preux chevalier is accorded a magnificent funeral by his grateful master Richard II., and, in St. Edmund's Chapel in Westminster Abbey, a stately tomb, round which still runs in contracted form the inscription: Hic jacet Bernardus. Brocas Miles T. T. quondam camerarius Anne Regine Anglie cujus anime propicietur Deus. Amen.' It is unfortunate that no solid foundation is apparent for the legend that Sir Bernard bore the crest, used by him in seals as early as 1361, and still extant, of a Moor's head wearing an Oriental crown, in consequence of vanquishing a Moorish king in battle.' Possibly he fought among those knights of renown who did battle with Moors for the good of their souls 'in the open space between the two camps at Algeciras, when besieged by Alfonso of Castile in 1344. At any rate, the tradition was so well known in Addison's time that the attention of Sir Roger de Coverley was drawn when in the Abbey to the tomb of 'the lord who had cut off the King of Morocco's head.' 2 Thus, with the marriage of Sir Bernard Brocas and Mary, widow of Sir John de Borhunte and daughter of Sir John de Roches, begins the long period of the Brocas Mastership of the Buckhounds, and it becomes necessary to refer briefly to the early history of the office as recited in an ancient Brocas document. List of the hereditary Masters of the Royal Buckhounds by tenure in capite of Hunter's Manor,' in Little Weldon, Northamptonshire. 1. Osborne Lovel, Chamberlain to Henry II. 2. William Lovel. 3. Hamon le Venour, by grant from Henry III. in 1216. 5. John Lovel, ob. 1316. 6. Thomas de Borhunte, ob. 1340, jure Margaret Lovel. 7. William Danvers, ob. 1361, jure Margaret Lovel. Arms of Brocas: Sable, a lion, rampant-gardant, or. Crest of Brocas : A Moor's head in profile, crowned. 2 Spectator, No. 329. 8. Sir Bernard Brocas (1363), ob. 1395, jure Mary de Borhunte. 9. Sir Bernard Brocas, second of the name, executed 1400. 10. William Brocas (1), ob. 1456. 11. William Brocas (2), ob. 1484. 12. John Brocas, ob. 1492. 13. William Brocas (3), ob. 1506. 14. John Brocas, 1508-1512.1 15. George Warham and Ralph Pexall, joint Masters 15121514, jure Ann and Edith Brocas. 16. Ralph Pexall (1514), ob. c. 1540, jure Edith Brocas. 17. Sir Richard Pexall, ob. 1571, son of Edith Brocas. 18. Sir John Savage (till 1584), second husband of Lady Pexall, widow of Sir Richard. 19. Sir Pexall Brocas, ob. 1630. 20. Thomas Brocas, who in 1633 sold Hunter's Manor and the office to Sir Lewis Watson, afterwards Lord Rockingham. From the list of hereditary Masters given above it will be observed that one of the earliest notices of any regular establishment for the Buckhounds is the grant of certain lands in Little Weldon, a manor in Northamptonshire, near Rockingham, to Hamon le Venour, in 1216. It is certain, however, that the Lovels had held these lands at an earlier date, for certain territories and the lordship of the Manor of Little Weldon were granted by Henry II. to his Chamberlain, Osborne Lovel, from whom they descended to John Lovel, who died in 1316. Whatever were the original relations of 'Hunter's Manor in Little Weldon' to the royal manor of that name of which it formed a part, it assumed under the Edwards a position so entirely independent of the larger manor that it is styled in the Brocas deeds and official documents the Manor of Little Weldon,' with 'Hunter's Manor' sometimes prefixed as an alias. To this Hunter's Manor' was attached in Grand Serjeanty for many centuries the Mastership of the Royal Buckhounds. For the ingenious at 6 The tenure of this Master, omitted in the list given in The Family of Brocas, has been correctly noted in the History of the Royal Buckhounds. tempt made by the author of a History of the Buckhounds,' to which allusion has been already made, to throw doubt on the antiquity of the hereditary transmission of the Mastership with Hunter's Manor '-an attempt apparently based on the fact that the Lovels and de Borhuntes, who held it before Sir Bernard Brocas, were styled custodians instead of masters -needs no further attention than the statement that in the Brocas documents magister' and custos' are frequently used as interchangeable terms of the same meaning, and that in an indenture of Elizabeth's reign the phrase 'Master or Keeper' of the Buckhounds occurs. Remote from King and Court the situation of Hunter's Manor may seem at the present day to those who forget the central position and historical importance of Rockingham Forest and Rockingham Castle in Norman and Plantagenet times. Here, within reach of the stronghold of Northampton, was the royal residence, fitted for retirement and the pleasures of the chase, until, with the increasing necessity of moving the Court nearer to London, Rockingham was superseded by the greater convenience and magnificence of Windsor. A vast extent of country was once covered by Rockingham Forest, which, when reduced to the limits retained almost to modern times, was twenty-four miles long from Oxendon Bridge to Stamford, and twelve miles wide from Rockingham to Thrapstone. Numerous woodlands, quaint forest names, peculiar customs, and a population that retains its forest character still mark the ancient limits. Local names, such as The Lord's Walk' and Harry's Wood,' still recall the memory of some forgotten royal and noble lover of the 'mimic war' of hound and horn. Though Hunter's Coppice,' last relic of the ancient Hunter's Manor,' was broken up some years ago, there still may be seen in Little Weldon' mounds and foundations of an extensive building surrounded by a quadrangular moat to which the peasants give the name of 'The Castle' or 'The Hall,' and which may mark the site of the hunting lodge and kennels of the hereditary Masters. Still do the Pytchley awake the same woodland echoes as were roused by many a princely Plantagenet, and still hounds meet on the border of Farming Woods near an ancient stone three feet high and now fast sinking into the earth, named the Bocase Stone,' marking the site of a yet more ancient tree, and bearing still the inscriptions, 'In this place grew Bocase tree,' and, lower down, Here stood Bocase tree.' No local tradition of the meaning of this inscription survives, and so quaint and unlikely have been the derivations suggested that leave may be taken to hold that here stood the 'Brocas Tree,' and that here, where the old forest tracks, still traceable, met near the ancient kennels, the hereditary Brocas Masters, surrounded by their huntsmen, their 'veutrers,' 'berners,' and hounds, and clad in the livery specially provided from the King's wardrobe, were wont, in successive generations, to await the royal hunting train emerging from Rockingham Castle. While there is clear proof from public records and documents of the Brocas family of the chief importance of Rockingham in the early organisation of the Buckhounds, it is strange that no direct evidence of the application of this hunting establishment to the New Forest or other royal demesnes has yet been discovered. The tenure of the manor and office by the early Lovels and de Borhuntes is so similar in most respects to that of later times, and so interesting from its antiquity, that reference may here be made to an entry dated August 15, 1316, wherein the escheator reported that Lovel had held one messuage and one carucate of land in Weldon Parva of the King in capite by service of keeping and feeding at his own charges fifteen 'canes currentes' of the King's for the forty days of Lent in each year, and to a later document wherein it is recited that Thomas Borhunte holds of the King in capite a chain of land in Little Weldon of the inheritance of Margaret his wife, daughter and heir of John Lovel, by service of being Venour le Roy des deymers' (Master of the King's Buckhounds); that he has charge of twenty-four hounds and six greyhounds of the King's, receiving for the keep of each an obol or d. a day, and also of two under-huntsmen, whose wages are 13d. a day, with a cloth coat or a mark of money by the year, and boots; that he also has charge of a 'veutrer,' or huntsman, at 2d. a day, who is also to have a coat or a mark of money and 4s. 8d. for boots by the year; that the Master is to keep at his own cost for the forty days of Lent, fifteen Buckhounds and one 'berner,' or keeper of the hounds, while the second 'berner,' the veutrer,' and the rest of the hounds are to be kept at the King's cost for the whole of the year; that the Master's salary is to be 74d. a day when at Court and 12d. a day when absent on the King's business, with two robes a year or 40s.; that the 'seigne en malades' is to have for daily livery 1d. worth of bread, a gallon of beer, a mess of groos,' and a mess of roast from the kitchen, and that the livery of the huntsman is to be at the King's will. The most important point in this ancient document is the absolute acknowledgment of the hereditary character of the office and of the power of its transmission through females-a power which in the next century was abolished by restricting the succession to males, but which was revived again under the Tudors in such a manner as to defeat the original object of the Mastership, and to end in its being bought and sold in the seventeenth century as private property, with the final result of the formation of the Privy Buckhounds, the Mastership of which was free from these feudal hindrances. To the value of the Manor of Little Weldon, or Hunter's Manor, there was added, from the middle of the fourteenth to |