SPORTS, Boon OF, the name popularly given to a declaration issued by James I. of England in 1618, to signify his pleasure that on Sundays, after divine service, "no lawful recreation should be barred to his good people, which should not tend to the breach of the laws of his kingdom and the canons of his church." The sports specified were dancing, archery, leaping, vaulting, May-games, Whitsunales, morrice-dances, and the setting up of May poles. The occasion of this proclamation was the conduct of some Pnritain authorities in Lancashire, who, in illegally suppressing, instead of reel lating, the customary recreations of the common people, had excited much discontent, and increased the influence of the Roman Catholics by giving a repulsive aspect to the reformed religion. Although the declaration was ordered to be read in the parish churches of the diocese of Chester, this order was not enforced, and the king's design was alloWed to drop. Among the excepted unlawful sports were bear-baiting,
ing, bowling, and interludes. Non-conformists and others not attending divine service at church were prohibited from joining in the sports, nor was any one allowed to go out of his own parish for that purpose, or to carry offensive weapons. By republishing this declaration in 1633, and enforcing with'great severity the reading of it by the clergy in their churches (see SABBATH), Charles I. and Laud excited among the Puritans a degree of indignation which contributed-not a little to the downfall of the monarchy church. In 1644 the long parliament ordered all copies of it to be called in and publicly Hist. of the Sabbath and Life of Laud, Fuller's Church _History, D'Isra eli's Life of James L, Southey's Book of the Church, Hallam's Constitutional History of England, and Cox's Literatilre of the Sabbath Question.