At the coronation of George IV. he was employed with eighteen other prize-fighters, dressed as pages, to guard the entrance to Westminster Abbey and Hall. But it is in Continental courts that boxing has been most favoured. The elder brother of the late Czar of Russia died on the eve of the day appointed for his marriage from the effects of a blow received in a boxing encounter with Alexander; and on one occasion, when a bout took place between the Prince Waldemar and the late Czar, between the acts in the private tea-room at the Court Theatre at Copenhagen, Alexander was thoroughly knocked out.

Archery appears to have been a fashionable sport during the reign of Henry VIII., who, according to Holinshed, shot as well as any of his guard. Edward VI. and Charles I. are known to have been fond of this exercise, which retained its attractions during the succeeding reigns, and was occasionally sustained by the presence and practice of the sovereign. Mary Queen of Scots was as fond of archery as was her cousin, Elizabeth of England. One story of Queen Mary’s shooting has often been cited against her, since the time Sir William Drury wrote to Mr. Secretary Cecil from Berwick, telling how Mary, a fortnight after Darnley’s murder, had been shooting with Bothwell at the butts of Tranent against Huntley and Seton for a dinner, which the latter pair had to pay—a story proved to be untrue.[108]

In a letter from the Queen of Bohemia, sister of Charles I., written from Rhenen, her Majesty’s summer residence on the Rhine, in 1649 to Montrose—who had long been reputed to be a good archer—she says: “We have nothing to do but to walk and shoot. I am grown a good archer to shoot with my Lord Kinnoul. If your office will help it, I hope you will come and help us to shoot.” In 1703 Queen Anne granted a Charter to the Royal Company of Archers, prohibiting any one “to cause any obstacle or impediment to the said Royal Company in the lawful exercise of the Ancient Arms of Bows and Arrows”—a privilege for which they were to pay to the Sovereign “one pair of barbed arrows, if asked only.” These, it seems, have twice been delivered to the Sovereign, first to George IV., during his visit to Edinburgh in 1822, and when Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort went to Scotland in 1842. And it was in the reign of the first James of Scotland that Charles VII. formed from the survivors of Lord Buchan’s Scots the famous Archer-guard of France, familiar to every reader of “Quentin Durward,” who, “foreigners though they were, ever proved themselves the most faithful troops in the service of the French Crown.”

Hawking, again, was practised with much vigour by many of our sovereigns, and Alfred the Great, who is commended for his proficiency in this, as in all other fashionable amusements, is said to have written a treatise on the subject, which has not come down to us. In the fields and open country, hawking was followed on horseback; and on foot, when in the woods and coverts. In the latter case, it was usual for the sportsman to have a stout pole to assist him in leaping over rivulets and ditches. It was, according to Hall, when pursuing his hawk on foot, at Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, that Henry VIII. was plunged into a deep slough by the breaking of his pole, and would have been stifled but for the prompt assistance of one of his attendants. But when the fowling-piece presented a more ready and certain method of procuring game, while it afforded an equal degree of air and exercise, it is not surprising that the fall of falconry should have been sudden and complete.

A favourite game of James I. was quoits, and one day when he was so engaged with the young Earl of Mar, he cried out, “Jonnie Mar has slaited me!”—the word “slaiting” in the north meaning to take an undue advantage in a game of this kind. From this incident the young King always nicknamed Mar “Jonnie Slaites.” It may be compared with a story told of Louis XVII. when Dauphin, who being beaten in a game of quoits by an officer of the National Guard, the latter exultingly exclaimed, “Ah, I have conquered the Dauphin!” Piqued at the expression, the Dauphin used some uncomplimentary remark, which was reported to the Queen, who reprimanded him for having so far forgotten himself.

“I feel,” replied the Dauphin, “that I have done wrong. But why did he not satisfy himself with saying that he had won the match? It was the word ‘conquered’ which put me beyond myself.”

And, when the exiled Court of England returned at the Restoration, Charles II. is commonly said to have brought back that popular pastime skating. For Evelyn, under December 1, 1662, speaks of divers gentlemen skating in the canal in St. James’s Park “after the manner of the Hollanders,” and Pepys tells us that he went to see the Duke of York “slide upon his skates,” which he did very well.

CHAPTER XIV

COURT DWARFS

The custom of keeping dwarfs as retainers to ornament the homes of princes, and to provide amusement—which was much in fashion in the old days of the Roman Empire—has survived at most Courts until a comparatively recent period. According to Suetonius, Augustus, in order to forget the cares of State, would play with his dwarfs for nuts, and laugh at their childish prattle, whilst for his special amusement Domitian kept a band of dwarf gladiators.