in favour of the license granted, as
follows:--"For when shall the common people have leave to exercise, if
not upon the Sundays and holidays, seeing they must apply their labour,
and win their living in all working days?" Truly, an unanswerable
proposition.

At the same time that these provisions for rational recreation were
made, all unlawful games were prohibited. Conformity was strictly
enjoined on the part of the Puritans themselves; and disobedience was
rendered punishable by expatriation, as in the case of recusants
generally. Such was the tenor of the royal mandate addressed to the
bishop of each diocese and to all inferior clergy throughout the
kingdom. Arbitrary it might be, but it was excellent in intention; for
stubborn-necked personages had to be dealt with, with whom milder
measures would have proved ineffectual. As it was, violent opposition
was raised against the decree, and the Puritanical preachers wore loud
in its condemnation, and as far as was consistent with safety, vehement
in their attacks upon its royal author.

The boon, however, was accepted by the majority of the people in the
spirit in which it was offered, and the licence afforded them was but
little abused. Perfect success, indeed, must have attended the benign
measure, had it not been for the efforts of the Puritanical and Popish
parties, who made common cause against it, and strove by every means to
counteract its beneficial influence: the first because in the austerity
of their faith they would not have the Sabbath in the slightest degree
profaned, even by innocent enjoyment; the second, not because they cared
about the fancied desecration of the Lord's day, but because they would
have no other religion enjoy the same privileges as their own. Thus
sectarianism and intolerance went for once hand in hand, and openly or
covertly, as they found occasion, did their best to make the people
dissatisfied with the benefit accorded them, trying to persuade them its
acceptance would prejudice their eternal welfare.

Such arguments, however, had no great weight with the masses, who could
not be brought to see any heinous or deadly sin in lawful recreation or
exercises after divine service, always provided the service itself were
in no respect neglected; and so the King's decree prevailed over all
sectarian opposition, and was fully carried out. The merry month of May
became really a season of enjoyment, and was kept as a kind of floral
festival