To show what stage of development the Great Horse had reached in the time of Henry VII., art comes to our aid in the shape of a picture by Albert Dürer, dated 1505. This is the earliest work we have found, and though the animal portrayed is not of necessity an English bred Great Horse, it represents the stamp of animal then in use for similar purposes in Germany; and from the banks of the Elbe, as we have already seen, stallions were imported into England for the Royal Studs. It is quite possible that the horse whose portrait Dürer’s brush has left us was one of English raising. A white horse of size, weight and power, such as this, was just the gift one ruling prince might have sent to another at a time when animals of that colour possessed the peculiar ceremonial value to which reference has been made, and it is far from unlikely that this particular animal was a royal gift from Henry VII. to Maximilian I. or to some other German prince. However that may be, two things are certain; it was a war horse, as the dress of the soldier attendant indicates; and the height, bulk, sloping quarters, abundant mane and tail, and well [Illustration: _Engraved by J B Bratt_ THE GREAT HORSE _after the Picture by Albert Dürer_.] feathered legs, prove it an example of a breed intimately allied to, if not identical with, the English Great Horse. Our Frontispiece is reproduced from an engraving of a picture by Hans Burgkmair, a German artist, who lived 1473-1529. It not only affords an excellent idea of the stamp of horse ridden by armour-clad knights of the period, but also of the armour borne by the horse. THE LAWS OF HENRY VIII. In Henry VIII.’s reign (1509-1547) special attention was directed to the breeding of strong horses; new laws were made which sought to secure strength and stature by requiring sires and dams of a certain size and mould. Breeding was allowed only under restrictions, and a distinct element of compulsion is the enactment that all prelates and nobles (“whose wives wore French hoods or velvet bonnets”) should maintain stallions of the required standard. The law passed in 1535 (26 Hy. VIII.) runs:-- “For that in many and most places of this Realm, commonly little Horses and Nags of small stature and value be suffered to depasture, and also to cover Mares and Felys of very small stature, by reason whereof the Breed of good and strong Horses of this Realm is now lately diminished, altered, and decayed, and further is like to decay if speedy Remedy be not sooner provided in that Behalf.” “It is provided that all Owners or Fermers of parks and enclosed grounds of the extent of one mile in compass, shall keep two Mares, being not spayed, apt and able to bear foals of the altitude or height of thirteen handfuls at least, upon pain of 40/.”