Christmas: Its Origin and Associations Part 27

1611. "On Christmas Day the King attended Divine Service at Whitehall, and Bishop Andrews preached on John. i. 14."

1612. "On Friday, 25th December, Christmas Day was kept as usual at Whitehall; where the King attended Divine Service, and Bishop Andrews (as usual) preached."

1613. "Sat.u.r.day, 25th December, being Christmas Day, was kept with the usual solemnities; the King attended Divine service at Whitehall, and Bishop Andrews preached."

1614. "His Majesty returned to keep Christmas Day, as was customary, at Whitehall. Bishop Andrews addressed him from the pulpit as usual."

1615. "'On Christmas Day, the King, being sorely troubled with the gout, was not able to go to Divine service; but heard a sermon in private, and took the Sacrament.' The Preacher was, as usual, Bishop Andrews."

1616. "On Christmas Day, Thomas, Earl of Arundel, who was educated from his youth in the Popish Religion, and had lately travelled all over Italy detesting the abuses of the Papists, embraced the Protestant religion, and received the Sacrament in the King's Chapel at Whitehall, where Bishop Andrews preached, as was customary, a sermon suited to the Festival of the Nativity."

1618. "On the 25th [December], Bishop Andrews resumed his post as preacher on Christmas Day, before the King at Whitehall. His text was from Luke ii. 12, 13."

1619. "Christmas was kept by the King at Whitehall, as had ever been his practice; and Bishop Andrews preached then before him, on Sat.u.r.day, the 25th."

1620. "During the month of December, before the King left the country, he knighted at Newmarket, Sir Francis Mich.e.l.l, afterward degraded in June 1621; and at Theobalds, Sir Gilbert Cornwall. On the 23rd, his Majestie 'came to Westminster, but went not to Chappel, being prevented by the gout.' On Monday, the 25th, however, being Christmas Day, Bishop Andrews preached before him at Whitehall, on Matt. ii. 1, 2; and during Christmas, Sir Clement Cotterell and Sir Henry Carvell were there knighted."

1622. "On the 25th [December] Bishop Andrews resumed his Christmas station in the pulpit at Whitehall, and thence preached to the King and his Court on the same text as he had adopted on the same occasion two years before, Matt. ii. 1, 2."

1623. "The King kept inviolate his old custom of being at Whitehall on Christmas Day, and hearing there a sermon from Bishop Andrews, who this year preached on Ephes. i. 10."

1624. "On Sat.u.r.day, the 25th of December, Bishop Andrews preached before his Majesty at Whitehall, on Psalm ii. 7, it being at least the seventeenth, as it was the last, Christmas Day on which King James heard that favourite preacher."

The unique series of "Seventeen Sermons on the Nativity, preached before King James I. at Whitehall, by the Right Honourable and Reverend Father in G.o.d, Lancelot Andrewes, sometime Lord Bishop of Winchester," were preserved to posterity by an order of Charles I., who, after Bishop Andrewes's death, commanded Bishops Laud and Buckeridge to collect and publish his sermons. This series of sermons on the Nativity have recently been reprinted in "The Ancient and Modern Library of Theological Literature," and the editor, after referring to the ability and integrity of Bishop Andrewes, says: "An interest apart from that which must be created by his genius, learning, and character, belongs to him as the exponent of the mind and practice of the English Church in the years that intervened between the Reformation and the Revolution."

THE POPULAR AMUs.e.m.e.nTS OF CHRISTMASTIDE

at this period are thus enumerated by Robert Burton in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," published in 1621:--

"The ordinary recreations which we have in winter are cards, tables and dice, shovelboard, chess-play, the philosopher's game, small trunks, billiards, music, masks, singing, dancing, ule games, catches, purposes, questions; merry tales of errant knights, kings, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves, fairies, goblins, friars, witches, and the rest."

The following curious cut is from the t.i.tle-page of the amusing story of the great "Giant Gargantua" of this period:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Giant Gargantua"]

The legends of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwick, Adam Bell, and Clymme of Clough, were favourites among the lovers of romance; but the people of this age, being very superst.i.tious, were very fond of stories about ghosts and goblins, believing them to be founded on fact, and also attributing feats performed by conjurors and jugglers to supernatural agency. The King himself was equally superst.i.tious, for Strutt in describing the tricks of jugglers says: "Our learned monarch, James I., was perfectly convinced that these, and other inferior feats exhibited by the tregetours, could only be performed by the agency of the devil, 'who,'

says he, 'will learne them many juglarie tricks, at cardes and dice, to deceive men's senses thereby, and such innumerable false practiques, which are proved by over-many in this age.'"[68]

Looking back to the ancient superst.i.tions about ghosts and fairies, Dryden, the poet, has some lines which may fitly close this chapter:--

"I speak of ancient times, for now the swain Returning late may pa.s.s the woods in vain, And never hope to see the mighty train; In vain the dairy now with mint is dressed, The dairy-maid expects no fairy guest, To skim the bowls and after pay the feast.

She sighs and shakes her empty shoes in vain, No silver penny to reward her pain: For priests, with prayers and other G.o.dly gear, Have made the merry goblins disappear."

[58] "Curiosities of Literature."

[59] "Memoirs of Ben Jonson."

[60] "Progresses of King James the First."

[61] Ca.s.sell's "History of England."

[62] This portion is inserted to introduce _the Prince's Triumph_, as they are termed.

[63] Ca.s.sell's "History of England."

[64] Nichols's "Progresses."

[65] "Camden's Annals."

[66] "Progresses."

[67] "Library of English Literature."

[68] "Daemonologie," by King James I.

CHAPTER IX.

CHRISTMAS UNDER CHARLES I. AND THE COMMONWEALTH.

(1625-1660.)

KING CHARLES THE FIRST

was the second son of James I. and of Anne, daughter of Frederick III., King of Denmark, and he came to the throne on the death of his father in March 1625. As Prince Charles he had taken part in the Court entertainments of Christmastide, and had particularly distinguished himself in Ben Jonson's masque, "The Vision of Delight." These magnificent Christmas masques were continued after Charles's accession to the throne until the troubles of his reign stopped them.

Gifford[69] mentions that Jonson's "Masque of Owls" was presented at Kenilworth Castle, "By the Ghost of Captain c.o.x mounted on his Hobby-horse, in 1626":--

"_Enter_ Captain c.o.x, _on his Hobby-horse._

Room! room! for my horse will wince, If he come within so many yards of a prince; And though he have not on his wings, He will do strange things, He is the Pegasus that uses To wait on Warwick Muses; And on gaudy-days he paces Before the Coventry Graces; For to tell you true, and in rhyme, He was foal'd in Queen Elizabeth's time, When the great Earl of Lester In this castle did feast her."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HOBBY-HORSE.]

Jonson's "The Fortunate Isles, and Their Union," a masque designed for the Court, was presented on Twelfth Night, 1626; and "Love's Triumph through Callipolis" (a masque invented by Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones) was presented at Court in 1630.

THE LORD OF MISRULE

also made merry at Christmas at this period; but it sometimes happened that when he went forth with his band of merry men, they got into trouble. An instance of this, which occurred in 1627, is recorded in one of Meade's letters to Sir Martin Stuteville. The letter is worth reprinting as an ill.u.s.tration of the manners of the age, and as relating to what was probably the last Lord of Misrule elected by the barristers. Meade writes:--"On Sat.u.r.day the Templars chose one Mr.

Palmer their Lord of Misrule, who, on Twelfth-eve, late in the night, sent out to gather up his rents at five s.h.i.+llings a house in Ram-alley and Fleet Street. At every door they came to they winded the Temple-horn, and if at the second blast or summons they within opened not the door, then the Lord of Misrule cried out, 'Give fire, gunner!'

His gunner was a robustious Vulcan, and the gun or petard itself was a huge overgrown smith's hammer. This being complained of to my Lord Mayor, he said he would be with them about eleven o'clock on Sunday night last; willing that all that ward should attend him with their halberds, and that himself, besides those that came out of his house, should bring the watches along with him. His lords.h.i.+p, thus attended, advanced as high as Ram-alley in martial equipage: when forth came the Lord of Misrule, attended by his gallants, out of the Temple-gate, with their swords all armed _in cuerpo_. A halberdier bade the Lord of Misrule come to my Lord Mayor. He answered, No! let the Lord Mayor come to me! At length they agreed to meet halfway: and, as the interview of rival princes is never without danger of some ill accident, so it happened in this: for first, Mr. Palmer being quarrelled with for not pulling off his hat to my Lord Mayor, and giving cross answers, the halberds began to fly about his ears, and he and his company to brandish their swords. At last being beaten to the ground, and the Lord of Misrule sore wounded, they were fain to yield to the longer and more numerous weapon. My Lord Mayor taking Mr.

Palmer by the shoulder, led him to the Compter, and thrust him in at the prison-gate with a kind of indignation; and so, notwithstanding his hurts, he was forced to lie among the common prisoners for two nights. On Tuesday the King's attorney became a suitor to my Lord Mayor for their liberty: which his lords.h.i.+p granted, upon condition that they should repay the gathered rents, and do reparations upon broken doors. Thus the game ended. Mr. Attorney-General, being of the same house, fetched them in his own coach, and carried them to the court, where the King himself reconciled my Lord Mayor and them together with joining all hands; the gentlemen of the Temple being this Shrovetide to present a Mask to their majesties, over and besides the King's own great Mask, to be performed at the Banquetting-house by an hundred actors."

We get other glances at