's 1609 engraving
The Revells of Christendome Twenty-five is descended from the old Scottish game of Maw, which dates to at least 1548 and is mentioned frequently up to about 1650. Maw was fashionable during the reign of
James I and became the chief game of the English court. However, it died out during the time of the
English Commonwealth (1649–1660) only to appear in
Charles Cotton's
The Compleat Gamester of 1674 as
Five Cards, in which the trump 5, known as
five fingers is the highest card, followed by the
ace of
hearts,
trump ace and trump
knave, an earlier order different from later members of the family. Thereafter the game disappears again from the literature until the early 19th century where it resurfaces under the names of various descendants including
Five and Ten,
Spoil Five and
Forty-five. Twenty-five itself, also called
five-and-twenty, emerged alongside these other variants and is mentioned as early as 1833 in the
Dublin Penny Journal in an article against gambling: "...rustic gambling is conducted on the plan of a lottery. The woman of the house has generally one or more of such articles [a turkey, goose, herrings or mutton] as those above mentioned, which are purchased by the party to play at a price far above their intrinsic value; each purchase is paid for in equal shares, and the winner of one or more games, at five and twenty, or first fifteen... carries off the prize..." It is probably much older for, in 1858, an Irish periodical describes Twenty-Five and Forty-Five as "our own old games" in which the five of trumps, called
five fingers, was the best card, followed by the Ace of Hearts. However, the first detailed rules do not appear until 1876, when H.E. Heather describes it as a variant of Forty-Five. Any number could play and the cards ranked as described below with the
five fingers (trump 5) as the
commanding card and, unlike modern rules, the only one that could
renege in the sense of being withheld when trumps were led, even if its holder had no other trump. Players
cut for first
deal (highest or lowest winning it as agreed); the cards were
shuffled and cut before being dealt in threes and twos so that each player had five. The next was turned for trump. A player with the trump ace could rob the trump
upcard. Whist rules of play were followed i.e. players had to
follow suit if able (with the exception of the privilege associated with the
five fingers); only if
void in the
led suit could they trump – this is unlike modern rules in which, as in
all fours, players may trump even if they can follow. Each trick was worth five and twenty-five was game. Unlike Heather's rules for Forty-five, there was no
jinking (winning the game on taking all five tricks) and no score of 5 for best trump. Twenty-five eventually emerged to become the national card game of Ireland. ==Overview ==