“They have a tradition at Huntingdon, that when King Charles I. (then Duke of York), in his journey from Scotland to London, in the year 1604, rested in his way at Hinchenbrooke, the seat of Sir Oliver Cromwell; the knight, to divert the young prince, sent for his nephew Oliver, that he, with his own sons, might play with his Royal Highness. It so chanced that the boys had not long been together before Charles and Oliver disagreed, and came to blows. As the former was a somewhat weakly boy, and the latter strong, it was no wonder the royal visitor was worsted. Oliver, even at this age, so little regarded dignity that he made the royal blood flow copiously from the Prince’s nose. This was looked upon by many as a bad presage for the King when the civil war had commenced.” The probability of this incident has been flippantly questioned. The writer has lighted on the following in the dry pages of “Toone’s Chronology,” under James I. “1603. April 27th. The King, arriving at Hinchenbrooke, was magnificently entertained by Sir Oliver Cromwell, where also the Cambridge Doctors waited upon his Majesty. May 3. The King arrived at Theobalds, in Hertfordshire, the seat of Mr. Secretary Cecil’s. He made 200 Knights on his arrival in London and on his journey thither from Edinburgh.” And in the next page we read: “1604. Jan. 4. Prince Charles came into England (from Scotland) and was created Duke of York. He had forty pounds per annum settled on him that he might more honourably maintain that dignity.” It may be as well to observe that Charles I. and Cromwell were of an age (both born in 1599), and each of them five years old in 1604‒5; so that this juvenile encounter is highly probable, exemplifying that “the child is father of the man.” Again in Malcolm’s “Manners and Customs of London,” vol. i., p. 425, we find the subjoined extract from _The Protestant Mercury_, of January, 1681, which we take to be the first prize-fight on newspaper record. “Yesterday a match of boxing was performed before his Grace the Duke of Albemarle, between the Duke’s footman and a butcher. The latter won the prize, as he hath done many before, being accounted, though but a little man, the best at that exercise in England.” “Here be proofs”: 1, of ducal patronage; 2, of a stake of money; 3, of the custom of public boxing; 4, of the skill of the victor, “he being but a little man;” and all in a five-line paragraph. The names of the Champions are unwritten.