The stories that have been told of this, the first of the famous Eastern sires, are numerous, and, as is usual in such cases, the majority of them are apparently untrue. One of the most widely circulated of the misstatements was to the effect that the price paid by King James to Mr Markham for this particular Arab sire was not less than £500, and in papers and books almost innumerable, in which the Markham Arabian is mentioned, this false statement is repeated. That it is false beyond dispute is proved by the actual entry of the purchase that may be seen to this day in the Exchequer or Receipt Order Books in the Public Record Office. The entry runs as follows:— “Item the 20th of December, 1616, paid to Master Markham for the Arabian Horse for His Majesty's own use, £154, 0. 0.” It is almost inconceivable that anyone can seriously have believed that £500, or any sum approaching it, could have been paid for this sire, for at that period no sum approaching £500 ever was paid for any horse, the purchasing value of money being until after the reign of James I. so much in excess of its purchasing value some two centuries later. That several thoroughbred Eastern sires were bought by James is well known, among the last to which reference is made by the historians being the famous Villiers Arabs, which the king does not appear to have acquired until towards the end of his reign. Yet in spite of all that has been said and written about John Markham's stallion, the horse was not, according to that excellent judge of horses, the Duke of Newcastle, the class of animal that any man would have chosen to breed from for looks, for, in the duke's own words, “He [the Markham Arabian] was a bay, but a little horse, and no rarity for shape; for I have seen many English horses far finer.... Mr Markham sold him to the King for five hundred pounds (_sic_), and being trained up for a course, when he came to run, every horse beat him.” I believe I am right in saying that the identity of John Markham has never been positively traced, also that the consensus of opinion inclines to the belief that he was the father of the famous author, Gervase Markham, who for many years held the post of keeper of Clipston Shraggs Walk, in Sherwood Forest. Among the works of Gervase Markham is a volume entitled “Cavalarice, or the English Horseman,” in which many grotesque and unintentionally humorous passages are to be found. Each of the eight books which together go to make up this work is dedicated to some distinguished personage, of whom James I. is one, and Henry, Prince of Wales, another.