Facts and Speculations on the Origin and History of Playing CardsChatto, William Andrew
History
Facts and Speculations on the Origin and History of Playing Cards
Chatto, William Andrew
Playing cards -- History
"No Artificer, or his Journeyman, no Husbandman, Apprentice, Labourer,
Servant at Husbandry, Mariner, Fisherman, Waterman, or Serving-man,
shall play at Tables, Tennis, Dice, _Cards_, Bowls, Closh, Coyting,
Logating, or any other unlawful game out of Christmas; or then, out of
their master's house or presence, in pain of 20_s._; and none shall
play at Bowls in open places, out of his garden or orchard, in pain
of 6_s._ 8_d._"[126] In the morality of Hycke-Scorner, reprinted in
Hawkins's 'Origin of the English Drama,' from a black letter copy in
Garrick's collection, of at least as early a date as the commencement
of the reign of Henry VIII, the following are enumerated as forming
part of the company of the ships that came over with Hycke-Scorner:
"Braulers, lyers, getters, and chyders,
Walkers by night, and great murderers,
Overthwarte gyle, and joly carders."
In the morality of Lusty Juventus, written by R. Wever, in the reign of
Edward VI, Hypocryse says to Juventus, whom he invites to breakfast:
"I have a furny carde in a place,
That will bear a turne besides the ace;
She purvoyes now apace
For my commynge."
From a subsequent passage it appears that this "furny carde"[127] is
the naughty woman, "litle Besse," the personification of "Abhominable
Livyng."
In the comedy of 'Gammer Gurton's Needle,' said to have been first
printed in 1551, old dame Chat thus invites two of her acquaintance to
a game at cards:
"What, Diccon? Come nere, ye be no stranger:
We be fast set at trump, man, hard by the fire;
Thou shalt set on the king, if thou come a little nyer.
Come hither, Dol; Dol, sit down and play this game,
And as thou sawest me do, see thou do even the same;
There is five trumps besides the queen, the hindmost thou shalt
find her."
In a Satire on Cardinal Wolsey and the Romish Clergy by William Roy,
without date, but most likely printed in 1527,[128] some of the bishops
are charged with gaming in addition to their other vices:
"To play at the cardes and dyce,
Some of theym are nothynge nyce,
Both at hasard and mom-chaunce."
In the privy purse expenses, from 1536 to 1544, of the Princess Mary,
daughter of Henry VIII, afterwards Queen Mary, there are numerous
entries of money delivered to the princess to play at cards. In a
prefatory memoir, Sir Frederick Madden remarks: "Cards she seems to
have indulged in freely; and there is a sum generally allotted as
pocket-money for the recreation every month."[129] As Mary is said to
have been extremely devout, we may presume that, adopting the decisions
of the more indulgent casuists, she availed herself of their permission
to play at cards as a recreation when her mind was fatigued with the
exercise of her strenuous piety. The records of the burning of men and
women in her reign for the sake of _religion_, form a singular contrast
with the entries in her privy purse expenses of money delivered to her
to play at cards.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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