DEVONSHIRE WRESTLERS
WRESTLING was the favourite sport in former days in Devonshire and Cornwall. Evelyn, in his Diary, speaks of Westcountrymen in London contesting in London against men of the North, and in all cases the former were the victors. And Ben Jonson, in his Bartholomew Fair, 1614, introduces a Western wrestler, who performed before the Lord Mayor of London.
If we may judge by As You Like It, wrestling in the Elizabethan period was a murderous sport. Charles, the wrestler, plays with an old man's three sons. "The eldest of the three wrestled with Charles—which Charles in a moment threw him, and broke three of his ribs, and there is little hope of life in him, so he served the second, and so the third." When Le Beau laments that Rosalind and Celia had not seen the sport, Touchstone wisely remarks, "Thus men grow wiser every day! It is the first time that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport for ladies."
At Marytavy, in the churchyard, is the tombstone of John Hawkins, blacksmith, 1721:—
Here buried were some years before,
His two wives and five children more:
One Thomas named, whose fate was such
To lose his life by wrestling much.
Which may a warning be to all
How they into such pastimes fall.
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