Tudor Fun and Games

A Guest Post by Claire Ridgway

As well as being obsessed with Anne Boleyn and all things Tudor, I have to confess to being a complete boardgame geek. At the weekend, when the chores and homework are done, we get down to playing board games. You name it; we’ve got it. We have a huge shelving unit and cabinet dedicated to games and piles on the floor in front. We love them!

The Christmas period is the ideal time for playing games in our household, and we generally have at least one game as a Christmas present – we have to try it out! When I was a child, Christmas Eve was Monopoly time. There’s nothing quite like trying to make your opponents bankrupt and arguing over money, property and dice rolls to really celebrate Christmas and bring the family together, is there?! Now, murder or spells are the themes as we play Super Cluedo or Harry Potter Cluedo. We do love those games. Then it’s on to Catan, Scythe, Pandemic, Risk or Ticket to Ride – all brilliant games. When the children were younger, Risk would be guaranteed to bring them to tears – world domination is tough! Just writing this has me itching to get playing!

Sitting down and playing a game together seems to have gone out of fashion with the majority of people. We might play individual games on our phones and devices, or play the odd game with our children on a games console, but for many people sitting around a table over a board game or a pack of cards is a foreign concept. It’s something that our favourite people, the Tudors, would have recognised though. As well as enjoying outside pursuits, the Tudors loved playing board games, dice games and cards, and would often place wagers to make it all a bit more interesting.

When Clare Cherry and I were researching George Boleyn for our biography, we found that in early 1532 George won £60 off the king when he played him at shovelboard. Shovelboard was a game enjoyed by the upper classes of the time and was a game played on a long, narrow table (about 9m in length). Players would slide, or shove, metal weights down the table in an attempt to get them as far down the table as possible, or towards a certain mark, without them falling off. Shovelboard became such a popular pastime that Henry VIII’s government became concerned about it being to blame for the decline in archery practice.

Another game that Henry VIII enjoyed, and one that we see being played in bars here in Spain, is dominoes. In her book How to be a Tudor: A Dawn-to-Dusk Guide to Everyday Life, Ruth Goodman writes of how the king’s privy purse expenses show that in January 1530 Henry VIII lost a whopping £450 playing dominoes – he obviously wasn’t very good at it! He lost a further £100 playing cards. But what card games were played? Well, in 1532, we know that George Boleyn beat the king at Primero, a game that was new to England and which originated in Italy (some say Spain). It is said to be the forerunner of modern poker and was played with a 40 card deck or a standard 52 card deck with the 8s, 9s and 10s removed. Like poker, the aim was to end up with the highest possible hand. Primero became very fashionable and remained in fashion all the way into James I’s reign. Other popular card games at the time include Noddy, a precursor to modern cribbage, and Piquet (also known as Cent), which was a 2-player game and used a 32 card deck.

Dice games were also very popular in Tudor times. Everybody has dice in a cupboard or drawer at home (you know the drawer I mean, the one with all the things that might be useful in it), so why not dig them out this festive period and have some fun with the family? Tudor people certainly had fun with them. Cent was played with two dice and by two players or more. After rolling to see who would go first, players would take it in turns to throw the dice, adding the two numbers together. They would then add on subsequent throws with the first player reaching 100 or more being the winner. You can make the game a bit more interesting by insisting that players get to exactly 100, and being out if they go over. In the game known as Passage, the first player rolls three dice until s/he throws a double. If that double adds up to 10 or more, then s/he is the winner. If the total is exactly 10 then play passes to the next person, and if the total is less than 10 that player is out.

Glückhaus (also known as House of Fortune or Lucky Pig) was played with two dice, some coins and a board with spaces marked with the numbers 2-12 (often marked out in the shape of a house, with the numbers being in “rooms”. Some board are not marked with a 4.). The players take it in turns to throw the two dice. If a player throws a 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 or 11, s/he either places a coin on the empty space, or, if it already has a coin on it, then s/he takes the coin. If a 7 is thrown, the player places a coin on it. This space is known as the “Wedding”. If a player throws a 2 (known as “the pig”), s/he takes all of the coins from the board, except for those on the space marked 7. If a player throws a 12 (“the king”), s/he takes all the coins off the board, including those on 7. If the game was played with a 4 marked, then if a 4 was thrown the player would have put a coin on the 4. With boards missing the 4, we don’t know exactly what was done if a 4 was thrown. The website Boardgamegeek wonders of nothing was done or whether there was some kind of penalty or treat, like “kiss the wench”!

Raffles was a three dice game with scoring similar to poker. The aim of the game was to get all three dice, or at least two of them, landing with the same numbers showing.

The wealthier members of Tudor society would play games like chess and backgammon, but other games were enjoyed by all levels of society. Draughts was popular, as was Nine Men’s Morris, which was also known as Merrils. This game was easy to set up. The two players just needed some kind of counter (stones or coins would do, preferably in two different colours) and a board which could be drawn or marked out in sand or earth. The board or grid comprised twenty-four intersections and each player used nine counters. Players would take it in turns placing their counters on the intersections or points, aiming to get three in a row. If they got three in a row during this first stage, then they could remove one of their opponent’s pieces from play. Once all the pieces had been placed, players took turns sliding their pieces along the lines, still trying to make a row of three. If they got three in a row, again they could remove one of their opponent’s pieces. When one player had only three pieces left, that player could move a counter from any intersection to another one, in an attempt to either make three in a row or to prevent the other player doing so. Play would continue until one player was left with only two pieces in play. The other player would be declared the winner.

Nine Men’s Morris Board

Fox and Geese was another popular board game. It was a two-player game played on a cross-shaped board made up of thirty-three points, all connected by vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines. One player would be the fox (with only one piece), and the other player would control the geese. The fox’s aim was to capture the geese and remove them from the board by jumping over them, and the geese aimed to hem the fox in so that he couldn’t move. You can find out how to make a board and pieces, and learn how to play here.

Port and King was another game played in Tudor times. It was a variant of ground billiards (an outdoor croquet-type game) and was played on a green cloth table, a case of bringing a favourite game inside so that it could be enjoyed all year round.

Why don’t you bring your family together and Google these games for further details or dig out the dice you know are lurking in that drawer somewhere? Have fun!

Claire Ridgway