Robert Dover

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For information on the dressage rider, see Robert Dover (equestrian)

Robert Dover (1575 - 1641) was an English captain and attorney, known as the founder and for many years the director 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 Dovers 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 Dover's death. They were revived for a brief period in the reign of Charles II.

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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.