The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual

Part 1

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Transcriber's Note

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A list of corrections is found at the end of the text.

THE YOUNG LADY'S EQUESTRIAN MANUAL.

E.LANDELLS.S.

LONDON. WHITEHEAD AND COMP^Y. 76, FLEET STREET. MDCCCXXXVIII.

PREFACE.

The following pages contain a Treatise on the Art of Riding on Horseback, for Ladies, which originally appeared in the Publishers' well-known Manual of elegant feminine Recreations, Exercises, and Pursuits, THE YOUNG LADY'S BOOK; with, however, various additions to the Text, and a number of new Illustrations and Embellishments.

In offering the Treatise, thus improved and adorned, in a separate form, the Publishers, it need scarcely be said, have been influenced, materially, by that high and most extensive patronage, which, under Royal auspices, has been conferred by the ladies of this country, since the commencement of the present reign, on the Art of which it is the subject.

CONTENTS.

Page INTRODUCTION 7 EQUESTRIAN TECHNICALITIES 23 THE LADY'S HORSE 26 PERSONAL EQUIPMENTS 31 ACCOUTREMENTS FOR THE HORSE 33 RULES OF THE ROAD 34 MODE OF MOUNTING 36 MANAGEMENT OF THE REINS 41 THE SEAT AND BALANCE 44 AIDS AND DEFENCES 51 SOOTHINGS AND ANIMATIONS 55 CORRECTIONS 58 VICES 60 EXERCISES IN THE PACES 71 THE WALK 73 THE TROT 79 THE CANTER 81 THE GALLOP 84 STOPPING AND BACKING 85 LEAPING 87 DISMOUNTING 91 CONCLUDING REMARKS 95

THE YOUNG LADY'S EQUESTRIAN MANUAL.

Our Virgin Queen, peerless Elizabeth, With grace and dignity rode through the host: And proudly paced that gallant steed, as though He knew his saddle was a royal throne.

INTRODUCTION.

Riding on Horseback is, confessedly, one of the most graceful, agreeable, and salutary of feminine recreations. No attitude, perhaps, can be regarded as more elegant than that of a lady in the modern side-saddle; nor can any exercise be deemed capable of affording more rational and innocent delight, than that of the female equestrian. Pursued in the open air, it affords a most rapid, and, at the same time, exhilarating succession of scenic changes, at a degree of personal exertion, sufficient to produce immediate pleasure, without inducing the subsequent languor of fatigue.

Nor is riding on horseback attended with that danger to ladies, attributed to it by the indolent, the melancholy, and the timid. Accidents, indeed, in the side-saddle, are of extremely rare occurrence. Strange as it may seem, it is, however, an incontrovertible fact, that horses, in general, are much more docile and temperate, with riders of the fair sex, than when mounted by men. This may be attributed, partially, to the more backward position, in the saddle, of the former than the latter; but, principally, perhaps, to their superior delicacy of hand in managing the reins.

As an active recreation, and a mode of conveyance, riding on horseback appears to have been of very remote usage among our fair countrywomen. During a long period, indeed, it was the only one known to, or, adopted by them, for the performance of journies. Such, too, appears to have been the case (with some modifications) in other European countries. The only voiture of the French, says Garsault, until the reign of Charles the Sixth, was the back of the horse or mule: neither Kings, Queens, Princes, nor subjects were acquainted with any other. In the time of that monarch, litters, borne by two horses, first appeared; but these were uncovered, and used, only, by ladies of the court. Froissart describes Isabel, the second wife of Richard the Second of England, as having been borne "en une litière moult riche, qui etoit ordonnèe pour elle;" and this kind of vehicle, during the reigns of several succeeding Monarchs, appears to have been used by women of distinction in this country, but, only, it is to be observed, in cases of illness, or on occasions of ceremony. For example,--when Margaret, daughter of Henry the Seventh, went into Scotland, she generally rode "a faire palfrey;" while, after her, was conveyed "one vary riche litere, borne by two faire coursers, vary nobly drest; in the which litere the sayd Queene was borne in the intrying of the good townes, or otherwise, to her good playsher."

Towards the end of the thirteenth century, vehicles with wheels, for the use of ladies, were first introduced. They appear to have been of Italian origin, as the first notice of them is found in an account of the entry of Charles of Anjou into Naples; on which occasion, we are told, his queen rode in a careta, the outside and inside of which were covered with sky-blue velvet, interspersed with golden lilies. Under the Gallicised denomination of char, the Italian careta, shortly afterwards became known in France; where, so early as the year 1294, an ordinance was issued by Philip the Fair, forbidding its use to citizens' wives. Nor was England far behind in the adoption of the vehicle; for, in "The Squyr of Low Degree," a poem supposed to have been written anterior to the time of Chaucer, we find the father of a royal lady promising that she shall hunt with him, on the morrow, in "a chare," drawn by

"Jennettes of Spain that ben so white, Trapped to the ground with velvet bright."

"It shall be covered with velvet red, And clothes of fine gold all about your head; With damask white and azure blue, Well diapered with lilies blue."

However richly ornamented, the careta, char, or chare--and there is little, if any, doubt, to be entertained as to their identity--may have been, it was, probably, a clumsy, inelegant, and inconvenient structure; for its employment appears to have been far from general among high-born ladies, even on occasions of ceremony and pomp. During the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, the French Princesses usually rode on donkies; and so late as the year 1534, a sacred festival was attended by Queen Eleonora, and the females of the blood royal of France, on horseback. Nor did the superior and more recent invention of coaches, for a long period, tend materially to supersede, among ladies, the use of the saddle. These vehicles, according to Stow, became known, in England, in 1580; but, many years after, Queen Elizabeth herself is described as having appeared, almost daily, on her palfrey. In the time of Charles the Second, the fashion, among ladies, of riding on horseback, declined; during subsequent reigns, it gradually revived; and the exercise may now be regarded as firmly established, among our fair countrywomen, by the august example of their illustrious Queen.

The present graceful, secure, and appropriate style of female equestrianism is, however, materially different from that of the olden time. In by-gone days, the dame or damosel rode precisely as the knight or page. Of this, several illustrations occur in an illuminated manuscript of the fourteenth century, preserved in the Royal Library. In one of these, a lady of that period is depicted on horseback, enjoying the pastime of the chase. In another, are represented two gentlewomen of the same period, on horseback, with an individual of the other sex, engaged (as is shewn by some parts of the design, which it would be needless, for our present purpose, to copy) in the once much-favoured diversion of Hawking.

Queen Elizabeth, says a writer in the Encyclopædia Londinensis, "seems to have been the first who set the ladies the more modest fashion of riding sideways. Considerable opposition was, at first, made to it, as inconvenient and dangerous: but, practice, in time, brought it into general use; particularly when ladies found they could ride a-hunting, take flying leaps, and gallop over cross roads and ploughed fields, without meeting with more accidents than the men: besides, it was not only allowed to be more decorous, but, in many respects, more congenial to the ease and comfort of a female rider."

Our author is, however, wrong in ascribing the fashion of riding sideways, by women in this country, to Elizabeth; by whom it could only have been confirmed, or, at the most, revived;--the honour of its introduction being clearly attributable to another Queen of England, who lived at a much more early period of our history.

Ann of Bohemia, consort of Richard the Second, is the illustrious personage to whom we allude. She, it was, according to Stow (whom Beckman follows on this point), that originally shewed the women of this country how gracefully and conveniently they might ride on horseback sideways. Another old historian, enumerating the new fashions of Richard the Second's reign, observes, "Likewise, noble ladies then used high heads and cornets, and robes with long trains, and seats, or side-saddles, on their horses, by the example of the respectable Queen, Ann, daughter of the King of Bohemia; who first introduced the custom into this kingdom: for, before, women of every rank rode as men do" (T. ROSSII, Hist. Re. Ang. p. 205). In his beautiful illustrative picture of Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims, Stothard appears to have committed an anachronism, in placing the most conspicuous female character of his fine composition sideways on her steed. That the lady should have been depicted riding in the male fashion, might, it strikes us, have been inferred, without any historical research on the subject, from the poet's describing her as having, on her feet,

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