Hello and welcome to the Renaissance English History podcast. My name is Heather Tesco,

and I'm your host for this journey back in time to 16th century England.

In my last episode, I gave a very basic background on the history of the Renaissance as a movement within Europe.

I hope it was beneficial in laying the groundwork for our understanding of what life was like for the average person living in the 1500s.

I said that this week I would be focusing more

on the history of the Tudors as a dynasty and the stability they brought to England after

several generations of civil wars and violent transitions of power. But I'm going to switch things up a

little bit and save part one, of many, I'm sure, of the tutors for next time.

I've decided to alternate episodes on facts and figures with ones focusing on different

aspects of what life was like in Renaissance England. This week is all about fun and games,

especially cricket. I thought to do an episode on cricket because I've been watching The

Ashes on Sky Sports. For those of you who don't know, the Ashes is a cricket series between

England and Australia held every two years. It extends over five test matches and each test

match lasts five days. So it's 25 days of cricket, and my husband can't get enough of it.

I've always known that cricket is a very old game.

The Ashes themselves as a series date back well over 130 years.

But I didn't know that the origins of cricket go way back to early medieval times,

and it was a children's game for most of its early history.

Henry VIII himself may have played it as a child. There is a bit of evidence that Edward I

second played it, and that was in the early 14th century. For those of you who aren't up on the

rules of cricket, very simply explained, there is a bowler, equivalent to a pitcher in baseball, and a batter.

Behind the batter are the stumps. The bowler attempts to hit the stumps with the ball, and the batter tries to bat the ball away and protect the stumps.

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