CHAPTER VI

SPORTS AND AMUSEMENTS

A LIST of sports in 1600 is quoted in Furnivall's notes to Stubbes (Part I. Series vi. No. 6, p. 316).

"Man, I dare challenge thee to throw the sledge,

To iumpe or leape ouer a ditch or hedge,
To wrestle, play at stooleball, or to runne,
To pitch the barre, or to shoote off a gunne :
To play at loggets, nine holes, or ten pinnes,
To trie it out at foot-ball by the shinnes;
At Ticktacke, Irish, Noddie, Maw, and Ruffe;
At hot-cockles, leape-frogge, or blindman-buffe ;
To drinke halfe pots, or deale at the whole canne
To play at base, or pen-and-ynk-horne sir Ihan :
To daunce the Morris, play at Barly-breake:
At all exploytes a man can thinke or speake

At shoue-groute, venter-poynt, or crosse and pile :
At beshrow him that's last at yonder style."

The prohibition of games on Sunday by the Puritans led to the abolition of the working-class's amusements altogether, and was therefore answerable for much of that hideous brutality which possessed that class during the latter part of the eighteenth century. They were not to wrestle, shoot, play at bowls, ring bells, hold masques, wakes, play games of any kind, dance, or exercise any other pastime on Sunday. Now, as Sunday was the only day when the working people could play games or have any recreation, this prohibition destroyed the knowledge of these games, the old delight in them, the desire for them, the skill in them. After eighteen years of Puritan rule a new type of working man grew up, one who knew no games and could practise none; a duller creature, heavy witted, slow of sight, and clumsy of hand; one who would yield to the temptation of drink without resistance; one who was capable of sinking lower and lower still. This is one of the many blessings which have been bestowed upon London by the Puritans.

For winter amusements the better class had a variety of games, such as "cards, tables, dice, shovelboard, chess, the philosophers game, small trunks, shuttlecock, billiards, music, masks, singing, dancing, all games, frolicks, jests, riddles, catches,

purposes, questions and commands, merry tales of knights errant, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves, cheaters, witches, fairies, goblins, friars”— Malcolm has picked this list out of Burton.

The shows and performances at the fairs were extremely popular. There were puppet shows, at which scriptural pieces were represented, or the Patient Grizzle, or the Lady Godiva; there were tight-rope dancers; there were performing dogs or monkeys; there were strong men and cunning men; jugglers, and conjurers.

Athletic sports were in vogue. Many of the young nobles were expert swimmers; others, among whom was the Duke of Monmouth, were fast runners, so that foot-races were a favourite amusement. Two of them once ran down a buck. Tennis was a favourite game, as was also pall-mall; skating, when there was ice, was extensively practised; bowl-racing and horse-racing were common. Bowls continued as a game which never goes wholly out of fashion. Baiting of the bull and the bear were resumed after the Restoration, but the lust for this brutal sport seems to have gone out.

The evening amusements of James the First, which seem stupid and coarse enough, may be perhaps regarded as the natural swing of the pendulum after a day spent in the maintenance of the Royal dignity by a king in whom there was naturally very little of dignity. The passage also shows the kind of amusement which rich. men who could afford to keep buffoons were pleased to adopt :—

"The Monarch, it is said, would leave his dining or supping room to witness the pastimes and fooleries performed by Sir Edward Zouch, Sir George Goring, and Sir John Finit. The first sung indecent songs and related tales of the same description, the former of which were written by Finit, who procured fiddlers as an accompanyment to Zouch; and Goring was master of the game for fooleries, sometimes presenting David Droman and Archee Armstrong, the King's fool, on the back of the other fools, to tilt one at another, till they fell together by the ears; sometimes antick dances; but Sir John Millisent, who was never known before, was commended for notable fooling, and so he was the best extempore fool of them all."

Chamberlayn's Present State of England presents the most complete picture of the sports of this century:

"For variety of Devertisements, Sports and Recreations, no Nation doth excel the English.

The King hath abroad his Forests, Chases, and Parks, full of variety of Game; for Hunting Red and Fallow Deer, Foxes, Otters; Hawking, his Paddock-Courses, Horse-Races, etc., and at home, Tennis, Pelmel, Billiard, Comedies, Opera, Mascarades, Balls, Ballets, etc. The Nobility and Gentry have their Parks, Warrens, Decoys, Paddock-Courses, Horse-Races, Hunting, Coursing, Fishing, Fowling, Hawking, Setting-Dogs, Tumblers, Lurchers, Duck-hunting, Cock-fighting, Guns for Birding, Low-Bells, Bat-Fowling, Angling, Nets, Tennis, Bowling, Billiards, Tables, Chess, Draughts, Cards, Dice, Catches, Questions, Purposes, Stage-Plays, Masks, Balls, Dancing, Singing, all sorts of Musical Instruments, etc. The citizen

1 Manners and Customs, by J. P. Malcolm, 1811.

and peasants have Hand-Ball, Foot-Ball, Skittles, or Nine Pins, Shovel-Board, Stow- Ball, Goffe, Trol Madams, Cudgels, Bear-baiting, Bull-baiting, Shuttlecock, Bowling, Quoits, Leaping, Wrestling, Pitching the Bar, and Ringing of Bells, a Recreation used in no other Country of the World.

Amongst these, Cock-fighting seems to all Foreigners too childish and unsuitable for the Gentry, and for the Common People Bull-baiting and Bear-baiting seem too cruel; and for the Citizens, Foot-Ball, and Throwing at Cocks, very uncivil, rude, and barbarous within the City."

In the Directory of London, 1761, there are fifteen streets, lanes, and alleys, which are named after the game of bowls. This simple fact proves the popularity of the bowling green. These places were licensed by James the First. They were allowed to have tennis courts, rooms for cards and dice, and such diversions besides bowling greens. They were all in the suburbs; there had formerly, however, been a bowling green in Thames Street. Twenty-four were allotted to the suburbs of London. and Westminster; four to Southwark; one to St. Katherine's by the Tower; two to Lambeth; one to Shoreditch; and one to every town, village, or hamlet within two miles of London or Westminster. In Charles's reign a barber set up a place provided with two bowling greens in Piccadilly, between the Haymarket and St. James Street; nothing is said about any licence being required for this venture.

Fencing schools were much frequented. The terms used in fencing, which are enumerated by Ben Jonson, were all Italian. The masters granted degrees to their disciples, Master, Provost, Scholar. These schools became haunts of vice, and attempts were made to suppress them, but without success.

Duke Cosmo says that the fencing masters, in order to gain reputation, give a general challenge, offering twenty or thirty jacobuses or more to any one who has a mind to fight with them.

Josevin de Rochefort, whose travels in England were published in 1672, gives a long account of a fencing match :

We went to see the Bergiardin, which is a great amphitheatre, where combats are fought between all sorts of animals, and sometimes men, as we once saw. Commonly, when any fencing masters are desirous of shewing their courage and their great skill, they issue mutual challenges, and before they engage, parade the town with drums and trumpets sounding, to inform the public there is a challenge between two brave masters of the science of defence, and that the battle will be fought on such a day. We went to see this combat, which was performed on a stage in the middle of this amphitheatre, where, on the flourishes of trumpets and the beat of drums, the combatants entered, stripped to their shirts. On a signal from the drum, they drew their swords, and immediately began the fight, skirmishing a long time without any wounds. They were both very skilful and courageous. The tallest had the advantage over the least: for, according to the English fashion of fencing, they endeavoured rather to cut than push in the French manner, so that by his height he had the advantage of being able to strike his antagonist on the head, against which the little one was on his guard. He had in his turn an advantage