Scaliger observed of him, “The King of England is merciful except in hunting, where he appears cruel. When he finds himself unable to take the beast, he frets and cries, ‘God is angry with me, but I will have him for all that.’” “His favourite pastime once nearly cost him his life, for he was thrown headlong into a pond, and very narrowly escaped drowning. On another occasion his bad horsemanship nearly proved fatal to him, for Mr. Joseph Meade writes to Sir Martin Stuteville, 11th January 1622: ‘The same day his Majesty rode by coach to Theobald’s to dinner, ... and after dinner, riding on horseback abroad, his horse stumbled, and cast his Majesty into the New River, where the ice brake; he fell in so that nothing but his boots were seen. Sir Richard Young went into the water and lifted him out.’” Indeed, Sir Richard Baker informs us the King’s riding was so remarkable that it could not with so much propriety be said that he rode, as that his horse carried him. He often hunted in Cranbourne Chase, and in a copy of Barker’s Bible, printed in 1594, which formerly belonged to the family of the Cokers of Woodcotes, in the Chase, are entries of the King’s visits: “The 24th day of August, our King James was in Mr. Butler’s Walke, and found the bucke, and killed him in Vernedich, in Sir Walter Vahen’s Walk.” In the painting of Queen Anne of Denmark in her hunting costume, her dogs are introduced by Van Somers; they wear ornamental collars, round which are embossed in gold the letters, A. R.; they are dwarf greyhounds. The Queen holds a crimson cord in her hand in which two of these dogs are linked, and it is long enough to allow them to run in the leash by her side when on horseback. A very small greyhound is begging, by putting its paws against her green cut-velvet farthingale, as if jealous of her attention. Catherine of Braganza, Queen-Consort of Charles II., loved sport, and from all accounts her hunting establishment was carried on in an elaborate manner, for mention is made of “the master of her Majesty’s bows,” with a salary of £61 attached to his office; “a yeoman of her Majesty’s bows,” “a master of her Majesty’s bucks,” &c. At Oxnead a venerable oak was long pointed out, beneath which, according to local tradition, King Charles and his Queen stood when they shot at the butts. In the year 1676 a silver badge for the marshal of the fraternity of bowmen, of which she was the patroness, was made, weighing twenty-five ounces, with the figure of an archer drawing the long English bow to his ear, with the inscription, “Reginæ Catharinæ Sagitarii,” having also the arms of England and Portugal, with two bowmen for supporters.