Proceedings
The Games took place in a natural amphitheatre on what is known today as Dover's Hill, then called Kingcombe Plain, above the town of Chipping Campden, in Gloucestershire. They were held on the Thursday and Friday of Whit-Week, or the week of Whitsun, which normally fell between the middle of May and the middle of June. Dover presided over the Games on horseback, dressed ceremonially in a coat, hat, feather and ruff, donated by King James. Horses and men were decorated with Dover's favours, yellow ribbons pinned to a hat or worn around the arm, leg, or neck. Tents were erected for the gentry, who came from the surrounding counties of Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Worcestershire, and food was supplied in abundance. The poet Nicholas Wallington wrote that:
He spares no cost; this also doth affordTo those that sit at any board.
None ever hungry from these Games come home,
Or e'er made plaint of viands, or of room.
A temporary wooden building was constructed each year, called Dover Castle, from which gunfire salutes were sounded during the competitions. Competitors were summoned to the hillside by the sound of a hunting horn, to take part in various sports. Mounted cannons were fired to begin the events, which included horse-racing, coursing with hounds, running, jumping, dancing, sledgehammer throwing, fighting with swords and cudgels, quarterstaff, and wrestling. Prizes included silver trophies for the mounted sports, and perhaps also money for the other events.
The contests were refereed by officials called sticklers, which is the derivation of the phrase "a stickler for the rules". Sticklers were so-named because they carried sticks, with which to safely separate two fighting swordsmen. No scores or times are recorded for any of the events. Portable watches of the time were "rare, costly, and relatively unreliable devices", but perhaps just as importantly "nobody in Dover's time was much interested in sports record-keeping or record-breaking".
Visitors from all strata of society attended, from agricultural labourers to the nobility, some of whom travelled up to 60 miles (97 km) to attend the Games. Prince Rupert attended in 1636.
Read more about this topic: Cotswold Olimpick Games
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