Thus we see that football was played not only in streets and roads, but across country, and that 'tackling' was not only allowable, but that it was an essential feature of the game. In fact from Stubbes' remarks we think it clear that he had frequently played football himself: his remarks therefore are valuable as coming from a 'converted footballer.' He goes on: -

So that by this means sometimes their necks are broken, sometimes their backs, sometimes their legs, sometimes their armes, sometimes their noses gush out with blood, sometimes their eyes start out, and sometimes hurte in one place, sometimes in another. But whosoever scapeth away the best goeth not scot free, but is either forewounded, craised, or bruised, so as he dyeth of it or else scapeth very hardlie; and no mervaile, for they have the sleights to meet one betwixt two (this reminds one of poor Roger Ludforde), to dash him against the hart with their elbowes, to butt him under the short ribs with their griped fists, and with their knees to catch him on the hip and pick him on his neck, with a hundred such murthering devices. (The writer here shows that he knew all about' tackling,' and that there were many well-known dodges.) And hereof (he concludes) groweth envy, rancour, and malice, and sometimes brawling, murther, homicide, and great effusion of blood, as experience daily teacheth. Is this murthering play now an exercise for the Sabaoth day?

One other hostile criticism of football in that age should be mentioned. King James I., in his 'Basilikon Doron, or Manual of Precepts for his Son and Successor,'praises, as we have seen, some other sports as good for the body, but makes a reservation of football. 'From this count,' he says, 'I debar all rough and violent exercise as the football meeter for laming than for making able the users thereof.' King James, however, copied so much of his sentiments from Sir Thomas Elyot that perhaps his views on football were simply borrowed and not original.

Football, however, survived criticism as it had before survived repressive legislation. Throughout the whole of the sixteenth century, and that part of the seventeenth century before Puritanism gained the upper hand, it remained one of the favourite sports of the people. We have already seen in the earlier part of this book how in 1540 the annual football match played on Shrove Tuesday at Chester was discontinued and a foot race substituted. The extract, however, from the Harleian MSS. which gives the information is valuable as showing the extreme antiquity of the game. For the chronicler says that 'it hath been the custom time out of mind for the shoemakers' to deliver to the drapers one ball of leather called a football to play at from thence to the Common Hall of the said city. No doubt the football match on Shrove Tuesday was discontinued for a time, but the game continued to flourish upon other occasions.

About a.d. 1600, football was still in full vigour. Amongst the country sports mentioned by Randel Holme in the lines which we have also quoted before, the Lancashire men challenge anybody to Try it out at football by the shinnes.

Some of their talented successors in the county who have figured at the Oval upon the occasion of the ' Football Jubilee Festival' and elsewhere, are still capable, it appears, of upholding the boast of their bard; but times are changed, and as their association players wear 'shinguards,' the game is no longer tried out by the shins alone. Other and better bards than Randel Holme have spoken of football. Shakspeare in his 'Comedy of Errors,' Act ii., has: -

Am I so round with you as you with me

That like a football you do spurn me thus?

You spurn me hence and he will spurn me hither;

If I last in this service you must case me in leather.

Another extract too from 'King Lear' (Act i. Scene 4) shows that 'tripping' and 'hacking over' were then regular parts of the game.

Lear. Do you bandy looks with me, you rascal?

'Bandy' was originally another name for hockey, and to 'bandy' a ball meant to strike it backwards and forwards, which may account for the context.

Steward. I'll not be strucken, my lord.

Kent. Nor tripped neither, you base football player

(tripping up his heels). Lear. I thank thee, fellow.

Lear's faithful courtier then is made by Shakspeare to understand the art of 'tripping,' which seems significant.

Burton, in his 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' the greater part of which was written early in the seventeenth century, mentions footballs and 'balouns' (i.e. handballs of the size of footballs to be kept up in the air like shuttle-cocks) amongst the common recreations of the country folk; but there is ample evidence that both footballs and baloons were used in the towns as well. In the lines we have referred to before of Neogorgus who was 'Englyshed by Barnabe Googe,' we hear of the universal practice of people to indulge in sports after dinner on Sunday, and amongst the other games of sport we hear that some go

To toss the light and windy ball aloft with hand and foote.

Indeed the game of baloon long enjoyed popularity, and Waller speaks of it with enthusiasm as a winter sport: -

And now in winter when men kill the fat swine

They get the bladder and blow it great, and then

With many beans and peasen put therein

It rattleth, soundeth, and shineth clere and fayre.

While it is thrown and caste up in the ayre

Each one contendeth and hath a great delite

With foot and with hand the bladder for to smite,

If it fall to ground they lift it up again,

And this way to labour they count it no payne.

However, this 'baloon play' is hardly football, although it is just possible that it may have suggested if it did not originate the Association game, where no collaring or catching hold of the antagonist is allowed. To return however to football. In the earlier part of the seventeenth century it is clear that it was not only a country game as Burton describes it, but was played in town also, and even in the streets. Besides the London and Manchester records which we have already quoted, there is a description of London in 1634, by Sir W. Davenant, quoted by Hone in his 'Table Book': -