Tobacco, witches and chess: a Jacobean drama

The tobacco and vapes Bill legislates to the effect that anyone turning 15 from 2024, or younger, will be banned from buying tobacco products. The legislation does not ban smoking outright, as anyone who can legally buy tobacco now will still be able to do so once the Bill becomes law. It will, however, make it illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone born after 1 January 2009, with a further rolling annual interdiction thereafter.

King James I of England, simultaneously King James VI of Scotland, had three things he badly wanted to cancel. The first was tobacco, against which he issued the first government health warning, in the sternest possible terms, in order to discourage smoking. The second was witchcraft, which attracted Draconian penalties from the monarch. Less well known is that the third was chess.

In his famous treatise  A Counterblaste to Tobacco  (1604), the King expresse d his distaste for smoking the newly imported plant. He wrote:

​“Have you not reason then to bee ashamed, and to forbeare this filthie noveltie, so basely grounded, so foolishly received and so grossely mistaken in the right use thereof? In your abuse thereof sinning against God, harming your selves both in persons and goods, and raking also thereby the markes and notes of vanitie upon you: by the custome thereof making your selves to be wondered at by all forraine civil Nations, and by all strangers that come among you, to be scorned and contemned. A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resemblingthe horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse.”

James was also strongly opposed to witchcraft, after he was caught in a severe storm in the North Sea on the way back from collecting his regal Danish bride, Anne of Denmark. James laid the origins of that violent storm fairly and squarely at the door of Scottish witches, whom he proceeded to persecute without mercy, often relying on brutal torture to extract confessions.

As for chess, James wrote, with all the bitterness of a man who has just been defeated over the board: “As for the chess, I think it over fond, because it is over wise and philosophic a folly. For where all such light plays are ordained to free men’s heads for a time from the fashious thoughts on their affairs, it by the contrary filleth and troubleth men’s heads with as many fashious toys of the play, as before it was filled with thoughts of his affairs.” This is from James’ tract called  Basilikon Doron  (1598) which means “royal gift” and was a treatise on government as advice to kings, written in the form of a private letter to James’ eldest son, Henry Duke of Rothesay. 

King James is currently back in the news as a result of the television series  Mary and George , which recounts the outrageously opportunistic  adventurism of George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and his mother Mary, at the Jacobean court. To my mind, the show is entirely stolen by the fey performance of Tony Curran as the aggressively bisexual monarch, lampooned as the wisest fool in Christendom, but whose accomplishments as Rex Pacificus kept England out of any major conflicts, in particular the Thirty Years War, which rumbled into existence in the latter years of his reign. 

In contrast, his son and heir, Charles I, swiftly dragged England into simultaneous conflict with such global superpowers as France, Spain and by extension the Holy Roman Empire. Having exhausted the roll call of major continental antagonists, Charles then turned his fire on the Scots and ended up fighting half of England in the Civil War. In contrast with his father, Charles was  Rex Bellicosus  rather than  Rex Pacificus . To adapt the well known Latin advice on security of the state, in the case of Charles the appropriate motto would have been:  Si Bellum vis, pare Bellum .

Contemporary Chess grandmasters tend to follow a voluntarily abstemious existence, based on the knowledge that smoking, drinking, and especially drugs, are all utterly inimical to the fully functioning operation of the human brain. Although smoking was, for example, once obligatory at Eton College, being regarded as a sovereign panacea against infectious disease, we now all realise its health drawbacks. Of course, smoking during official chess games has for many years been absolutely banned. There was even a brief vogue by puritanically-minded zealots for trying to forbid coffee during games, on the specious grounds that caffeine is a prohibited stimulant.

As to smoking, the Olympic standard was set by the Dutch Grandmaster Jan Hein Donner, who seemed to exist on a diet of black coffee (of which 90 per cent was heaped up white sugar) and hand rolled, chain smoked cigarettes.

At the 1973 match between England and the Netherlands, played in Manchester Town Hall, I drew my game on top board against the former Dutch World Champion (1935-1937) Dr Max Euwe. After we had finished discussing our game, I wandered over to watch the game on board two between Donner, a formidable player who had numbered world champions Vassily Smyslov , Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer among his victims, pitted against ten-times British champion, Dr Jonathan Penrose.

The contrast with modern chess could not have been more marked.  At that time, smoking was permitted during play, and to accommodate the ash, outsize circular Bakelite ashtrays were placed on each table. Donner constantly refilled his sugar-fuelled black coffees, and backed up this stimulant with cigarette after cigarette, lighting each new one with the stub of the old and thereby building up a vast pile of half burnt cigarettes in the ashtray.

Eventually, the pile of ash increased to mountainous dimensions, it began to emit smoke itself, then burst into flames and caused the giant ashtray to crack into two. There was now, literally, fire on board! The two players seemed transfixed, horrified, and unable to react in this crisis.

Realising that urgent action was mandatory, during this temporary mental paralysis of the two combatants, I, with what I considered to be admirable presence of mind, seized Donner’s coffee cup and hurled the contents onto the flaming heap of ash, thus extinguishing the flames. Given the very high sugar content of the liquid, however, my prompt action had the effect of converting the conflagration into a thick, black, sticky, hot, steaming pyroclastic flow, trickling slowly across the table, but at least no longer threatening to consume Manchester Town Hall in flames.

As if emerging from a trance, Donner and Penrose looked up at each other, spontaneously, agreed the game drawn, fled from the scene and left me to explain to the janitor what had happened, before he set about cleaning up the liquefied mini-volcanic residue still smouldering on their chess table.  

I first encountered Donner at a tournament in Switzerland 1966, when he overwhelmed the then six times British champion Dr Jonathan Penrose. Penrose was considered an infallible minor deity in the UK, hence it was something of an eye – opener to see the way in which the giant Dutch Grandmaster initially accepted a passive position, then, ongoingly unperturbed, shed a pawn, only finally to triumph with a whiplash combination.

Jonathan Penrose vs. Jan Hein Donner

Netherlands-England, Vlissingen, 1966

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. c4 Nf6 5. Nc3 g6 6. Qb3 Bg7 7. cxd5 O-O 8. g3 Nbd7 9. Bg2 Nb6 10. Nge2 a5

The most common move here is 10… Bf5, although the text is perfectly respectable.

11. a4 e6 TN

This is a theoretical novelty that has not, since this game, been recorded again. In fact, it is amongst the engine’s top choices. Other moves selected here are, …Qd6 and, again, …Bf5.

12. Bg5 Nbxd5 13. Nxd5 exd5 14. O-O Ra6 15. Nc3 Be6 16. Rfd1 Rb6 17. Nb5 Qd7 18. Rdc1 Rc6 19. Nc3 h6 20. Bxf6 Bxf6 21. Qb5 Rd8 22. Qxa5

A pawn capture that turns out to be of no significance whatsoever.

22… Rc4 23. Nb5 Rdc8 24. Rxc4 Rxc4 25. Bf1 Rc2 26. Bd3 Rc6 27. Qd2 Kg7 28. Bf1 Qe7 29. Re1 Qd8 30. Rc1 Bg5 31. f4 Bf6 32. Rc3 Qa5 33. Qc2?

Our two protagonists have completed a monstrous twenty moves of near-perfection, before arriving at this significant juncture. The correct way to defend the a-pawn is with, 33. b3. Also worthy of consideration is: 33. Bd3 Bh3 (33… Qxa4?? 34. Ra3!) 34. Bc2 with approximate equality.

33… Bf5?!

A more assertive move is: 33… Qb4, which leaves White with some difficult choices, none of which are too attractive, for example:

A) 34. Qd1 h5 35. Be2 Qxb2 36. Rb3 Qc2 37. Qxc2 Rxc2 38. Kf1 Ra2 39. Ke1 Ra1+ 40. Kd2 Rxa4 41. Ke3 Kf8;

B) 34. Bd3 Bh3 35. Bf1 Bf5 36. Qd1 Ra6 37. Ra3 h5 38. h3 Be4 39. h4 Rc6 40. Rc3 Qxb2 41. Rb3 Qa2;

C) 34. Kg2 Bf5 35. Bd3 Bxd3 36. Qxd3 Qxb2+ 37. Kh3 h5 38. Rc5 Qf2 39. Rc3 Qg1 40. Qf3 Qe1 41. Re3 Qa1

D) 34. Be2 Bf5 35. Qd1 Ra6 36. Kf2 Rxa4 37. Rb3 Qf8 38. h4 Rc4 39. Bd3 Bxd3 40. Rxd3 Qb4 41. Rb3 Qe7.

34. Qb3 Be4?!

This is alright, although 34 …Rb6, pinning the knight, or taking the open file with …Re6, and also, …h5, cementing the f5-bishop, were slightly more progressive moves.

35. Bg2 Rb6 36. Qa3??

Necessary was 36. Qd1 followed by an eye-of-the-needle defence: 36… Qb4 37. Bxe4 dxe4 38. Kg2 Qxb2+ 39. Qc2. Otherwise, 36. Bxe4 or Kf1 are better than the text, although both permit Black a nice advantage.

36… Rxb5!

There is categorically no way back after this elegant exchange sacrifice.

37. axb5?

The best move is still losing, and the text was not the best move: 37. Bxe4 Bxd4+ 38. 38. Kf1 Rxb2 39. Qxb2 dxe4 40. Qxb7 Qxc3 41. Qxe4 Qb2, and White is lost.

37… Qxb5 38. Bxe4 White resigns 0-1

Ray’s 206th book, “  Chess in the Year of the King  ”, written in collaboration with Adam Black, and his 207th, “  Napoleon and Goethe: The Touchstone of Genius  ” (which discusses their relationship with chess) are available from Amazon and Blackwells.  

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