In Tudor times sport was
strictly controlled by
the government. For example, only the upper classes were allowed to
take part in tournaments. These involved two armoured knights separated
by a four-foot-high wooden barrier. Each knight carried a lance and
the objective was to knock your opponent off his horse as he galloped
past.
Henry
VIII was a skilled jouster. However, in 1536 he was seriously
injured while jousting and was forced to retire from the sport. Henry
also enjoyed playing tennis. In Tudor times tennis was played indoors
and balls were made of leather shells filled with hair.
Henry was also a keen
hunter. He often spent six hours a day hunting stags. Only nobles
were allowed to hunt stags. Yeoman farmers could hunt foxes and everyone
else hunted hares and rabbits.
It was important to the
Tudor government that
English people spent most of their time working. A law was passed
in 1512 that banned ordinary people from a whole range of games including
tennis, dice, cards, bowls and skittles.
In the early 1500s football
became a popular sport in England. It was a very different game from
the one played today. The two sets of goal posts were placed about
a mile apart. There was no limit to the numbers that took part and
players could kick, throw or pick up the ball in an attempt to put
it between the opponent's goalposts.
In 1540 people in England
were banned from
playing football. Two years later more games were banned including
a new popular activity called shuffleboard (shove-halfpenny).
One pastime that all classes
enjoyed in Tudor England was bear-baiting. Individual bears were chained
to a post in a bear-ring. A group of dogs were then set on the bear.
The dogs tried to kill the bear by biting its throat.
Henry
VIII and Elizabeth both enjoyed
watching bear-baiting. A ring was even built in the grounds of Whitehall
so that the Tudor monarchs could watch bear-baiting from the windows
of the palace. Queen Elizabeth went on her tours of England, towns
put on large bear-baiting shows for her. When the House
of Commons in 1585 voted to ban bear-baiting on Sunday, Elizabeth
overruled them.
Elizabethans also enjoyed
watching other cruel events, for example, bears-that had been blinded
being whipped by five or six men. Another event involved donkeys and
bulls being attacked by teams of fierce dogs.
People also paid to visit
mental institutions like Bedlam Hospital in London, where they enjoyed
watching the strange antics of the patients. Bedlam even hired out
patients to appear as entertainers at weddings and banquets.
A woodcut of a bear-garden
(c. 1620)
(1)
Philip Stubbs, The Anatomy of Abuses (1585)
Football
is more a fight than a game... Sometimes their necks are broken, sometimes
their backs, sometimes their legs... Football encourages envy and
hatred... sometimes fighting, murder and a great loss of blood.
(2)
Paul Hentzner was a German who visited England in 1598. While he was
in London he watched a blinded bear being whipped by a group of six
men.
The bear
cannot escape from them because of the chain; he defends himself with
all his force and skill, throwing down all who come within his reach...
and tearing the whips out of their hands and breaking them.
(3)
On 16th June, 1670, John Evelyn recorded in his diary what he saw
when he visited a bear-garden.
I went with
some friends to the bear-garden... there was cock-fighting, dog-fighting,
bear and bull-baiting... One of the bulls tossed a dog into a lady's
lap, as she sat in one of the boxes at a considerable height from
the arena. Two poor dogs were killed.
(4)
Celia Fiennes visited Windsor Castle in 1698. While she was there
she saw a race between two men. Each round was almost four miles.
They were to run it so
often as to make up twenty-two miles... The English man gained the
lead on the second round. He kept the lead until the fifth round and
then the Scotch man came up... The English man fell down within a
few yards of the post... many hundred pounds were won and lost about
it.
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