Athletics and Football (extract)

6 ATHLETICS And fotro lepe daike iaslso good, For mightilywhat manmay renneand lepe May weldl evict ansdafe 'isparty kepe. In another romance also quoted by Strutt, that of 'The Three Kings' Sons,' it is said of a certain knight, ' The king for to assaie him made justesand turnies, and no man did so wellas he in runnyng, playingat the pame, shotyng, and cast- yng of the barre, ne found he his maister.' The running and weight-putting,to which the townsmen of London wereso much addicted, werenot alwaysfavouredby the kings of England, whowere afraid that the practice of archery might fall into disuse ; and we find Edward III. especiallypro­ hibiting weight-putting by statute; but the statute,although never repealed, appears to have been more honoured in the breach than in the observance,for at the time of the decline ofchivalry ' casting of the barre ' wasstill a common pursuit. Henry VIII. certainly in one respect chose his amusements better than some of his predecessors; whileEdward II. found his favourite amusement in ' cross and pile' (or, as it is now known, ' pitch and toss'), the much-married monarch, in his earlydays, was greatly devoted to this ' castingof the barre.' Even after his ac­ cession to the throne, his daily amusements embraced weight- putting, dancing, tilting, leaping,and running. The example of a monarch has, it is well known, a most persuasive effect, and hence it is not astonishing to find from a contemporary writer (Wilson) that all active sports, both on horseback and on foot, including leaping, running, and bar-throwing,became fashionableamusements. In the succeedingage, however, we begin to find foot ex­ ercises less thought of by the upper classes. Richard Pace, the secretary to King Henry VIH., could advise noblemen's sons to pursue their sports, ' and leave study and learning to the children of meaner people;' but although his advicewas,no doubt, followed by many of his readers, the ' new learning' gradually took hold of the upper classes,and cultivated minds began to be rather contemptuous of rough bodily exercises.