 Moreover, Dixon thought the clipping of a 
 cock for battle disturbed the natural course of 
 moulting. " All breeders must allow that during 
 the time of a cock's being out of feather he is 
 liable to a great many casualties and misfortunes 
 
 * A Treatie on the Nature and tvue Foundation of Breed- 
 ing Cocks. (York, 1744) 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 which render him incapable of shedding his 
 feathers after a regular manner and at a proper 
 time of the year, which if he does not it is 
 impossible he should be healthful" 
 
 Dixon also strongly condemned the practice 
 of breeding from "tainted fowl." There were 
 many degrees of taint : in some cases it arose 
 from the use of old and battle-worn cocks ; in 
 others from walking at places where the young 
 birds were exposed to extremes of heat and 
 cold or want of water ; in others from in- 
 judicious usage when the birds came in from 
 walk and were taken up to train 
 
 Long weapons were in vogue at this time, 
 and their use indicated necessity for cocks with 
 short thighs ; a long thigh was weak and the 
 bird was liable to break his own limbs by 
 strong striking. Activity and strength were 
 the great points at which to aim in the con- 
 formation of game-fowl. Dixon divided fight- 
 ing cocks into three classes : 
 
 ( i ) The active and ready -fight ing cock, which 
 if in perfect condition was the best, but if not in 
 such condition the worst. This kind of cock- 
 always attacked at once and in such a furious 
 manner that the designs of the foe were 
 
 o 
 
 frustrated 
 
Mr. George Heneage's " Dog -kennels, more 
 particularly the Right Norrils, which were bred 
 from the Old Nonpariel Dog-kennel cock and 
 out of Sir Windsor Hemlock's hens/ 7 are cited 
 as the best examples of this kind of fighting 
 cock. Mr. Heneage, a Lincolnshire gentle- 
 man, was one of the foremost cockers of his 
 day, and on occasion he fought his birds for 
 large stakes. In 1744 he made a match with 
 the Duke of Ancaster, to be fought at Louth 
 in May, 1745 : 41 cocks a side, 20 guineas the 
 battle and 1,400 guineas the main 
 
 (2) The Bull-dog kind, which was never in 
 a hurry, was seldom known to spar, but kept 
 its ground and stood it fairly, blow for blow, 
 always placing a stroke w r here it was sure to do 
 execution 
 
 Mr. Boston's Duckwings are cited as the best 
 of the Bull-dog kind. They traced their descent 
 from the Old Duckwing, bred by Smith, of 
 Peterborough, admitted to be as fine a bird as 
 any ever bred in England 
 
 Old Duckwing fought four years in succession 
 at the Lincoln race meeting and at other places 
 besides ; and in his eighth year, being then 
 almost blind and gouty-footed, he beat a fine 
 fresh cock in a few blows. This bird was 
 remarkable for his great strength ; he never 
 
68 
 
 fought without either breaking or bending 
 Smith's spurs almost double. Such power, it 
 might be thought, would be rather against the 
 bird, since spurs might not be changed during 
 a match. 
 
 The (3) and last kind was the Artful fighting 
 cock : this sort always were on their guard 
 from the moment they were pitted ; they took 
 the measure of the adversary, and if they found 
 him "too long or too strong" for them, never 
 allowed him a fair blow at the face ; shooting 
 off clear of danger after putting in a stroke. 
 Such a cock had great staying power and would 
 beat a bird much heavier and stronger than 
 himself 
 
 The " Plimouths " of Wilkins of Grantham 
 are mentioned as the best examples of the 
 Artful cock, whose presence of mind was their 
 strong point 
 
 Dixon is the first authority to advocate 
 incestuous breeding of game-fowl ; he says, 
 brother and sister may be mated, but he thought 
 it preferable to breed from half-brother and 
 sister, " that is twice by the cock but from 
 different hens," provided a year's trial of each 
 has produced good results ; or own cousins 
 could be mated with advantage 
 
 Dixon mentions a successful cross made by 
 Mr. Boston of Lincoln, between his Duckwings 
 
6 9 
 
 and Downrumps ; the crossing- produced 
 excellent fighting cocks, but these bred very 
 indifferent stock, slothful and inactive. He 
 attributes this and another failure to the mating 
 
 o 
 
 of an Active fighter with a hen of the Bull-dog 
 or the Artful class ; and uses the lesson to 
 insist upon the policy of incestuous breeding 
 
 THE COCK FEEDER 
 
 A great deal depended on the feeder from 
 the hour the young birds were taken up for 
 training until they were heeled for battle 
 
 The methods of the pit afforded scope for the 
 feeder's skill. The usual system was to show 
 and weigh cocks the day but one before the 
 main began. Each bird was weighed to a 
 quarter of an ounce, and as it was to the cocker's 
 interest that his birds should weigh as light as 
 possible, the feeder brought his cocks hungry 
 to the scales. He could not risk weakening 
 
 o 
 
 them by drawing the birds too fine to be 
 weighed, and he dared not over-feed them after 
 they had passed the scales, lest he made them 
 unfit for battle forty-eight hours or more 
 afterwards 
 
 The art of the feeder was shown in the skill 
 with which he could get his birds weighed at 
 
70 
 
 their lightest, and yet pit them "wound up" to 
 the very pitch of fighting condition 
 
 Feeders varied in their attainments : some 
 excelled in training for a short main of two or 
 three days ; others were at their best in training 
 birds for a long main of six days 
 
 The feeder, in point of fact, occupied on the 
 sod the same position as the modern race-horse 
 trainer; Heber's Calendar of 1751 contains, 
 with particulars of cock- matches fought and 
 arranged, the names of the feeders in some 
 cases, thus indicating recognition of the impor- 
 tance of their part in cock-fighting 
 
 When county fought county all the birds 
 destined for the match were placed in the care 
 of the county feeder. Thus in 1/50, matches 
 were arranged between Gloucestershire and 
 Wiltshire, the first to be fought at Cirencester in 
 Easter week, the return match at " Cricklet " 
 (Cricklade) in Whitsun week : 4: cocks a side, 
 10 guineas the battle and 200 the main ; the 
 feeder for Wiltshire was Mr. Cope and for 
 Gloucestershire, Mr. Wagstaff 
 
 MAINS BETWEEN COUNTIES AND TOWNS 
 
 Neither George I nor George II took any 
 personal interest in the cock-pit, but lack of 
 royal example in no way affected the general 
 
,. 
 
 .-_ 
 
 1 
 
 '" 
 
popularity of cocking. The newspapers of the 
 time bear witness to the number of matches in 
 the lame towns of the kingdom. These 
 
 O O 
 
 appealed to every class, and were held in very 
 various places 
 
 Thus on 6th May, i 744, the Daily Advertiser 
 announces cocking at the Two Brewers, 
 Hockley in the Hole (Clerkenwell), for "a 
 large sow and ten pigs " or their value, no cock 
 to exceed 4 Ibs. i oz. In 1747 Ariss Gazette 
 notifies a match, 41 cocks a side between 
 Warwickshire and Worcestershire, at Ducldes- 
 ton Hall, near Birmingham, 10 guineas a battle 
 and 200 guineas the main ; also 2 i cocks a side 
 to fight byes for 2 guineas each 
 
 In these inter-county or inter-town mains 
 the birds were generally the property of a 
 number of joint subscribers, but leading cockers 
 sometimes lent birds to do battle 
 
 The Earl of Derby used to lend birds to fight 
 for Lancashire against Cheshire. The cocks 
 were chosen of medium weight, 3 Ibs. 8 ozs. to 
 4 Ibs. 10 ozs., in order to ensure as many battles 
 and as few byes as possible; and the combatants 
 were often matched to a drachm weight. At 
 the second of a series of seven annual matches 
 fought by Birmingham against Briclgenorth 
 (1761) of sixty-one cocks weighed, fifty-eight 
 were matched 
 
72 
 
 With a few exceptions 200 guineas was the 
 largest stake on a main ; occasionally it might 
 be 400 guineas, but by far the greater amount 
 of money changed hands in bets 
 
 In the town cocking was essentially an 
 evening amusement, that it might be acces- 
 sible to those w r ho were occupied during the 
 day ; but at pits patronised by men of leisure 
 and on holidays at public resorts "play" might 
 begin at eleven or at noon. Nominally the 
 cocking season opened with Shrovetide and 
 coincided with the racing season ; in practice 
 cocking went on all the year round 
 
 RULES OF COCK-FIGHTING 
 
 The " Rules and Orders for Cocking," ob- 
 served at this period (1751), are given in 
 Appendix A. The matter-of-fact way in which 
 is set forth the method of '* setting to " cocks, 
 one or both of which might have lost its sight, 
 is eloquent of the callous spirit of the age. So 
 long as a cock would fight and a true game- 
 cock would fight to the last gasp the injuries 
 it received were merely regarded as impairing 
 prospects of winning, It is not surprising that 
 cocking had its resolute opponents among the 
 more enlightened of our ancestors 
 
73 
 
 Perhaps, however, the point that first strikes 
 the reader of these nineteen rules is only six 
 of them apply to cock-fighting itself. Three 
 (Nos. VIII, XV and XVII) apply to the 
 conduct and control of the audience, while the 
 remaining ten rules deal with betting and the 
 quarrels that might arise out of it. This 
 circumstance lends colour to the frequent com- 
 plaints made by the opponents of cocking to 
 the effect that it gave rise to dispute and riot 
 
 COCK-FIGHTING AND DISORDER 
 
 There is ample evidence to prove that in 
 districts where cock-fighting was particularly 
 popular, as in the " Black Country, 1 ' serious 
 troubles occurred. At Wednesbury, in Staf- 
 fordshire, always a great place for the sport, 
 the authorities in 1750 gave public notice that 
 "on account of the many disorders and furious 
 riots " which took place in the alehouses after 
 cock-fighting, any publican who allowed the 
 sport on his premises should lose his licence, 
 and that all cockers caup'ht stirrino- up mischief 
 
 O O I 
 
 or inciting to riot should be whipped at the 
 common whipping-post 
 
 Six years later the Darlaston authorities 
 issued warning that "felonies and disorders'" 
 
74 
 at cock-ficrhts or similar assemblies would be 
 
 o 
 
 prosecuted. Darlaston was another famous 
 cocking- centre. Mr. Hackwood states that 
 when the town wished to bring about a cocking 
 match with the neighbouring town of Willen- 
 hall, or vice versa, a man would go out carrying 
 a game-cock which he held up towards the 
 weathercock on the church steeple of the 
 other town ; this gesture meant a challenge, 
 and it was never refused 
 
 COCKING IN THE MIDLANDS 
 
 The Birmingham capers in George II's time 
 gave as much space to the description of a 
 cock match as to the trials at Assizes, to royal 
 birthday celebrations and other events of public 
 interest. Advertisements remain to show the 
 frequency of meetings at Briclgnorth, Stoke, 
 Worcester, Wellington, Dudley, Lichfield, in a 
 word ot all the towns within a clay's journey 
 of Birmingham : the Weclnesbury cockings 
 were famed, and the Preston race meetings 
 for a long period were noted for the mains 
 that were fought there 
 
 Duddeston Hall was to the Midlands what 
 the London cock-pits were to the South. 
 County mains were fought there for many 
 years ; and there was an annual subscription 
 
/D 
 main on New Year's day and the day following 
 
 GEORGE III. AND COCKING 
 
 William Hogarth's picture " The Cock-pit " 
 (facing page 50) painted in 1759, is the best 
 known work of the kind. The scene is the 
 Royal Cock-pit, as appears from the Royal Arms 
 on the wall, and the principal figure is Lord 
 Albemarle Bertie who, in spite of blindness, 
 was an ardent cocker. Round the pit the 
 artist shows an audience carefully selected to 
 show persons of every grade of society ; the 
 person upon whose back a gallows is rudely 
 chalked is supposed to be the public hangman, 
 but the device might equally be meant to 
 indicate a criminal. The shadow of the basket 
 which has been raised to the roof with its 
 occupant is seen upon the pit 
 
 Although George III kept game-cocks and 
 had the famous feeder Joseph Gilliver, there is 
 nothing in the numerous memoirs of his time 
 to show that this king ever entered a cock-pit. 
 Gilliver fought the royal birds in the royal pit 
 at Windsor, but it need hardly be said that the 
 proceeding does not necessarily imply royal 
 interest. Cocking was the national sport in 
 the most sweeping sense of the term 
 
"6 
 
 No sport has ever held the same place in the 
 affections of the English people ; and game- 
 cocks in those days were as naturally an 
 appanage of Royalty as a racing stud in our 
 own time. They were kept as an evidence of 
 the sovereign's interest in the amusements of 
 his people, and so far as history reveals, 
 George III found no more personal interest in 
 the Royal game-cocks and their doings in the 
 pit than did the Sailor King William IV in the 
 Royal stud of thoroughbreds and their doings 
 on the turf 
 
 LONDON COCKING IN GEORGE Ill's TIME 
 
 The patronage of the throne w T as not required 
 to preserve the vitality of cocking. It flour- 
 ished as vigorously as ever all over the country. 
 A map of London dated 1761, has the following 
 evidence of the number of pits or resorts 
 identified with cocking: "Cock Alleys" were 
 ten in number ; " Cock Courts " nine ; " Cock 
 Yards " eight ; " Cock Lanes " four 
 
 In addition to these there were Cock Hill, 
 Cockpit Alley, Cockpit Buildings, Cockpit 
 Street, Court, and Yard, Cocks' Rents and, 
 not least, Cockspur Street, which derived its 
 name from the fact that the best known makers 
 
of cock spurs, Clay, Smith, Foulmin, Garfield 
 and others, carried on their business there 
 
 There was in Drury Lane a cock-pit 
 notorious for the disorderly character of those 
 who frequented it. The London apprentices, 
 4k virtuous by custom immemorial," as Sir 
 Walter Besant observes * with gentle irony, 
 used to wreck this cock-pit every Shrove 
 Tuesday; just as in Charles II's time they 
 wrecked houses of ill-fame in Moorfields 
 
 Another notorious London cock-pit in George 
 Ill's time was that in Pickled Egg Walk, 
 Clerkenwell. County mains took place at this 
 pit ; the Gentlemen of London fought the 
 Gentlemen of Essex, and the cockers of 
 Middlesex fought those of Wiltshire here in 
 1775, for example. But such matches were 
 only occasional features in the regular pro- 
 gramme of the house, which ordinarily was a 
 favourite resort of rogues and vagabonds 
 
 In i 774, what would now be called an l< open 
 letter " w r as addressed to the celebrated 
 Magistrate, Sir John Fielding, in the Public 
 Advertiser, calling upon him to close the 
 Pickled Egg Walk Cock-pit, because " the very 
 dregs assemble there two or three times a 
 week to fight cocks and gamble '' 
 
 * Survey of London 
 
78 
 
 AGITATION AGAINST COCKING 
 
 The more humane among the population had 
 always strongly condemned cocking, and during 
 George Ill's reign many were the pamphlets 
 written and sermons preached against it. There 
 are in the Elsenham Library a few such 
 pamphlets or tracts, intended to strike terror 
 into the minds of those who bore part in cock- 
 ing ; the usual form is an "authentic narrative 
 of a cock-fighter " who came by sudden death 
 
 A wiser note is struck in a pamphlet of 
 1761, entitled Clemency to Brutes, which 
 appeals to the humane instincts of the reader. 
 The Methodists, seeking as they did the moral 
 improvement of the lower classes, were par- 
 ticularly active in the warfare against cockino-. 
 
 J O O 
 
 It is recorded of John Wesley that during a 
 preaching tour in Cornwall he arrived at 
 Gwenap's Pit * at a moment when a main was 
 actually in progress. The famous preacher 
 waited quietly until the fight was over and 
 then delivered his address 
 
 * Gwenap's Pit is on a hill near Redruth ; it is said 
 to be the oldest and the largest in England. The pit, 
 or fighting arena, is 13 feet in diameter, and round 
 it rise twelve tiers of seats, stoned faced, 18 inches high 
 and 3 feet wide. It is surrounded at the top by a wall,. 
 150 yards in circumference This structure is considered 
 to date from pre- Roman times. 
 
79 
 
 Public feeling, however, still warmly upheld 
 the cocker as it upheld bull and bear baiting 
 and dog-fighting. Hutchinson in his History 
 of Cumberland, 1 794, states that the principal 
 amusements of the people were wrestling and 
 cock-fighting 
 
 When the law interfered it was in the 
 interests of peace ; the Walsall authorities, in 
 1 789, threatened ale-house keepers with for- 
 feiture of their licences if they encouraged or 
 abetted bull-baiting or cock-fighting ; but for 
 the same reason that the Weclnesbury and 
 Darlaston Authorities had taken the step in 
 previous years simply because the proceed- 
 ings so frequently ended in riot 
 
 Among the vast majority, the idea ol 
 humanity was literally non-existent. A Shrews- 
 bury cocker laid a wager that a cock of his 
 breeding would fight, though on fire, and, 
 drenching the unfortunate bird w r ith turpentine, 
 set it alight in the pit. This incident was 
 cited as proof of the game-cock's extraordinary 
 courage and passion for fighting, and not as 
 proof of man's brutality 
 
 POPULARITY OF COCKIKG 
 
 It was the spirit of the age. It is very 
 difficult for us to realise how <>reat was the 
 
So 
 
 place in the life of our ancestors held by cock 
 fighting. Many among the clergy took active 
 part in the sport ; it was not unusual when 
 town beat town in a long main to ring the 
 church bells in celebration of the victory. 
 Travellers would arrange with the coachman 
 that the stage coach should wait over the night 
 if there w r ere a cock-fight in any town on the 
 road. Apprentices were forbidden to keep 
 game-cocks during the first seven years of their 
 indentures 
 
 The relative importance attached to racing 
 and cocking is shown by an incident which 
 occurred at Chester in 1 834. It was represented 
 to the Executive of the race meeting that the 
 battles in the pit were likely to be well fought 
 and prolonged, and that the main would not 
 be over at the hour fixed to begin racino-. The 
 
 o o 
 
 Clerk of the Course made no demur to post- 
 ponement of the first race till three o'clock 
 
 George Roberts* mentions the building of a 
 special posting carriage at a cost of ^500 to 
 bring certain cocks up from Cornwall to fight 
 in London. The evil effects of travel on 
 fighting birds has already been noticed, and 
 this was an endeavour to bring them to the 
 pit in good trim 
 
 * Social History of the Southern Counties of England. (1856) 
 
FAMOUS COCKERS 
 
 Space has forbidden notice of individual 
 cockers, but mention must be made of the 
 1 2th Earl of Derby for two reasons : first, 
 because he was recognised as the foremost 
 cocker of his time, holding his own with the 
 Knowsley breed of Black-breasted Reds, famous 
 for nearly 300 years, throughout his long life ; 
 and second, because he was the last English 
 peer to take prominent part in the sport 
 
 Succeeding to the title at the age of twelve 
 years Lord Derby came of age in 1775, and 
 throughout his life was devoted to cocking. 
 He built a pit at Preston at his own expense 
 (in 1868 this building had been converted into a 
 temperance hall), and he always fought his birds 
 at the Preston and Liverpool race meetings 
 
 Lord Derby's great antagonist was General 
 Yates, whose breed of cocks was considered 
 equal to that of Knowsley. The usual stake on 
 the main was 1,000 guineas, but it was fre- 
 quently 2,000 and even 3,000 guineas. After 
 General Yates died, Mr. Thomas Leigh and 
 Mr. Houghton (afterwards Sir Henry 
 Houghton) were the cockers against whom 
 Lord Derby often pitted his birds 
 
 Lord Derby's name first occurs in the cock- 
 fighting returns of the Racing Calendar for 
 
when his cocks fought Mr. Wharton's at 
 Preston races and beat them. Richardson was 
 his feeder at that time. He owed his subse- 
 quent career of success to Paul Potter, one of 
 the most skilful feeders of the time, and after- 
 wards to Potter's son. When Lord Derby 
 died, at the age of 82, in 1834, all his birds, 
 spurs, bags, and fighting equipment became the 
 property of the younger Potter, who thence- 
 forward kept a tavern at Hartlebury 
 
 Cock bags were usually made of linen ; Lord 
 Derby's were of silk, with a fighting cock 
 embroidered in colours. Wealthy cockers 
 frequently had bags of velvet with their family 
 crest embroidered thereon. "County" bags 
 were made of velvet or silk, adorned with gold 
 lace and some appropriate device. For carrying 
 cocks on horseback in cold weather, bags lined 
 with flannel were sometimes used 
 
 TRAINING IN GEORGE Ill's TIME 
 
 The system of training* at this time had 
 undergone further changes ; the least valuable 
 stao-s of a brood were armed with short silver 
 
 o 
 
 spurs and pitted against one another, to prove 
 the courage and gameness of their brothers. 
 
 * Condensed from Thos. Bourne's article in Rees ? 
 Cyclopedia. (1808) 
 
83 
 
 The training- of birds intended for the pit 
 occupied eight or ten days in place of the long 
 preparation favoured by cockers of 1600-1/00, 
 and the old plan of sweating or " stoving " had 
 been abandoned 
 
 A cock, if well walked, would come up in 
 good condition, but too fat to fight, and needed 
 reducing. His tail and spurs having been cut, 
 he was put into his pen. The first day was 
 one of starvation to prepare him for the purging 
 physic he was to receive on the second day ; 
 after physic he was allowed to spar, his cut 
 spurs muffled, with another cock till he showed 
 signs of weariness, when he was restored to his 
 pen and given a large teacup of warm food, 
 bread and milk sweetened with sugar candy. 
 The food eaten, he was shut up closely till next 
 
 morning 
 
 On the third morning, his pen having been 
 cleaned out and his feet carefully cleaned, he 
 was given a meal of cock bread, for which this 
 was the recipe : to 3 Ibs. of fine flour, two eggs, 
 four whites of eggs and a little yeast ; knead 
 with water and well bake. Of this the bird 
 received a teacupful of small pieces twice in 
 the clay. Water was considered injurious ; on 
 the fourth clay, early in the morning, he got 
 half a teacup of barley and a little water in 
 which toast had been steeped. His pen was 
 
S 4 
 
 left uncovered for an hour ; in the afternoon he 
 was given another half cup of barley, but no 
 water. On the fifth day, three meals of cock 
 bread, but no water 
 
 The sixth was "weighing day"; early in 
 the morning the bird received some cock bread. 
 After he had passed the scales, he was given a 
 good meal of barley and water, and sometimes 
 a little minced sheep's heart. On the seventh 
 clay his morning meal was barley, that in the 
 afternoon cock bread and the white of a hard 
 boiled egg ; also a little water 
 
 Throughout this course of training he was 
 kept quiet in a room from which light was 
 excluded for the greater part of the day 
 
 On the eighth day he received about forty 
 grains of barley, and was then prepared for the 
 pit : he was "cut out " for fighting, i.e., wings 
 rounded, hackle and saddle feathers cut shorter, 
 feathers about the vent cut close off, and the 
 feathers of the tail cropped, leaving only the 
 vane or fan whose length was reduced by half. 
 He was then ready to be "shown " in the pit, 
 preliminary to being heeled for fighting 
 
 This w r as the course of preparation for eight 
 days ; but ten days \vas the more usual period. 
 Eight ounces was as much as any cock should 
 gain or lose during the training 
 
85 
 
 As the cocks in a main were pitted according' 
 to weight, the lightest fighting first and the 
 heaviest last, there was time to feed up the 
 larger and heavier birds between weighing clay 
 and the day they were to fight. As said on a 
 former page, the cock might be feel as the owner 
 pleased after the bird had been weighed, and 
 the licence thus allowed gave scope for the 
 exercise of the feeder's art 
 
 Some skill was required to "heel " the cock 
 properly ; if the spurs were fastened too tightly 
 the bird's perfect freedom of movement would 
 be affected ; if too loosely, the spurs might be 
 displaced or broken at the critical moment. 
 The aim was to place the spur exactly in the 
 line of the natural weapon, which had been 
 clipped 
 
 The " General Rules and Orders for 
 Cocking " in force at this time will be found in 
 Appendix B 
 
 " SUBSCRIPTION " MAINS 
 
 There appears to have been what would now 
 be called a "boom " in London cocking, about 
 1790-1800. Mr. Ralph Nevill, in his recent 
 book * on gaming, states that more subscription 
 mains were fought at the Royal cock -pit in 
 
 Light Come, Light go. (1907) 
 
86 
 
 i 793 than had been seen there for many years 
 A "subscription main" was one in which a 
 number of cockers entered one, two or more 
 birds each ; the birds being paired to fight by 
 drawing lots. Among the London cock- pits 
 of which mention is made about this time or 
 
 during the first decades of the nineteenth 
 & 
 
 century are the Moss Alley, Bankside, South- 
 wark, New Pit, Hoxton, and Little Grosvenor 
 Street, Millbank. This last is mentioned 
 in 1831 as the " New Royal Cock-pit" 
 
 COCK-FIGHTING DURING THE REGENCY 
 Among the leading cockers of this period 
 were the Duke of Northumberland, the Duke 
 of Hamilton and the Earl of Mexborough, 
 Lord Vere and Lord Lonsdale : Lord Derby's 
 prominent part has been already noticed 
 
 In 1814, Lord Lonsdale organised a main for 
 the benefit of the Allied Sovereigns. In 1817, 
 the Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia, accom- 
 panied by the Duke of Devonshire, the Russian 
 Ambassador, Sir Wm. Cong re ve, Baron 
 Nichola, General Kutusoff and others went to 
 the Cock-pit Royal and spent an hour and a 
 half watching five battles, in which the Russian 
 visitors were greatly interested, never before 
 having seen a cock-fight * 
 
 * Social England in the Regency, By John Ashton 
 
8; 
 
 George IV, when Prince Regent, was 
 exceedingly fond of the cock-pit. It is said 
 that on one occasion he and the Duke of York 
 lost so much money over a main, that they had 
 to send out to a neighbouring tavern to borrow 
 what was necessary to pay their losses. The 
 keeper of the tavern was given a free licence 
 in recognition of this service to royalty 
 
 In the year 1814, appeared a little book,* 
 now rare and much prized by collectors, which 
 gives an admirable account of the methods of 
 the cock master during the Regency 
 
 This work was written by W. Sketchley of 
 Nottingham as the fruit of fifty years' experience. 
 The intending cocker who proposed to establish 
 a breed of his own, is advised to seek every 
 opportunity of being present at regular mains, 
 and seeing well-bred brothers whose mode of 
 fighting is good ; they must be steady, good 
 heelers, oi ready mouth and " deep game." 
 Brothers would not always prove equally good ; 
 but if close in-bred to a regular set of sisters, 
 this might be expected to correct any defects 
 in the progeny 
 
 Black-reds were most esteemed, but different 
 breeds were preferred in various parts of the 
 
 The Cocker. By W. Sketchley 
 
88 
 
 country, namely Piles, Black-reds, Silver black- 
 breasted Ducks (or Duckwings), Birchin Ducks, 
 Dark Greys, Mealy Greys, Blacks, Spangles, 
 Furnaces, Pole-cats, Cuckoos, Gingers, Red 
 Duns, Duns and Smokey Duns : there were 
 good birds in all these breeds. Cheshire Piles 
 had always been favourites. Sketchley also 
 had a high opinion of Shropshire Reds 
 
 The Piles were eminently distinguished for 
 their "deadly heel"; the lighter coloured 
 Piles wielded their weapons in a more dangerous 
 direction than any other strain of game-fowl, 
 but by reason of their delicacy of constitution 
 they were liable to degenerate 
 
 In and in breeding too long continued, serious 
 loss of blood in a fight, and undiscovered internal 
 injuries during a fight were the causes of 
 constitutional defects in progeny. The two 
 latter causes led to the preference of a 
 maiden - cock over a " fought cock " for 
 breeding purposes 
 
 A great point to aim at was uniformity; it 
 was considered a great mistake to mate a cock, 
 because he was a good one, with hens unlike 
 himself. When a cocker pitted a "regular 
 set of brothers " so like one another that it 
 was hard to distinguish between them, their 
 
9 
 
 uniformity always drew a round of applause 
 from the spectators 
 
 Youth on both sides was most desirable in 
 mating ; if stags were put to two-year-old hens, 
 and cocks to pullets, the breeder might safely 
 continue in the same blood for years, provided 
 he never used cock or hen after the bird was 
 two years old 
 
 The Earl of Derby's success is cited as 
 proving the importance of regular breeding 
 on a proved system and careful attention. 
 From four to six hens were allowed to each 
 cock. "Full blood" mating was approved;" 
 father with daughter, mother with son, brother 
 with sister. Something about character might 1 
 be learned from the cock's treatment of his 
 hens ; if he bullied them he might be suspected 
 as a coward 
 
 Birds of high bearing were preferred to 
 "low setting" cocks ; they always had odds in 
 their favour as fighters. Sketchley did not 
 like the " shifty " or artful cock, even though 
 the bird of this class did sometimes win his 
 battle. He mentions the prowess of a Ginger 
 Red he possessed about the year 1/72; this 
 bird fought five mains in one year without 
 injury 
 
9 o 
 
 Here it may be noted that cock masters who 
 long survived the legal prohibition of the sport 
 attributed the superior quality of the table 
 poultry they knew in their youth, partially at 
 least, to the fact that game-fowls were bred in 
 great numbers and always from young birds. 
 The promising cock was taken up at two years 
 old for the pit and his place as brood cock 
 taken by a stag. Thus our fathers and grand- 
 fathers were constantly breeding from young, 
 healthy, vigorous birds of the most perfect 
 shape and conformation 
 
 Much importance was attached to intimate 
 knowledge by the feeder of the birds in his 
 care ; the more experience the man had with 
 his employer's cocks the greater the prospect 
 of success. Sketchley attributes the fact that 
 his own Black Reds won five out of six mains 
 against Mr. Cussans' Greys at Loughborough 
 and Derby, to his retention throughout of John 
 Beestal as his feeder, whereas Mr. Cussans 
 discharged his feeder and engaged a ne\v one 
 for each main 
 
 Cocks were very liable to change in con- 
 stitution if moved from the country of their 
 birth. Sketchley's remark in this sense must 
 be- understood as applying to the movement of 
 birds from one district in England to another ; 
 
but it recalls Mons. de Saussure's statement, 
 given on page 61, that game-cocks lose their 
 courage when exported to France 
 
 Sketchley lays stress on the necessity for 
 trying cocks, as opposed to the trials of stags 
 advocated by earlier authorities. A trial of 
 stags (as recommended in Rees's Cyclopedia) 
 was not in his opinion to be depended on to 
 show how the youngsters would turn out. He 
 objected to March battles, as the birds had not 
 at that time of the year reached their best ; he 
 adds that birds are "now (1814) at least two 
 months later in completing their feather than 
 they were thirty years ago," and the ist of 
 June was early enough to pit cocks in 
 independent mains 
 
 1 here are some interesting suggestions also, 
 in a small book entitled il Directions for 
 Breeding Game Cocks including instructions 
 for the choice of a Cock and Hens to breed 
 from ; with calculations for Betting, &c., &c.," 
 the second edition of which was published in 
 1818. I have not been able to discover when 
 the book was first published 
 
 Search among old records fails to reveal any 
 particulars of the main fought at Lincoln in 
 1815, for which Joseph Gilliver "fed" the 
 birds of one cocker. This main consisted of 
 
9 2 
 
 seven battles, of which Gilliver won five, and is 
 famous in cocking annals by reason of the sums 
 staked, ^1,000 on each battle and ,5,000 the 
 main 
 
 COCKING IN GEORGE IV's REIGN 
 
 London cocking seems to have declined 
 during the reign of George IV (1820-1830), 
 though the Sovereign took great interest in the 
 sport and kept game-cocks, under Gilliver's 
 care ; but there was soon a revival. A corre- 
 spondent of the Sporting Magazine of 1830 
 writes, that as " cocking has now become so 
 
 o 
 
 much more patronised in town than some years 
 past,'' he hopes the editor will give more 
 detailed accounts of mains 
 
 After the destruction of the old Royal Cock- 
 pit, Dartmouth Street, in 1816, the Royal 
 Cock-pit in Tufton Street became the head- 
 quarters of cocking ; a three clays main between 
 Middlesex and Gloucestershire was fought 
 there in February, 1830. The Tufton Street 
 pit was the only place where * long mains and 
 great subscription matches were fought at this 
 time in London. This pit, which was built by 
 subscription, was circular ; in the centre was a 
 
 * Cocking and Its Votaries. By S. A. T. (1885) 
 
93 
 
 mound of earth about 20 feet across, sur- 
 rounded by boarding- to prevent the birds 
 falling 1 off, and covered with matting. There 
 
 o o 
 
 were six tiers of seats, and behind the upper- 
 most a gallery, where spectators might stand 
 
 In 1 830 also a West country cocker challenged 
 All England to fight for seven successive years, 
 jo guineas a battle and 200 guineas the main, 
 in any London pit, the meeting to take place 
 during the week before Epsom Races 
 
 Infinite care was taken of cocks on a 
 journey at this period. When Thomas Bourne, 
 the celebrated feeder who wrote, or dictated, the 
 article on cocking published in Rees' Cyclo- 
 pedia, fed for Colonel Buller, he had on one 
 occasion to convey cocks from Cheltenham to 
 fight a main for ^1,000 at Plymouth. He took 
 the birds in a van and spent nine days on the 
 journey, travelling at a walk with men in front 
 to remove from the road all large and loose 
 
 o 
 
 stones that might jolt the conveyance with the 
 cocks ! * 
 
 Nothing more clearly illustrates the mental 
 attitude of the public mind towards cock-fighting 
 
 * It must be borne in mind that the roads of England 
 in those days were very different from the roads of our 
 own time. Some information on this subject will be 
 found in Eayly Carriages and Roads, published by me in 
 1903. The description of a highroad by the famous 
 agriculturist, Arthur Young, will be found on page 89 of 
 that work 
 
94 
 
 at this period than the fact that the -clergy still 
 bore active part in it, not only without reproach, 
 but with the same freedom as they might hunt 
 or shoot. A noteworthy cocker for nearly fifty 
 years was Professor John Wilson, known by 
 his writings as " Christopher North " : Wilson 
 frequented the cock-pit regularly during his 
 Oxford days from 1803 to 1807 ; when he 
 settled at Elleray on the shores of Windermere 
 he devoted much time and care to breeding 
 game-fowl, and on at least one occasion fought 
 
 a main in his drawing-room 
 
 & 
 
 When he became Professor of Moral 
 Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, a 
 position modern ideas would regard as wholly 
 incompatible even with countenance of the 
 sport, he continued his interest in cocking, and 
 in his leisure hours was generally to be seen 
 with a cock under his arm. Professor Wilson 
 died in 1854 
 
 The number of persons addicted to the 
 sport in the twenties may be inferred from 
 Captain Ross' experience when he accepted 
 Lord Kennedy's challenge to a cock match in 
 1825. Captain Ross asked Dr. Wing, who 
 lived near Melton, to lend him birds ; Dr. Wing 
 placed all his cocks at Captain Ross' disposal 
 and mentioned the matter to friends ; with the 
 

 Tom Hines, the Birmingham Cock'Setter 
 
95 
 
 result that between 300 and 400 of the best 
 birds in England were brought in to Melton, 
 that a selection might be made. The opening 
 chapters of Silk and Scarlet, by The Druid 
 (H. H. Dixon), bear witness to the prevalence 
 of cocking in Leicestershire 
 
 A feature in the method of reporting cock- 
 fights during George Ill's reign and later 
 deserves a word of notice ; instead of heading 
 the record of battles and byes with the names 
 of the owners, those of the feeders were in- 
 serted 
 
 To take a comparatively late example, when 
 Lancashire fought Cheshire at the Liverpool 
 Race Meeting in July, 1836, Hines, feeder for 
 the former county, was credited with 27 battles 
 and 1 2 byes, while Woodcock, feeder for 
 Cheshire, was credited with 1 2 battles and 8 
 byes 
 
 The practice demonstrates the great im- 
 portance which attached to the work of the 
 feeder when the treatment of game-fowl became 
 fully understood. Tom Hines, mentioned 
 above, was a Birmingham man, famed as a 
 feeder and cock setter. During the last fifty 
 or sixty years of legal cocking the feeder 
 appears to have made over the duty of " setting 
 to " the cocks in the pit to a colleague or helper 
 
9 6 
 
 Avho was called the 4< setter-to." The rules, 
 given on page 108 (Appendix B), bear 
 evidence of comparatively modern remodelling 
 in their reference to this official 
 
 LAST DAYS OF COCKING 
 
 After Queen Victoria's accession in 1837, a 
 tide of opinion against cock-fighting set in, and 
 as a public spectacle it ceased to be fashion- 
 able. One of the last mains fought publicly in 
 London, so far as some search has revealed, 
 took place in Battersea Fields in the year 1840, 
 Lord Berkeley being one of the cockers, and 
 William Gilliver, son of Joseph, the other 
 
 This was in some sort an evasion of the Act of 
 1833, "For the More Effectual Administration 
 of Justice in London" ; a law which made an end 
 of houses for bear-baiting and cock-fighting 
 within five miles of Temple Bar, and neces- 
 sarily put an end to public cocking in London 
 
 The Racing Calendar of 1840 contained the 
 last cocking report published in that work ; it 
 refers to a main fought at the Liverpool July 
 Meeting between Tom Hines and Potter, son 
 of Paul Potter, who died in 1833, 5 sovereigns 
 a battle and 200 sovereigns the main. Only 
 the feeders' names are given, but this must not 
 
97 
 
 be taken to mean that the birds belonged to 
 persons who wished to conceal their names 
 
 Potter, as before stated, had become possessor 
 of the birds and cocking outfit belonging 1 to his 
 
 o o o 
 
 old master, Lord Derby, after the latter's 
 death, and it is quite likely that both he and 
 Hines were the actual owners of the birds 
 fought 
 
 Cock-fighting- as a sport openly followed 
 came to an end in 1849, under " An Act for 
 the More effective Prevention of Cruelty to 
 Animals " * which forbade the keeping of house 
 or place for baiting or fighting animals. But 
 it "died hard," John Harris, the Cornish 
 cocker, to whose Life and Letters several 
 references have been made, says that the Easter 
 cocking of 1850, between Norfolk and Suffolk, 
 a four days main, was " the greatest meeting 
 ever held in England " 
 
 There was an Easter cocking at the Gallow- 
 gate Pit, Newcastle, in 1850, which lasted ten 
 days ; there were some 300 entries, and most 
 of the programme consisted of 16 cock \Yelsh 
 mains for 50 guineas each. The Welsh main 
 was the usual method of cocking in the Carlisle 
 district. The last Gold Cup fought for in 
 
 12 and 13 Vic., c. 92, sec. 3 
 
 II 
 
England was at Newcastle. The mains were 
 fought from 1853 to T ^54 
 
 Harris says, he thinks " the last list published 
 was Easter, 1867." This list apparently referred 
 to a North Country meeting 
 
 > o 
 
 In 1875, a main was fought at Brawn ton 
 between Paignton and A In wick. Harris tells 
 a story of an interrupted main at Preston. 
 Among the spectators was the Mayor, and when 
 the police appeared the Mayor tried to hide 
 in the chimney ; he w r as too stout to clo more 
 than get half w r ay ; and it was said the officers 
 of the law recognized the Chief Magistrate's 
 nether extremities and refrained from helping 
 him clown 
 
 Harris used to travel all over the Kingdom, 
 after the Act of 1849 was passed, to serve his 
 numerous patrons. It was for long the custom 
 to hold mains in private houses as an after- 
 dinner entertainment for guests. Harris died, 
 at the age of 80, in February, 1910 
 
 ILLEGAL COCK-FIGHTING 
 
 Cock-fighting is still carried on quietly, more 
 particularly in the Northern Counties, where, a 
 Cumberland friend maintains, the people still 
 "wrestle all day and fight cocks all night/' 
 
99 
 
 Now and again cases of cock-fighting are 
 detected by the police or the agents of the 
 R.S.P.C.A. and legal proceedings follow 
 
 A test case was decided in 1863 by the Court 
 of Appeal (Morley and others v. Greenhalgh) : 
 the cockers were convicted of an offence under 
 12 and 13 Vic., and successfully appealed on 
 the ground that the old stone quarry where 
 the main was fought did not constitute a 
 "place" within the meaning of the Act. It 
 being obvious that the old quarry was not 
 "kept" for cocking, the conviction was 
 necessarily quashed . 
 
 Another case in the same year which excited 
 considerable feeling was that against the 
 Marquis of Hastings, who fought a main on 
 his own premises at Castle Donington 
 
 The last famous case of illegal cocking in 
 London took place on 2ist April, 1865, when 
 the proprietor of the Queen's Head Tavern, 
 Queen's Head Passage, Great Windmill Street, 
 was summoned for allowing a cock-fi^ht on his 
 
 o o 
 
 premises, and a large number of participators 
 and onlookers of all social grades were sum- 
 moned for " abetting. " The defendants, by 
 the way, included W. Gilliver, grandson of the 
 Roval feeder to George III and IV. All were 
 
 J o 
 
 convicted and fined 
 
IOO 
 
 The Gallowgate Pit attached to the Bay 
 Horse Inn, Newcastle-on-Tyne, was the last 
 public pit used in England ; there is every 
 reason to suppose that mains were fought there, 
 without undue ostentation, for many years after 
 the passing of the Act of 1849 : but the place 
 escaped the attention of the authorities until 
 1874 when it was " raided" by the police 
 
 As a legal sport, or at least as one which the 
 law was not empowered to put down, cocking 
 continued in Scotland until recent years, though 
 apparently it was not often practised. In April, 
 1895, nine battles were fought in a field near 
 Bishopton in Renfrewshire before a large 
 crowd ; the affair was carried through without 
 concealment and without hindrance, the High 
 Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh having 
 ruled, in 1892, that cocking was not illegal. 
 Attention was drawn to the matter in the 
 House of Commons, and the Lord Advocate 
 promised a Bill to make the law of Scotland 
 uniform with that of England 
 
 MODERN SALE OF COCK SPURS 
 
 A sale of cock spurs and other matters 
 connected with the sport took place in June, 
 1903, at Messrs. Sothebys. The spurs included 
 some curiosities. One pair illustrated the 
 
IOI 
 
 fashion in which the old rules were sometimes 
 evaded ; as said on an earlier page, the usual 
 system was to fight matches in silver spurs ; 
 the lot 77 consisted of steel spurs with silver 
 sheaths, which were slipped off by the setter-to 
 at the last moment. A spur with one cutting 
 edge was probably a relic of Queen Anne's 
 time, when "penknife" spurs were sometimes 
 used. Some forty pairs of spurs were disposed 
 of at this sale, bringing an aggregate of jo 
 
 Spurs, it may be observed, were highly 
 valued in old days. Sets of spurs remained in 
 the same family for generations, bequeathed by 
 will from father to son 
 
 Game-fowls are bred in great numbers all 
 over England, and the practice of putting the 
 birds out at walks probably still exists. Sir 
 Humphrey de Trafford used to insert in leases 
 the clause requiring tenants to walk game-cocks, 
 and the walks were stocked so lately as 1895 
 
 SUPERSTITIONS OF THE COCK-PIT 
 
 Many and curious were the superstitions 
 which pervaded the cock-pit. The practice of 
 placing game-fowls' eggs in a magpie's nest to 
 be hatched out is very old ; it seems to have 
 had origin in the superstition which placed the 
 
102 
 
 magpie under the special protection of the Evil 
 One ; game-cocks thus hatched were called 
 "devil's birds'' and regarded as unconquerable 
 
 The use of a magpie's nest for this purpose 
 was common, but by no means always indicated 
 the user's belief in supernatural advantages. 
 There is in the Annals of Sporting for 1824, 
 mention of a Welsh main, in which sixteen birds 
 were engaged, won by a cock that had been 
 hatched out in the nest of a magpie in the 
 owner's orchard 
 
 This win gave rise to discussion concerning 
 
 O c~> 
 
 the merits of magpie-hatched game-fowl. An 
 old feeder of the Cock-pit Royal, Westminster, 
 maintained that cocks so hatched were impudent 
 and foolhardy and more inclined to fight at the 
 setter's hand than to attack the foe in the pit. 
 Some experts thought birds hatched by a magpie 
 were particularly strong and courageous; others 
 that they were wild and shy grave faults in a 
 fighting-cock 
 
 Returning to superstitions : Another very 
 strange idea * held in Shropshire was that 
 bread which had been consecrated for the Holy 
 Communion would give unrivalled strength and 
 stamina to the cock that ate it : and to obtain 
 possession, cockers would attend at the altar 
 
 * Shropshire Folklore. By Georgina F. Jackson. (1883) 
 
and secrete the morsel of bread given them by 
 the officiating' clergyman 
 
 Again, it was firmly believed that if the clust 
 swept from the communion table were sprinkled 
 on the pit, this would avert all evil influences 
 and charms and ensure victory to the best bird, 
 by which, we may safely infer, w r as meant the 
 bird owned by him who sprinkled the dust 
 
 The Wellington miners attributed the same 
 mysterious quality to earth from the nearest 
 graveyard : a little of which sprinkled on the 
 pit made victory to the best cock certain 
 
 MODERN USE OE OLD COCK- PITS 
 
 Many cock-pits remain in England, converted 
 to various uses. The County Pit at Truro, in 
 a six-sided building, said to have been the 
 first enclosed cock-pit in Cornwall, is now a 
 spirit vault. The Chester pit is a sugar factory, 
 that at Carlisle a foundry. Most singular to 
 modern ideas is the old Canterbury Corporation 
 Pit : this is part of the old St. Augustine's Abbey, 
 and until as lately as 1813 was rented by the 
 proprietor of an hotel close by. The late 
 John Harris states that the last Corporation 
 cock-pit to witness a main \vas that at Lichfield. 
 
104 
 
 APPENDIX A 
 
 RULES AND ORDERS FOR COCKING* 
 
 Imprimis. It is agreed That every man having Cocks to 
 fight, shew and put them into the Pit with a fair 
 Hackle, not too near shorn or cut, or any other brand, 
 under pain of forfeiting, for every time so offending, 
 Three shillings and Four pence ; and his Cock to be put 
 by from Fighting that Year 
 
 // Item. That every Cock matched shall fight as he is 
 first shewed in the Pit, without sheering or cutting any 
 Feathers afterwards to a Disadvantage, without the 
 consent of both Parties that made the Match, upon 
 pain of forfeiting, for every time so offending, ten 
 shillings 
 
 /// Item. That when two Cocks are set down to fight, 
 and one of them run away before they have struck three 
 Mantling Blows, it is adjudged no Battle to the Bettors 
 
 IV Item. That in all Matches none shall presume to set 
 to, but those appointed by the Masters of the Match 
 
 V Item. That when a Battle come to setting to, and 
 both Cocks refuse to fight ten times, according to the 
 Law, then a fresh Cock to be hovell'd and set to each 
 Cock ; and if one fight and the other refuse, then the 
 fighting Cock to win the Battle : but if both fight or 
 both refuse, then 10 be a drawn Battle 
 
 Item. That the crowing of a cock on Mantling in his 
 Battle, shall be adjudged no fight : and if both be 
 
 * From An Historical List of Horse Matches Run in 1751. 
 Reginald Heber. It is not possible to say for how many years 
 these rules had then been in force 
 
blind, although they peck and fight, yet they shall be 
 set to, telling the Law betwixt every time 
 
 VI Item. That when Cocks are far spent and come to 
 setting together, it is ordered, That they shall be set 
 to as followeth (that is to say) Bill to Bill if they both 
 see : but if either be blind, then the blind Cock to touch ; 
 if either be drawn neck'd, then his Head to be held fair., 
 and even with the other Cock, so that the Party do 
 his best in setting to, to make his Cock fight : Pro- 
 vided That after they come to be set thus as aforesaid, 
 between every setting to they shall stay till one tell 
 Twenty before they are set to again, until the Law of 
 two times are forth, and then to tell Ten but ten 
 times 
 
 VII Item. It is ordered that when a Cock is so hurt 
 that any of the Pit shall lay ten Pounds to five 
 shillings, that after the Cocks fighting shall be told 
 twice twenty, and if no Man will take that Lay, then 
 the Battle to be adjudged w r on on that Cock's side the 
 Odds is on 
 
 VIII Item. That no Man shall make any Cavil or 
 Speech about Matching of Cocks, either to the 
 Matchers or the Owners of the Cocks after the Cocks 
 be once put together ; upon pain of forfeiting five 
 shillings for every time so offending 
 
 IX Item. That all Losses in the Cockpit be presently 
 paid down at the End of every Battle before any 
 other be fought ; or else that the Party winning be 
 satisfied before the party losing go out of Doors : and 
 also that every Man pay good current Money 
 
 A' Item. Whosoever they be which shall put any Lay 
 or Belt to Judgment, being in variance, they both 
 shall stake down the Money laid on either side, and 
 Sixpence a piece over, and the Party that is adjudg'd 
 to be in the wrong shall pay his Bett, and lose his Six- 
 pence : Provided That every man speak freely before 
 
io6 
 
 Judgment given, what he thinks thereof: and if any 
 Man speak afterwards, he shall, for every such 
 offence in speaking, pay Sixpence 
 
 XI Item. That all Betts made either within or without 
 the Pit shall stand good : and that one cannot go off 
 without consent of the other, and all Betts un- 
 demanded before the next Battle fights, to be lost 
 
 XII Item. If any Man have made a Lay or Beit, and 
 cannot tell, or call to mind with whom he laid or 
 betted such a Lay, then if he desire openly in the Pit 
 that the Party with whom he laid would give him the 
 one half of the same, if he doth not confess it, and give 
 him the one half of the same, then it is allowed anyone 
 that knows the Bett to declare it, and the Party so 
 refusing to confess it, shall pay the whole Bett: Provided 
 That no Man may tell before the Party said he is con- 
 tended to take as aforesaid ; but if any man do tell 
 him before the Party said he is content to take the 
 Half of his Bett then the Party so telling is to pay the 
 said Lay or Bett 
 
 XIII Item. If any Man lay more Money than he hath 
 to pay, or cannot satisfy the Party with whom he 
 hath laid, either by his Credit or some Friend's 
 Word : the which if he cannot do, then he is to be 
 put into a Basket to be provided for that purpose, and 
 to be hanged up in that Basket in some convenient 
 Place in the Cock-pit that all men may know him, 
 during the time of Play that Day ; and also the Party 
 so offending never to be admitted to come into the Pit 
 until he hath made satisfaction 
 
 XIV Item. That if any Man in a Pit shall prefer a 
 Bett and the Party that lays with him say Done, and 
 he answers Done to him again, it shall be judged a 
 lawfull Bett 
 
 XV Item. It is ordered, That Persons of the better 
 Rank and Quality of the Cockers, Cock Masters and 
 
Gamesters, such as are appointed to set to Cocks and 
 put them fair in and no others (without permission of 
 the Mastcy of the Pit] shall set in the lower Ring ; and 
 that the said Master of the Pit shall have Authority 
 at all times to remove such as he thinks not meet to 
 set in the lower or second King : and also make room 
 for those that are of the better sort and to place them 
 there at his pleasure according to his Discretion 
 
 XVI Item. It is ordered, That all Controversies which 
 arise or come by means of the Sport of Cock-fighting 
 upon any of the Orders above written, or otherwise 
 between Party and Party, shall be determined by the 
 Master of the Pit where the said Controversy did arise, 
 with Six or Four of the ancient and best experienced 
 Gamesters there, being called by the Consent of both 
 Parties, to assert him therein 
 
 XVII Item. That none shall strike or draw Weapon to 
 strike any Man upon pain, for every time so offending 
 of Forty Shillings 
 
 XVIII Item. For the better observation of all the 
 Orders before written, It is ordered and agreed That if 
 any Person shall offend in any of the said Premises, he 
 presently pay his Forfeiture ; the which being adjudged, 
 if he shall refuse to do. then the Party so refusing to 
 be banished ; until he satisfy the Forfeiture by him so 
 committed or the Party so offended 
 
 XIX Item. It is ordered, That the Forfeitures above said 
 shall be equally divided, the one Moiety thereof to be paid 
 to the Use of the Poor of the Parish, and the other Moiety 
 to be distributed and disposed of, as the Master of the Pit 
 shall think fit, unto such Feeders and Ancient Breeders of 
 Cocks as are or shall be decayed 
 
io8 
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 The following " GENERAL RULES AND ORDERS FOR 
 COCKING" are given in the 1808 edition of Hoyle's 
 Games. It is not possible to say when the Rules received 
 this, their final, shape, but the references to the "setters- 
 to" indicate the latter part of the eighteenth century. 
 It will be remarked that these Rules define with far 
 greater precision and minuteness the manner in which 
 cocks were to be fought and handled than the Code of 
 Rules published in the Racing Calendar of 1751. It will 
 also be observed that there are no provisions concerning 
 the seating and conduct of spectators, that the old Rules 
 about wagering are condensed and simplified into a 
 single law, and that there is no mention of the " basket " 
 as a punishment for defaulters. All these things point 
 to the extreme likelihood that this Code of Rules and 
 Orders is referable to 1780-1800, or thereabout. At the 
 same time it will be observed they include provisions 
 which were in force during Charles IPs reign, as has 
 been shown by the extracts from Pepys's Diary on 
 pages 36-7 :- 
 
 On the weighing morning, that person whose chance is 
 to weigh last, is to set his cocks and number his pens 
 both main and byes, and leave the key of the pens on 
 the weighing table (or, the other party may put a 
 lock on the door) before any cock is put into the 
 scale ; and after the first pack of cocks is weighed, a 
 person appointed by him that weighed first shall go 
 into the other pen to see that no other cocks are 
 weighed but what are so set and numbered, provided 
 they are within the articles of weight that the match 
 
IOQ 
 
 specifies ; if not to take the following cock or cocks 
 until the whole number of main and bye cocks are 
 weighed through 
 
 After they are all weighed, proceed as soon as possible 
 to match them, beginning at the least weight first and 
 so on ; and equal weights or nearest weights to be 
 separated provided by that separation a greater 
 number of battles can be made; all blanks, that is 
 choice of cocks, are to be filled up on the weighing 
 day, and the battles divided and struck off for each 
 day's play, as agreed on, and the cocks that weigh 
 the least are to fight the first day, and so upwards 
 
 At the time agreed on by both parties, the cocks that 
 are to fight the first battle are brought upon the pit 
 by the feeders or their keepers; and after being 
 examined to see whether they answer the marks and 
 colours specified in the match-bill, they are given to 
 the setters-to who, after chopping them in hand, give 
 them to the gentlemen who are called masters of the 
 match (who always sit opposite to each other), when 
 they turn them down on the mat ; and the setters-to 
 are not to touch them unless they either hang in the 
 mats, in each other, or get close to the edge of the pit, 
 until they have left off fighting, while a person can 
 tell forty 
 
 When both cocks leave off fighting, until one of the 
 setters-to or a person appointed for telling the law 
 can tell forty gradually ; then the setters-to are to 
 make the nearest way to their cocks, and, as soon as 
 they have taken them up, to carry them to the middle 
 of the pit and immediately deliver them on their legs 
 beak to beak and not touch them any more until they 
 have refused fighting, so long as the teller of the law 
 can tell ten, without they are on their backs or hung 
 in each other, or on the mat ; then they are to set-to 
 again in the same manner as before, and continue it 
 till one cock refuses fighting ten several times, one 
 
1 IO 
 
 after another,* when it is that cock's battle that fought 
 within the law 
 
 But it sometimes happens that both cocks refuse fighting 
 while the law r is telling ; when this happens, a fresh 
 cock is to be hovelled, and brought upon the mat as 
 soon as possible, and the setters-to are to toss up 
 which cock is to be set-to first, and he that gets the 
 chance is to choose. Then the cock who is to be 
 set-to last must be taken up, but not carried off the 
 pit ; next setting the hovelled cock down to the other, 
 five separate times, telling ten between each setting- 
 to, and then the same to that which had been taken 
 up; and if one fights and the other refuses, it is a 
 battle to the fighting cock ; but if both fight or both 
 refuse it is a dra\vn battle. The reason of setting-to 
 five times to each cock is, that the times setting-to 
 being the long law 7 or on their both refusing, the law 
 is to be equally divided between them as they are both 
 entitled to it alike 
 
 Another way of deciding a battle is, if any person offers 
 to lay 10 to a crown and no person takes it until the 
 law teller tells forty and calls out three separate times 
 " will any one take it ? " and if no one does, it is the 
 cock's battle the odds are laid on, and the setters-to 
 are not to touch the cocks during the time the forty 
 is telling, without either cock is hung in the mat, or 
 on his back, or hung togetherf 
 
 If a cock should die before the long law is told out, 
 although he fought in the law and the other did not, 
 he loses his battle ; for there cannot be a better rule 
 for a cock winning his battle than killing his adversary 
 in the limited time he is entitled to by cock laws 
 
 There are frequently disputes in setting-to in the long 
 law, for often both cocks refuse fighting until four or 
 
 * This was called the " long law " 
 t This was called the " short law " 
 
1 1 1 
 
 five, or more or less times, are told ; then they some- 
 times begin telling from that cock's fighting, and 
 counting but once refused, but they should continue 
 their number on, until one cock has refused ten times ; 
 for when the law is begun to be told, it is for both 
 cocks ; and if one cock fights within the long law and 
 the other not, it is a battle to the cock that fought,, 
 counting from the first setting-to 
 
 All disputes about bets, or the battle being won or lost, 
 ought to be decided by the spectators, for if the bets 
 are not paid nor the battles settled according to the 
 judgment then given, it w r ill be a good evidence in law 
 if an action is brought for the recovery of such bets 
 
 The crowing and mantling of a cock, or fighting at the 
 setter-to's hand before he is put to the other cock, or 
 breaking from his antagonist is allowed as no fight 
 
I I 2 
 
 APPENDIX C 
 
 The "Match Bill" was a list of eacli cocker's birds 
 filled in by the person who weighed them ; it was in 
 this form : 
 
 A. B.'s Cocks C. D.'s Cocks 
 
 Lbs. 3 ; ozs. 6 i i 
 
 2 2 
 
 3 3 
 Lbs. 3 ; ozs. 7 i i 
 
 2 2 
 
 3 3 
 
 and so on up to 4 Ibs. 8 ozs., which was the maximum 
 weight under Cock-pit Royal Rules 
 
 Each bird was minutely described and his description 
 written in what was known as " Cocker's Short hand " 
 against his weight. The following is an example of 
 " Cocker's Short hand " * : 
 
 i. Phst. B. Bir. yel. hi. co. clt. ylgs. 4 hd. m n'ls 
 wts. 3 Ibs. 3 oz. i gr. 
 
 Which means 
 
 " Pheasant breasted Birchen yellow, high comb, clear 
 cut, yellow legs, fours in head (i.e., owner's marks in both 
 eyelids and nostrils), middle nails whitest : weight 3 Ibs. 
 3 ozs. i grain " 
 
 All provincial names were ignored at the Royal 
 Cock-pit, and the birds were described in proper colour 
 terms, invariably beginning with the breast, as it was 
 never trimmed 
 
 * Life and Letters of John Han-is, the CornisJi Cocker. Privately 
 Printed. (1910) 
 
In the north of England cocks were described in a 
 very slipshod manner, thus 
 
 14. Voltigeur red. 3. 4. Parker, 
 
 being the number of the cock's pen, name of the bird, 
 a very general note of his colour, his weight in pounds 
 and ounces, and lastly the feeder's name 
 
 There were men who made, or augmented, their 
 incomes, by attending the cock-pits and taking down 
 for patrons the marks and colours of the birds brought 
 to the scales. It was not infrequently done by clergy- 
 men who, as breeders of game fowl themselves, were 
 conversant with technical terms and colours 
 
APPENDIX D 
 
 Mr. Hackwood* gives the following rules, which 
 regulated inter-county and other important matches in 
 the last days of cock righting : 
 
 Rule I. The pit shall be circular, 12 feet diameter and 
 1 8 inches high, the floor to be covered with carpet 
 and a match made in the middle of the pit 
 
 Rule II. The cockers, or pitters, shall each choose a 
 judge who shall choose another, whose decisions on 
 all questions of fighting and bets shall be final 
 
 Rule III. All cocks to be weighed before being pitted, 
 unless in a catch-weight fight : and no bird must be 
 handled after fairly delivered unless on permission of 
 the referee 
 
 Rule IV. When a cock is fast in his adversary the 
 owner shall draw the spurs out but not hold him any 
 longer than is necessary for releasing him 
 
 Rule V. If after the cocks have been pitted, they refuse 
 to fight while the pitters count ten times ten or a 
 hundred, a fresh bird must be pitted and the owners 
 must toss which bird is to fight, the winner to have 
 choice. The odd bird must be taken up, but not 
 away from the pit. If these two refuse it is a drawn 
 battle, but if one strike he is the winner 
 
 Rule VI. No pitter shall be permitted during a fight 
 to clean his bird's beak or eyes or press him against 
 the floor, or squeeze him to make him fight 
 
 *0ld English Sports. By F. W. Hackwood. (1907) 
 
1 1 
 
 Rule VII. If a cock be disabled by a broken leg or 
 blindness from continuing to fight, the pitters shall 
 place the birds beak to beak, and if the disabled bird 
 does strike the game is won 
 
 Rule VIII. The crowing of a cock is not fighting, nor 
 is breaking away from his adversary fighting 
 
 Rule IX. In all cases of appeal, fighting shall cease 
 until the referee gives his decision, which shall be 
 strictly to the question and final ; the birds not to be 
 taken out of the pit, nor the spurs taken off till the 
 match is settled 
 
 Rule X. Any pitter guilty of using unlawful means to 
 force his bird to fight, such as pinching him or 
 pricking him, shall lose the battle 
 
 Rule XL The highest number of battles won to 
 decide the main 
 
 Rule XII. All bets must stand unless declared off by 
 consent of both parties 
 
n6 
 
 APPENDIX E 
 
 ARTICLES FOR A COCK MATCH 
 
 AS MADE USE OF AT THE 
 
 COCK-PIT ROYAL, WESTMINSTER* 
 
 ARTICLES of Agreement made the day of 
 
 one thousand eight hundred and .between 
 
 and First, the said parties have agreed that 
 
 each of them shall produce, shew and weigh at the 
 
 on the day of beginning at the 
 
 hour of in morning cocks, none to be 
 
 less than three pounds six ounces, nor more than four 
 pounds eight ounces, and as many of each party's 
 cocks that come within one ounce of each other shall 
 
 fight for.., a battle, that is each cock : in as 
 
 equal divisions as the battles can be divided into six 
 pits, or day's play at the cock-pit before mentioned : 
 and the party's cocks that win the greatest number 
 of battles matched out of the number before specified 
 
 shall be entitled to the sum of odd battle 
 
 money, and the sum to be staked into the hands of 
 
 Mr before any cocks are pitted by both 
 
 parties. And we further agree to produce, shew and 
 
 weigh on the said weighing days cock for 
 
 bye battles, subject to the same weight as cocks that 
 fight in the main, and these to be added to the 
 number of main cocks unmatched, and as many of 
 them as corne within one ounce of each other shall 
 
 fight for a battle; the number of cocks so 
 
 matched, to be equally divided as will permit of, 
 and added to each day's play with the main cocks ; 
 
 * From Directions for Breeding Game Cocks. New Edition. (1818) 
 
1 1 
 
 and it is also agreed that the balance of the battle 
 money shall be paid at the end of each day's play. 
 It is also further agreed for the cock to fight in silver 
 spurs and with fair hackles, and to be subject to all 
 the usual rules of cock-fighting as practised at the 
 Cock-pit Royal, Westminster, and the profits arising 
 from the spectators to be equally divided between 
 both parties, after all charges are paid that usually 
 happen on these occasions. Witness our hands the 
 
 day of 1 8 
 
 Witness 
 
Works by SIR WALTER GILBEY, Bart., 
 
 ^ublished by Vinton & Co., 8 Bream's Buildings, Chancery Lane, London, E.G. 
 
 The Royal Family and Farming published igu 
 
 In this work is shown the importance of the part borne by the Sovereigns of England, 
 from George III to His present Majesty in agricultural affairs. Octavo, cloth gilt 
 price as. net ; post free, 2S. 3d. 
 
 Racing Cups (1559 tO 1850) Published 1910 
 
 Racing Bells, Tankards and Cups from .Stuart to Victorian times, and Coursing 
 Cups. Numerous Illustrations. Octavo, cloth gilt, price 55. net ; post free, 55. 4d. 
 
 Farm Stock 100 Years Ago Published 1910 
 
 A period of important changes Conditions under which Stock-breeding was 
 carried on Breeds of Sheep, Cattle, Horses, Swine and Poultry. Appendix ; 
 Famous Agriculturists of George Ill's time. Fifteen Illustrations. Price5s.net; 
 post free, 55. 4d. 
 
 John Thornton, Life of Published 1910 
 
 Cloth gilt, price 2s. net; post free, 2s. .jd. 
 
 Pig in Health & how to avoid Swine Fever. 2 nd Edition Published 1910 
 
 Swine Fever History of the Wild Pig and Diseases in the Olden Time- 
 Various Breeds of Pigs, with a Chapter on the Healthy Housing of Swine. 
 Six Illustrations. Price 2S. net; post free,. 2s. 3d. 
 
 Horses Past and Present 2 nd Edition Published 1910 
 
 A sketch of the History of the Horse in England from the earliest times. Nine 
 Illustrations. Octavo, cloth gilt, price 2s. net ; post free, as. 3d. 
 
 Young Race-Horses Fresh Pastures for Rearing 4 th Edition Published 1910 
 
 Illustrated. Octavo, cloth gilt, price 2s. net ; post free, as. 3d. 
 
 Milk and Milch Animals Published 1908 
 
 A Treatise on Animals used for Milking Purposes by Various Nations. Octavo, 
 price is. net ; post tree, is. 2d. 
 
 Horses Breeding to Colour published 1907 
 
 Facts as to the origin of the term " Thoroughbred "History of Race-Horses 
 descending from the " Royal Mares" of Charles I How horses of different breeds 
 can be bred to colour. Six Illustrations. Price as. net ; post free, as. 3d. 
 Second Edition in the press (1912), 
 
 Farms and Small Holdings published 1907 
 
 Previous to 1800, 1,700 private Acts were passed for enclosing Commons and Waste- 
 Lands Decay of Fairs and Markets Increase of Auction Marts and Agricultural 
 Shows Small Holdings in the Past and at the Present Day. Two Illustrations. 
 Price 6d. net ; post free, 7d. 
 
 Modern Carriages Published 1906 
 
 The passenger vehicles now in use, with not 
 Octavo, cloth gilt, price 2s. net ; post free, 2S. 3d. 
 
 Horses for the Army a suggestion published 19 o6 
 
 Price 6d. net ; post free, 7d. 
 
 Poultry- Keeping on Farms and Small Holdings Published 1904 
 
 Being a practical treatise on tne production of Poultry and Eggs for the Market. 
 Illustrated Price 2s. net ; post free, as. 3d. 
 
 [P.T.O 
 
SIR WALTER GILBEY'S Works continued 
 The Harness Horse 4 th Edition Published ig<u 
 
 The scarcity of Carriage Horses and how to breed them. Twenty-one Chapters. 
 Seven full-page Illustrations. Octavo, cloth gilt, price 2s. net; post free, as, 3d, 
 
 Notes on Alcohol published i 9o3 
 
 Showing the relative value of Alcohol in Brandy, Whisky and Rum. Octavo", 
 price 6d. net.; post tree, 7d. 
 
 Early Carriages and Roads published 1903 
 
 In this publication attention has been given to the early history of wheeled 
 conveyances in England and their development up to recent times. With 
 Seventeen Illustrations. Octavo, cloth gilt, price 2s. net ; post free, as. 4d 
 
 Thoroughbred and Other Ponies Published 
 
 With Remarks on the Height of Racehorses since 1700. Being a Revised and 
 Enlarged Edition of PONIES PAST AND PRESENT. With Ten Illustrations. 
 Octavo, cloth gilt, price 55. net ; post free, 5s. 4d. 
 
 Hunter Sires Published 1903 
 
 Suggestions tor Breeding Hunters, Troopers and General-Purpose Horses. By 
 I. Sir WALTER GILBEV. Bart. II. CHARLES W. TINDALI.. III. Right Hon. 
 FREDERICK W. WRENCH. IV. W. T. TRENCH. Octavo, paper covers, 6d. net; 
 post free, yd. 
 
 Horse-breeding in England and India, and Army Horses 
 
 Abroad Published 1901 
 
 Seventeen Chapters, Horse-breeding in England ; Eight Chapters, Horse-breeding 
 Abroad ; Thirteen pages. Horse-breeding in India. Nine Illustrations. Octavo, 
 cloth, price as. net ; post free, as. 3d. 
 
 Riding & Driving Horses, their Breeding & Rearing published 1901 
 
 An Address delivered in London on March 2, 1885, and Discussion thereon by 
 the late Duke of Westminster, Earl Carrington, Sir Nigel Kingscote, the late 
 Mr. Edmund Tattersall, and others. Reprint 1901. Octavo, price as. net; post 
 free, as. 3d. 
 
 Small Horses in Warfare Published 1900 
 
 Arguments in favour of their use for light cavalry and mounted infantry. 
 Illustrated. Octavo, cloth gilt, price as. net ; post free, as. 3d. 
 
 Animal Painters of England published 1900 
 
 The lives of fifty animal painters, from the year 1650 to 1850. Illustrated. 
 Two vols., quarto, cloth gilt, Two Guineas net. 
 
 Animal Painters of England (Second Series) Published 1911 
 
 The lives of forty-six animal painters from the year 1600 to our own day. Illustrated. 
 Quarto, cloth gilt ; price i is. net. 
 
 The Great Horse or W^ar Horse Published i8 99 
 
 From the Roman Invasion till its development into the Shire Horse New and 
 Revised Edition, 1899. Seventeen Illustrations. Octavo, cloth gilt, price as. net ; 
 post free, as. 3d. 
 
 Life of George Stubbs, R.A. Published 1898 
 
 Ten Chapters. Twenty-six Illustrations and Headpieces Quarto, whole Morocco, 
 gilt, 3 3 s. net. 
 
 May, 1912 
 
7 6785-- 
 
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