The Debate between the Heralds of France and England

Abstract

IT is not easy to obtain an accurate knowledge of the fauna of England before the sixteenth century, or to ascertain with anything like precision the distribution of wild animals throughout our country. Contemporary authorities are few, and allusions in them to the facts of Natural History are vague and scanty: vague enough to whet our curiosity, and rare enough to augment the interest attaching to them. We are, therefore, grateful when we can derive from any fresh and well-accredited source a side-light upon this obscure subject, and such we seem to have found in a few incidental remarks that occur in a very early tract, bearing the unsuggestive title of “A Debate between the Heralds of France and England.” This debate, now for the first time translated into English, appears from internal evidence to have been written by Charles, Duke of Orleans, about the year 1460, and to have been first published in Paris in 1500. Its author, taken prisoner at the battle of Agincourt, was detained in England for some five-and-twenty years, dividing the period of his captivity between London and the Castles of Windsor, Pontefract, Ampthill, Bolingbroke, and Wing-field. To a man of quick observation, as the Duke undoubtedly was, this lengthened exile gave ample opportunity of forming a tolerably correct opinion of the relative merits of the land of his birth and the land of his captivity. Patriotism has, of course, occasionally coloured his views, but on the whole his judgments are wonderfully impartial, and his statements may be accepted with very little qualification. It must, however, be borne in mind that the Duke's acquaintance with England was almost wholly confined to the eastern side, which has very little in common with the rest of the country, and has probably undergone far fewer changes in later times. Thus, in his estimate of the capabilities of our country for sporting purposes, he makes the English Herald say: “England is a level country, well cultivated, and not covered with trees or bushes, which might hinder the game from being easily found and caught; and it has also many partridges, quails, and other birds, as well as hares in great abundance. And with regard to the sport of fowling, no one can imagine a more delightful country, for there are numerous little streams which flow into the great rivers, where it is a fine thing, during the season, to see what a profusion there is of wild fowl.” This description is true enough of the eastern counties, especially if we understand the term “wild fowl” to include snipes, plovers, bitterns, and other fen-haunting birds. But, in lauding the superior merits of French sport, the Duke gives some further details, which are not without their value, as illustrating what we may call the antiquarian side of Natural History. “In France,” he remarks, “we have not only all the wild animals which you (English) have, as stags, roes, and deer, but we have many other animals for the chase besides these: for we have wild boars or wild black swine, and we have also wolves and foxes, while you have none. Now, it is hardly necessary to observe that the popular story of the extermination of wolves in England by Edward I. must be received with some reservation. There seems some ground to believe that in the valley of the Findhorn, in Scotland, wolves have bred as late as the seventeenth century, and that even in the wilder parts of England—the fells of Yorkshire, and the forest of Dartmoor—they have existed in the fifteenth, and perhaps in the sixteenth century, if we are to give any credence to local traditions. Certain it is that in 1280, John Giffard, the Baron of Brimsfield, had license from King Edward to hunt wolves with dogs and nets in all forests in England; we have also little doubt that a diligent search through the public records would disclose similar grants of later date. Some ten years ago a young wolf was caught in a vermin-trap at Ongar, in Essex, but its occurrence was explained by the fact that the master of a neighbouring hunt had recently imported some fox-cubs from France, and that the wolf had been included in the hamper by mistake. The comparatively small amount of woodland and covert in the East of England would render the breeding of wolves, to any extent, an impossibility, and in a less degree the same remark applies to foxes also. Fox-hunting, in the modern sense of that term, is a sport of recent growth, and such a thing as the preservation of foxes for hunting purposes cannot boast of any antiquity at all. Gervase Markham, indeed, classes the hunting of the fox and the badger together, and describes them as “chases of a great deal lesse use or cunning than stag and hare-hunting, because they are of a much hotter scent, and are not so much desired as the rest,”—an observation which may be balanced by the French Herald's remark, that wolves and foxes “are bloodthirsty animals, so that it requires persons of great courage to overcome them.” Wild swine in England were either destroyed or domesticated at a very early period. Pannage was too valuable a privilege to be otherwise than jealously guarded against such unwelcome intruders. Charles I. turned out in the New Forest some boars and sows which he had imported from Germany, and fifty years ago their descendants might be recognised by the smallness of their hind-quarters and greater development of sinew.

The Debate between the Heralds of France and England.

Translated and edited by Henry Pyne. (London: Longmans and Co. 1870.)