In Herbert’s “Memoirs of the Last Two Years of Charles I.” there are several allusions to his Majesty’s love of bowls. As there was no bowling green at Holmby, he constantly rode over either to Althorpe or Harrowden—the latter a house of Lord Vaux—where he might divert himself with his favourite amusement. Charles was at the Althorpe bowling-green when Cornet Joyce arrived at Holmby to take him away.
With the Restoration bowls became a fashionable Court recreation, and in the Grammont “Memoirs” we are told that when the Court was at Tonbridge Wells “the company are accommodated with lodgings in little clean and convenient habitations that lie straggling and separated from each other a mile and a half all round the Wells, where the company meet in the morning.... As soon as the evening comes every one quits his little palace to assemble on the bowling-green.”
Another game once countenanced by royalty was skittles or nine-pins, a pastime, it is said, in which Elizabeth, Queen Consort of Edward IV., and her ladies indulged in 1472. And later on we find it among the amusements of the exiled courtiers, for in the “Grammont Memoirs” the Earl of Arran writes of his sister-in-law, the Countess of Ossory, Miss Hyde, and Jermyn playing at nine-pins to pass the time. At this period, too, a popular game was pall-mall, being one of the “fair and pleasant games” that James I. recommended to Prince Henry, and which seem to have been much played at Court in the early part of the seventeenth century. On April 2, 1661, Pepys walks to “St. James’s Park, where he witnessed the Duke of York playing at pall-mall, the first time he ever saw the sport;” and Evelyn speaks of King Charles’s fondness for this game.
Then there was the running at the quintain, a pastime practised at most rural festive gatherings, and one of which Laneham, in his “Progresses of Queen Elizabeth,” gives an amusing account in his description of “a country bridal,” at which Queen Elizabeth was present at Kenilworth in 1575; and two years previously, in 1573, on her visit to Sandwich, it is recorded that “certain wallounds that could well swim,” entertained her with a water tilting, in which one of the combatants “did overthrow another, at which the Queen had good sport.” Randolph, in a letter to Sir William Cecil, December 7, 1561, describes this pastime as celebrated at the Scottish Court of Queen Mary, and narrating part of a conversation he had with De Foix, the French Ambassador, he writes: “From this purpose we fell in talk of the pastimes that were the Sunday before, when the Lord Robert, the Lord John, and others ran at the ring—six against six—disguised and apparelled, the one half like women, the other half like strangers, in strange masking garments.... The Queen herself beheld it, and as many others as listed.” When King James’s brother-in-law, Christian of Denmark, visited England in 1606, we read how he excelled before all others in running at the ring in the tilt-yard at Greenwich.
Charles I. is said to have been “perfect in vaulting, riding the great horse, running at the ring, shooting in cross-bows, muskets, and sometimes great pieces of ordnance.” And Howell, writing from Madrid, says that the Prince was fortunate enough to be successful at the ring before the eyes of his mistress the Infanta.
Charles II. was an indefatigable walker, and nothing pleased him more than to divest himself of the trappings of state and indulge in this pastime. Burnet mentions his walking powers, and says that his Majesty walked so fast that it was a trouble to keep up with him. One day, when Prince George of Denmark, who had married his niece—afterwards Queen Anne—complained that he was growing fat, “walk with me,” said Charles, “hunt with my brother, and do justice to my niece, and you will not long be distressed by growing fat.”[106] And during his walks his Majesty would converse freely with those who attended him, oftentimes arresting “some familiar countenance that encountered him in his walk.”
Among the additions made by Henry VIII. to Whitehall was a cock-pit, the first of which, according to a correspondent of Notes and Queries, there is any record. And so partial was James I. to this diversion of cock-fighting that he amused himself by seeing it twice a week. It appears, too, that on his progress in 1617, James I. being at Lincoln, “did come in his carriage to the Sign of the George to see a cocking there, where he appointed four cocks to be put in the pit together, which made his Majestie very merrie.” Exclusive of the royal cock-pit there were others in St. James’s Park, Drury Lane, Shoe Lane, and Jermyn Street. By an Act of Cromwell, in 1654, cock-fighting was prohibited, but with the Restoration it again flourished. And from this time until the close of the last century the diversion was practised more or less throughout the country. William III. patronised this sport, and Count Tallard, the French Ambassador, writes: “On leaving the palace King William went to the cock-fight, whither I accompanied him.”
The site of the cock-pit at Whitehall is now occupied by the Privy Council Office, and a notable occupant of the cock-pit apartments in the time of Charles II. was the Princess Anne—afterwards Queen Anne—who was living there at the period of the Revolution. It was from here that, on the approach of the Prince of Orange, November 26, 1688, “she flew down the back-stairs at midnight, in nightgown and slippers, with Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, as her companion, and drove away in a coach, on either side of which Lord Dorset and Bishop Compton rode as escort.”[107]
George IV. in his early life was a great patron of the ring, as his grand-uncle, Culloden Cumberland, had been before him; but being present at a fight at Brighton, where one of the combatants was killed, the Prince pensioned the boxer’s widow, and declared he never would attend another battle. But, nevertheless, it is said, “he thought it a manly and decided English feature, which ought not to be destroyed.” His Majesty had a drawing of the sporting characters in the Fives’ Court placed in his boudoir, to remind him of his former attachment and support of true courage; and, when any fight of note occurred after he was King, accounts of it were read to him by his desire.
At this period there was a famous boxer, John Jackson, known as gentleman Jackson, the son of a London builder. He appeared only three times in the prize-ring. His first public fight took place June 9, 1788, near Croydon, when he defeated a noted Birmingham boxer, in a contest lasting one hour seven minutes, in the presence of the Prince of Wales.