was tutor to the Princess Elizabeth 1548-1550, 

 and filled the same office in 1558 when she 

 became Queen. In his work "The School- 

 master," he avowed his love of cock-fighting 

 and his intention of writing "a Book of the 

 Cock-pit" in which "all kinds of pastimes fit 

 for a gentleman " should be described 



Unfortunately Ascham did not live to carry 

 out his purpose. Camden attributes the poverty 

 in which Roger Ascham passed his later clays 

 to excessive indulgence in cocking and dicing 



George Wilson, to whose work on cocking 

 reference has already been made, appears to 

 have had Stubbes' diatribe in mind when he 

 wrote twenty-four years later. The opening- 

 passages read as though they had been penned 

 in direct refutation of Stubbes' charges. 

 Wilson's book, however, referring as it does to 

 cocking in the days of James I, must be 

 noticed in a fresh chapter 



COCK-FIGHTING IN STUART TIMES 



George Wilson is at pains to declare that 

 the atmosphere of the cock-pit was one of 

 order and fair dealing : 



" In this pleasant exercise there is no 

 collusion, deceit, fraud or cozenino- tolerated, 



