According to a Scottish story, during the Duke’s visit, he had on one occasion a discussion with two English noblemen as to the native country of golf, his Royal Highness asserting that it was peculiar to Scotland, while “they insisted that it was an English game as well.” The two English nobles good-humouredly proposed to prove its English character by taking up the Duke to a match, to be played on Leith Links. James accepted the challenge, and sought for the best partner he could find. It so happened the heir-presumptive of the British throne played with a poor shoemaker named John Patersone, the worthy descendant of a long line of illustrious golfers. If the “two Southerners were, as might be expected, inexperienced in the game, they had no chance against a pair, one member of which was a good player. So the Duke got the best of the practical argument, and Patersone’s merits were rewarded by a gift of the sum played for,” with which he was enabled to build a somewhat stylish house for himself in the Canongate. But with the Stuarts went out for a time royal countenance of the game, till William IV. became patron of the Royal and Ancient Club of St. Andrews, and presented to it for annual competition that coveted golfing trophy--the gold medal, the blue ribbon of golf. A game which has of late years been revived is bowls, a pastime which was once the favourite amusement of all classes, most pleasure gardens having in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had their bowling-greens. Of all the English kings, Charles I. was the greatest enthusiast in this game. Many anecdotes are told “of his great love for it, a love that survived through all his troubles, for we find him alike devoting himself to it while in power, and solacing himself with it while a captive.”[105] According to a correspondent of _Notes and Queries_, in a secluded part of the Oxfordshire hills, at a place called Collins’ End, situated between Hardwicke House and Goring Heath, is a neat little rustic inn, having for its sign a portrait of Charles I. There is a tradition that this unfortunate monarch, whilst residing as a prisoner at Caversham, hearing that there was a bowling-green at this inn, rode down to it, and endeavoured to forget his sorrows in a game of bowls; an incident which is written beneath the sign-board:-- “Stop, traveller, stop! in yonder peaceful glade, His favourite game the royal martyr played; Here, stripped of honours, children, freedom, rank, Drank from the bowl, and bowl’d for what he drank; Sought in a cheerful glass his cares to drown, And changed his guinea ere he lost a crown.”