Page:Elizabethan People.djvu/236

 game is won. The abilities of the players are best displayed in defending and attacking the goals; when the exercise becomes exceeding violent, the players kick each other's shins without the least ceremony, and some of them are overthrown at the hazard of their limbs." It is in the last sentence that Strutt gives the key to the difference between the Elizabethan game and our own. The game was often played with no attention to system or rule of play. In fact, the open street was often a common foot-ball ground, a mark taking the place of a regular goal. We also hear that it was a popular sport of the Londoners and was played in the courtyard of the Royal Exchange. It was a winter as well as a summer sport, and is mentioned as one of the games played upon the frozen Thames in 1608.

Stow-ball and Bandy-ball are both names for the game of golf which was played in Elizabethan times. Hand-ball was the great ball game to be played at Easter; a variety of which was called hand-tennis, which was also sometimes played under the name of fives. Tennis was a very popular game. It was played either out of doors, or indoors under the name of racquet. Tennis or racquet was a game for noblemen and princes as