Bassompierre, who had been in England in Elizabeth's reign, is likely to have known the true facts. In addition to being “addicted to horses,” he was passionately fond of gambling, and the latter hobby is said to have cost him in a single year some £500,000. A family notorious early in the Stuart era for its devotion to the Turf was the Fenwick family, so much so that several of its members are described as having run “quite out of their fortunes” in their futile attempts to transform two or three small fortunes into one large one. The sensational story of Sir John Fenwick's trial, followed by his execution on Tower Hill in 1697, establishes a sort of landmark in the history of the public executions of the seventeenth century. During the first half of the same century horse fairs were organised throughout England, and year by year they became events of greater importance, many hundreds of men and women of all ranks travelling from far-distant parts of the country in order to attend them. The scenes of ribaldry by which many of these fairs were followed would not be tolerated now. Among the more important of the fairs were those held at Ripon, Melton, Pankridge and Northampton, but many of the others were almost equally fashionable. It was in the reign of Charles I. that Sir Edward Harwood presented the famous petition, or memorial, in which he explained in forcible language that “good and stout horses for the defence of the kingdom” would soon be to all intents at a premium owing to the scant attention that was then being paid to the breeding of such animals, adding that he doubted whether, if some 2000 great horses should be wanted at short notice, it would be possible to find so many in a fit condition to do battle. The French horses of the same stamp, he went on to say, were in almost every way superior to ours, and so emphatic was he upon this last point that he openly declared that if some 2000 of the best of our great horses were to be set face to face in battle with an equal number of the Frenchmen's horses, our troops would to a certainty be routed with heavy loss. Seeing how earnestly Harwood spoke, the king, as we are told, expressed sorrow and great amazement at what he heard, and at once inquired the reason of the English horses' alleged inferiority. Then it was that Sir Edward made his point. With considerable bluntness he told the king that the decline of the great horse was due chiefly to the spread of racing and hunting, and to the growth, consequent thereon, in the number of race meetings that were being organised, and in the assemblage of persons who attended them.