[4] Despite its difficult rules, complicated point score and strange foreign terms, it swept Europe in the last quarter of the 17th century, becoming Lomber and L'Hombre in Germany, Lumbur in Austria and Ombre (originally pronounced 'umber'[5]) in England, occupying a position of prestige similar to contract bridge today.

As with most games, Ombre acquired many variations of increasing complexity over the years, until its popularity was eclipsed by the second quarter of the 18th century by a new four player French variant called Quadrille, later displaced by the English Whist.

Other lines of descent and hybridization produced three-handed games like Preference and four-handed ones such as German Solo and Mediateur.

Under the name Tresillo, it survived in parts of Spain during the nineteenth century, as Voltarete in Portugal and Brazil, as Rocambor in countries such as Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia in the twentieth century, and it is still played as L'Hombre in Denmark, mostly in Jutland and on the island of Funen, where it is organized by the Danish Hombre Union (Dansk L'hombre-Union),[8] as well as in the Faroe Islands (as Lumbur) and Iceland (as Lomber).

[10] She was such a keen player, as were so many members of English high society by the end of 1674, that the Lower House of Parliament proposed to pass an Act against the playing of Ombre, or at least to limit the stakes at £5, a proposition received as "ridiculous" at that time.

[13] Ombre takes its name from the Spanish phrase originally used by the player who declared trumps: Yo soy el hombre, i.e., "I am the man".

It appears to be merely an alteration of the game Primero and it is to be presumed that it was invented prior to the publication of the Dictionary of Sebastián de Covarrubias in 1611, although it makes no mention of it.

Seymour's The Compleat Gamester (1722) contains a frontispiece representing a party of rank playing it and describes it as a game so much in fashion that at its peak by the turn of the eighteenth century it inspired a unique form of furniture: a three-sided card table.

According to Jean-Baptiste Bullet, writer and professor of divinity at the University of Besançon,[16] the Spaniards, occasionally also called the game "Manilla" after the name of the second matador, a word signifying a slayer in Spanish.

The game is traditionally played with a forty-card Spanish-suited deck with suits of coins and cups (round) and swords and clubs (long),[17] but when it spread to Northern Europe French-suited cards with suits of diamonds and hearts (red) and spades and clubs (black) were usually substituted.

By the 17th century, when it caught on outside Spain, most people were playing a three-player variation called "Renegado" first described in 1663 in Madrid.

The rank of the cards in the game depends on whether a black (long) or a red (round) suit is chosen as trumps.

Whoever draws the highest card from the deck becomes the dealer; the turn to deal and play rotates counter-clockwise.

Rules vary considerably as to whether any untaken cards are left down or turned face up, and the point should be agreed before play.

They include: Vole, Contrabola: No one discards, Hombre announces a trump suit of which he holds at least one, and aims to lose every trick.

It is played exactly as for three hands, but a whole suit is removed from the pack, either Diamonds or Hearts, so that 30 cards remain.

This version was also played in Germany where the fourth player was called the King (König) or, in Low German, the "one who sits still" (Stillsitter).

[20] In this five-handed variation called Cinquillo, first described around 1683,[18] the players are dealt eight cards each, after staking down a fifth to the pool, therefore no discard is possible.

The nymph exulting fills with shouts the sky; The walls, the woods, and long canals reply The progress of the game is described in such detail that Lord Aldenham was able to reconstruct the exact deal and play of the cards.