In the reign of James I, the game "went bonnily on." His son, Henry, Prince of Wales, who died in 1612, aged nineteen, used occasionally to amuse himself at cards, but so nobly and like himself, as showed that he played only for recreation, and not for the sake of gain.[151] James himself was a card-player; and his favorite game was Maw, which appears to have been the fashionable game in his reign, as Primero was in the reign of Elizabeth. His Majesty appears to have played at cards just as he played with affairs of State--in an indolent manner, requiring in both cases some one to hold his cards, if not to prompt him what to play. Weldon, speaking of the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, in his 'Court and Character of King James,' says: "The next that came on the stage, was Sir Thomas Monson; but the night before he was to come to his tryal, the King being at the game of Maw, said, 'to-morrow comes Thomas Monson to his tryal.' 'Yea;' said the King's card-holder, 'where if he do not play his master's prize, your Majesty shall never trust me.' This so ran in the King's mind, that at the next game he said he was sleepy, and would play out that set next night." From the following passage in a pamphlet, entitled 'Tom Tell-troath,' supposed to have been printed about 1622,[152] it would seem that the writer was well acquainted both with his majesty's mode of playing at cards, and with the manner in which he was tricked in his dawdling with state affairs: "In your Majestie's owne tavernes, for one healthe that is begun to your-selfe, there are ten drunke to the Princes your forraygn children. And, when the wine is in their heads, Lord have mercie on their tonges! Ever, in the very gaming ordinaries, where men have scarce leisure to say grace, yet they take a time to censure your Majestie's actions, and that in their oulde schoole terms. They say, you have lost the fairest game at Maw that ever King had, for want of making the best advantage of the five finger, and playing the other helpes in time. That your owne card-holders play bootie, and give the signe out of your owne hand. That hee you played withall hath ever been knowne for the greatest cheater in Christendome.[153] In fine, there is noe way to recover your losses, and vindicate your honour, but with fighting with him that hath cozened you. At which honest downe righte play, you will be hard enough for him with all his trickes." The following verses, which might have been written by Tom Tell-troath himself, form part of an inscription beneath a caricature engraving of the same period, representing the Kings of England, Denmark, and Sweden, with Bethlem Gabor, engaged in playing at cards, dice, and tables with the Pope and his Monks.[154]