Tag: Gresham Society

Introduction

In 1561, Thomas Gresham, while residing in Antwerp, provided “bridging finance” to a young travelling spendthrift, Thomas Cecil; William Cecil’s son, who had been living beyond his means in Paris. A few months later, Thomas Cecil and his travelling tutor, Thomas Windebank, took sanctuary under Thomas Gresham’s roof in Antwerp. It seems likely that one of young Cecil’s dalliances in Paris had required the dynamic duo to move on from Paris in a hurry.

“I see, in the end,” said the disapproving father in a letter to Windebank on 4 November 1561, “my sone shall come home lyke a spendyng sott, mete to kepe a tenniss court.” 

This reference, to be found in J.W. Burgon’s monumental 1839 two-volume Life & Times Of Sir Thomas Gresham, seems to be the only mention of tennis to be found in any biography of Thomas Gresham to date.

Tennis does not seem to have been a big thing to Thomas Gresham. But it was a very big thing to the Cecil family and it was a big thing in Tudor times.

So why did William Cecil, who was such a massive tennis fan he even built a tennis court at his house on the Strand, write in such disparaging tones about tennis in this context?

And how on earth did this minor Cecil family intergenerational gripe find its way, some 40 years later, into a subplot of Hamlet?

It is my intention to use this tiny fragment from Thomas Gresham’s life as a MacGuffin, or plot device, to describe tennis and the colourful characters that populated the game around the time of Thomas Gresham.

Medieval & Renaissance Tennis

Humans have played ball games with implements since the very dawn of civilisation. The Epic of Gilgamesh, which was written some 4000 years ago, uses stick and ball games as a plot device more than once.

But the game we call tennis emerged in medieval times, around the 12th century, probably initially in French monastery courtyards and subsequently in noble courts. Known as Jeu De Paume in France, this walled, galleried courtyard game played with hard balls became known as tennis in England.

Today we call the game “real tennis” to distinguish it from the modern, 19th century game played with vulcanised rubber balls on open courts of grass, clay, etc.

Real tennis is often referred to as a sport of kings. There is documentary evidence of tennis as a royal pursuit from the early 14th century. Tennis’s first “star”, for all the wrong reasons, was Louis X of France, known as Louis The Quarrelsome.

Philip IV, Louis’s dad, bought the Tour de Nesle in 1308 and had a covered tennis court built within. While Philip was clearly keen on the game, there is no evidence that he played. It is said that the fashion for covered courts emanated from young Louis’s love of the game. That love also, perhaps, proved to be Louis’s undoing. Just a couple of years after succeeding to the French throne, Louis X died, age 26, apparently after playing an especially rigorous game of tennis at Vincennes, in 1316. Louis X thus became the earliest named tennis player in history.

There are three characteristics about Renaissance tennis that might seem alien to lovers of the modern variety of this sport which are vital to understanding what it was about in the time of Thomas Gresham:

• it was originally played with the hand (hence the name “Jeu De Paume”) but by around 1500 the use of the racket was emerging, the racket becoming ubiquitous within 100 to 150 years;
• the game was a wagering game. If the players were of uneven quality, “odds” or “handicapping” would be deployed, such that the stakes would be an even bet. Odds might be deployed through scoring (the lesser player being given points), through the cramping of the better player through restricting their use of the court (e.g. banning certain galleries or walls) or a mixture of those handicaps. We still use handicapping today in real tennis for all but the top level competitions;;
• noble folk and monarchs tended to become very fond of the game for themselves and their own sort…while taking great pains to prohibit lesser folk from playing of tennis or such sports.

Here is an extract from: “The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England from the Earliest Period” by Joseph Strutt, published in 1801. 

During the reign of Charles V . palm play , which may properly enough be denominated hand – tennis , was exceedingly fashionable in France, being played by the nobility for large sums of money ; and when they had lost all that they had about them , they would sometimes pledge a part of their wearing apparel rather than give up the pursuit of the game . The duke of Burgundy , according to an old historian , having lost sixty franks at palm play with the duke of Bourbon , Messire William de Lyon , and Messire Guy de la Trimouille , and not having money enough to pay them , gave his girdle as a pledge for the remainder ; and shortly afterwards he left the same girdle with the comte D ‘ Eu for eighty franks , which he also lost at tennis .

As an aside, Philip the Bold was not only well-known to be an enthusiast of tennis, he was also a great enthusiast for the Pinot Noir grape; prohibiting the cultivation of the Gamay grape in Burgundy (1395), thus perpetuating that region’s fine wine tradition. Philip the Bold also initiated a musical chapel which founded the great Burgundian school of music. Tennis, wine & music – Philip was my kinda guy.

Tennis-loving royals and nobles married for strategic, territorial alliance in those days. I don’t suppose that “spreading tennis across parts of Europe that other games couldn’t reach” was central to that strategy, but such marriages seem to have contributed to the spread of the game…or in some cases possibly the tennis history of the place might have attracted the marriage.

For example, Philip The Bold married Margaret III of Flanders, which explains why Cambrai (now in Northern France, then in Flanders) became the centre of the Burgundian school of music, but Cambrai was already famous for medieval tennis, as illustrated in a beautiful Cambrai Book Of Hours, c1300 which can be examined in full on-line, depicting many scenes from regular life, including several pictures depicting games of the jeu de paume or longue paume variety.

Longue paume, or field tennis, is an outdoor variety of the game, versions of which were played across all tiers of society, which probably adopted the use of implements before jeu de paume. Elements of modern tennis and cricket derive from it. It is still played today, mostly in Picardy. It is probably the variety of the game that Edward III was banning with his infamous 1349 prohibition of sports.

Jeu de paume, the court version, almost certainly became established in Spain and the Low Countries before it became established in England. So long before Thomas Gresham popped up in Antwerp, a famous court had been established there, in Borgerhout.

The Early Tudor Period

Prior to the Tudor period, the limited popularity of tennis in England was restricted to the clergy and guilds of craftsmen in larger towns and cities in the south. The clergy tended to play the game themselves while prohibiting others from doing so; hence we have some written evidence of the game.

But the Tudor monarchs were very keen on the game, so it became a more widespread, noble sport in England from the late 15^th century. It is well documented that Henry VII was a player and a fan. He liked to wager on his games and his substantial losses are well documented in royal accounting documents, as are those of his more-famously tennis-keen son, Henry VIII. Naturally those monarchs were also keen on banning the game for all but the right sort.In 1493 Henry VII decreed that, “…no sheriff or mayor or any other officer…suffer any man’s servant to play at the dice or at tennis.” 

During Henry VIII’s time, several noble courts were built and several others were planned. At Austin Friars, following the dissolution of the monasteries, Thomas Cromwell planned to build a tennis court in his garden but did not see through his plans. Drapers Hall now stands on that site.

But Thomas Wolsey’s court at Hampton Court Palace did get built. There is still a court on the original site (albeit a Stuart period replacement) to this day. I have had the honour and pleasure to play there.

The only other court in Great Britain that remains from that period is the Falkland Palace Court, built between 1539 & 1541 by James VI of Scotland. It is the only jeu quarré court – i.e. an older design of outdoor court, without an interior (dedans) still in use in the world. Janie and I had a delightful game there in 2018.

Believe it or not, I succeeded in hitting the ball through one of those small portholes, known as lunes, more by luck than judgement I assure you, in the course of our match. Some say that such a shot merits just one point, others say that it completes a game and yet others say that it determines the entire match. Needless to say the four of us debated that matter at length in a neighbouring hostelry after the match.

Talking of eye-witness accounts of tennis matches, there is a fascinating report by one of Henry VII of England’s attendants, of a “visit” to Windsor Castle by Philip The Handsome (another Duke of Burgundy, plus also King of Castille) and his Queen: Joanna The Mad of Castille, in early 1506:

The Sattordaye the 7 of ffebruary…

Bothe Kyngs wente to the Tennys plays and in the upper gallery theare was Layd ij Cushenes of Clothe of gold for the ij Kyngs…

…wheare played my Lord marques [of Dorset] the Lord Howard and two other knights togethers, and after the Kyngs of Casteele had scene them play a whylle , he made partys wth the Lord marques and then played the Kyngs of Casteele with the Lord Marques of Dorset the Kyngs Lookynge one them, but the Kyngs of Castelle played wth the Rackets and gave the Lord Marques xv. and after that he had pled his pleasure and arrayed himself agene it was almost nights, and so bothe Kyngs Retorned agayne to their Lodgingss.”

There’s a lot of interesting stuff in that eye-witness account. That early 16th century period was a period of transition between hand-play and racket-play at tennis. Most scholars agree that the racket came into use around 1500. So the handicap described in the account has the King of Castille playing with a racket and the Marquess of Dorset playing with his hand, while receiving fifteen (i.e. starting each game 15-0 up). Personally, I’d prefer the racket, but perhaps the Marquess was a very handy player.

Sadly, the account doesn’t tell us who won the tennis match, but the story doesn’t end brilliantly well for the visiting monarch; who in reality was more a hostage than a guest of Henry VII. Philip signed some helpful treaties and trade deals to help bring his “visit” to an amicable conclusion. Still, within a few months, Philip The Handsome died in Spain; probably poisoned/assassinated there. This made Joanna The Mad even more distraught than usual, apparently.

Thomas Grey, the Marquess of Dorset, who as a youngster had been a ward of Henry VII, was, by 1508, sent to the tower as a suspected conspirator against Henry VII. Only the accession of Henry VIII the following year saved Grey, who had a decent run as a high-ranking courtier after that narrow escape. His grand-daughter, Lady Jane Grey, was not so lucky; famously the “nine day queen”. Coincidentally , one of his other grand-daughters, Mary Grey, pops up as a house guest for Thomas Gresham in 1569, thanks to William Cecil again, perennial supplier of house guests to Thomas Gresham. A politically sensitive and expensive guest, Mary Grey stayed with the Greshams, much to their chagrin, until 1573, by which time Sir William Cecil had become Lord Burghley.

The Late Tudor Period, Cecil & Gresham

William Cecil was a contemporary of Thomas Gresham; the two worked well together on matters of state and commerce from the early 1550s onwards. Cecil became Elizabeth’s Secretary of State in 1558. By 1560 he was ensconced in Cecil House on the Strand on the site that is now the Strand Palace Hotel and The Lyceum Theatre. Cecil House had a tennis court designed by Henry Hawthorne, the Royal Architect. It was by all accounts quite a small court with unequal lengths of penthouse along both side walls; it might have been used for hand tennis rather than racket tennis.

By that time, the prohibition of sports such as tennis had been clarified through several of Henry VIII’s statutes. Noblemen and those with an annual income of £100 or more were permitted to possess a tennis court on their own property.

Henry VIII’s 1541 statute included a system of licencing for public tennis courts and bowling alleys. Mary I abolished such licences in 1555. Elizabeth reintroduced a system of licencing for tennis courts circa 1567.

So when William Cecil vented in 1561 that his son Thomas was “mete to kepe a tenniss court”, he was not talking about the dignified tennis court that graced Cecil House. He was referring to barely reputable or even disreputable places, more or less gambling dens, frequented by “idle and misruled persons”, as the Mary prohibition statute described them.

William Cecil was an intriguing and important character during the second half of the Tudor period. Fortunately for us, he had a tendency to keep everything and to insist on his correspondence being kept, which is why we have such a rich treasure trove of material on his life and those around him, such as Thomas Gresham.

Another fascinating character who entered and stayed in William Cecil’s orbit for many decades was Michelangelo Florio, an Italian pastor who converted to Lutherism and escaped execution in Rome by the skin of his teeth around 1550. William Cecil helped establish Michelangelo Florio in London, where he became pastor to the Italian Reform Church in the City of London and chaplain to Lady Jane Grey. On this occasion, William Cecil himself gave his guest house room which led, rumour has it, to a scandalous affair with one of Cecil’s servants which resulted in Florio’s marriage to the servant and the birth of the more famous Renaissance humanist John Florio.

Soon after John’s birth, Lady Jane Grey became the nine day queen, succeeded by the Catholic Queen Mary, at which point London was not really the place for a firebrand Italian Lutheran pastor and his family.

In the early 1570s, John Florio, steeped in a humanist education, returned to England. Around 1578, William Cecil (by then Lord Burleigh), sponsored John to study at Oxford where he excelled and the rest is history. Florio wrote several wonderful works and translated many others, not least Michel de Montaigne’s Essays. Florio’s own works include First Frutes & Second Frutes, which are basically primers in the English and Italian languages. Chapter 2 of the Second Frutes book (pp15-29) is a dramatised story of a day going to play tennis with the intention to go on to the theatre afterwards.

The character H, incidentally, is almost certainly a character based on Florio’s pupil at that time, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton.

There’s a good deal of insight into Tudor tennis in that little drama, which is a fascinating and amusing read. But Shakespeare it isn’t…

…however there are those who believe that John Florio was Shakespeare. I think those people are mistaken, but I do believe that Shakespeare probably met John Florio (through their mutual patron, the Earl of Southampton). Or at the very least Shakespeare will have read several of Florio’s works, not least the Frutes books and the Montaigne translations.

Of course there are a great many “alternative Shakespeare authorship” theories, the most popular of which, Edward de Vere, Earl Of Oxford, was yet another of William Cecil’s long-term house guests; his ward for about 10 years from 1562 and subsequently Cecil’s son-in-law. In the early 1590s Oxford unsuccessfully attempted to marry off his daughter Elisabeth to the Earl of Southampton.

These geezers were all moving in similar circles, but that, to my mind, does not provide credibility to such “alternative authorship” theories about Shakespeare. But what do I know?

What is widely believed and is almost certainly true is that the character of Polonius in Hamlet was based on William Cecil and the character of Laertes, Polonius’s ne’er-do-well son abroad, based on the young Thomas Cecil. Scholars have suggested the Cecil connection for a great many reasons. For our purposes, Act Two Scene One of Hamlet has the sole mention of tennis in Hamlet, in a context that is reminiscent of the sole mention of tennis in Thomas Gresham’s biographies.

So was Thomas Cecil “mete to kepe a tenniss court” in the end? He was less adept at stately matters than his dad and less adept than his younger brother, Robert, who became the first Earl of Salisbury and built Hatfield House. Robert Cecil didn’t build a tennis court there, but his Victorian descendants built a fine one, a refurbished version of which is still in use there today.

But still Thomas Cecil had a pretty successful career. He inherited Cecil House, changing its name to Exeter House when he became the first Earl of Exeter, so to that extent he did keep a tennis court.

He also bought, in 1576, The Old Rectory and most of the land that is now Wimbledon Park, where he developed Wimbledon Palace.

Thomas Cecil didn’t develop tennis courts in Wimbledon. But 300 years later, some other fellows did develop tennis courts, of sorts, around there, which was the start of a sustained, global, commercial sporting success. Thomas Gresham would no doubt have approved.

Further Reading & References

Ian Harris’s Ogblog Tetralogy On The Origins Of Tennis:

• Ancient Arithmetic: The Possible Origins Of The Tennis Scoring System, Part One Of Four Pieces On Tennis History;
• Horrible Histories: The Primordial, Honourable & Ignoble Arts Of Tennis Handicapping, Part Two Of Four Pieces On Tennis History;
• Odds Oddities: 18th & 19th Century Tennis Handicaps & Traditions – Some Stranger Than Others, Part Three Of Four Pieces On Tennis History;
• Scoring Synchronicity: How Real Tennis Scoring Was Adopted For Lawn Tennis Scoring – Then Lawn Tennis Handicapping Methods Wormed Their Way Into Real Tennis, Part Four Of Four Pieces On Tennis History.

Tennis: A Cultural History, Heiner Gillmeister, A&C Black, 1998 or Tennis A Cultural History (Second edition), Heiner Gillmeister, Equinox Publishing Ltd, 2017

Real Tennis Today and Yesterday, John Shneerson, Ronaldson Publications, 2015

Willis Faber Book Of Tennis & Rackets, Lord Aberdare, Hutchinson, 1980

The Annals Of Tennis, Julian Marshall, “The Field” Office, 1878

Colloquia Familiaria by Desiderius Erasmus, c1518

Antonio Scaino, 1555, Trattato del Giuoco della Palla (Treatise of the Ball Game)

La Maison Academique – 1659 – the first French book on games 

Signification de l’ancien jeu des chartes pythagorique et la déclaration de deux doubtes qui se trouvent en comptant le jeu de la paume by Jean Gosselin, c1582 

 A Treatise on Tennis By a Member of the Tennis Club, now attributed to Robert Lukin, 1822

Dialogus Miraculorum, by Caesarius of Heisterbach, early 13^th century

The Ball Game Motif in the Gilgamesh Tradition and International Folklore by Amar Annus and Mari Sarv, January 2015

Second Frutes, by John Florio, 1591

De Corrupti Sermonis Emendatione, Mathurin Cordier (Corderius), 1536

The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England from the Earliest Period, Joseph Strutt, 1801

Anyone For 18^th Century Tennis, Sarah Murden, All Things Georgian. February 2018

Tennis section of The Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes (1st edition published 1890).

Lawn Tennis with the Laws Adopted by the MCC and the AEC&LTC, and Badminton, Julian Marshall, CFA Hinrichs (New York), 1879

The Manual Of British Rural Sports, John Henry Walsh (aka “Stonehenge”), 1856 (1867 edition attached) 

The Game of Lawn Tennis With the Laws Of The Marylebone and All England Clubs, Henry “Cavendish” Jones, De La Rue, 1888 

Lawn Tennis, James Dwight, Wright & Ditson (Boston), 1886 

Wright & Ditson Lawn Tennis Guide, 1894

Racquets, Tennis & Squash, Eustace Miles, D Appleton & Company (New York), 1903

Capping With Handicopes, Roger Pilgrim, Tennis & Rackets Association, 2010

Video Samples Of Real Tennis Shown When Answering Questions