The Five of Spades and the Church of Ashton-under-Lyne
By John Eglington Bailey, F.S.A.
On the old tower of the church of Ashton-under-Lyne there was formerly an old inscription, which incidently testifies to the popularity of cards in England at a period when the notices of that fascinating means of diversion are both few and of doubtful import. Cards were given to Europe by the Saracens at the end of the fourteenth century, and the knowledge of their use extended itself from France to Greece. The French clergy were so engrossed by the pastime that the Synod of Langres, 1404, forbad it as unclerical. At Bologna, in 1420, S. Bernardin of Sienna preached with such effect against the gambling which was indulged in, that his hearers made on the spot a large bonfire with packs of cards taken out of their pockets. Under the word Χαρτια Du Cange quotes extracts from two Greek writers, which show that cards were popular in Greece before 1498. Chaucer, who died in 1400, and who indirectly depicted much of the every-day life of his countrymen, does not once mention cards. But they begin to be noticed about the time of Edward IV. and Henry VI. The former king prohibited the importation of “cards for playing,” in order to protect the English manufacture of them. An old ale-wife or brewer, in one of the Chester plays or mysteries, is introduced in a scene in Hell, when one of the devils thus addresses her:—
Welcome, deare darlinge, to endless bale,
Usinge cardes, dice, and cuppes smale
With many false other, to sell thy ale
Now thou shalte have a feaste.
A more interesting notice of cards occurs in the Paston Letters, where Margery Paston, writing on “Crestemes Evyn” of the year 1484, tells her husband that she had sent their eldest son to Lady Morley (the widow of William Lovel, Lord Morley), “to hav knolage wat sports wer husyd [used] in her hows in Kyrstemesse next folloyng aftyr the decysse of my lord, her husbond [who died 26th July, 1476]; and sche sayd that ther wer non dysgysyngs [guisings], ner harpyng, ner lutyng, ner syngyn, ner non lowde dysports; but pleyng at the tabyllys, and schesse, and cards: sweche dysports sche gaue her folkys leve to play and non odyr.” The lady adds that the youth did his errand right well, and that she sent the like message by a younger son to Lady Stapleton, whose lord had died in 1466. “Sche seyd according to my Lady Morlees seyng in that, and as sche hadde seyn husyd in places of worschip [i.e., of distinction: good families] ther as [= where] sche hath beyn.” This letter opens up an interesting view of the amusements which at the time were introduced into the houses of the nobility and gentry during Christmas-tide. At that festival cards from the first formed one of the chief amusements. Henry VII., who was a great card player, forbad cards to be used except during the Christmas holidays. Their ancient association with Christmas is seen in the kindness of Sir Roger de Coverley, who was in the habit of sending round to each of his cottagers “a string of hogs’-puddings and a pack of cards,” that good old squire being doubtless of the opinion of Dr. Johnson, who, with a deeper human insight than S. Bernardin and Henry VII., could see the usefulness of such a pastime: “It generates kindness and consolidates society.”
The inscription I have alluded to takes us back to the reign of an earlier English king than those named—Henry V., who reigned 1413–1422. In his time, it seems, viz., in 1413, the steeple of Ashton Church was a-building; when a certain butcher, Alexander Hyll, playing at noddy with a companion, doubtless in the neighbourhood of the church, swore that if the dealer turned up the five of spades he would build a foot of the steeple. The very card was turned up! Hyll, like a good Catholic, performed his promise, and had his name carved, a butcher’s cleaver being put before Alexander, and the five of spades before Hyll. A new tower was erected in 1516, when the church was enlarged; but the stone containing the curious inscription was somewhere retained, for it was visible in the time of Robert Dodsworth, the industrious Yorkshire antiquary, and the projector and co-worker with Dugdale of the Monasticon. Dodsworth, being at Ashton on the 2nd of April, 1639, copied the inscription, stating that it was on the church steeple. He wrote down the tradition, adding that its truth was attested by Henry Fairfax, then rector there, second son of Thomas Fairfax, Baron de Cameron (Dodsworth’s MSS. in Bibl. Bodl., vol. 155, fol. 116). The eldest son of Lord Fairfax was Ferdinando, the celebrated general of the Commonwealth, and the generous patron of Dodsworth. Henry, the younger son, at whose rectory-house Dodsworth was entertained on the occasion of his Lancashire visit, is described by Oley (in his preface to George Herbert’s Country Parson) as “a regular and sober fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge, and afterwards rector of Bolton Percy in Yorkshire.” He held, besides, the rectory of Ashton from, at least, 1623 till 1645, when he was forcibly ejected; and that of Newton Kyme. He was a correspondent of Daniel King, author of The Vale Royal, for he had antiquarian tastes like his brother. He died at Bolton Percy 6th April, 1665. The tower of Ashton Church, as Rector Fairfax knew it, was taken down and re-built in 1818, by which time all recollection of that ancient piece of cartomancy in connection with the steeple had passed out of mind. Let it be hoped that while the tradition was lively, pleasanter things were said of Hyll, when the five of spades was thrown upon the card tables of Ashton, than assailed the name of Dalrymple when the nine of diamonds—the curse of Scotland—came under the view of Tory Scotchmen. We may bestow on Hyll the card-player’s epitaph:—
His card is cut—long days he shuffled through
The game of life—he dealt as others do:
Though he by honours tells not its amount,
When the last trump is played his tricks will count.
“Noddy” is, of course, the very attractive game of “cribbage.” A great aunt of mine still living at Ashbourne, with whom I used to play when a boy, always called it by that name. It is one of the Court games, temp. James I., noticed by Sir John Harrington:—
Now noddy followed next, as well it might,
Although it should have gone before of right;
At which I say, I name not anybody,
One never had the knave yet laid for noddy.
The same is also alluded to in a satirical poem, 1594, entitled, Batt upon Batt:—
Shew me a man can turn up Noddy still,
And deal himself three fives, too, when he will;
Conclude with one and thirty, and a pair,
Never fail ten in Hock, and yet play fair;
If Batt be not that night, I lose my aim.