by Ian Mortimer
You can’t help but feel there have to be easier ways of making a living.
While the rope-dancers, sword-swallowers and fire-eaters are amazing, another prime draw of the fairs will horrify you. The intense curiosity of the age has an unwelcome side-effect in making spectacles of the less fortunate. This is harmless when it is limited to displaying animal deformities – such as the horse with hooves like ram’s horns, or the goose with four feet and the cock with three, which are on show at Bartholomew Fair in 1663 – but it is deeply disturbing when it comes to human beings. Here you will discover the dark side of people-watching. If you want to see an Irishman so tall he can reach a point 10ft 6 inches above the ground and whose hand spans 15 inches, then the fair is the place for you. Then there’s the Hairy Woman, who is not just bearded but completely covered in hair, including hair coming out of her ears and in tufts on her nose.8 Roll up, roll up, to watch a forty-six-year-old dwarf who stands just 1ft 9 inches high, but whose arm span is 6ft 5 inches: he walks upon his hands and can jump on one arm onto a 3ft-high table. In 1681 you can view ‘The Eighth Wonder of the World’: a man born with no arms, who combs his hair and shaves with his feet and takes off his hat with his toes to salute the visitors. He can also use a knife and fork, thread a needle, write a letter and fill a glass from a bottle with his feet, for the spectators’ amusement. The most distressing sights of all are the pairs of conjoined twins – the ‘two-headed child’ exhibited in 1699, or in 1682 the girls joined by the crowns of their heads, with their bodies diametrically opposite to one another, so that neither can ever sit upright or move, but can merely roll from side to side until they die.9
It is in this setting that many people make their first acquaintance with figures from Italian commedia dell’arte. You may see them in the form of marionette puppets, but they also appear as half-masked actors and even as rope-dancers. You probably know most of its famous characters: the colourfully dressed servant, Harlequin; the boastful coward, Scaramouche; the sad clown, Pierrot; his love, Columbine; the old man, Pantaloon; and the devilish Punch, with his beaked nose, warty forehead, projecting chin, hunchback and pot belly. Yes, the short-tempered, stick-wielding, conniving selfish buffoon is with us by 1662, speaking to the audience through a tin whistle or swazzle and prompting laughter in all ranks of society. People don’t come to the fair just to gape and point at other people’s deformities; they also come to see the common imperfections and deviousness of humanity – and thus, in part at least, to laugh at the monstrosity of what we ourselves are.
Now imagine all this on ice.
The Thames freezes above London Bridge several times in our period – and in the Long Frost of 1683–4 a ‘frost fair’ is held on the river. On 2 January 1684 the ice seems to be solid enough for people to walk across it. On 5 January some wag has a bet with a gentleman that he dare not drive his coach and six across it – only for the gentleman to demonstrate that the ice is indeed strong enough to bear them all. Within three days there are booths, eating houses, cookshops, alehouses, puppet shows and rope-dancers on the river. Coach trips are taken up and down the Thames. People hire skates and try ice-skating. Bulls and bears are baited on the ice, and a whole ox is roasted on 2 February.10 The event becomes one of the marvels of the age; many painters depict it, and all the London writers mention it. And those ladies and gentlemen who pay 6d to have their names printed upon the Thames at a specially erected printing press have a lasting memento of the event – a small compensation for living through the coldest winter ever recorded.
Baiting Games
As described in chapter 4, the baiting of animals was banned by the Puritans. Now it is back, big time. Bears are thin on the ground but bull baiting may be seen in almost every town and village where cattle are slaughtered. The bull is led into the bullring, which is nothing more than a wide-open space set aside for the purpose of the spectacle. A 15ft rope is tied firmly to his horns and the other end to a ring attached to a stake driven deep into the ground. The crowd gathers around. The butchers hold their yapping dogs by the ears, ready to release them on the bull. Let Monsieur Misson tell you what happens next:
The dog runs at the bull; the bull, immoveable, looks down upon the dog with an eye of scorn, and only turns a horn to him to hinder him from coming near. The dog is not daunted at this; he runs round him and tries to get beneath his belly in order to seize him by the muzzle or the dewlap, or the pendant glans, which are so necessary in the great work of generation. The bull then puts himself in a posture of defence; he beats the ground with his feet, which he joins together as close as possible, and his chief aim is not to gore the dog with the point of his horn but to slide one of them under the dog’s belly (who creeps close to the ground to hinder it) and to throw him so high in the air that he may break his neck in the fall. This often happens. When the dog thinks he is sure of fixing his teeth, a turn of the horn, which seems to be done with all the negligence in the world, gives him a sprawl thirty feet high and puts him in danger of a damnable squelch when he comes down. This danger would be unavoidable if the dog’s friends were not ready beneath him, some to give him a soft reception with their backs, and others with long poles, which they offer him slant-ways, to the intent that, sliding down them, it may break the force of his fall … Sometimes a second frisk in the air disables him from ever playing his old tricks but sometimes too he fastens upon his enemy and when once he has seized him with his eye-teeth, he sticks to him like a leech, and would sooner die than leave his hold. Then the bull bellows and bounds and kicks about to shake off the dog. By his leaping, the dog seems to be of no manner of weight to him, although to all appearance he puts him to great pain. In the end either the dog tears out the piece he has laid great hold on, and falls, or else remains fixed to him with an obstinacy that would never end if they did not pull him off … While some hold the bull, others thrust staves into the dog’s mouth and open it by main force. This is the only way to part them.11
Cockfighting is another bloody spectacle that engages huge crowds. The inveterate sportsman Charles Cotton declares in his 1674 work, The Complete Gamester, that it is ‘a sport so full of delight and pleasure that I know not any game in that respect is to be preferred before it’.12 It is so popular that you may well come across people setting their birds against each other in the street or in farmyards. However, the most highly charged events are held in the town cockpits.
Cockpits have a round area in the centre, which will either be covered with sawdust (if on the ground) or rush matting (if raised on a table, as in a modern boxing ring). Tiers of benches surround the fighting area, so that everyone has a good view of the action. The spectators range across society – from civil servants and gentlemen, to apprentices, bakers, draymen, butchers and the poor in general. What is more, they all gamble on the outcome; many people bet far more than they can afford, so there is a sense of anticipation in the air. When the fighting birds are brought forward from the wooden cages where they have been kept, you can see that they have had their crests and low-hanging wattles cut off. They have been fed with pepper, cloves and the yolks of eggs prior to the occasion, to make them more vigorous in battle. They also have long, sharp spurs of silver or steel affixed to their legs prior to being taken into the ring. Enter during the course of a fight and you will be greeted by a fug of smell and noise – chicken droppings, sweat, tobacco smoke and beer – and a highly charged audience yelling with eye-popping enthusiasm for the blows inflicted by one bird on another. Lorenzo Magalotti describes one cockfight he attends:
As soon as the cocks are put down they walk around the field of battle with great animation, each watching for an opportunity to attack his rival with advantage. The first who is attacked places himself in a posture of defence, now spreading himself out, now falling, in his turn, on the assailant, and in the progress of the contest they are inflamed to such a pitch of rage that it is almost incredible to such as have never witnessed it with what fury each annoys his adversary, strikin
g one another on the head with their beaks and tearing one another with the spurs, till at length he that feels himself superior, and confident of victory, mounts on the back of his opponent and never quits him till he has left him dead, and then, by a natural instinct, crows in applause of his own victory.13
The dead birds are sold to a butcher or cookshop proprietor after the show. Any bird that tries to run away from the fight has his neck wrung on the spot, and similarly ends his career in the catering industry.
Sports and Games
In his Anglia Notitia, Edward Chamberlayne declares that
For variety of divertissements, sports and recreations, no nation doth excel the English. The king hath abroad his forests, chases and parks, full of variety of game; for hunting red and fallow deer, foxes, otters; hawking; his paddock courses, horse races etcetera; and at home, tennis, pelmel, billiards, interludes, balls, ballets, masks, etcetera. The nobility and gentry have their parks, warrens, decoys, paddock-courses, horse races, hunting, coursing, fishing, fowling, hawking, setting dogs, tumblers, lurchers, duck-hunting, cockfighting, guns for birding, low-bells, bat-fowling, angling, nets, tennis, bowling, billiards, tables, chess, draughts, cards, dice, catches, questions, purposes, stage plays, masques, balls, dancing, singing, all sorts of musical instruments, etcetera. The citizens and peasants have hand-ball, football, skittles or nine-pins, shovel-board, stow ball, golf, torl-madams, cudgels, bear-baiting, bull-baiting, bow-and-arrow, throwing at cocks, shuttlecock, bowling, quoits, leaping, wrestling, pitching the bar, and ringing of bells, a recreation used in no other country in the world.14
This list sounds exhaustive but it is by no means complete. He’s forgotten to mention hurling – the West Country ball game, similar to an extra-violent game of rugby. As for ‘bow-and-arrow’, archery might no longer be what it was in the Middle Ages, but 350 archers still turn up regularly to shoot at the marks on Finsbury Fields to the north of London, and prizes of silver arrows are competed for annually in Yorkshire as well as Scotland.15 Then there are the spontaneous pleasures that occasionally arise, such as ice skating on the canal in St James’s Park or on the frozen Thames, or pleasure-boating on a lake. Think of all the children’s games, such as ‘shoeing the wild mare’ and cross and pile (heads or tails). And what about all the adult games that the above list does not include, such as cricket and hockey? In short, if you are wealthy and can turn your back on all the social inequality, illnesses and suffering, your life is probably one big pleasure zone. In fact you have so much choice, you will probably not know quite which game to choose. Therefore, here are brief descriptions of some of the most popular games and sports enjoyed in Britain.
ANGLING
Those who love angling will doubly enjoy their visit to the seventeenth century, first on account of the fishing itself and, second, for the chance to meet all the heroes of modern angling. Thomas Barker’s Barker’s Delight or the Art of Angling is first published in 1651, and two years later Izaak Walton’s famous work, The Compleat Angler, hits the stationers’ shelves. It is interesting to compare the various editions of these works to trace the development of the sport. For example, neither author mentions using a reel in early editions but both do in those published in the 1660s. Modern hooks are available from the London shop of Charles Kirby (inventor of the Kirby Bend). Fishing lines also improve with the development of a varnished gut line in the 1660s; the use of a gaff, for raising large fish, is first noted by Thomas Barker in the 1667 edition of his work. As a result of these developments, fly-fishing develops, as described at length by Charles Cotton in a considerable addition to the fifth edition of The Compleat Angler (1676). Fly-fishing obviously catches on quickly (if you will pardon the pun), for Magalotti is quite astonished to see English fishermen about their business in 1669. He writes:
Their mode of angling here is very different from the common one; for, where our fishermen hold the hook still for a long time in the same place, these keep it in continual motion, darting the line into the water like the lash of a whip; then, drawing it along a few paces, they throw it in afresh, repeating this operation till the fish is caught.16
BILLIARDS
Billiards is older than you perhaps imagine. Not as old as Shakespeare would have you believe when he puts the words ‘let’s to billiards’ into Cleopatra’s mouth – thus implying that the pharaohs might have been hustlers on their evenings off – but dating back to before 1600. In its early days, however, it resembled more a form of table golf than the modern game. It is traditionally played with a ‘mace’, defined by contemporaries as a ‘short, thick truncheon, or cudgel’.17 This is used to push the ball around the table in the early form of the game. In the 1660s players start to turn the mace around and strike the balls with the tail end of it, or the ‘cue’ (from queue, the French word for ‘tail’). The reason for the reversal is that the edge of the table is marked by rails and it is difficult to push the ball away from the rails with the thick end of the mace. By 1674, when Charles Cotton publishes the first edition of his The Complete Gamester, the edges of the table are surrounded with cushions or ‘banks’ stuffed with flax or cotton, and they have six ‘hazards’ or holes, like modern tables. Some versions of billiards are like the game we know as pool; others have a hoop (‘the port’) and a skittle (‘the king’) on the table as well. Billiard tables can be expensive: it costs the earl of Bedford £25 3s 3d to have a full-size one covered in green cloth installed at Woburn Abbey in 1664.18 This does not put people off. Most towns and country houses have a table by 1680. John Evelyn, Samuel Pepys, John Locke, Celia Fiennes and Monsieur Misson all play billiards when they have the chance.
BOWLING
‘A bowling green or bowling alley’, writes Charles Cotton, ‘is a place where three things are thrown away besides the bowls, viz: time, money and curses.’19 Nevertheless you will find greens and alleys everywhere – and I do mean in the most extraordinary places. A Scotsman even builds one on a Thames barge.20 In short, the whole nation is obsessed by the game. Willem Schellinks notes that there is a bowling alley in the Fleet Prison, just as there is one in Gloucester Gaol.21 Almost every nobleman’s and gentleman’s residence has a bowling green. As he travels around the country, Thomas Baskerville makes a special record of which inns have particularly good greens: the Swan in Bedford; the Bull in Bury St Edmunds; the George Inn in Watton; and the Bear at Speenhamland, to name just a few.22
What is the reason for this popularity? First, there is the gambling. As with so many other sports and games, people place large sums on bowling and thus it is enormously exciting. Another reason is that it is one of the very few games that men and women can play together. Thus couples can play against other couples, as Pepys does with his wife and another couple in 1661.23 This adds a social aspect and perhaps a sexual frisson to the game. But in case you are planning to win your true love’s heart in this manner, be warned: it is a high-risk strategy. According to Cotton, bowling ‘is the best discovery of humours, especially in the losers, where you may observe fine variety of impatience, while some fret, rail, swear and cavil at everything, others rejoice and laugh’.24
CARD GAMES
People of all sorts play cards – although separately: rich and poor don’t play each other. Cotton lists no fewer than two dozen games in his Complete Gamester, namely ‘ombre; primero; basset; picquet; lanterloo; English ruff; honours; whist; French ruff; brag; cribbage; high game; gleek; all-fours; five cards; costly colours; bone-ace; wit and reason; the art of memory; plain-dealing; queen nazareen; penneech; post and pair; bankasalet; and beast’. If you want the rules to any of these, his book is the best place to look.
Huge amounts of money are lost on cards. Cotton refers to landed estates generating £2,000 and £3,000 each year being lost in this way.25 In view of such financial ruin, the government passes the Gaming Act of 1664, whereby all losses of more than £100 are unenforceable. But the reality is that all ladies and gentleman play, and £100 is still a lot of money; moreove
r, people can lose £100 on numerous occasions if they are determined to risk that sum repeatedly.
CHESS
You know all about chess, the ‘royal game’, as it is sometimes called in the seventeenth century. However, there are still a few little discrepancies. Watch out for when one of your pawns reaches the far side of the board and is liable to be promoted: you can only change him to a piece that has already been taken, so you cannot have a second queen. Do clarify a few rules before you start, not least because many people bet large amounts on chess. For instance, in addition to ‘checkmate’ and ‘stalemate’, there is ‘blindmate’: this is when your opponent puts you in an inescapable check but does not say ‘checkmate’, not realising what he has done. Some people might tell you the game is over nonetheless; others that the game and the bet are both forfeit, or that the game is won but the bet is forfeit.
CRICKET
Cricket, unlike chess, is very far from reaching its modern form. It is not mentioned at all in The Complete Gamester, and the first set of rules won’t be written down until 1744. However, you will frequently come across village cricket matches as you travel around the country. From its obscure roots as a form of stool-ball in the south-east of England, it has grown immensely and is now spreading faster than ever. The prime reason is, of course, aristocratic gambling: lords and gentlemen wager large sums that their team will win. But one should not neglect local pride, either. After all, it is not the taking part that matters, so much as hammering the visiting village’s best bowler so hard that he has to walk back home to retrieve the ball.
