gay,
D'ye ken John Peel at the break of
day,
D'ye ken John Peel when he's far away,
With his hounds and his horn in the
morning.
In The Queen's Speech, (written by Her Prime Minister), at the annual State Opening of Parliament, Her Majesty will announce Her Government's intention to ban hunting with hounds, a bill that will bring to a close some 1600 years of royal hunting in Britain. The Queen's perhaps reluctant signature to this contentious bill will outlaw one of the Royal Family's favourite outdoor sports.
The Prince of Wales chose Highrove as his country seat in Gloucestershire because of its near proximity to a number of Hunts and the Wales scions ride regularly with the Duke of Beaufort's Hunt which has boasted of a first class pack of hounds and a "pompous stable which could accommodate forty horses" since 1682 when the 7th Earl of Worcester was created Duke by King Charles II.
The Windsors will be last of a long line of hunting Royals. Kings have hunted since before King Alfred the Great of Wessex, (849-901), defeated the Vikings at the decisive Battle of Eddington in 878 and was able thereafter to enjoy chasing stags instead of Danes. In those days it was the the stag not the fox that was hunted.
About 640 AD the heathen King Penda of Mercia employed Alwyn as the first recorded royal Master of Hounds in a part of England hunted by the Beauforts to this day. His job was to provide diversionary sport for the King when he was not out hunting down and slaying neighboring Christian kings in the name of Wotan and Thor. Medieval manuscript illustrations attest to King Offa, (r.757-796), whose earthworks to keep the western Celts at bay survive to this day as 'Offa's Dyke', being another early royal addict of the Chase.
King Alfred's grandson Aethelstan, (reigned 925-939), was similarly imbued with passion for the Chase when not fighting Vikings or pacifying turbulent Celts, (themselves no mean hunters). On defeating the King of Wales he levied a ransom of "sharp scented dogs fit for hunting wild beasts".
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