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Robert Dover

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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ROBERT DOVER (1575-1641),), English captain and attorney, is known as the founder and director for many years of the "Cotswold Games," which he originated as a protest against the growing Puritanism of the day. These sports, which were referred to by contemporary writers as "Mr Robert Dover's Olimpick Games upon the Cotswold Hills," consisted of cudgelplaying, wrestling, running at the quintain, jumping, casting the bar and hammer, hand-ball, gymnastics, rural dances and games and horse-racing, the winners in which received valuable prizes. They continued from about the year 1604 until three years after the death of Dover, which took place in 1641. They were revived for a brief period in the reign of Charles II.