CHAPTER XIV.. Of Hawks and Hawking.

OF HAWKS AND HAWKING.

QUÆRE, Sir James Long of this subject, for he understands it as well as any gentleman in this nation, and desire him to write his marginall notes.

Dame Julian Barnes, in her book of Hunting and Hawking, says that the hawk’s bells must be in proportion to the hawk, and they are to be equiponderant, otherwise they will give the hawk an unequall ballast: and as to their sound they are to differ by a semitone, which will make them heard better than if they were unisons.

William of Malmesbury sayes that, anno Domini 900, tempore Regis Alfredi, hawking was first used. Coteswold is a very fine countrey for this sport, especially before they began to enclose about Malmesbury, Newton, &c. It is a princely sport, and no doubt the novelty, together with the delight, and the conveniency of this countrey, did make King Athelstan much use it. I was wont to admire to behold King Athelstan’s figure in his monument at Malmesbury Abbey Church, with a falconer’s glove on his right hand, with a knobbe or tassel to put under his girdle, as the falconers use still; but this chronologicall advertisement cleares it. [The effigy on the monument here referred to, as well as the monument itself, have no reference to Athelstan, as they are of a style and character some hundreds of years subsequent to that monarch’s decease. If there were any tomb to Athelstan it would have been placed near the high altar in the Presbytery, and very different in form and decoration to the altar tomb and statue here mentioned, which are at the east end of the south aisle of the nave.—J. B.] Sir George Marshal of Cole Park, a-quarry to King James First, had no more manners or humanity than to have his body buried under this tombe. The Welsh did King Athelstan homage at the city of Hereford, and covenanted yearly payment of 20li. gold, of silver 300, oxen 2,500, besides hunting dogges and hawkes. He dyed anno Domini 941, and was buried with many trophies at Malmesbury. His lawes are extant to this day among the lawes of other Saxon kings.