In ancient Olympic boxing contests, almost any blow anywhere was permissible. One contestant died when a jab under his ribs tore out his entrails. But though there is a mention of the powerful fist of a “war-like champion” in one of the poems in Annalia Dubrensia, it is not clear whether Robert Dover’s Games included bare-fist boxing, for it is unlikely that the wrestling contests included fist blows.
King James listed the sports he thought suitable for his son and heir in Basilicon Doron: “The exercises that I would have you to use . . . are running, leaping, wrestling, fencing, dancing, and playing at the catch or tennis, archery, palle maille, and such like other faire and pleasant field games.” Bare-fist fighting was not among these legitimate sports.
Wrestling, on the other hand, was definitely practised upon Kingcombe Plain — the king had given his approval. A picture in Annalia Dubrensia shows two men in doublet and breeches in a wrestling stance. Some have interpreted this picture as showing a shin-kicking contest — a vicious rural sport that featured in the later Cotswold Olimpicks. But Annalia Dubrensia is absolutely clear that it was wrestling, not mere shin-kicking, which was held at the games.
The ring for a wrestling contest was usually created by the onlookers linking arms. The contestants tried to overthrow each other, clasping each other by the arm or neck. The loser was the man whose upper body touched the ground first, and there were probably three bouts per fight. Shin-kicking, as well as hooking your opponent’s legs, was a legitimate tactic within wrestling, and it was only later that it became a specialised sport of its own.
Another sport was throwing the sledge or hammer. This, it could be argued, was a 17th-century version of the Olympic sport of discus-throwing or today’s shot-putting. There was also spurning — or throwing — the bar. In an illustration are two men with short poles in a vertical position. They may be spurning, but it may be significant that both men are wearing hats — all the participants in the sports, other than the horse riders, are bare-headed. It seems possible, therefore, that these two are sticklers. These were umpires who gave their name to the phrase “a stickler for the rules”. Sticklers carried sticks to part a sword fight safely.
Sword play was an important part of Dover’s Olimpicks. The illustration shows two men fighting with sword and dagger in the then modern way. A century earlier, sword play would have been with sword and buckler, a kind of shield, but bucklers had fallen out of fashion. Even the “modern” sword play being practised in the illustration was falling out of favour among the smart set. By the 17th century the use of the rapier, a slim thrusting blade, instead of a wide sword, both a thrusting and a slashing weapon, was gaining ground. Writing in 1599, George Silver lamented the loss of the old broadsword, and extolled its blood-letting virtues. A slashing blow from a broadsword “endangereth life, cutteth off the veins, muscles, and sinews, (and) perisheth the bones”. While Robert Dover is shown riding his horse with a broadsword by his side, some of the more dashing Cavaliers at the Games would have been wearing the slender (and less deadly) rapier.
What the illustrations cannot show is whether these swords and daggers were metal or wooden weapons. The figures in the illustration are fighting with closed or enclosed hilts, designed to shield the hand, and at first sight this looks as if this must mean metal weapons. But these hilts could be made out of wickerwork or leather, and slid on to wooden cudgels.
Wooden weapons, rather than metal ones, seem more likely if Dover was anxious to promote relatively harmless sports — though it is possible, even likely, that the word “harmless” refers to spiritual rather than physical harmlessness. We know that such contests were part of the traditional church ales and wakes, sometimes being called cudgel play. Robert Herrick writes in his poem The Wake: “Near the dying of the day,/ There will be a cudgel-play,/ Where a coxcomb will be broke/ Ere a good word can be spoke”. The “coxcomb” of the poem was the jokey word for the head. The rules were often best of three with the bout being decided by “breaking the head”, ie, by drawing blood on the head.
Less bloodthirsty and definitely in the old Olympic pattern were the athletic sports of running and leaping. Running and leaping had the approval of King James for his son but “only moderately, not making a craft of them”. As for headstands, the King added: “I debar . . . such tumbling tricks as only serve for comedians and balladines (acrobats) to win their bread with.” The man in doublet and breeches shown standing on his head in the Annalia Dubrensia would not have had royal approval.
Social class and sport have often had an uneasy relationship. The 17th-century attitude was the exact opposite to that of Victorian sports enthusiasts, who laid down a rule for the first modern Olympics that only amateurs could compete — a rule that meant the early English athletes tended to be public schoolboys rather than the sons and daughters of poorer families. If only the unlettered could compete, then sporting contests of wrestling, athletics and sword play were essentially low status. The victors could be rewarded with money, but they could not become inspirational figures. Not a single winner at any of the events was thought worth naming in Annalia Dubrensia.
Nor are scores or time records noted in any of the poems. The technology to do so barely existed, but, had the will to do so been there, it might have been possible to time events using a marked candle, an hour glass with sand like the traditional egg timer, or even a water clock.
But nobody in Dover’s time was much interested in sports record-keeping or record-breaking. It is not till 1663, years after the death of Robert Dover and in the days of Charles II, that there is mention of a foot race between a famous runner and the Duke of Richmond’s footman — and then the onlookers’ interest was in betting on the outcome rather than recording time and distance run.
And without the interest in competition records, there could be no incentive (had it been possible) for the Cotswold Olimpicks to make a link with other sporting events or to develop some sort of national, rather than local, significance.
Probably the running champion displayed his prowess at other local church ales, if the races had prizes worth winning and if he could get time off from his employer to do so. The sword-play champion at the Dover Games might have done a little better. With his reputation enhanced by winning, he might even have had employment offers for passing on his skill to others. And there was going to be, in the future, a demand for good swordsmen. His skill and his endurance would be needed not for sporting contests but for real war.
© 2004 Celia Haddon. Edited extract from The First Ever English Olimpick Games by Celia Haddon to be published by Hodder & Stoughton on July 15 (£8.99, offer £7.64)
