During the reign of Henry VIII. various enactments were made with a view to improving the breed of horses. To make sure that the country should possess horses of commanding strength and size, the proportions of both sires and dams were regulated by an Act, one of the provisions of which was that no person should put in on forest, chace, moor, or heath, any stoned horse above the age of two years not being fifteen hands high, nor under fourteen hands, on pain of forfeiting the same. This Act, which discriminated the sizes in different counties, was undoubtedly judicious in its results, which ultimately proved beneficial to the general breed of horses throughout the kingdom. Some curious regulations, devised by the King were from time to time made public. He obliged all men of a given position, especially clergymen, to keep a certain number of horses. Thus Archbishops and Dukes, were enjoined in this reign to keep seven trotting stone horses of fourteen hands in height for the saddle. Clergymen also who possessed a benefice of £600 per annum, or laymen, whose wives wore French hoods, or velvet bonnets, were ordered to keep one trotting stone horse, under a penalty of twenty pounds. In the time of Queen Elizabeth, public racing was not much in vogue; still, in the days of "good Queen Bess," the race-horse continued to be prized. Her successor on the throne, James I., was remarkable for his attention to horse-breeding. He ordered £500 to be paid to Mr. Markham for an Arabian, the first animal of that breed seen in England, while in the time of the same king, races were run in many parts of England for silver bells, notably at Gatherly, in Yorkshire, Chester, Croydon, and some other localities. At this period the condition of the competing horses began to attract attention, their wants being methodically attended to, the weights to be carried adjusted, their exercise gallops and sweats being also properly defined. The repute of English race-horses during the reign of the first James became so great that they attracted attention in France, to which country several were exported, the methods of keeping and training them which then prevailed here being adopted by the French. In the year 1640, in the days of Charles I., the first Newmarket meetings were inaugurated, and, as will by-and-by be shown, horse-racing has been a feature of that famous town ever since. An account is given in another chapter of the rise of horse-racing in different localities, in which the further progress of the sport in its earlier days will be alluded to. Many apropos squibs and satires were published during this and the succeeding reign of Charles II. One of these is entitled "Newmarket," and it shows that the town had at that date become celebrated as the chief seat of horse-racing: