There will be things to wonder at within. There will be the Hall of
Kings. Giant canvases will show Charleses and Jameses playing their game
of golf on the links of Leith, and there will be Mary Queen of Scots
with clubs in her hand on St. Andrews course. Further on there will be
King William IV. and his consort Adelaide, giving their countenance to
the game on historic occasions; and then there will surely be another
picture with the simple title “1863,” upon which will be recognised the
Prince of Wales, who became King Edward VII., being then in office as
captain of the premier club. Paintings of more modern date will show
Kaiser Wilhelm giving some encouragement to the golfers of the
Fatherland, and the King of Spain first wooing a British princess on the
course of Biarritz, and then paying his royal respects, but still humble
and sincere, to the game itself at San Sebastian. Kings and queens,
princes and princesses, golfers all, and earnest ones, players of a
right royal and ancient game.
There will be a Hall of Founders, in which will be immortalised the
great men who in the early times laid the foundations of the game, and
of its most historic institutions. The largest frame in the room will
hold a painting bearing the title “Magna Charta, 1553,” and the picture
will depict a scene in which the Provost and Magistrates of St. Andrews
are granting leave to Archbishop Hamilton to place rabbits on the links
at St. Andrews. The Archbishop is writing his signature to the parchment
which, with the authority of the chapter, ratifies and approves the
rights of the community to the links, more especially for the purpose of
“playing at golff, futball, schuteing at all gamis, with all uther maner
of pastyme.” There will be a fine picture of a man of noble countenance,
a wig upon his head and robes around him, as he is seated in his chair
with his hand upon a table where rests a mace. This is Duncan Forbes of
Culloden, Lord President of the Court of Session, and first captain of
the Gentlemen Golfers--now going by the name of the Honourable
Company--in 1744. A great man was Duncan Forbes, and he played for the
Silver Club. A poet of his own time sung of him:
“Yea, here great Forbes, patron of the just,
The dread of villains, and the good man’s trust,
When spent with toils in serving humankind,
His body recreates, and unbends his mind.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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