Citations to this purpose might be made from infinity of pamphlets, written professedly against the profanation of the Sabbath: it was certainly an evil that called loudly for redress; and the pens of various writers, moral and religious, as well of the clergy as the laity, have been employed for that purpose. There are some few treatises on this subject that do honour to their authors; but far the larger part of them are of a different description, consisting of vehement and abusive declamations wherein the zeal of the writers is too frequently permitted to run at random, without the least restraint from reason and moderation, and, what is still worse, without that strict adherence to the truth which the seriousness of the subject necessarily required. It must be granted, however, that the continued remonstrances from the grave and religious parts of the community were not without effect. In the twenty-second year of the reign of Elizabeth, the magistrates of the city of London obtained from the queen an edict, "that all heathenish playes and interludes should be banished upon Sabbath days;" [90] but this restriction, I apprehend, was confined to the jurisdiction of the lord mayor; for, it is certain that such amusements were publicly exhibited in other districts, and especially at the Paris Garden in Southwark, a place where these sort of sports were usually exhibited; and where three years afterwards a prodigious concourse of people being assembled together on a Sunday afternoon, to "see plays and a bear-baiting, the whole theatre gave way and fell to the ground; by which accident many of the spectators were killed, and more hurt." [91] This lamentable misfortune was considered as a judgment from God, and occasioned a general prohibition of all public pastimes on the Sabbath-day. The wise successor of Elizabeth, on the other hand, thought that the restrictions on the public sports were too generally and too strictly applied, and especially in the country places; he therefore published on the 24th of May, 1618, the following declaration: "Whereas we did justly, in our progresse through Lancashire, rebuke some puritanes and precise people, in prohibiting and unlawfully punishing of our good people for using their lawfull recreations and honest exercises on Sundayes and other holy dayes, after the afternoone sermon or service: It is our will, that after the end of divine service, our good people be not disturbed, letted, or discouraged, from any lawful recreation, such as dauncing, either for men or women; archery for men, leaping, vaulting, or any other such harmless recreation; nor for having of May-games, Whitson-ales, and morris-daunces, and the setting up of May-poles, and other sports therewith used; so as the same be had in due and convenient time, without impediment or neglect of divine service. But withall, we doe here account still as prohibitted, all unlawfull games to be used upon Sundayes onely, as beare and bull-baitings, interludes, and, at all times in the meaner sort of people by law prohibited, bowling." This proclamation was renewed by Charles I. in the eighth year of his reign; which occasioned many serious complaints from the puritanical party; but, three years afterwards, a pamphlet was published which defended the principles of the declaration; [92] wherein the author, who was a high church-man, endeavours to fine away the objections of its opponents. In one part [93] he says, "those recreations are the meetest to be used, which give the best refreshment to the bodie, and leave the least impression in the minde. In this respect, shooting, leaping, pitching the barre, stool-ball, and the like, are rather to be chosen than diceing or carding." This publication was immediately answered by the other party, who certainly had the best end of the argument, and were not sparing in their severity, but wounded the ordinance itself through the sides of its defender. The more precise writers objected not only to the profanation of the Sabbath, but to the celebration of most of the established festivals and holidays, as we find from the following verses:
But nothing seems to have excited their indignation more than the church-ales, wakes, and May-games. An author I have before me inveighs greatly against the erecting and decorating of the May-poles; [95] among others, he uses the following arguments: "Most of these May-poles are stollen; yet they give out that the poles are given to them; when, upon thorow examination, 'twill be found that most of them are stollen. There were two May-poles set up in my parish; the one was stollen, and the other was given by a profest papist. That which was stollen was said to be given; when it was proved to their faces that it was stollen, and they made to acknowledge their offence: this pole was rated at five shillings. If all the poles, one with another, were so rated which were stollen this May, what a considerable summ it would amount to!" So much for his reasoning. He then attempts to be witty; and arraigns the goddess Flora at the bar: "Flora, hold up thy hand; thou art here indited by the name of Flora, of the city of Rome, in the county of Babylon, for that thou, contrary to the peace of our sovereign lord, his crown and dignity, hast brought in a pack of practical fanaticks; viz. ignorants, atheists, papists, drunkards, swearers, swash-bucklers, maid-marrions, morrice-dancers, maskers, mummers, May-pole stealers, health-drinkers, gamesters, lewd men, light women, contemners of magistrates, affronters of ministers, rebellious to masters, disobedient to parents, mispenders of time, and abusers of the creature, &c." This silly invective is concluded with a poem as dull and insipid as the prose; in which the May-pole is supposed to be addressing itself to one who is passing by it. The last lines run thus:
These zealous reformists have extended their censures to the church-men as well as to the laity; they accuse them with strengthening, by their example, the general depravation of manners and decay of religion: how far the charge was just, I cannot take upon me to answer. It is obvious enough that ignorant persons will not be induced to prize those qualifications very highly, which they who have the reputation of wisdom and learning neglect to appreciate as they ought to do.
The Saxons and the Danes, as we have observed already, [96] were much addicted to gaming; and the same destructive propensity was equally prevalent among the Normans. The evil consequences arising from the indulgence of this pernicious pleasure have in all ages called loudly for reprehension, and demanded at last the more powerful interference of the legislature. The vice of gambling, however, is by no means peculiar to the people of this country: its influence is universally diffused among mankind; and in most nations the same strong measures that have been adopted here are found to be absolutely necessary to prevent its extension beyond the limits of subordination. Dice, and those games of chance dependent upon them, have been most generally decried; and cards, in latter times, are added to them as proper companions. Cards, when compared with dice, are indeed of modern invention, and originally, I doubt not, were productive only of innocent amusement; they were, however, soon converted into instruments of gambling equally dangerous as the dice themselves, and more enticing from the variety of changements they admit of, and the pleasing mixture of chance with skill, which often gives the tyro an advantage over the more experienced player; that is, supposing fair play on both sides; but woeful experience has convinced many that this is not always the case.
Towards the close of the twelfth century, we meet with a very curious edict relative to gaming, and which shows how generally it even prevailed among the lower classes of the people at that period. This edict was established for the regulation of the Christian army under the command of Richard I. of England, and Philip of France, during the crusade in 1190: It prohibits any person in the army beneath the degree of a knight from playing at any sort of game for money: knights and clergymen might play for money, but no one of them was permitted to lose more than twenty shillings in one whole day and night, under the penalty of one hundred shillings, to be paid to the archbishops in the army; the two monarchs had the privilege of playing for what they pleased; but their attendants were restricted to the sum of twenty shillings; and, if they exceeded, they were to be whipped naked through the army for three days. [97]
The decrees established by the council held at Worcester, in the twenty-fourth year of Henry III. prohibited the clergy from playing at dice, or at chess: [98] but neither the one nor the other of these games are mentioned in the succeeding penal statutes, before the twelfth year of Richard II., when diceing is particularised, and expressly forbidden; though perhaps they were both of them included under the general title of games of chance, and dishonest games, mentioned in the proclamation of Edward III. which, with other pastimes therein specified, were generally practised to the great detriment of military exercises, and of archery in particular.
In the eleventh year of Henry VII. cards are first mentioned among the games prohibited by the law; [99] and at that time they seem to have been very generally used; for, the edict expressly forbids the practice of card-playing to apprentices, excepting the duration of the Christmas holidays, and then only in their masters' houses. [100] We learn from Stow, that these holidays extended "from All-Hallows evening to the day after Candlemas-day, when," says the historian, "there was, among other sports, playing at cards for counters, nailes, and points in every house, more for pastime than for gain." [101] The recreations prohibited by proclamation in the reign of Edward III., exclusive of the games of chance, are thus specified; throwing of stones, [102] wood, or iron; playing at hand-ball, foot-ball, club-ball, and cambucam, which I take to have been a species of goff, and probably received its name from the crooked bat with which it was played. These games, as before observed, were not forbidden from any particular evil tendency in themselves, but because they engrossed too much of the leisure and attention of the populace, and diverted their minds from the pursuits of a more martial nature. I should not forget to add, that "bull-baiting and cock-fighting" are included with "other dishonest games as trivial and useless." In [103] the reign of Edward IV. we find coits, closh or claish, kayles or nine-pins, half-bowl, hand-in and hand-out, with quick-borde, classed among the unlawful amusements; [104] which list was considerably augmented in the succeeding reigns, and especially in the eighteenth year of Henry VIII., when bowling, loggating, playing at tennice, dice, cards and tables, or backgammon, were included. [105]
In the preamble to the Parliamentary Statutes as early as the sixth year of Edward III., there is a clause prohibiting of boys or others from playing at barres, or snatch-hood, [106] or any other improper games, in the king's palace at Westminster during the sitting of the parliament; neither might they, by striking, or otherwise, prevent any one from passing peaceably about his business.
In modern times, the penal laws have been multiplied, and much invigorated, in order to restrain the spirit of gambling; and in some measure they have had a salutary effect; but the evil is so fascinating and so general, that in all probability it will never be totally eradicated from the minds of the people. The frequent repetition and enforcement of the statutes in former times, proves that they were then, as they are now, inadequate to the suppression of gaming for a long continuance; and, when one pastime was prohibited, another was presently invented to supply its place. I remember, about twenty years back, [107] the magistrates caused all the skittle-frames in or about the city of London to be taken up, and prohibited the playing at dutch-pins, nine-pins, or in long bowling allies, when in many places the game of nine-holes was revived as a substitute, with the new name of Bubble the Justice, because the populace had taken it into their heads to imagine, that the power of the magistrates extended only to the prevention of such pastimes as were specified by name in the public acts, and not to any new species of diversion.
The general decay of those manly and spirited exercises, which formerly were practised in the vicinity of the metropolis has not arisen from any want of inclination in the people, but from the want of places proper for the purpose: such as in times past had been allotted to them are now covered with buildings, or shut up by enclosures, so that, if it were not for skittles, dutch-pins, four-corners, and the like pastimes, they would have no amusements for the exercise of the body; and these amusements are only to be met with in places belonging to common drinking-houses, for which reason their play is seldom productive of much benefit, but more frequently becomes the prelude to drunkenness and debauchery. This evil has been increasing for a long series of years; and honest Stow laments the retrenchments of the grounds appropriated for martial pastimes which had begun to take place in his day. "Why," says he, "should I speak of the ancient exercises of the long bow, by the citizens of this city, now almost clean left off and forsaken? I overpass it; for, by the means of closeing in of common grounds, our archers, for want of room to shoot abroad, creep into bowling-alleys and ordinarie diceing-houses neer home, where they have room enough to hazard their money at unlawful games." [108] He also tells us, that "Northumberland house, in the parish of St. Katherine Coleman, belonging to Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, in the thirty-third year of Henry the Sixth; but of late, being deserted by that noble family, the gardens were converted into bowling-alleys, and the other parts of the estate into diceing houses. But bowling-alleys and houses for the exercise of diceing and other unlawful games are at this time so greatly increased in the other parts of the city and its suburbs, that this parent spot," or, as he afterwards calls it, "the ancient and only patron of misrule, is forsaken of its gamesters." [109] And here we may add the following remark from an author somewhat more ancient than Stow: [110] "common bowling-alleyes are privy mothes that eat up the credit of many idle citizens, whose gaynes at home are not able to weigh downe theyr losses abroad; whose shoppes are so farre from maintaining their play, that theyr wives and children cry out for bread, and go to bedde supperlesse ofte in the yeere." In another place, his reflections are more general, and he exclaims, "Oh, what a wonderful change is this! our wreastling at armes is turned to wallowing in ladies' laps, our courage to cowardice, our running to royot, our bowes into bowls, and our darts into dishes."
The evils complained of by these writers were then in their infancy; they have in the present day attained to a gigantic stature; and we may add to them E. O. tables, as also other tables for gambling distinguished by the appellation of Rouge et Noir, Pharo-banks, and many more fashionable novelties, equally as detrimental to morality, and as equally destructive to the fortunes of those who pursue them, as any of the recreations of the former times. Even horse-racing, which anciently was considered as a liberal sport, and proper for the amusement of a gentleman, has been of late years degraded into a dangerous species of gambling, by no means the less deserving of censure, because it is fashionable and countenanced by persons of the highest rank and fortune. The good old Scotch poet little dreamed of such an innovation, when he lamented that horse-racing was falling into disrepute through the prevalency of games of chance. His words are these:
It now remains to say a few words in a general way respecting the diversions of the English ladies. In the early ages, our fair countrywomen employed a large portion of their time in needle-work and embroidery; and their acquirements in these elegant accomplishments most probably afforded them little leisure for the pursuits of trifling and useless amusements; but, though we are not acquainted with the nature of their recreations, there is no reason to suppose that they were unbecoming in themselves, or indulged beyond the bounds of reason or decorum. I have already, on a former occasion, particularly noticed the skilfulness of the Saxon and Norman ladies in handling the needle, embroidering, and working in tapestry; and that their performances were not only held in very high estimation at home, but were equally prized upon the continent, where none were produced that could be placed in competition with them. [112]
Dancing was certainly an ancient and favourite pastime with the women of this country: the maidens even in a state of servitude claimed, as it were by established privilege, the license to indulge themselves in this exercise on holidays and public festivals; when it was usually performed in the presence of their masters and mistresses. [113]
In the middle ages, dice, chess, and afterwards tables, and cards, with other sedentary games of chance and skill, were reckoned among the female amusements; and the ladies also frequently joined with the men in such pastimes, as we find it expressly declared in the metrical romance of Ipomydon. The passage alluded to runs thus:
In another poem, by Gower, [115] a lover asks his mistress, when she is tired of "dancing and caroling," if she was willing to "play at chesse, or on the dyes to cast a chaunce." Forrest, speaking in praise of Catharine of Arragon, first wife of Henry VIII., says, that when she was young,
The English ladies did not always confine themselves to domestic pastimes, they sometimes participated with the other sex in diversions of a more masculine nature; and engaged with them in the sports of the field. These violent exercises seem to have been rather unfashionable among them in the seventeenth century; for Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, speaks of their pastimes as much better suited to the modesty and softness of the sex. "The women," says he, "instead of laborious studies, have curious needle-works, cutworks, spinning, bone-lace making, with other pretty devices to adorn houses, cushions, carpets, stool-seats," &c. [117] Not but some of these masculine females have occasionally made their appearance: and at the commencement of the last century, it should seem that they were more commonly seen than in Burton's time, which gave occasion for the following satirical paper in one of the Spectators, [118] written by Addison: "I have," says he, "very frequently the opportunity of seeing a rural Andromache, who came up to town last winter, and is one of the greatest fox-hunters in the country; she talks of hounds and horses, and makes nothing of leaping over a six-bar gate. If a man tells her a waggish story, she gives him a push with her hand in jest, and calls him an impudent dog; and, if her servant neglects his business, threatens to kick him out of the house. I have heard her in her wrath call a substantial tradesman a lousie cur; and I remember one day when she could not think of the name of a person, she described him, in a large company of men and ladies, by the fellow with the broad shoulders."
Having laid before my readers a general view of the sports and pastimes of our ancestors, I shall proceed to arrange them under their proper heads, and allot to each of them a separate elucidation. The task in truth is extremely difficult; and many omissions, as well as many errors, must of necessity occur in the prosecution of it; but none, I hope, of any great magnitude, nor more than candour will overlook, especially when it is recollected, that in a variety of instances, I have been constrained to proceed without any guide, and explore, as it were, the recesses of a trackless wilderness. I must also entreat the reader to excuse the frequent quotations which he will meet with, which in general I have given verbatim; and this I have done for his satisfaction, as well as my own, judging it much fairer to stand upon the authority of others than to arrogate to myself the least degree of penetration to which I have no claim.
It is necessary to add, that the engravings, which constitute an essential part of this work, are not the produce of modern invention, neither do they contain a single figure that has not its proper authority. Most of the originals are exceedingly ancient, and all the copies are faithfully made without the least unnecessary deviation. As specimens of the art of design they have nothing to recommend them to the modern eye, but as portraitures of the manners and usages of our ancestors, in times remote, they are exceedingly valuable, because they not only elucidate many obsolete customs, but lead to the explanation of several obscurities in the history of former ages.
January, 1801.