James I., as is well known, had a miscellaneous taste for all kinds of pet animals--Virginian spaniels, a cream-coloured fawn, the splendid white gryfalcon of Ireland, an elephant, five camels, and naturally dogs of every description forming his menagerie. His Majesty had a favourite dog Jewel, or Jowler, “his special and most favourite hound.” One day, seeing his favourite lie dead, no one dared to tell him who had done the deed. At last one of the Queen’s attendants ventured to break the matter to him, saying that “the unlucky shaft proceeded from the hand of her Majesty,” which news at once pacified his Majesty’s anger. He sent word to her “not to be concerned at the accident, for he should never love her the worse,” and on the next day he gave her a jewel worth £2000, intimating that it was a legacy from his deceased dog. Greyhounds, spaniels, and hounds are classed by Sir Philip Sidney--the first as the lords, the second the gentlemen, and the last “the yeomen of dogges.”[112] The gentlemen, in the opinion of Charles I., were the more courtly, though not for this reason the better companions. “Methinks,” writes Sir Philip Warwick, who was in attendance on the King at Newport, “because it shows his disesteem of a common court vice, it is not unworthy the relating of him that, one evening, his dog scraping at his door, he commanded me to let in Gipsey, whereupon I took the boldness to say: “Sir, I perceive you love a greyhound better than you do a spaniel.” “Yes,” replied the King, “for they equally love their masters, and yet do not flatter them so much.” Charles II. was constantly followed by a number of small spaniels wherever he went. Indeed his fondness for these animals was extraordinary, for it is said that he even permitted them to litter in his own apartment; and, according to Evelyn, “neither the room itself, nor any part of the Court, was rendered more savoury from the King’s fancy.” His Majesty’s liking for dogs is alluded to in more than one lampoon of the period, and in a rhyme sung at the Calve’s Head Club we are told:-- “His dogs would sit at Council Board, Like judges in their furs; We question much which had most sense, The master or the curs.” And, in another pasquinade, we read:-- “His very dog at Council Board Sits grave and wise as any lord.” In the early numbers of the _London Gazette_ we find numerous instances in which rewards are offered for dogs stolen or strayed from Whitehall, many of which were undoubtedly the King’s. On the 12th of March 1667 a dog is notified as having been lost by Charles, the advertisement running thus:-- “Lost out of the Mews on the 6th of this present month, a little brindled greyhound bitch, belonging to his Majesty; if any one has taken her up, they are desired to bring her to the Porter’s Gate at Whitehall, and they shall have a very good content for their pains.”