Christmas: Its Origin and Associations Part 11

subsequently kept, however, made amends for the cessation of festivities at the Kyng's "Still Christmas," especially the royal celebrations at Greenwich. In 1527 the "solemne Christmas" held there was "with revels, maskes, disguisings, and banquets; and on the thirtieth of December and the third of January were solemne Justs holden, when at night the King and fifteen other with him, came to Bridewell, and there putting on masking apparell, took his barge, and rowed to the Cardinall's (Woolsey) place, where were at supper many Lords and Ladyes, who danced with the maskers, and after the dancing was made a great Banquet."[43]

During the girlhood of the Princess (afterwards Queen) Mary, entertainments were given for her amus.e.m.e.nt, especially at Christmastide; and she gave presents to the King's players, the children of the Chapel, and others. But, Sandys says, that "as she grew up, and her temper got soured, she probably lost all enjoyment of such scenes." Ellis, in his "Original Letters," gives a curious application from the Council for the household of the Lady Mary to the Cardinal Wolsey, to obtain his directions and leave to celebrate the ensuing Christmas. In this letter the reader is reminded of the long train of sports and merriment which made Christmas cheerful to our ancestors. The Cardinal, at the same time that he established a household for the young Duke of Richmond, had also "ordained a council, and stablished another household for the Lady Mary, then being _Princess of the Realm_."[44] The letter which seems to have been written in the same year in which the household was established, 1525, is as follows:--

"Please it youre Grace for the great repaire of straungers supposed unto the Pryncesse honorable householde this solempne fest of Cristmas, We humbly beseche the same to let us knowe youre gracious pleasure concernyng as well a ship of silver for the almes disshe requysite for her high estate, and spice plats, as also for trumpetts and a rebek to be sent, and whither we shall appoynte any Lord of Mysrule for the said honorable householde, provide for enterluds, disgysyngs, or pleyes in the said fest, or for banket on twelf nyght.

And in likewise whither the Pryncesse shall sende any newe yeres gifts to the Kinge, the Quene, your Grace, and the Frensshe Quene, and of the value and devise of the same. Besechyng yowre Grace also to pardon oure busy and importunate suts to the same in suche behalf made. Thus oure right syngler goode lorde we pray the holy Trynyte have you in his holy preservacion. At Teoxbury, the xxvij day of November.

Youre humble orators, John Exon "To the most reverent Father Jeilez Grevile in G.o.d the Lord Cardinall Peter Burnell his good Grace." John Salter G. Bromley Thomas Audeley."

CHRISTMAS AND THE REFORMATION.

The great Reformer, Martin Luther, took much interest in the festivities of Christmastide, including, of course, the Christmas-tree. One of his biographers[45] tells how young Luther, with other boys of Mansfeld, a village to the north-west of Eisleben, sang Christmas carols "in honour of the Babe of Bethlehem." And the same writer says, "Luther may be justly regarded as the central representative of the Reformation in its early period, for this among other reasons--that he, more powerfully than any other, impressed upon the new doctrine the character of glad tidings of great joy." On Christmas Day, 1521, Martin Luther "administered the communion in both kinds, and almost without discrimination of applicants," in the parish church of Eisenach, his "beloved town."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARTIN LUTHER AND THE CHRISTMAS TREE.]

In England, the desire for some reform in the Church was recognised even by Cardinal Wolsey, who obtained from the Pope permission to suppress thirty monasteries, and use their revenues for educational purposes; and Wolsey's schemes of reform might have progressed further if Henry VIII. had not been fascinated by Anne Boleyn. But the King's amour with the "little lively brunette" precipitated a crisis in the relations between Church and State.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LITTLE ORLEANS MADONNA OF RAPHAEL]

Henry, who, by virtue of a papal dispensation, had married his brother's widow, Katherine, now needed papal consent to a divorce, that he might marry Anne Boleyn, and when he found that he could not obtain it, he resolved to be his own Pope, "sole protector and supreme head of the Church and clergy of England." And among the events of Christmastide may be mentioned the resolution of the King's minister, Thomas Cromwell, and his party, in 1533, to break the ecclesiastical connection with Rome, and establish an independent Church in England.

The necessary Bills were framed and introduced to Parliament soon after the Christmas holidays by Cromwell, who for his successful services was made Chancellor of the Exchequer for life. Authority in all matters ecclesiastical, as well as civil, was vested solely in the Crown, and the "courts spiritual" became as thoroughly the King's courts as the temporal courts at Westminster. The enslavement of the clergy, the dissolution of the monasteries, and the gagging of the pulpits followed, the years of Cromwell's administration being an English reign of terror. But the ruthless manner in which he struck down his victims sickened the English people, and they exhibited their disapprobation in a manner which arrested the attention of the King.

The time of Cromwell himself was coming, for the block was the goal to which Henry's favourite minister was surely hastening; and it is only antic.i.p.ating events by very few years, to say that he was beheaded on Tower Hill, July 28, 1540.

ANOTHER ROYAL CHRISTMAS.

That following the execution of Anne Boleyn (1536), Henry spent in the company of his third Queen, Jane Seymour, at Richmond Palace, with a merry party, and subsequently crossed the frozen Thames to Greenwich.

During the following summer the Queen went with her husband on a progress, and in the autumn retired to Hampton Court, where she gave birth to a son (who became Edward VI.), and died twelve days afterwards, on the 14th of October, 1537.

During the married life of Queen Jane, the Princess Mary was often with the Court at Richmond, affecting affectionate attachment for the Queen, apparently to conciliate her father. The birth of a prince, followed by the death of the queen, it might have been thought would have a chastening effect upon Mary, as somewhat altering her prospects; but after acting as chief mourner to her friendly stepmother, she spent a pleasant Christmas at Richmond, where she remained till February. Her losses at cards during the Christmas festivities were very considerable, for she was fond of gambling. And she appears to have also amused herself a good deal with her attendant, "Jane the Fool," to whose maintenance she contributed while staying at Richmond. One curious entry in the Household Book of the Princess Mary is: "Item, for shaving Jane fooles hedde, iiiid."

Another is: "Item, geven Heywood, playeng an enterlude with his children before my Ladye's grace xls."

The great event of Christmas, 1539, was

THE LANDING OF ANNE OF CLEVES,

at Deal, on the 27th of December. King Henry had become alarmed at the combination between France and Spain, and his unprincipled Chancellor, Cromwell, desirous of regaining his lost influence with the King, recommended a Protestant marriage. He told Henry that Anne, daughter of John III., Duke of Cleves, was greatly extolled for her beauty and good sense, and that by marrying her he would acquire the friendship of the Princes of Germany, in counterpoise to the designs of France and Spain. Henry despatched Hans Holbein to take the lady's portrait, and, being delighted with the picture produced, soon concluded a treaty of marriage, and sent the Lord Admiral Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton, to receive the Princess at Calais, and conduct her to England. On her arrival Henry was greatly disappointed. He did not think the Princess as charming as her portrait; and, unfortunately for her, she was unable to woo him with winning words, for she could speak no language but German, and of that Henry did not understand a word.

Though not ugly (as many contemporaries testify), she was plain in person and manners, and she and her maidens, of whom she brought a great train, are said to have been as homely and awkward a bevy as ever came to England in the cause of Royal matrimony. The Royal Bluebeard, who had consorted with such celebrated beauties as Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour, recollecting what his queens had been, and what Holbein and Cromwell had told him should again be, entered the presence of Anne of Cleves with great antic.i.p.ation, but was thunderstruck at the first sight of the reality. Lord John Russell, who was present, declared "that he had never seen his highness so marvellously astonished and abashed as on that occasion." The marriage was celebrated on the 6th of January, 1540, but Henry never became reconciled to his German queen; and he very soon vented his anger upon Cromwell for being the means of bringing him, not a wife, but "a great Flanders mare."

CHRISTMAS AT THE COLLEGES.

The fine old tower of Magdalen College, embowered in verdure (as though decorated for Christmas), is one of the most picturesque of the venerable academical inst.i.tutions of Oxford. It stands on the east side of the Cherwell, and is the first object of interest to catch the eye of the traveller who enters the city from the London Road. This college was the scene of many Christmas festivities in the olden time, when it was the custom of the several colleges to elect a "Christmas Lord, or Lord of Misrule, styled in the registers _Rex Fabarum_ and _Rex Regni Fabarum_; which custom continued till the Reformation of Religion, and then that producing Puritanism, and Puritanism Presbytery, the profession of it looked upon such laudable and ingenious customs as Popish, diabolical and anti-Christian."[46]

Queen's College, Oxford (whose members have from time immemorial been daily summoned to dine in hall by sound of trumpet, instead of by bell as elsewhere), is noted for its ancient Christmas ceremony of ushering in the boar's head with the singing of the famous carol--

"_Caput afri differo Reddens laudes Domino._ The boar's head in hand bring I, With garlands gay and rosemary, I pray you all sing merrily _Qui estis in convivio_."

Tradition says that this old custom commemorates the deliverance of a student of the college, who, while walking in the country, studying Aristotle, was attacked by a wild boar from Shotover Forest, whereupon he crammed the philosopher down the throat of the savage, and thus escaped from its tusks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAGDALEN COLLEGE, OXFORD.]

Warton[47] mentions that, "in an original draught of the Statutes of Trinity College, at Cambridge, founded in 1546, one of the chapters is ent.i.tled _De Praefecto Ludorum qui Imperator dicitur_, under whose direction and authority Latin Comedies and Tragedies are to be exhibited in the hall at Christmas. With regard to the peculiar business and office of Imperator it is ordered that one of the Masters of Arts shall be placed over the juniors, every Christmas, for the regulation of their games and diversions at that season of festivity.

At the same time, he is to govern the whole society in the hall and chapel, as a republic committed to his special charge by a set of laws which he is to frame in Latin and Greek verse. His sovereignty is to last during the twelve days of Christmas, and he is to exercise the same power on Candlemas." His fee amounted to forty shillings. Similar customs were observed at other colleges during Christmastide. In a subsequent chapter of this work will be found an account of a grand exhibition of the Christmas Prince, at St. John's College, Oxford, in the year 1607.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRINGING IN THE BOAR'S HEAD WITH MINSTRELSY.]

CHRISTMAS AT THE INNS OF COURT AND GREAT HOUSES.

In the time of Henry the Eighth the Christmases at the Inns of Court became celebrated, especially those at Lincoln's Inn, which had kept them as early as the reign of Henry VI. The Temples and Gray's Inn afterwards disputed the palm with it. Every Corporation appointed a Lord of Misrule or Master of Merry Disports, and, according to Stow, there was the like "in the house of every n.o.bleman of honour or good worship, were he spiritual or temporal." And during the period of the sway of the Lord of Misrule, "there were fine and subtle disguisings, masks, and mummeries, with playing at cards for counters, nails, and points in every house, more for pastime than for gain." Town and country would seem to have vied with each other as to which should exhibit the greatest extravagance in the Christmas entertainments, but (as in the days of Ma.s.singer the poet), the town carried off the palm:--

"Men may talk of country Christma.s.ses-- Their thirty-pound b.u.t.tered eggs, their pies of carps' tongues, Their pheasants drenched with ambergris, the carcases Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy; to Make sauce for a single peac.o.c.k; yet their feasts Were fasts, compared with the city's."

The earliest particular account of the regulations for conducting one of these grand Christmases is in the 9th of Henry VIII.,[48] when, besides the King for Christmas Day, the Marshal and the Master of the Revels, it is ordered that the King of c.o.c.kneys, on Childermas Day, should sit and have due service, and "that Jack Straw, and all his adherents, should be thenceforth utterly banished, and no more to be used in this house, upon pain to forfeit for every time five pounds, to be levied on every fellow hapning to offend against this rule."

"Jack Straw" was a kind of masque, which was very much disliked by the aristocratic and elder part of the community, hence the amount of the fine imposed. The Society of Gray's Inn, however, in 1527, got into a worse sc.r.a.pe than permitting Jack Straw and his adherents, for they acted a play (the first on record at the Inns of Court) during this Christmas, the effect whereof was, that Lord Governance was ruled by Dissipation and Negligence, by whose evil order Lady Public Weal was put from Governance. Cardinal Wolsey, conscience-smitten, thought this to be a reflection on himself, and deprived the author, Sergeant Roe, of his coif, and committed him to the Fleet, together with Thomas Moyle, one of the actors, until it was satisfactorily explained to him.

It was found necessary from time to time to make regulations to limit the extent of these revels and plays, and to provide for the expenses, which were considerable, and they were therefore not performed every year. In 1531 the Lincoln's Inn Society agreed that if the two Temples kept Christmas, they would also do so, not liking to be outdone. And later an order was made in Gray's Inn that no Comedies, commonly called Interludes, should be acted in the refectory in the intervals of vacation, except at the celebration of Christmas; and that then the whole body of students should jointly contribute towards the dresses, scenes, and decorations.

As an example of the Christmas hospitality of the period, we refer to the establishment of John Carminow, whose family was of high repute in the county of Cornwall in the time of Henry the Eighth. Hals says that "he kept open house for all comers and goers, drinkers, minstrells, dancers, and what not, during the Christmas time, and that his usual allowance of provision for those twelve days, was twelve fat bullocks, twenty Cornish bushels of wheat (_i.e._, fifty Winchesters), thirty-six sheep, with hogs, lambs, and fowls of all sort, and drink made of wheat and oat-malt proportionable; for at that time barley-malt was little known or used in those parts."

That the beneficed clergy of this period also "made merry" with their parishioners is quite clear from the writings of "Master Hugh Latimer," who, in Henry's reign, held the benefice of West Kington, in Wiltshire. A citation for heresy being issued against Latimer, he wrote with his peculiar medley of humour and pathos: "I intend to make merry with my parishioners this Christmas, for all the sorrow, lest perchance I may never return to them again."

One of the most celebrated personages of this period was

WILL SOMERS, THE KING'S JESTER.

This famous fool enlivened the Christmas festivities at the Court of Henry the Eighth, and many quaint stories are told of his drolleries and witticisms. Though a reputed fool, his sarcastic wit and sparkling talents at repartee won him great celebrity. Very little is known of his actual biography, but some interesting things are told about him in a scarce tract, ent.i.tled "A pleasant History of the Life and Death of Will Somers," &c. (which was first published in 1676, and a great part of which is said to have been taken from Andrew Borde's collection of "The Merry Jests and Witty Shifts of Scoggin"). "And now who but Will Sommers, the King's Fool? who had got such an interest in him by his quick and facetious jests, that he could have admittance to his Majesty's Chamber, and have his ear, when a great n.o.bleman, nay, a privy counsellor, could not be suffered to speak with him: and farther, if the King were angry or displeased with anything, if no man else durst demand the cause of his discontent, then was Will Sommers provided with one pleasant conceit or another, to take off the edge of his displeasure. Being of an easy and tractable disposition he soon found the fashions of the court, and obtained a general love and notice of the n.o.bility; for he was no carry-tale, nor flattering insinuator to breed discord and dissension, but an honest, plain, downright [man], that would speak home without halting, and tell the truth of purpose to shame the devil--so that his plainness, mixed with a kind of facetiousness, and tartness with pleasantry, made him acceptable into the company of all men." There cannot, perhaps, be a greater proof of the estimation in which Somers was held by King Henry, than the circ.u.mstance of his portrait having been twice introduced into the same piece with that of the King; once in the fine picture by Holbein of Henry VIII. and his family, and again, in an illuminated Psalter which was expressly written for the King, by John Mallard, his chaplain and secretary ("_Regis Orator et Calamo_"), and is now preserved in the British Museum. According to an ancient custom, there is prefixed to Psalm lii., "_dixit incipens_" in the Psalter, a miniature illumination of King David and a Fool, whose figures, in this instance, are portraits of Henry VIII. and his favourite Will Somers. The King is seated at a kind of altar table, and playing on the harp, whilst Somers who is standing near him, with his hands clasped over his breast, appears to listen with admiration.

The King wears a round flat cap, furred, and a vest of imperial purple striped with gold, and fluted at bottom; his doublet is red, padded with white; his hose crimson; on his right leg is a blue garter.

Somers is in a vest, with a hood thrown over the back; his stockings are blue; at his girdle is a black pouch.

When Henry VIII. became old and inactive, his Christmases grew gradually duller, until he did little more than sit out a play or two, and gamble with his courtiers, his Christmas play-money requiring a special draught upon the treasury, usually for a hundred pounds. He died on January 28, 1547.

[34] "Book of Days," Edinburgh.

[35] Williams's "Domestic Memoirs of the Royal Family and of the Court of England."

[36] Chaucer.

[37] "William's Domestic Memoirs."

[38] Nichols's "Progresses of Queen Elizabeth."

[39] "Recollections of Royalty," by Mr. Charles C. Jones, 1828.

[40] "Sports and Pastimes."