SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



hand, beyond the gallery connecting the two 

 portions of the royal palace at Westminster, 

 were 'divers fayre Tennis Courts, bowling 

 Alleys and Cockpits, all built by King Henry 

 VIII.' 85 Though it is clearly shown in a map 

 of 1658 by Fordham, no traces now exist of 

 this court, 86 while the site of that erected by 

 Henry VIII at St. James's Palace, in which 

 both Henry Prince of Wales and his brother 

 Charles I are recorded to have played, 97 is 

 also unknown. 98 An order was issued 27 

 July 1649 to 'J nn Hooke, keeper of the 

 tennis court at St. James's ' to deliver the keys 

 to Colonel Thomas Pride ' to enable him to 

 quarter his soldiers there,' and Mr. Marshall 

 suggests that it may have been converted into 

 a sort of guard house or prison. 99 It is, 

 however, referred to as the tennis court at 

 St. James's in a warrant of 19 August, 1729, 

 from the lords of the Treasury to the Clerk 

 of the Pipe with respect to the lease of a piece 

 of ground adjoining it. 100 



Charles II built a new court at Whitehall in 

 1662 the dimensions of which were taken 

 from that at Hampton Court 101 which ap- 

 pears to have been commonly called ' Longs,' 10 ' 

 and an entry of 28 December in that year 

 in Pepys' Diary describes a game, which 

 must have been one of the first played 

 there, by the king and Sir A. Slingsby 

 against Lord Suffolk and Lord Chesterfield. 

 ' The king,' he says, ' beat three and lost two 

 sets, they all, and he particularly playing well 

 I thought.' 103 Recording another game on 

 4 January, 1663, the diarist again says that 

 Charles ' did play very well,' but observes 

 that ' to see how the king's play was extolled 

 without any cause at all was a loathsome 

 sight.' 104 He also mentions 'a great match' 

 at this court, on 2 September, 1667, ' between 

 Prince Rupert and Captain Cooke against 

 Bab May and the elder Chichely, when the 

 king was at the court, and it seems that 

 they are the best players at tennis in the 

 nation.' 105 



In addition to these four royal courts, there 

 were numerous private courts in London during 

 the seventeenth century, nearly all of which 



95 Stow, Surv. (ed. Strype), vol. ii, bk. vi, 6. 

 98 Ann. of Tennis, 65, 66. 



97 Ibid. 76, 79, 8 1. 



98 Ibid. 65, 66. " Ibid. 83 (7). 



100 Cal. of Treas. Books and Paters, i, no. 533, 



P- 133- 



101 Hist, of Hampton Ct. ii, 202, 203. 

 101 Ann. of Tennis, 86. 



103 Memoirs of Samuel Pepys (ed. Lord Braybrooke), 



ii, 1 36. 



104 Ibid. 138. 



105 Ibid, iii, 348. 



seem to have been on the Middlesex side of 

 the river. In 1620, as has been mentioned 

 in treating of archery, 106 James I granted 

 permission to the groom porter of his house- 

 hold, Clement Cottrell, to license fourteen 

 in London and Westminster, 107 but a list of 

 those in existence in 1615 kept by the clerk 

 of the works at Petworth, quoted by Mr. 

 Marshall in his Annals of Tennis, 108 gives ex- 

 clusive of the covered and uncovered courts at 

 Whitehall the following twelve : Somerset 

 House, Essex House, Fetter Lane, Fleet 

 Street, Blackfriars, Southampton Street (Hoi- 

 born), Charterhouse, Powles Chaine 108a , Ab- 

 church Lane, St. Laurence Pountney, Crutched 

 Friars and Fenchurch Street. 



The last-named court belonged to the 

 Ironmongers' Company, who are shown by 

 Mr. Marshall to have sold tennis balls as early 

 as 1489, and as they were doing so in the 

 twenty-sixth year of the reign of Henry VIII 

 may perhaps have included that sovereign 

 among their customers. 109 Evidence of the site 

 of the court in Southampton Street is fur- 

 nished by a place called the Tennis Court, 

 on the south side of Holborn in Northumber- 

 land Court, Old Southampton Buildings. No 

 traces of the others enumerated in the Pet- 

 worth list exist. 110 There was, however, 

 another court not included in it, which was 

 built by the Earl of Pembroke's barber, and 

 attached to a gaming house in James Street, 

 Haymarket. This court appears to have 

 been in existence from 1635 to J.866. 111 

 ' With convenience of situation,' says Mr. 

 Marshall, 112 ' it united great excellence, not 

 only in its proportions but also in the materials 

 of which it was built, the stone of the floor 

 having, as tradition says, been brought from 

 Germany.' Barcella, a noted French player, 

 played in this court in 1802, and in 1829 

 J. Edmond Barre played Philip Cox there at 

 evens and beat him. 113 



The maintenance of the royal courts at 

 St. James's and Whitehall during the early 

 part of the eighteenth century is shown by 

 references, respectively relating to the lease 



106 Ante,?- 290. I07 Rymer, Foedera, xvii, 238. 



108 Op. cit. 79, 80, where their respective dimen- 

 sions are given. 



I08a Powle's Chaine, i.e. Paul's Chain, an old 

 street near St. Paul's. 



Ann. of Tennis, 57. 



110 Ibid. 80. 



111 Ibid. 89. It is now numbered 2-6, Orange 

 Street, Leicester Square, and has been converted 

 into a warehouse for Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall, 

 Hamilton, Kent & Co. 



"' Ibid. 90. 

 111 Ibid. 102. 



291 



