Elizabeth, however, as we shall presently see, upon the whole took greater interest in “running horses” than in the clumsy shire stallions, and though it is said that she never was actually present at a race meeting held at Newmarket, she is known to have owned a number of race horses the majority of which were stabled near Greenwich and trained chiefly upon Blackheath. In connection with Wolsey and his undoubted fondness for horses, it is interesting to learn that he cared but little for any form of gambling, though “the sight of a contest between running horses of high spirit delighted him.” Until the period when he gave up riding he preferred at all times to be himself on horseback rather than watch others, a statement that has been misinterpreted by one writer to mean that Wolsey preferred to ride in races rather than watch others ride races for him! I believe I am right in saying that Wolsey never rode in any race of any kind, also that he took more active interest in the chase than in the turf—such turf, that is to say, as there was in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to take interest in. Upon that point Henry VII. held views somewhat different from his chaplain's. The spectacle afforded by a horse race gave him scant gratification, and as a result he did little to develop and encourage horse racing or to better the condition of the turf. Probably the only ride in the nature of a horse race that did stir him into displaying enthusiasm was Wolsey's race just described. This feat Wolsey but rarely spoke about, save when questioned by friends. His technical knowledge of horses is said to have been profound, so much so that frequently men quite unknown to him would come many miles to obtain his opinion upon the condition of a sick horse, and usually he was willing to tender advice even to strangers. Indeed his willingness to be of service when a horse was in distress appears to have remained one of Wolsey's marked characteristics until nearly the end of his life. Historians have for the most part depicted him a stern, unbending man from the time he was made Cardinal; yet he is known to have performed many small acts of kindness for which the world probably did not give him credit. Whether the advice he tendered in cases of horse sickness was invariably sound is doubtful. The amazing ignorance of the anatomy of the human body that prevailed four hundred years ago leads naturally to the inference that ignorance of the anatomy of the horse must have been even greater. Probably the advice tendered by Wolsey was about upon a par in point of soundness with the advice that passed current towards the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries for “wisdom in medicine and chirurgery.”