2-634-599 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

A facsimile of the order for the burning of the Book of Sports, 1643 (1903). The Declaration of Sports was a declaration of King James I of England (1566-1625), issued in 1617, listing the sports and recreations that were permitted on Sundays and other holy days. As the Puritans gained increased influence in Parliament in the run up to the English Civil War, hostility towards the Book of Sports grew. Parliament ordered the book publicly burned in 1643. From London in the Time of the Stuarts, by Sir Walter Besant. [Adam & Charles Black, London, 1903]