Virtual Grub Street: Elizabeth the Queen goes hunting.

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Elizabeth the Queen goes hunting.

Having traced Queen Elizabeth north to the royal town of Sutton-Coldfield to hunt the Sutton Chase, it is worth looking into just how the hunt to which everyone so looked forward was likely to proceed. No details are available as to the 1564 hunt, in particular, but many descriptions of such events are available.

No matter how big the hunting lodge might be, the mansions so far north were not sufficient to lodge all members of a royal party. Bilton Hall is as good a guess as any and better than most. Most of the noble hunters and their retinues would have to lodge in public houses near the mouth of the Chase, arriving filled with rowdy talk of the day’s sport like Shakespeare’s lord in the Prologue to The Taming of the Shrew:

Horns winded. Enter a Lord from hunting, with his train

Lord. Huntsman, I charge thee, tender well my hounds —

Brach Merriman, the poor cur, is emboss'd —

And couple Clowder with the deep-mouth'd brach.

Saw'st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good

At the hedge -corner, in the coldest fault?

I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.

1st Huntsman. Why, Belman is as good as he, my lord ;

He Cried upon it at the merest loss

And twice to-day pick'd out the dullest scent.

Trust me, I take him for the better dog.

Lord. Thou art a fool; if Echo were as fleet,

I would esteem him worth a dozen such.

But sup them well and look unto them all;

To-morrow I intend to hunt again.

The Queen and her retinue would already have departed, joking and laughing, perhaps singing, for the long ride back to Bilton.

Already we’ve mentioned that Elizabeth stopped at her palace at Enfield [link], earlier in her journey, to hunt in the toils there. Again, Shakespeare portrays the Princess and her ladies-in-waiting in Love’s Labours Lost hunting in toils.

Forester. Hereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice;

A stand where you may make the fairest shoot.

A stand was erected, at a favorable location, from which to shoot, rather than on horseback. The toils themselves were nets into which drivers drove the deer.

We have a delightful description in Nichols of just such an Enfield hunt, before Elizabeth was Queen:

In April the same year, she was escorted from Hatfield to Enfield-chase, by a retinue of twelve Ladies, clothed in white sattin on ambling palfries, and twenty yeomen in green, all on horseback, that her Grace might hunt the hart. At entering the chase, or forest, she was met by fifty archers in scarlet boots and yellow caps, armed with gilded bows; one of whom presented her a silver-headed arrow, winged with peacock's feathers.[1]

But we should not get the impression that she was a fragile flower. The description goes on:

By way of closing the sport, or rather the ceremony, the Princess was gratified with the privilege of cutting the throat of a buck.[2]

Apparently, she did not manage to kill one herself, on this occasion, with her crossbow. Perhaps the drovers had been unable to drive one past her stand. Or, perhaps, she only killed a red deer.

Just what the ladies had at hand to wear to the Sutton Chase we are never likely to know. They did have their version of “hunting” togs packed for Enfield. They may only have needed their servants to take them out, again, and give them a vigorous brushing.

Nor do we know exactly how the deer were provided for Elizabeth to shoot. At Cowdry, in 1591, the toils seem not to have been made of heavy netting.

On Munday, at eight of the clock in the morning, her Highnes took horse, with all her traine, and rode into the parke: where was a delicate bowre prepared, under the which were her Highnesse musicians placed, and a crossebowe by a Nymph, with a sweet song, delivered to her hands, to shoote at the deere, about some thirtie in number, put into a paddocke, of which number she killed three or four, and the Countess of Kildare one.[3]

What we do know is that every hunt which was attended by the Queen included a burgeoning outdoor banquet — a picnic at royal scale, as it were. The ladies were dressed in their finest.

Foremost Elizabeth, who did not ride “astride” her horse bearing down on fleeing stags as portrayed by some. She rode side-saddle on a courser, as apparently always, leaving her mount in the charge of her Master-of-the-Horse or his lieutenant while she dismounted, took the position prepared for her, received her crossbow and waited for the drovers to do the bearing down and drive the deer past her.

As we have learned in the previous post, Elizabeth’s closest advisors — Lords Robert Dudley and William Cecil — broke away from the festivities and did some actual deer hunting. The sport was dearly loved by ruggedly dressed Tudor noblemen, commanding their favorite chase horse and dogs. The stag (for anything less was embarrassing) was shot, as the rule, from the saddle, as, exhausted, it turned to face the dogs. Failure to kill with a single shot from a crossbow was considered a disgrace.

The two lords arrived at the far end of Sutton Chase, near Warwick Castle, the seat of Dudley’s brother, the Earl of that name. They remained four days hunting back up the Chase and surely spending their evenings eating fresh game in rich sauces quaffed down by wine and/or ale.

Elizabeth is not said to have gone along. Such an itinerary simply was not feasible riding side-saddle. Men mounted astride would have to be strong riders to go the distance over rugged terrain. The carts upon which the Queen rode the longer distances of her journeys had no passable road to follow. We may picture her at the center of her retinue each day, picnicking like royalty and waiting for the hallooing band of drovers and their baying hounds to bring their excitement and the deer to the party.

[1] Nichols, John. The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth., I.17.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Progresses, III.91.

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