S., and from the Shahnama applicable to Alexander
the Great's time, and the Indian Kings in treaty with him.
The commonly accepted theory, that England first got chess
through William of Normandy at the Conquest or on the return
of the first Crusaders (in the latter case about 1100 A.D.),
though concurred in with tolerable unanimity by all writers until
Sir Frederic Madden raised his doubts in 1828 also appears scarcely
consistent with previous incidents found on record. Canute's
partiality for chess (he reigned 1017 to 1035) events mentioned
in the reigns of Athelstan and Edgar and the chess pieces and
boards we read of including those dug up at the Isle of Lewis,
and of Pepin, Charlemagne, Harfagia, King of Norway, and in
Iceland seem to be unnoticed or too slightly regarded by those
who wrote on assumed Saxon or English chess, first knowledge.
The period assigned for chess in England is 500 years later than its
arrival in Persia, and subsequent receipt in Arabia, and probably
in Greece, and nearly 400 years after its practice among the
Spaniards, the Aquitaines and the Franks. The Saxon monarchs
who first became most given to the search after knowledge of all
kinds and who were acquainted with and contemporary with
Pepin and Charlemagne and Harun and the great Al Mamun may
well have heard of and acquired some knowledge of a game so
popular as chess had become at the Carlovingian and Greek
Courts, and in the Eastern dominions and Mohammedan Spain.
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