For ye play so at the chesse,
          As they suppose and guess,
          That some of you but late,
          Hath played so checkmate,
          With Lords of High estate,
        And again,
          Our dayes be datyed,
          To be check matyed.

Many other poets and writers of that age, drew similes and figures of speech from the chess board, including Spencer, Cowley, Denham, Beaumont and Fletcher, quaint Arthur Saul and John Dryden.

Middleton’s Comedy of Chesse, 1624, was acted at the Globe.  It was however a sort of religious controversy, the game being played by a member of the Church of England, and another of the Church of Rome, the former in the end gaining the victory.  The play being considered too political, the author was cast into prison, from which he obtained his release by the following petition to the King.

          A harmless game, coyned only for delight,
          T’was played betwixt the black house and the white,
          The white house won, yet still the black doth brag,
          They had the power to put me in the bag,
          Use but your hand, tw’ll set me free,
          T’is but removing of a man, that’s me.

Philidor states in his work that historians have commemorated the following Sovereigns as chess players:  Charlemagne, Tamerlane, Sebastian, King of Portugal, Philip ii King of Spain, The Emperor Charles V, Catherine of Medecis, Queen of France, Pope Leo X, Henry iv of France, Queen Elizabeth, Louis xiii, James I of England (who used to call the game a philosophical folly,) Louis XIV, William III, Charles XII, and Frederick of Russia.

Of these, Charlemagne, who reigned 768 to 814 is the earliest name.  Tamerlane or Timur who dominated at the end of the 14th century is the next.  The remainder date from the 16th century.

To this list the renowned and esteemed Philidor might have made some very material additions.  If the first Indian account of Kings, Kaid and Porus, in Alexander the Great’s time, is to be relied on, the Macedonian conqueror who was in friendly alliance with Porus in 326 B.C., might have become acquainted with chess, and Aristotle, some time his tutor, may have played it as supposed in one of the Arabian manuscripts.  Chosroes, King of Persia, who reigned from 531 to 579, Harun Ar Rashid, 786 to 809, Al Amin, his first son, 809 to 813, the magnificent Al Mamun, his second son, 813 to 833, Al Mutasem, the most skilful player among the rulers, 833 to 842, and Al Wathick, 842 to 847, the five successive Caliphs of the powerful Abbasside dynasty, during the palmy period called the Golden Age of Arabian Literature, are identified with a very interesting period of chess practice and progress, and are all recorded to have been chess players.  Al Walid the Sixth, of Umeyyah, 705 to 715, who through his generals, Tarik Ibn Zeyyad and Musa Ibn Nosseyr and their armies invaded, conquered and occupied Spain, is the earliest ruler we read of as a chess player after its first great friend and patron Chosroes, but it is pretty certain that Justinian, who died in 565, and was contemporary with Chosroes, was also an exponent and supporter of the game.