NOTE. Offa died 794, Alcuin 804, Harun 809, Charlemagne 814, the
great Al Mamun commenced to reign in 813, and he is undoubtedly
reputed to have been the most mild, humane and enlightened of all
the Khalifs. He was, however warlike also and expressed his
surprise that he could not manage the mimic armies of the chess
board like large forces on the field of battle.
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Canute's great partiality for chess seems well attested. The
three successive royal assassinations recorded in Scandinavian
history associated with chess incidents, need not alone be relied on
and form not the most pleasing reading in connection with our now
innocent, and harmless chess; neither perhaps is it a
recommendation or evidence of the calmness, meditative tranquility
and imperturbability so generally supposed to be incidental to the
game, to repeat the authenticated statement that the son of Okbar
was killed by King Pepin's son through the jealousy and irritation
of the latter at being constantly beaten at chess, or that William
the Conqueror in early days had to beat a precipitate retreat from
France through assaulting the King's son over the chess board,
and a somewhat similar misadventure in early days to Henry I,
and John's unseemly fracas.
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