This act it was that led the popular King of Navarre to select “two swift-running horses of great beauty” from his stable and send them as a present to Edward III.; a compliment which pleased Edward greatly and that he quickly acknowledged. In this reign, also in the reign of the succeeding monarch, Richard II., Acts were passed which directly tended to encourage the breeding and rearing of good horses. Indeed the sums spent by Edward III. in connection with this must have been prodigious, for it is on record that upon one occasion he purchased from the Count of Hainault alone horses to the value of some 25,000 florins. Many of the horses that he bought, however, came direct from the Low Countries. Among the royal manors where he established large studs, especially studs of war horses, were Woodstock, Waltham, Odiham, and of course Windsor, a proportion of the expense of inaugurating and supporting these stud farms being defrayed by the sheriffs, according to royal command. Yet, in spite of all this, the supply of horses obtainable was not equal to the demand when the great war with France broke out. At the battle of Crecy, in 1346, only a proportion of the army of Edward III. and the Black Prince had horses, though we know that almost on the eve of the campaign considerable sums were spent upon the purchase of horses from the King of Gascony and from several large owners. This seems stranger still when we remember that the English army at Crecy was limited to some 36,000 men only, whereas King Philip's forces numbered over 130,000. Crecy, indeed, is one of the few historical battles in which the army that was the best mounted did not win the day; but then all historians admit that the bowmen the English brought into the field upon that occasion were probably among the best disciplined and the most expert that had ever before been seen in action. On the other hand the horses of the opposing forces were not of the best. Many had hardly been trained at all to arms, and many more had been commandeered and hurried into the field almost at the eleventh hour. Some historians hold that Philip's army would have fared better had there been fewer men-at-arms in the fighting line, and it is possible that upon this single occasion if the army had had fewer horses it might have achieved success. CHAPTER II Richard II.'s horse, Roan Barbary—Thoroughbred English horses characteristic of the nation—Chaucer; Cambuscan's wooden horse—Don Quixote's Aligero Clavileno—Horse race between the Prince of Wales and Lord Arundel—The Chevalier Bayard; his horse, Carman—The Earl of Warwick's horse, Black Saladin—Joan of Arc—King Richard's horse, White Surrey—Charles VIII. of France's horse, Savoy—Dame Julyana Berners—Wolsey's horsemanship—Queen Elizabeth's stud