Dicing with Destiny Games Britannia

'Some of my earliest memories are of games.

'I come from a big, boisterous farming family,

'and during times of festive captivity,

'card and board games were seen as a way of

'diverting restless energies and restoring a little domestic harmony.

'It didn't always work out.

'There was the time my angelic little brother,

'barely eight years old,

'called our aged aunt the C-word

'for taking a card off him in Racing Demon.

'And there were always epic arguments

over who would be the racing car

'and who would end up getting the boot in Monopoly.

'But gathered there, in the warmth of the living room,

'squatting on the carpet like worshippers in a temple,

'the fire throwing warmth and light onto the scene -

'in that precious moment, there was always a hope

'that we would get through the game without having a row.

'That luck would bless us, and if not,

'well, we would all know it was just a game.'

My name's Benjamin Woolley.

I'm a biographer and historian, and in the books that I write

it's the rich and famous who usually take centre stage.

But there's another history. One in which WE are the players.

It's both intimate and epic.

It casts new light into the hidden corners of our past.

It's the history of the games we play.

'Games Britannia is a 2,000-year romp

'that tells the story of these islands through its games.

'Games that are played for fun, for friendship,

'for intellectual challenge, for education and often for money.

'They're played everywhere. In pubs, living rooms, schools, casinos -

'even churches.

'With stones in the sand,

'and on high definition consoles and screens.

'Today's state-of-the-art games use technology NASA would be proud of.

'They offer a vision

'of an amazing, exciting,

'scary future.

'But there's nothing new in this.

'Games are not just fun, but fundamental.

'This is a journey that takes us into the information age,

'but begins 2,000 years ago in the Iron Age.

'In 1996, here at the Stanway sand and gravel quarry

'just off the A12 to Colchester,

'an archaeological team began a series of excavations.

'This area of East Anglia

'is littered with Iron Age and early Roman sites,

'and aerial photographs had revealed the outline

'of five ancient ditched enclosures

'in the line of the advancing quarry face.

'What the archaeologists uncovered took their breath away.'

Somewhere round here, they found a grave

dating back to the time of the Roman invasion in AD43.

It was packed full of precious relics,

what appeared to be a set of divining rods,

an amulet or brooch

and one of the best-preserved ancient surgical kits

found anywhere.

That alone was enough to make it

one of the most exciting Iron Age findings of recent times.

But there was something else.

Something the archaeologists had never seen before.

Right in the middle, laid out like a sacred relic,

was a set of beautifully preserved glass gaming pieces.

It was a board game, frozen in the midst of play.

'It was the earliest complete gaming set

'ever to be discovered in Britain, but it posed quite a puzzle.

'Here was a game trapped in time,

'its owner challenging us to make a move after 2,000 years -

'but what were the rules?

'There's a chance that if we can figure them out,

'we might not only bring the game back to life,

'but get a glimpse of the long-lost world in which it was played.

'So, my first mission is to take a replica of the board

'to a master of the games universe and curator of games

'here at the British Museum, Dr Irving Finkel.

'He has devoted a lifetime

'to trying to figure out how ancient games work.

'And so I want to see if he can unravel the mystery

'surrounding the game in the quarry,

'and what its discovery means for Games Britannia.'

In my view it's one of the criteria

whereby you can really say this is homo sapiens, in a way.

You know, monkeys play with twigs

but not board games - they don't have an abstraction

where an army is reduced to miniature

and you have a strategy, and dice.

In the animal kingdom

you get play, but you don't get games.

And games, I think, really are one of the sort of boxes to tick

when you're saying these are human beings like us.

So what kind of games were there?

Well, you can have a war game,

the family of which chess is like the highest version,

where you have two armies competing

and they try to kill one another or take one another.

This is probably that sort of thing.

Yes, but it seems to have two groups ranged against each other.

Absolutely. If it's not led by dice, then it must be a strategy game

whereby there's an innate system here whereby blue can take white.

'The similarity of the "Stanway game" to a Roman strategy game

'led many experts to believe

'that both the game and its owner were Roman.

'But there was a particular anomaly that I wanted to put to Dr Finkel.'

Right in the middle there was the discovery of a little...

The odd thing is it's actually smaller than the main beads.

It was found in the middle.

That's right. There's evidence from early British sources

that there was a group of games which are sometimes called Tablut.

You have unequal sides in this kind of tradition,

and it does suggest to me

that one probably has to discard looking for a Roman precedent

and see this as more likely to be a pre-Roman British game, if you like,

which was still being played.

'This is an intriguing finding.

'The game's sophistication suggests the ancient Britons who played it

'were far more advanced than was previously thought.

'It also lays down a marker for the origins of Games Britannia.

'So far, we know that the game in the grave was British,

'but not why it was there.

'Perhaps the identity of the owner might help.

'Was he a champion of some sort with the board as his trophy?

'Was the game simply a form of entertainment

'to amuse him in the afterlife?

'Was he expecting eternity to be dull?

'To delve deeper,

'I've arranged to examine the other contents of the grave.'

The pieces were laid out ready to play,

and then they put his remains on the board.

That's a statement about the significance of the board,

the role of this board in this man's life.

Then the divining rods, the surgical equipment,

the rings, whatever they were, were laid on and around it.

But underneath it all is the board.

In combination all these things add up to somebody who had ritual power,

who had possibly divinatory power.

This is somebody who is more of a priest,

and for want of a better word is probably a druid.

'If he was that most enigmatic of ancient Britons, a druid,

'then it's likely that the game would have been used

'as part of his priestly practices, for prophecy or divination.'

So, imagining a scenario, maybe he could have played

the king at the game

to see whether the king would win or lose a forthcoming battle...?

Exactly that, or the future successions, say, of a chief.

Decisions that affected the course of early British history

could have been taken on this game board.

'At the time of the game's entombment,

'this area was the last stronghold of a tribe of Britons

'called the Catuvellauni,

'under siege from legions of marauding Roman invaders.

'In this era of great military upheaval,

'could the configuration of pieces on the board

'represent the unfolding story of one such momentous engagement,

'trapped in time?'

It's a great story -

impossible to verify, of course, but it tells us something crucial

about the history of Games Britannia.

We keep being told as kids, "It's just a game" -

when it's not just a game, it's hardly ever just a game.

At least for the ancients,

it was a way of exploring ourselves, our world...even our destiny.

'As a farm boy brought up in rural Sussex,

'I hadn't had much experience of city life or the wider world.

'You could say I was bit of a bumpkin.

'I knew that London's Mayfair was smarter than Whitechapel Road.

'I knew that Irkutsk and Kamchatka were in eastern Russia,

'and that if Napoleon and Hitler had played Risk as I had,

'they'd have realised the folly of invading Russia

'while engaged in western Europe.

'I also knew from a board game

'that diplomacy and deceit go hand in hand,

'and I knew that swanky houses had libraries and billiard rooms.

'Today, teenage boys play video games.

'Just like board games, they're a way of opening up a wider world

'to simulate events, play out scenarios and scenes

'beyond our immediate experience.

'In a cutting-edge game like Grand Theft Auto,

'the young Londoner can go joyriding,

'or fly a helicopter over New York.'

When I fly I go round the whole city,

and just look at everything.

The Statue of Liberty...

It's based around New York,

and you can land anywhere within the little city and cause havoc.

RAPID GUNSHOTS

-GAME CHARACTER:

-Stay down.

'Games have always been a sort of laboratory to investigate the world,

'the universe, ourselves -

'even 1,000 years ago,

'when the knowledge available to the games master

'came solely from the Bible.'

You may not even have heard of King Athelstan.

His 15-year reign in the middle of the tenth century

never acquired the legendary status that his grandfather Alfred managed

by burning some cakes.

But this man was the first king of all Britain since the Romans.

He was also a generous patron of the arts and scholarship.

'And for tenth-century Athelstan,

'games were as vital to his court

'as Grand Theft Auto is to a modern teenager.'

These beautifully illuminated gospels

shine a brilliant light into this extraordinary period of history.

It's an early Bible, if you like, it's Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

And as one leafs through these,

another page appears and we get this.

It's like a mystical, magical, medieval code.

"Alea evangelii, the game of the Gospels.

"Taken from England from the Court of Athelstan,

"King of the English."

Here we have the game,

set out with all the pieces in various different places...

This board game

was like a map of a religion.

'With the help of medieval historian Dr David Howlett,

'we're going to try to get to grips with this game,

'by playing a simplified version of Alea evangelii.'

-OK, so these are the defenders... and who's he?

-He's the king.

His job is to get from the centre of the board

to any one of the four corners,

and he'll be attacked by twice as many men as he has defenders.

A piece is captured

by being surrounded on two sides.

OK, if this piece was here...

right, and then that happens,

then this piece would go. Right.

That's ancient Tafl.

What we see in this game

is the imposition of a quite complicated intellectual system

on to an already existing board game.

You say quite complicated -

we're talking about astonishingly complicated.

I mean, we're talking about

hundreds and hundreds of correspondences in the Gospels.

I mean, it's almost like,

I don't know, taking a draughts board and using it

to understand the periodic table.

Well, periodic "table" - Tafl. It's the same.

It's a visual means of aiding abstract thought.

-Right.

-You'll see this sign over here that says,

"Signifiat haec figura."

This figure should signify on the game board the Passion of Christ.

-BELL RINGS

-OK. So, as the bell tolls...

let play commence.

'In this game, I'm playing red,

'attempting to escort the king to the safety of the corners.

'But within minutes, David has my king almost surrounded.'

Oh, hemmed in...

'The four corners represent the four evangelists,

'Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

'And I began to wonder if the game was somehow symbolic

'of good versus evil,

'the journey of the king, like the safe passage of a soul to heaven.'

It's such a different game, isn't it,

because you each have a unique role.

I don't think there's another board game quite like it in modern times.

Is there? Sorry...

OK. Er...

So, let's get this one out.

One of the things that strikes me about...I mean, all of this,

and the game and everything,

is that there's an extraordinary sort of numerical abstract

way of thinking

that one doesn't necessarily associate with the medieval mind.

That's a defect in OUR understanding of them.

Number was absolutely central for them.

Rather like the DNA chain for us. That beautiful, elegant double helix

gives us a mental picture of the structure of the universe.

And for them, number did that.

So, a game that involves learning how to manipulate 650 numbers

on a little board that has 18 squares a side and 72 players -

that fits.

'Whilst I was distracted by the intricacies of medieval numerology,

'David sneaked in a move that caught me off guard.'

Did he get both of them?

Surrounded.

'Let's see that again. Did he really take two pieces in one move?

'OK, I'll let him have that one.

'But despite David's dexterity, within a few moves

'I had not only managed to extricate my king from his clutches

'but was making a dash towards the safety of St Luke.'

-You can't land on there.

-No.

I think I might have done something there.

-I have a horrible suspicion...

-No.

I thought I had it there!

'As we became increasingly absorbed by the game,

'I began to get a glimpse of how the medieval mind might have worked,

'each move resonating with some divine correspondence.

'As I stared at the board, I could imagine the patterns

'that related the game to the forces of nature -

'the movement of the stars, the shapes of the clouds,

'the ticking of a clock.

'In that moment, I no longer had any thoughts of winning or losing -

'I was now in the zone.'

Yeah - no, I've got it.

Ah! So you can do...

And he goes into the corner.

-If I had done that I'd have taken the two.

-Exactly.

That's...

-Anyway, thank you.

-Thank you.

'Despite its complex numerological and spiritual underpinnings,

'I found Alea evangelii surprisingly exciting to play.

'But by the end of the 13th century, it had been overtaken by an influx

'of secular newcomers that have stayed with us to this day.

'This is when chess, draughts and backgammon

'made their way into Games Britannia.

'They came via an extraordinary illuminated tome completed in 1282

'called Libro de los juegos, The Book Of Games.

'It was compiled by the Spanish king, Alfonso X.

'But the games he described weren't European in origin -

'they came from the east.'

This is part of a wider transmission of Arabic literature,

or Arabic translations,

into the European consciousness, which applies with medicine

and other sorts of disciplines. It's part of that kind of world.

'Alfonso began his book with a parable about an Indian king

'who was discussing with three wise men the nature of things.'

And in particular, whether it was a person's luck or wits

that was most important in shaping their life.

In answering this riddle, they used different games

to represent opposing philosophical positions.

The first wise man argued for games of chance, like dice,

because we live in a pre-ordained universe

and should trust our destiny to luck.

We would call him a fatalist.

Why would something...

having a luck factor make it a good game?

Isn't the ultimate game one that is pure skill?

'The second argued for games of skill like chess

'because life was there to be lived, purely according to our wits.

'He believed that we were blessed with free will.'

Yes, but I mean, life is full of luck as well as skill.

It reflects that aspect of it.

'The third said that the best game

'was one that was a perfect balance of luck and skill.

'So a game that used both the chance element of dice

'and the strategic movement of pieces like chess

'was the perfect analogy for life itself.'

The game always speed up around this point, as well.

'The game he proposed was backgammon.'

There is an element of risk. Am I going to take it? I've got to.

Double six wins it.

It's on the last...

It's on the last one. I wonder if I'll get it?

-Get it in one.

-Oh, yes.

Thank you very much. There was a great game.

-No, it wasn't.

-It was for me.

So far, the story of Games Britannia has been all about working out

the meaning of life in the universe,

but isn't there something else about games, something a bit more obvious?

Games are something fun to play.

They're also a great way of wasting time.

A few pebbles, put a crossing on a stone or on the earth itself,

and you could play the game very happily.

Some form of game exists in every culture and every era because humans

have one weakness that animals, as far as we know, don't.

The propensity to get bored.

This instinct to play games simply to pass the time

is deeply ingrained in Games Britannia.

We also know that during the 14th century

this happened in the least likely of places.

Our great medieval cathedrals have many architectural wonders in common

but they share something else,

the secret marvel that lies not overhead,

but underfoot.

What have we got?

'In Norwich, Canterbury, Gloucester, Westminster Abbey...'

Oh, there we are.

'..and here in Salisbury,

'someone's been playing games.'

Just the faintest outline.

We seem to have another one...yeah.

The characteristic outline there

although the lines in it make it rather indistinct.

There's just an enormous variety, it's a medieval Monte Carlo in here.

In the cloisters people would have been waiting a long time,

in some cases, to see the Bishop or the hierarchy of one kind or another

with disputes, all sorts of things.

Church played a very important part in the life of the people.

I mean, this one's extraordinary.

It's a bit mysterious, it looks like a draughts board.

It's got these diagonal lines and these points here.

I mean, nobody really knows what game that is.

These would be games that they would do while they were waiting.

Otherwise, you'd have a riot on your hands! They've got to do something.

This is perhaps the most popular of them.

You see this one more than any other and it's called Nine Men's Morris,

very clearly identifiable by these squares within squares.

There are various versions of it.

This seems to have been the most popular game.

The principle behind Nine Men's Morris is one we all know.

It's essentially noughts and crosses

and the basic aim is to get three counters in a row.

It's literary true that you can find that game anywhere.

I should think almost anywhere.

A rock in the middle of the Atlantic will have this damn game on it.

So my own feeling is,

that the occurrence of the grid for Nine Men's Morris,

in its distribution, is to be explained by the fact

that this is a natural thing to happen.

You have a square and you put cross lines or diagonal lines in it

to make it more interesting.

It seems to me the sort of procedure

that could spontaneously happen in many different places.

In other words, if it was found on the moon, I wouldn't bat an eyelid.

Church historian David Sherratt has even discovered

a game grid carved on to a tomb inside the church.

Very feint and shallow scratching.

That of St Osmund, the 11th-century Bishop of Salisbury

and Lord Chancellor of England, no less.

Now this might seem sacrilegious, but what the hell, let's play.

A bit like noughts and crosses,

we try and get an alignment of three pieces.

Once I have got three pieces in alignment,

I can take one of your pieces off.

So you start and let's see what this is like.

Right, OK.

All right, so I've obviously got to put one there

to stop you getting a line.

It's a fast game, Ben.

OK, I'll speed up a bit.

I managed to distract you there.

I've got a line and I can now take one of your pieces off.

So I'll take that piece off.

The Church's attitude to these Games,

I mean, the sheer quantity suggests that they weren't really banned

or that there was a fairly loose attitude towards them, doesn't it?

Well, at a guess, I would suspect, pretty tolerant, but do remember

that the medieval Church had feast days.

And we have All Fools, the ceremonies of the Boy Bishop,

they were up to all sorts of things.

There was leisure and they were playing these games

as part and parcel of a rather pleasant life.

A picture at odds with what many people would think

about medieval life.

It suggests that there was quite a lot of playfulness going on here.

They certainly enjoyed themselves.

I mean, life was very short for most of them.

-And these games provided some sort of relief.

-Yes.

So, if I move there...

I think you're trapped.

Well, in the words of the profits, I am benighted. Thou hast won.

Thank you you very much. Thank you for the game.

It was very exciting.

Nine Men's Morris was a bit like a medieval Game Boy.

A game designed to help pass the time harmlessly enough.

I'll have a pint, please.

It reveals the diverting, sometimes enlightening,

often challenging, but essentially benign influence

of games over the lives of our ancestors.

But there was another game.

A game Chaucer described as being played in the devil's temples.

It was said that it was the making of a man

or it undid him in the twinkling of an eye

and they called it hazard.

In the 14th century,

the word we now use to denote danger of any kind meant this game.

Like chess, hazard seems to have been an import from the East,

perhaps brought by Crusaders returning from Palestine.

My name will be seven.

'Whatever the route, once it had arrived, it wreaked havoc.

'Luring players, as one of Chaucer's characters put it,

'to do service for the devil.

'So, what was so dangerous about it?

'Simple, gambling.'

Lots of people have always thought that dice were the work of the devil.

Dice are wonderful for cheats,

with lead loaded in and corners shaved and all these sorts of things.

Even archaeologically, there was little bag of dice

that came out of the Thames where most of them are loaded.

Obviously, some trickster was caught and then threw them in the river.

I think many people associate dicing with decline, ruin,

and all sorts of other things like that.

Lost! Bad luck.

I'm here with a bunch of local reprobates who have

agreed to come along and test out this game to see what it's like.

There's your main and chance.

It's quite a complicated game,

but we are starting to get a feel for what it's like.

Our friend Nev has done extremely well.

It's your go.

Have a go for five.

'Players gamble on the outcome of throws of the dice.'

Right, OK, so 10 is your chance...

-And five is my main.

-Five is your main.

Chance is what you want.

-You don't want your five.

-You want your ten.

'With each round, you have to bet more and more to stay in the game.'

Put some more money in.

'The bigger the pot grows, the more difficult it is to pull out

'until eventually everything hangs on a single throw.'

Five!

He's lost, OK, we get the money.

OK.

'Hazard was condemned by the Church.

'Not just because it attracted low-life and scoundrels

'but because here was a game

'that was not simply about passing the time or intellectual challenge.

'Throwing dice was a deadly serious business for the Church,

'a bit like the Stanway game for the Druids,

'a way of working out your fate.'

In biblical terms, lots are cast to determine the will of God.

And for doing something as trivial as gaming,

that is not an appropriate use of trying to determine the will of God.

The way in which they fall determines who gets the benefit,

who gets the advantage and therefore whom fate or God favours.

In the Bible, you find that lots are used to decide who does what.

And that is a serious matter - to find out who should be responsible

for doing something or who should be sacrificed.

But just to find out who's going to win a few pence

by rolling a few dice seems too trivial a thing to be

calling on the will of God to determine.

That's nine, three each, please, gentlemen.

My seven.

-I believe I have lost.

-You have indeed.

It's been very nice playing with you.

I hope you enjoyed it. You think it's a good game? Good game?

As I've discovered it's a very good way of losing some money.

You did it very graciously.

By the 18th century, the problem of gambling had become

one of the most important social and political issues of the day.

In 1784, a pamphlet appeared on the streets of London

urging its readers to lay an axe to the root of gambling.

To this dreadful vice could the loss of America be ascribed.

To this dreadful vice could all the misfortunes

that had lately fallen on this country be attributed.

Seems a bit tough.

Britain had just lost the American War Of Independence.

Something had led

to one of the great humiliations of British imperial history.

But gambling?

It's hard to imagine the mania for speculation

that gripped the country in the second half of the 18th century.

It was as though everything was up for grabs.

Fortunes were made overnight on shares

traded in the East India and South Sea companies.

Fortunes were also lost on the turn of a card

as the gaming tables of London

were laden with the huge inheritances of aristocrats.

This club, Crockfords, was at they epicentre

of the speculative mania gripping Britain.

It was London's leading gambling hell,

to use a popular term at the time.

Its members were fabulously wealthy and powerful.

People like the Duke of Wellington and Benjamin Disraeli.

I'm about to play the game that more than any other

proved to be the most dangerous and alluring - faro.

Toffs love gambling because they are already born lucky.

They're not born into a life containing an awful lot of risk.

That's my theory anyway.

I've started off.

'Faro is a game of pure chance,

'but even simpler than roulette.

'13 cards, ace to king,

'are pasted onto the table

'and the players bet

'on however many cards they like.

'The bank then deals from another full deck of cards.'

The banker will turn over one card to their right

which is the losing card for players,

the winning card for the bank. And one card to the left,

which is the winning card for the players.

I'm noticing immediately that the house seems to be offering us

a completely clean 50/50, no edge,

which makes me think I wish casinos offered it now.

I'd play it all the time. It's absolute madness.

I'm afraid you lost two, but you also won two on the second card.

Excellent. OK. So I'll leave that there, I think.

'With such attractive odds for the gambler,

'winning could be as dangerous as losing,

'a very astute strategy by the casinos.'

Obviously what they will be relying on is that you, a sick gambler,

having won your bet, will then stick it on more numbers

-and sit there until you lose.

-Which I'm tempted to do.

That will be the night you go home

and tell your wife you signed the house away.

And that's exactly what happened to those who became addicted to faro

in the Georgian era.

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, lost her entire fortune

and had to flee to France to escape her creditors.

You've confessed in your blog

that you've actually had a run of bad luck.

I'd been on a losing streak. Of course, mathematically,

something can only be a losing streak in retrospect.

There's no such thing as a phase of bad luck.

-It doesn't lie ahead of you.

-Of course it doesn't.

-Scientifically.

-You look back and it is one.

Whilst the aristocratic parliamentarian Charles James Fox

was bankrupted twice at the tables,

he famously said that winning was the greatest pleasure in life

and losing was the second greatest.

There's a nine. I had my money there.

Ah, there we go.

So you won in that one card more than I think I've staked so far.

There you go. What are you going to do with it?

When you're winning you've got to press up.

There we go. Plenty more jacks to come.

So, the upshot of that...

Well, if we compare piles,

I think it's fairly obvious what the upshot of that is.

-I got lucky.

-You got lucky.

By the beginning of the 19th century,

it wasn't just the Church

but the emerging middle classes who had gambling in their sights.

The middle classes will look to... you know, up and down to disapprove.

They'll look to the upper classes and think they're louche,

the lower classes and think they're common.

Since both sides gamble, it's just absolutely ripe for people,

who make their living

writing little pen sheets to be handed out in coffee houses

or tabloid newspapers, to tut.

Work was the way to make money, gambling was for degenerates.

Games Britannia was changed forever

when a sensational trial opened in 1823 which ignited moral panic.

In the dock was one James Thirtle

who stood accused of murder most foul motivated by gaming.

On the evening of 24th October 1823,

Thirtle, the son of the mayor of Norwich and a compulsive gambler,

drove out of London with one William Weir,

a gambling associate, for a weekend of playing games and shooting

in the Hertfordshire countryside.

In the back, Thirtle

had packed his shotgun and a backgammon board.

When they reached a quiet country lane, Thirtle came to a stop.

He pulled a gun and shot Weir point blank in the face.

Thirtle was arrested a few days later

and charged with Weir's murder.

As the details emerged in the court,

the case aroused unprecedented interest.

Thirtle had not only shot his victim but slit his throat

and rammed the barrel of his gun into Weir's face to finish him off.

But worst of all, the blood-curdling attack

was the result of a £300 gambling debt.

Thirtle was found guilty and hanged on 9th January 1824.

The public reaction to Thirtle's execution was extraordinary.

While his warm body was still being dissected

at the Royal College Of Surgeons,

London's West End theatres

rushed plays about the crime into production,

with titles like The Gambler

and The Hertfordshire Tragedy or The Victims Of Gaming.

Hundreds of thousands of pamphlets sold on the city streets

helped stir up a sense of terror and outrage

which culminated with the passing of the Gaming Act in 1845.

This was to regulate gambling for the next century and a half.

In the wake of the Industrial Revolution, Britain's moral compass

was reset according to the emerging values of Middle England.

The poet Oliver Goldsmith wrote a poem called The Deserted Village

rhapsodising on a rural world

about to be swept away by the Industrial Revolution.

"Times are altered, trade's unfeeling train

"usurp the land and dispossess the swain

"Along the lawn where scattered hamlets rose

"unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose."

He reminisces about the more domestic pleasures

of the village life he saw disappearing.

"The whitewashed wall, the nicely sanded floor

"the varnished clock that clicked behind the door

"The pictures placed for ornament and use

"The twelve good rules the royal game of goose."

Five.

One, two, three, four, five.

England and most of Great Britain had become Protestant.

And the ideas...

coming down through the Puritans and the non-conformists

of the 17th century were still very, very prominent.

They worked hard to get their money,

looked after their families and so on.

It was all very much that way of life.

So the game fitted in brilliantly.

You could just do this,

you could pinpoint exactly what was bad and what was good.

The game of goose

was the quintessential Victorian parlour game,

fit for the whole family.

Oh, got a goose!

We've got 12 counters each here

and we need to put about six into the central pool.

So why are we using this spinning top?

It's a replacement for dice

because during the 18th and early part of the 19th century

dice were considered evil things for children to play with.

So they were issued with this, which has the numbers round the outside.

It's no different, is it?

-Of course.

-It's pure chance.

It's just chance.

Five. So, this is a picture of a sailor.

They were designed to teach basic behaviour and being nice.

-One...which means I've landed on the tavern.

-Yes.

It sounds a good thing but actually it's a bad thing

-because I have to pay...

-Pay.

Pay a token and apparently I miss two go's.

The goal of the game is a state of virtue

and there's all the temptations put in your path.

The big ones are greed and just doing naughty things generally.

The virtues are very much more difficult because, you know,

being nice to people and so on, is not necessarily a human trait.

I've landed in the labyrinth. This means you get lost.

Lost in the wilderness and all of the rest of it,

both morally lost as well as maybe...

-So, losing your way in life.

-Yes.

-And you have to go all the way back.

-All the way back to 30.

-To 30.

-Oh, dear!

Well, you're still ahead of me so you've not done too badly.

So you've got, usually a board of about 63 squares,

which in themselves could represent a lifespan of a person.

One, two, three...

-I have landed in prison.

-Oh, dear.

-What does that mean?

-If you went to jail, you had to miss two turns,

you often had to pay extra.

So there were all sorts of penalties that you had to go through,

plus a few rewards to get to the end.

1, 2, 3...

..4.

Thank you. But, it's entirely luck. I mean, I haven't done anything.

It's not like I've led my life in a particularly virtuous way.

All I've done is managed to throw the right sequence of numbers.

At the end of the day, by playing this game and others of this type,

you are expected to learn that there are right ways and wrong ways.

On this occasion, fortune has favoured me.

So, thank you very much.

The pictures placed for ornament and use. The 12 Good Rules.

The Royal Game of Goose.

In Goldsmith's hands,

the game had become the swansong of a forgotten way of life.

But ironically, while the game looked back to a lost era,

its publishers were looking forward to the modern age.

This was the goose that laid the golden egg.

As the industrial revolution surged ahead during the 19th century

and the British Empire thrived, a procession of imitators appeared.

Copying not only the race game mechanics,

but also at the Game of Goose's self-righteous tone.

These laid the way

for the birth of the world's first commercial games industry.

Sensing an opportunity, companies began to produce

all sorts of variations on the Game of Goose formula.

Producing games like this one called,

Historical Pastime or a New Game of the History of England

from the Conquest to the Accession of George III.

Here's one which picks up

on the enthusiasm for everything to do with exploration.

Wallis' New Game of Wanderers in the Wilderness.

And the one that perhaps best exemplifies

the patriotic theme of these games is this one.

A Tour Through the British Colonies and Foreign Possessions,

by one John Betts.

Manufacturers found that the colonies

were a rich source of new ideas for games.

Including one of the most enduring and popular of all.

We've raided my games cupboard and found this.

Good old Snakes And Ladders.

I never really understood what snakes

were supposed to have to do with ladders.

But it was simple, fun, and apparently meaningless.

So, who would have thought that it was inspired by something

as beautiful, elaborate, and unworldly as this.

Gyan Chapoor,

the Hindi game of knowledge.

It's from India. Probably, Nagpur.

And was presented by a British army officer in 1831

to the Royal Asiatic Society.

Where it has remained to this day.

This sets out, not just a journey from start to finish,

but a quest from a state of nothingness to enlightenment.

In this case, on square 124, deliverance into the Supreme Brahma.

The Indians have a unique combination of qualities.

They are incredibly interested in metaphysical speculation

and they also have a genius for mathematics,

computation and they also have a huge genius for art and design.

And somehow it all comes together in this games book.

Hindu expert, Dr Andrew Topsfield,

is going to be my guide and companion on the journey to nirvana.

-Let the playing commence.

-May the best man win.

So that's eight.

I am back here.

Eight.

You've reached the Kshatriya class.

You're a member of the warrior caste.

It was definitely, Snakes And Ladders, but not as we know it.

Here was another map of a religion.

-Knowledge of righteousness.

-'Only this time, Hinduism.'

Eight, is that what I think it is, which is, that I've...

-It's a drinker of spirits which is very bad indeed.

-Right, OK.

And you keep going up and down and ultimately, you should be

pushing further up the board,

to union with Vishnu and the ultimate end of the game.

So there is a definite single aim.

This is interesting.

I think you're reborn as a monkey.

I've acquired spiritual merits so naturally I ascend.

So naturally you ascend, and you ascend up the ladder...

-Up, really quite a long way.

-I'm a Brahmin.

You are in a rather bad place.

Desire for this world's enjoyments.

-OK, I've got...

-You've got a long way up the board,

but now you slip back a long way.

And down I go all the way back to...

This is a king. A king is naturally attached to worldly things,

which is why, coming down the snake you become a king again.

A king is pretty nice in material terms, but in spiritual terms,

there are all sorts of attachments.

It seems odd enough that I was being punished for being a king.

But Andrew was about to be trapped for the rest of the game,

in paradise of all places.

I am in the endless heavenly realm, aren't I?

Oh, you are. Yes, you are.

So, that's that.

Well that's me, but I am happy to circulate for a bit.

Yeah, see how you do in there and I'll...

'As Andrew pottered around in paradise and I surged ahead,

'it occurred to me that competition was not the point of this game.

'Nor was fun, if I'm honest.

'It was about enlightenment.'

The ladder of sudden disappearing query.

One, two, three...

'But just as I was about to attain enlightenment by finishing the game,

'the gods decided to toy with me.'

-One, two, three, four, five...

-This could take a long time.

We're going to have to do it to the bitter end.

I have been there before, but not there.

One, two, three, four. I'm in the void.

'I had actually gone beyond tedium.

'I was now experiencing bad karma.'

These games do get a little tiresome.

I haven't attained whatever state of mind is required to just enjoy this.

Frankly your attitude is all wrong.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

The thing is, in India, there is a different sense of time.

Four, five, six, erm...

Eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

No, I'm back in the void again.

One, two, three, four, five, six.

-What is happening with this?

-Hang on.

The winning square. Yes.

I think I'm in the winning square.

HE READS FROM BOOK

TRANSLATION: Deliverance into the Supreme Brahma.

You have reached the finishing square.

You are enlightened, you are at one with God.

That perfectly expresses how I feel.

Thank you very much indeed.

How about another one?

This is the first English, Snakes And Ladders board.

And it's a circle. I don't know why.

And when they first launched this on the world, they preened out of it,

straightaway, the moral element.

This is the game of Ludo. OK, it was originally called Pachisi.

And this, as far as I know, is an example

of the first British commercial version of this game.

Hot-foot from India. And when they first produced it.

The arms are 3 x 8 squares.

And that is how the game is in India,

but when you buy a modern Ludo board, it's only 3 x 5.

And that is symptomatic of something dreadful,

because these manufacturers, they first produce the game as it was

played in India, which is a proper, complicated,

adult board game, played on cloth boards.

You have to think, count and predict,

it's a really wonderful game

and they sacrificed all the things which made it a durative

and wonderful game in India, but it was hugely successful.

Both Ludo and Snakes And Ladders

went on to sell around the world in their millions.

In terms of commercial exploitation, anything from the colonies was seen

as fair game for a nation that saw itself at the centre of the world.

The slightly smug note of imperial self-satisfaction that

pervaded Victorian game-playing wasn't just jingoism.

At the time, London really was at the centre of the world.

In fact, in 1851, this area was at the centre of the world.

A great glittering palace rising up over there, showcasing Britain's

emergence as the leading power in the new industrial world order.

This was the Great Exhibition.

On display was the best of British engineering and culture,

alongside exhibits from around the world.

It wasn't just industrial and economic supremacy

that the Great Exhibition flaunted.

In 1851, the hyperactive journalist and part-time

Shakespearean actor Howard Staunton decided to use it

as a platform to establish British domination

of another area of modern life. Game-playing.

In particular, the playing of one game, THE game. The game of games.

The game that more than any other embodies the competition for power,

the struggle for domination, the crushing of an opponent.

Chess.

Chess is the highest-evolved example of a board game

produced by the human race.

Because there is no nonsense in it.

There is no artifice. It's a really abstract game of immense depth.

Chess originated in India around the 8th century.

It became a part of Games Britannia in the Middle Ages

in the form of the famous Lewis chessmen.

One of the earliest surviving European incarnations of the game.

For 1,000 years,

chess was played around the world with different rules and pieces.

Staunton changed all that.

He organised the world's first international tournament

at the Great Exhibition with a single set of rules

and standardised pieces.

This proved to be a huge landmark in Games Britannia,

and his version of the game went on to rule the world.

And to this day,

the British champion is awarded an official set of Staunton chessmen.

These are actually some of the presentation pieces

that were made by the original makers of the Staunton set.

Tell us about the sort of impact

that the Staunton set had on the chess world.

It standardised the way the game was played.

Because the chess world was coming together,

countries were saying we're all playing the same game

let's do it, but the pieces were different.

What Staunton did was to get the pieces looking standardised.

If you go to a chess tournament these days,

you will see that these are the pieces that are used.

The Staunton set is perhaps one of the greatest,

if least appreciated, design icons of the Victorian age.

Right up there with the Houses of Parliament

or the Queen's head on a stamp.

And the Great Exhibition provided the perfect platform to launch it.

And so the stage was set for a great gaming contest.

A tournament that not only acted as a model

for chess competitions to come,

but provided the setting

for one of the most famous matches of all time.

One so bold and dazzling in its play

that it became known as "The Immortal Game".

Adolf Anderssen was probably the world's greatest player at the time.

Staunton lured him to London by promising to reimburse him,

even if he lost. He played white.

Lionel Kieseritzky was one of the greatest players in France

and declared himself a chess Messiah.

He played black. So I start off.

The game begins conventionally enough.

Anderssen kicks off with an exchange of pawns.

The bishop next to the king

has to come two squares adjacent to the white pawn.

This is actually the weakest point in any side's position.

You expose yourself to my most powerful piece,

and put you in check.

We know that chess was always a game of war.

There is a theory that chess evolved from a principle whereby

pieces, which represented the army,

were used on the floor to teach battle principle.

So you have pawns which are dispensable, foot soldiers,

powerful things to use them at the right moment.

Kings gang up together, and so forth.

So it was maybe a kind of teaching medium

for young knights and so forth.

Over the years there was conflict between countries

for chess dominance.

Particularly in the Soviet Union, the Bolsheviks really took to chess.

That's when it began to heat up, in a way.

Because as the Soviet Union used chess as a form of propaganda,

they found something cheap that could be mass produced

and could raise the cultural level.

They had people playing in factories, at home,

and then it reached the kind of apotheosis

when Fischer played Spassky. That is the match everyone knows about.

You have the Soviet Union and the USA locked in tense, slow,

lingering combat which is essentially what the Cold War was.

Both players continued with wave after wave of rapid attack.

By 21st century standards it looks like beginners are playing,

but at the time this was the romantic era,

so all they are doing is going threat by threat

through the whole game.

OK. Oh, I see,

so there is not a huge amount of strategy.

No, it is all crisis-management, really.

So this move is to stop that.

The game is like a language.

There are idioms and patterns

of play that we become familiar with.

-But the rules are simple.

-The rules are simple, so anyone can learn.

The game is not difficult to play, it is difficult to master.

It is associated a lot with intelligence.

If you're capable of playing chess at grand master level,

you must be extremely intelligent.

On the other hand, it's not an intelligence that

would explain why your girlfriend left you last week or why you find

it difficult to cope with things that are happening in the news.

So what sort of intelligence is it?

It's an exquisite interplay of simple and complex.

But it is deep, and it is wonderful because of its depth.

It is much more about loving the way things make sense

and how they connect than just how their surface appearance appeals.

Black is many pieces ahead.

But white has coordinated his strategy

and his control of the board.

This is where the game really becomes immortal.

It seems the white has reached a dead end.

The queen, that was lying in wait for so long,

finally has her clowning glory.

She gives herself up for her whole army.

Forward, forward,

right into the arms of the knight, who is waiting to take her.

But because it has to take the queen,

there is no control of this one any more.

So the bishop, and I'll let you play that, can give checkmate.

-That's checkmate.

-That's checkmate.

And that is where the game ends.

That's checkmate. OK.

Thank you very much.

Staunton's version of chess

went on to become the flagship of Games Britannia.

Like so many other games we play today,

it was derived from a game that came from the Orient.

As with Snakes And Ladders and Ludo, it was the British that turned

ancient games into commercial world beaters.

But that journey to market came at a cost.

It is almost as though the sacred energy that since the time

of the Druids had made games both magical

and dangerous was draining away.

The struggle for spiritual or intellectual mastery

became a more personal quest for self-advancement.

A journey that will continue as Games Britannia

takes a detour across the Atlantic.

APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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