Yet another statute which he drew up—33, Henry VIII., c. 5—enacted that dukes and archbishops must maintain seven stoned trotting horses for the saddle; marquises, earls and bishops, five; and viscounts and barons with incomes of not less than 1000 marks, five. In the same way subjects with an income of 500 marks were each to maintain two of these trotting horses for the saddle, while men with an income of 100 marks, whose wives should “wear any gown of silk, or any French hood or bonnet of velvet, with any habiliment, paste or egg of gold, pearl or stone, or any chain of gold about their necks, or in their partlets, or in any apparel on their body,” were by the law compelled to maintain one saddle horse, severe penalties being inflicted if they failed to do so. I have somewhere seen it stated that these Acts were repealed by Edward VI., but they were not. They were developed by William and Mary, and further developed by Elizabeth. Upon each occasion the renewal and development of these statutes caused bad blood and brought forth threats of retaliation, but the latter were not carried out. That the obvious injustice of laws so arbitrary should have created friction, is not to be wondered at; yet the benefit that subsequently accrued to the country through passing them was enormous. Indeed it is more than likely that if Henry VIII., William and Mary, and Elizabeth had given way to the demands of a great body of their subjects between three and four hundred years ago, England would not have become famous above all other countries for its horses, as it is to-day. It was in the reign of Henry VIII. that riding matches first began to acquire popularity, and to attract the attention of the “bloods” of about that period. Several descriptions of the way in which such matches were arranged and carried out are in existence, and perhaps a brief account of rather a famous match that was ridden by Richard de la Pole, the third Duke of Suffolk, against Seigneur Nicolle Dex, will here prove of interest. The Duke of Suffolk—“Blanche Rose” as his intimate friends called him—was the third son of John de la Pole, his mother being the Lady Elizabeth Plantagenet, Edward IV.'s and Richard III.'s sister. In the year 1517, soon after the Duke had returned to Metz, the popularity of the turf began suddenly to increase, and thus it happened that the Duke presently became the possessor of a horse said to be “very swift and of extreme value,” of which he boasted that it could beat all comers. It was while talking thus in Metz one day that Blanche Rose was taken at his word by the Seigneur Nicolle Dex, who declared without hesitation that he could and would himself produce and ride a horse against the Duke's “from the Elm at Avegney to within St Clement's Gate,” for the sum of eighty crowns “and win easily.”