Athletics and Football (extract)

ATHLETIC SPORTS IN ENGLAND 7 Still, throughout the reign of Henry VIII. gentlemen were accustomed to write in favour of pedestrian as well as of equestrian exercises. Sir William Forest, in his ' Poesye of Princelye Practice,' holds that a prince should In featisof maistries bestowe some diligence. Too ryder,unne, lepoe,r casteby violence Stone, barre or plummett, suocrh othetrhinge. It notrefuseth anpyrince okrynge. About the same time that worthy knight. Sir Thomas Elyot, wrote the manual of education for a gentleman, ' The Boke called the Governour,' from which many succeeding writers borrowed largely without any acknowledgment. Sir Thomas, whowasin manysensesbeforehis time, expresseshimselfstrongly against the system of unnecessaryfloggingand in favour of a judicious mixture of athletics and learning for a boy. ' A discrete master,' he says, ' maywithas much or more ease both to himself and his scholler lead him to play at tennis or shoote.' In the sixteenth chapter of his work he speaks of ' Sundrye fourmes of exercise necessarye for a gentilman,' and there are, he says, ' some exercises which with health join commoditie :' T' ouching such exercisesas may be used within the house or in the shadowe, such as deambulations, labouryng with poyses made of ledde, lifting and throwing the heavy stone or barre, playing at tennis and diverse semblable exer­ cises I will for this time pass over,' and he exhorts his readers to study Galen De Sanitate tuenda upon the subject. What followsabout running and jumping is curious, as it makes it plain that Sir Thomas knew that there weresome peoplewho decried these sports as being vulgar. He says, ' Rennyng is bothe a good exerciseand a laudable solace ' (we presume by solace he means pastime, and not consolation in the sense in which a certain well-known athlete of modern times stated that, whenever he was suffering from disappointed love, he took a walkingtour to work it off). He defends running by the argumentum ad hominem, showingthat Achilles,Alexander,