COCKER S MANUAL. 7 1 



but from a fair translation of Julius Ccesar's words, the natives reared 

 fowls for pleasure and diversion, although it was unlawful to eat them. 

 It requires no great stretch of imagination to suppose that the sport 

 was practiced here previous to the Romish invasion. It is true early 

 English history is very reticent on cocking, as well as many more im- 

 portant matters, and but little information can be gleaned from that 

 source, until the 12th century, when it was so common as to be prac- 

 ticed in schools, as we find it has continued to be up to almost the 

 present time. As recently as 1868 Mr. L. G. Fitch, one of the assist- 

 ant school inquiring commissioners, called attention to the fact that 

 the almost obsolete custom of cock fighting is at this moment a pre- 

 text for charging a guinea to the head master and a half guinea to the 

 usher from each scholar at the Ledburgh school in order to provide 

 cocks at Shrovetide for the entertainment of the boys and their 

 parents, adding that the boys have ceased to require any _sport from 

 their masters as an equivalent, and that at other free schools a similar 

 rule prevails. This gratuity has from time immemorial been knowa 

 as the cock-penny, but in many schools and countries the penny has 

 been transformed into a more valuable coin, as at Ledburgh, or in the 

 statistical account of Scotland (Vol. 3 Edinburgh, 1792), the school- 

 master at Appleross, in county Ross, is mentioned as having, amongst 

 other perquisites, the cock-fight dues, equal to one-quarter pay- 

 ment to each scholar. Welsh princes sometimes made presents of 

 game cocks to the English princes and nobility and which were much 

 valued, and within the present century a single county in Wales has 

 publicly challenged all England to fight an annual main for five suc- 

 cessive years for a large sum. I have seen a great many mains fought 

 in Wales and very few plain cocks, a bad one never. 



Early in the 14th century cocking became a royal amusement, and 

 was carried on to that extent that it had to be introduced in the royal 

 household. In the accounts of Henry the VII. is found the following 

 entry: "March 2nd, 7th Henry; item to Master Bray for rewards to 

 them that brought cocks to Westminster at Shrovetide, twenty-five 

 shillings. In the early part of the i6th century a royal pit was added 

 to the palace at Whitehall for the more magnificent exhibition of the 

 sport. Although prohibited by Henry the VIII., as well as by that 

 prince of hypocrites, Oliver Cromwell, a fac simile of whose seal and 

 ^prohibition I now have befare me. Cacking as well as all other sports 



