This legal violation of the day which is unequivocally the Christian
Sabbath, roused at the time the indignation of the seriously disposed,
and has been frequently reprobated by historians. Foremost of its
opposers, and eminent in example, stands the virtuous and firm
Archbishop Abbot, who, being at Croydon the day it was ordered to be
read in churches, flatly forbade it to be read there; which the King was
pleased to wink at, notwithstanding the daily endeavours that were used
to irritate the King against him. The _Book of Sports_ is not, however,
without its apologists among modern writers. The following are Mr
D'Israeli's remarks on the subject:--"The King found the people in
Lancashire discontented, from the unusual deprivation of their popular
recreations on Sundays and holidays after the church service: 'With our
own ears we heard the general complaint of our people.' The Catholic
priests were busily insinuating among the lower orders that the Reformed
religion was a sullen deprivation of all mirth and social amusements,
and thus 'turning the people's hearts.' But while they were denied what
the King terms 'lawful recreations' (which are enumerated to consist of
dancing, archery, leaping, vaulting, May-games, Whitsun-ales,
morris-dances, and the setting up of Maypoles, and other manly sports),
they had substituted some vicious ones.
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