In Nichol’s “Progresses of James I.” will be found some interesting particulars respecting this monarch’s interest in the turf; from which it appears that on Thursday, April 3, 1617, he was at Lincoln, where “was a great horse-race on the Heath for a cupp, where his Majesty was present, and stood on a scaffold the citie had caused to be set up, and withall caused the race a quarter of a mile long to be raled and corded with ropes and hoopes on both sides, whereby the people were kept out, and the horses that ronned were seen faire.” A few days later the King was at Durham, and from the same source we learn[96] how “he travelled from the Castle to Woodham Moor to a horse-race, which was run by the horses of William Salvin and Master Maddocks, for a gold purse, which was intended to have been on the 8th of April, but on account of the King’s coming was put off till the 21st, which match the King saw.” And again, about two years after this, we are informed how on the 19th March 1619, “there was a horse-race at Newmarket, at which the King tarrying too long, in his return from Newmarket was forced to put in at an inn at Whichfordbridge by reason of his being indisposed, and came very late in the night to Royston.” Prince Henry had a strong attachment to racing as well as hunting, but he was cut off at an early age.
Charles I. was well inclined towards sports of this kind, but, owing to the unsettled nature of his reign, horse-racing seems to have fallen somewhat into abeyance. In the early part of Charles’s reign, however, horse-races were held in several parts of the country, at some of which he was present; and that they were no uncommon occurrence at Epsom may be gathered from Clarendon’s “History of the Rebellion”: “Soon after the meeting which was held at Guildford, May 18, 1648, to address the two Houses of Parliament ... a meeting of the Royalists was held on Banstead Downs, under the pretence of a horse-race, and six hundred horses were collected and marched off to Reigate.” But we find Sir Edward Harwood lamenting the scarcity of able horses in the kingdom, “not more than two thousand being to be found equal to the like number of French horses,” for which he blames principally racing.