It is probable that cards first made their way into the country from Spain, as the oldest packs which have been found in England bear the symbols of cups, money, maces, swords; and the word spade (the Spanish name for one of their suits) seems to have become attached to the French pique after the cards of the latter nation became domiciled in the British Isles.
Mr. Singer, quoting from another author, says that “there is little doubt but that the cards used during the reign of Philip and Mary and probably the more early part of Elizabeth’s were Spanish, though they were afterwards changed for the French, being of a more simple figure and more easily imported.” The wars between England and France, during which the army of the former nation were in their sister country, may have led to the adoption of the French card; but it is strange that the costumes on the English cards should date from an earlier period than the reign of Mary or Elizabeth.
“Queen Elizabeth as well as her sister Mary,” says Mr. Chatto, “was a card-player,” and lost her temper over the game, in which she did not resemble Queen Anne of Austria, of whom one of her ladies-in-waiting, Madame de Motteville, says: “She played like a queen, without passion of greed or gain.” During Elizabeth’s reign, in 1582, the Master of the Revels was commanded “to show on St. Stephen’s day at night before her Majesty at Wyndesore a Comodie or Morral devised on a game of the cardes,” to be performed by the children of her Majesty’s Chapel. In the comedy “Alexander and Campaspe,” which was shown by the same children at Windsor before the Queen, was the following pretty little song, quoted by Mr. Chatto:—
“Cupid and my Campaspe played
At cards for kisses. Cupid paid.
He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,
His mother’s doves, and team of sparrows;
Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose
Growing on ’s cheek (but none knows how);