Note.  Offa died 794, Alcuin 804, Harun 809, Charlemagne 814, the great Al Mamun commenced to reign in 813, and he is undoubtedly reputed to have been the most mild, humane and enlightened of all the Khalifs.  He was, however warlike also and expressed his surprise that he could not manage the mimic armies of the chess board like large forces on the field of battle.

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Canute’s great partiality for chess seems well attested.  The three successive royal assassinations recorded in Scandinavian history associated with chess incidents, need not alone be relied on and form not the most pleasing reading in connection with our now innocent, and harmless chess; neither perhaps is it a recommendation or evidence of the calmness, meditative tranquility and imperturbability so generally supposed to be incidental to the game, to repeat the authenticated statement that the son of Okbar was killed by King Pepin’s son through the jealousy and irritation of the latter at being constantly beaten at chess, or that William the Conqueror in early days had to beat a precipitate retreat from France through assaulting the King’s son over the chess board, and a somewhat similar misadventure in early days to Henry I, and John’s unseemly fracas.  It is related that an English knight seized the bridle of Philip Le Gros in battle, crying out, the king is taken, but was struck down by that monarch who observed, “Ne fais tu pas que aux echecs on ne prend pas le roi.”

Among English monarchs, indeed, there are several which may be added to the list presented by Philidor which comprises only Elizabeth; James I and William III, of those omitted Canute, the first William, and perhaps Edwards I and iv, are the most notable before the time of the unfortunate Charles I, whose likeness is in one of the chess books, and whose chess men exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries were preserved in the possession of Lord Barrington.  Items referring to chess are mentioned in expense accounts of Henry vii and Henry VIII.  In a closet in the old royal palace of Greenwich, the last-named had a payre of chess men in a case of black lether—­(Warton).  The celebrated Ras, at Chelicut, was passionately fond of chess, provided he won, Charles the XII was much devoted to the game.  In 1740 Frederick the Great writes:  “Je suis comme le roi et echecs de Charles XII qui marchait toujours.”

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CANUTE

Sir Frederick Madden states in p. 280:  Snorr Sturleson relates an anecdote of King Canute, which would prove that monarch to have been a great lover of the game.  About the year 1028, whilst engaged in his warfare against the Kings of Norway and Sweden, Canute rode over to Roskild, to visit Earl Ulfr, the husband of his sister.  An entertainment was prepared for their guest, but the King was out of spirits and did not enjoy it.  They attempted to restore his