When, in 1581, Count John of Emden and Count Waldeck came to see the Royal lady, Elizabeth demanded from Lord Hunsdon a report respecting the game in Hyde Park, and was not at all pleased with the result. Whether birds and beasts increased thereafter is not told. A year later stands were erected in Marybone and Hyde Park for the Queen and her visitor and suitor, the Duke of Anjou, with his train, to view the chase. Probably, however, the results of the various hunting parties were unsatisfactory, for a record still exists among the State Papers of a command by Queen Elizabeth to the cooks of London as to the buying and selling of venison, forbidding them to purchase from unauthorised people in the city. It was evidently supposed that the cooks were the chief offenders in the matter, and ordered their venison at a cheap rate purloined from her Majesty’s preserves. On 11th June 1585 we find Sir Thomas Pullyson, Lord Mayor of London, writing to Walsingham: “Right Honourable, “Here yesterday I received this from Her Majesty’s most honorable prime [minister] advertising me that her Highness was informed that venison that was ordinarily sold by ye cookes of London was often stole—To the great destruction of the game—Commanding me thereby to take severall bondes of —— the yeere of all the cookes in London not to buy or sell any venison hereafter uppon payne of forfayture of the same bondes; neither to receive any venison to bake without keeping note of their names that shall deliver the same unto them. Whereupon presently I called the wardens of the Cookes before me, advertising them each. Requiring them to raise their whole company to appeare befor me to the end I might take bondes.” The bond was a surety of £40 each—an enormous sum in those days—given by each cook not to sell any manner of venison in or outside of the City. It is rather amusing to find that the theft of venison from the Royal Park was so highly punished in Elizabethan times, but the bond did not do away with poaching. How those old cooks would smile if they could see the pheasants, grouse, and partridges on sale in the best London shops, almost before there has been time for the cartridges to be fired on the opening days appointed by law, still less for the game to reach the London market.