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
Though the laity of all ranks and conditions--except
apprentices[144]--appear to have played at cards and dice without let
or hinderance, notwithstanding any statute to the contrary, yet the
clergy seem to have been rather more sharply looked after. In the
'Injunctions geven by the Quenes Majestie, as well to the Clergye as
the Laity,' printed by Richard Jugge and John Cawood, 1559, the clergy
are thus admonished: "Also the sayde ecclesiastical persons shall in
no wyse, nor for any other cause then for theyr honeste necessities,
haunt or resort to anye Tavernes or Alehouses. And after theyr meates,
they shall not geve themselves to any drynkyng or ryot, spendyng theyr
tyme idelly by day or by nyght, at dyse, cardes, or tables playing,
or anye other unlawfull game."[145] In the 'Injunctions exhibited by
John, Bishop of Norwich, at his first visitation, in the third year
of our Soveraign Ladie Elizabeth,' printed at London by John Daye,
1561, officials are enjoined to inquire, "Whether any parson, vicare,
or curate geve any evell example of lyfe; whether they be incontinent
parsones, dronkardes, haunters of tavernes, alehouses, or suspect
places; dycers, tablers, carders, swearers, or vehementlie suspected
thereof."
A notice of a dramatic representation of the game of cards occurs in
the accounts of Queen Elizabeth's 'Master of the Revels,' 1582.[146] In
that year he and his officers were commanded "to show on St. Stephen's
day at night, before her Majesty at Wyndesore, a Comodie or Morral
devised on a game of the cardes," to be performed by the children of
her Majesty's Chapel. From the following observations of Sir John
Harrington on this "Comodie or Morral," it would seem to have been a
severe satire on those Knaves who enrich themselves at the nation's
expense: "Then for comedies, to speake of a London comedie, how much
good matter, yea and matter of state, is there in that comedie cald the
play of the cards? in which it is showed how foure Parasiticalle knaves
robbe the foure principall vocations of the Realme, _videlicet_, the
vocations of Souldiers, Scollers, Marchants, and Husbandmen. Of which
comedie I cannot forget the saying of a notable wise counseller who is
now dead (Sir Frauncis Walsinghame), who, when some (to sing Placebo)
advised that it should be forbidden, because it was somewhat too
plaine, and indeed, as the old saying is, _Sooth boord is no boord_,
yet he would have it allowed, adding that it was fit that 'They which
doe that they should not, should heare that they would not.'"[147]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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