The earliest known reference to Gleek has been traced by Sir Michael Dummett to Henry Watson's The chirche of the euyll men and women (1511).

[2][3] Early French Glic closely resembled the German game of Poch which did not have a trick-taking round.

[3] The best contemporary descriptions of Gleek in popular English form come from three sources: John Cotgrave (1662),[4][5] Francis Willughby (about 1670),[6] and Charles Cotton (1674).

Gleek was a fairly elaborate game in four main stages: Cards are ranked Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4.

[3] This is the stage where players bid for the right to draw card replacements in hope of improving their hand.

(Note that there are varying views on this: Parlett and Dafydd[10] say to take in the stock first, then discard 7.

To vie or revie, players put tuppence into the pot; this declares that you think you can win the Ruff.

At this point, any player still in the Ruff shows the relevant cards, and the winner takes the pot.

This is the stage where players declare sets of cards known as Mournivals and Gleeks.

At the end of the game, players count 3 points for each trick he has won, and adds to this the point-value of any honours you may have played.

Furthermore, if the turn-up was an Ace, King, Queen or Jack, the dealer counts it in with his total.

This scoring is independent of their trick value, i.e. while a Jack scores 9 points for the player who played it, it would still lose to a Queen or King of the same suit or trump suit played in the same trick.

If all honors are in the players' hands, then the total points accrued in the trick-taking stage will be 66.

While there is no incentive for any player to do this intentionally, as it is simply throwing away money, it is unclear what should be done in this outcome.

It seems reasonable to leave those chips in the pot and have them settled at the conclusion of the next round's vie for ruff, though none of the extant texts handle this scenario.