Though the contests between the rival champions of Spain and
Italy, were promoted as tests of skill, at the courts of Philip and
Sebastian, and rewarded with a liberality unheard of, since the
days of Chosroes and Al Mamun, and took place during the
contemporary reign of Queen Elizabeth, when chess had become
decidedly fashionable in England, we find no record of the games,
or that any interest or enthusiasm appears to have been evoked by
them in any country except those where they took place. They
seem to have led to no emulation in other parts of Europe, and we
read of no chess competitions of any kind in France, Germany, or
England. It was not till a century later that the debut and
successes of the brilliant Greco the Calabrian, in Paris, began
to cause a little more chess ambition in France and gave the
ascendancy in the game to that country which it still held in
Legalle and Philidor's time in 1750, and continued to maintain
until the matches of 1834, between Alex. McDonnell of Belfast
and the famous Louis de La Bourdonnais of Paris, followed in 1843
by Staunton's victory over M. S. Amant, first advanced British
claims to a first class position in chess, and left our countryman
Staunton the admitted world's champion in chess, until the title
was wrested from him by Professor Anderssen of Breslau, in the
International tournament held in London during the Exhibition
year 1851.
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