II.—ANGLO-SAXON BALL PLAY.
It is altogether uncertain at what period the ball was brought into England: the author of a manuscript in Trinity College, Oxford, written in the fourteenth century, and containing the life of Saint Cuthbert, [394] says of him, that when he was young, "he pleyde atte balle with the children that his fellowes were." On what authority this information is established I cannot tell. The venerable Bede, who also wrote the life of that saint, makes no mention of ball play, but tells us he excelled in jumping, running, wrestling, and such exercises as required great muscular exertion, [395] and among them, indeed, it is highly probable that of the ball might be included.
III.—LONDON BALL PLAY.
Fitzstephen, who wrote in the thirteenth century, speaking of the London school-boys, says, "Annually upon Shrove Tuesday, they go into the fields immediately after dinner, and play at the celebrated game of ball; [396] every party of boys carrying their own ball;" for it does not appear that those belonging to one school contended with those of another, but that the youth of each school diverted themselves apart. Some difficulty has been stated by those who have translated this passage, respecting the nature of the game at ball here mentioned. Stowe, considering it as a kind of goff or brandy-ball, has, without the least sanction from the Latin, added the word bastion, [397] meaning a bat or cudgel; others again have taken it for foot-ball, [398] which pastime, though probably known at the time, does not seem to be a very proper one for children: and indeed, as there is not any just authority to support an argument on either side, I see no reason why it should not be rendered hand-ball. [399]
IV.—BALL PLAY IN FRANCE.
The game of hand-ball is called by the French palm play, [400] because, says St. Foix, a modern author, originally "this exercise consisted in receiving the ball and driving it back again with the palm of the hand. In former times they played with the naked hand, then with a glove, which in some instances was lined; afterwards they bound cords and tendons round their hands to make the ball rebound more forcibly, and hence the racket derived its origin." [401] During the reign of Charles V. palm play, which may properly enough be denominated hand-tennis, was exceedingly fashionable in France, being played by the nobility for large sums of money; and when they had lost all that they had about them, they would sometimes pledge a part of their wearing apparel rather than give up the pursuit of the game. The duke of Burgundy, according to an old historian, [402] having lost sixty franks at palm play with the duke of Bourbon, Messire William de Lyon, and Messire Guy de la Trimouille, and not having money enough to pay them, gave his girdle as a pledge for the remainder; and shortly afterwards he left the same girdle with the comte D'Eu for eighty franks, which he also lost at tennis.
V.—TENNIS-COURTS.
At the time when tennis play was taken up seriously by the nobility, new regulations were made in the game, and covered courts erected, wherein it might be practised without any interruption from the weather. In the sixteenth century tennis-courts were common in England, and the establishment of such places countenanced by the example of the monarchs. In the Vocabulary of Commenius, [403] we see a rude representation of a tennis-court divided by a line stretched in the middle, and the players standing on either side with their rackets ready to receive and return the ball, which the rules of the game required to be stricken over the line. Hence the propriety of Heywoode's proverb, "Thou hast stricken the ball under the line;" meaning he had failed in his purpose. [404]
VI.—TENNIS FASHIONABLE IN ENGLAND.
We have undoubted authority to prove that Henry VII. was a tennis player. In a MS. register of his expenditures made in the thirteenth year of his reign, and preserved in the Remembrancer's Office, this entry occurs: "Item, for the king's loss at tennis, twelvepence; for the loss of balls, threepence." Hence one may infer, that the game was played abroad, for the loss of the balls would hardly have happened in a tennis-court. His son Henry, who succeeded him, in the early part of his reign was much attached to this diversion; which propensity, as Hall assures us, [405] "being perceived by certayne craftie persons about him, they brought in Frenchmen and Lombards to make wagers with hym, and so he lost muche money; but when he perceyved theyr crafte, he eschued the company and let them go." He did not however give up the amusement, for we find him, according to the same historian, in the thirteenth year of his reign, playing at tennis with the emperor Maximilian for his partner, against the prince of Orange and the marquis of Brandenborow: "the earl of Devonshire stopped on the prince's side, and the lord Edmond on the other side; and they departed even handes on both sides, after eleven games fully played." [406] Among the additions that king Henry VIII. made to Whitehall, if Stowe be correct, were "divers fair tennis-courts, bowling-allies, and a cock-pit." [407]