James I., if not himself a tennis player, speaks of the pastime with commendation, and recommends it to his son as a species of exercise becoming a prince. [408] Charles II. frequently diverted himself with playing at tennis, and had particular kind of dresses made for that purpose. So had Henry VIII. In the wardrobe rolls we meet with tenes-cotes for the king, also tennis-drawers and tennis-slippers. [409]
VII.—A FAMOUS WOMAN PLAYER.
A French writer speaks of a damsel named Margot, who resided at Paris in 1424, and played at hand-tennis with the palm, and also with the back of her hand, better than any man; and what is most surprising, adds my author, at that time the game was played with the naked hand, or at best with a double glove. [410]
VIII.—HAND-BALL PLAY FOR TANSY CAKES.
Hand-ball was formerly a favourite pastime among the young persons of both sexes, and in many parts of the kingdom it was customary for them to play at this game during the Easter holidays for tansy cakes; but why, says Bourne, they should prefer hand-ball at this time to any other pastime, or play it particularly for a tansy cake, I have not been able to find out. [411] The learned Selden conceives the institution of this reward to have originated from the Jewish custom of eating bitter herbs at the time of the passover. [412]
Anciently the mayor, aldermen, and sheriff of Newcastle, accompanied with a great number of burgesses, used to go every year at the feasts of Easter and Whitsuntide to the Forth, the little Mall of the town, with the mace, the sword, and the cap of maintenance carried before them. The young people still continue to assemble there at those seasons particularly, and play at hand-ball, or dance, but are no longer countenanced by the presence of their governors. [413]
Fuller mentions the following proverbial saying used by the citizens of Chester, "when the daughter is stolen shut Pepper Gate," which he thus explains: "The mayor of the city had his daughter, as she was playing at ball with other maidens in Pepper-street, stolen away by a young man through the same gate, whereupon he caused it to be shut up." [414]
IX.—FIVES.
Hand-tennis still continues to be played, though under a different name, and probably a different modification of the game; it is now called fives, which denomination perhaps it might receive from having five competitors on each side, as the succeeding passage seems to indicate. In 1591, when queen Elizabeth was entertained at Elvetham in Hampshire, by the earl of Hertford, "after dinner, about three o'clock, ten of his lordship's servants, all Somersetshire men, in a square greene court before her majesties windowe, did hang up lines, squaring out the forme of a tennis-court, and making a cross line in the middle; in this square they (being stript out of their dublets) played five to five with hand-ball at bord and cord as they tearme it, to the great liking of her highness." [415]