Christmastide: its History, Festivities, and Carols.

Transcriber's Note: This cover was created by the transcriber by adding text to the original cover and is placed in the public domain.

James Stephanoff, del.

Ashbee & Dangerfield, lith.

PLAY BEFORE QUEEN ELIZABETH.

CHRISTMASTIDE
its History, Festivities,
and Carols.

By WILLIAM SANDYS, F.S.A.
LONDON:
JOHN RUSSELL SMITH,
SOHO SQUARE.

London: Printed by E. TUCKER, Perry’s Place, Oxford Street.

TO
WYNN ELLIS, ESQUIRE,
High Sheriff of Hertfordshire,
THE FOLLOWING WORK
IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED, AS A SMALL TRIBUTE
OF RESPECT FOR HIS PUBLIC, AND
ESTEEM FOR HIS PRIVATE
CHARACTER.

CONTENTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

CHAPTER I.

IT would not be consistent with the proposed character of this work to enlarge on the Christian dispensation, as connected with the sacred feast of Christmas; to show Christianity as old as the Creation; that the fall of man naturally involved his punishment; and hence the vicarious sacrifice of our Saviour to redeem us from sin and death. These are subjects to be entered on by those who have had opportunities, if not of thinking more, at least of reading more, relative to them, than the writer of these pages, whose leisure hours are few, and whose endeavour will be to give, in as popular and interesting a manner as his abilities will enable him, some information respecting the mode of keeping this Holy Feast, particularly in England, in the olden times, and in the middle ages.

The Nativity is hailed by Christians of all denominations, as the dawn of our salvation; the harbinger of the day-spring on high; that promise of futurity, where care, sin, and sorrow enter not, where friends long severed shall meet to part no more; no pride, no jealousy, no self (that besetting sin of the world) intruding. Well, then, may we observe it with gratitude for the unbounded mercy vouchsafed to us; for the fulfilment of the promise pronounced in the beginning of the world, releasing us from the dominion of Satan. A promise which even the Pagans did not lose sight of, although they confused its import, as a glimmering of it may be traced through their corrupted traditions and superstitious ceremonies.

Has the early dream of youth faded away purposeless?—the ambition of manhood proved vanity of vanities? Have riches made themselves wings and flown away? or, has fame, just within the grasp, burst like a bubble? Have the friends, the companions of youth, one by one fallen off from thy converse; or the prop of advancing age been removed, leaving thee weak and struggling with the cares of life; or, has “the desire of thine eyes” been taken from thee at a stroke? Under these and other trials, the Christian looks to the anniversary of the Nativity (that rainbow of Christianity) as the commemoration of the birth of the Blessed Redeemer, who will give rest to the weary, and receive in his eternal kingdom all those who truly trust in him. And well may His name be called, “Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace!”

The season of Christmas, however, was not only set apart for sacred observance, but soon became a season of feasting and revelry; so much so, that even our sumptuary laws have recognised it, and exempted it from their operation. When Edward the Third, in his tenth year, endeavoured to restrain his subjects from over luxury in their meals, stating that the middle classes sought to imitate the great in this respect, and thus impoverished themselves, and became the less able to assist their liege lord, he forbade more than two courses, and two sorts of meat in each, to any person, except in the great feasts of the year, namely, “La veile et le jour de Noël, le jour de Saint Estiephne, le jour del an renoef (New Year’s Day), les jours de la Tiphaynei et de la Purification de Nostre Dame,” &c.

A cheerful and hospitable observance of this festival being quite consistent with the reverence due to it, let us—after having as our first duty repaired to the house of our Lord, to return humble thanks for the inestimable benefits now conferred—while preparing to enter into our own enjoyments, enable, as far as in our power, our dependants and poorer brethren, to participate in the earthly comforts, as they do in the heavenly blessings of the season. Remember the days of darkness will come, and who can say how soon, how suddenly? and if long and late to some, yet will they surely come, when the daughters of music are laid low, then the remembrance of a kindly act of charity to our neighbour will soothe the careworn brow, and smooth the restless pillow of disease. “Go,” then, “your way; eat the fat and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord.”

A great similarity exists in the observances of the return of the seasons, and of other general festivals throughout the world; and indeed the rites and ceremonies of the various pagan religions have, to a great extent, the marks of a common origin; and the study of popular antiquities involves researches into the early history of mankind, and their religious ceremonies.

Immediately after the deluge, the religion of Noah and his family was pure; but a century had scarcely elapsed before it became perverted among some of his descendants. That stupendous pagan temple, the Tower of Babel, was built, and the confusion of tongues, and dispersion of mankind, followed. As the waves of population receded farther from the centre, the systems of religion—except with the chosen people—got more and more debased, and mingled with allegories and symbols. But still, even the most corrupt preserved many allusions to the fall of man, and his redemption; to the deluge, and the deliverance by the ark; and to a future state. Thus, whether in China, Egypt, India, Africa, Scandinavia, in the rites of Vitzliputzli in Mexico, and of Pacha Camac, in Peru, among the Magi, the Brahmins, the Chaldæans, the Gymnosophists, and the Druids, the same leading features may be traced. It has even been supposed, that amongst a chosen race of the priests, some traditionary knowledge of the true religion prevailed, which they kept carefully concealed from the uninitiated.

One of the greatest festivals was that in celebration of the return of the sun; which, at the winter solstice, began gradually to regain power, the year commenced anew, and the season was hailed with rejoicings and thanksgivings. The Saxons, and other northern nations, kept a feast on the 25th of December, in honour of Thor, and called it the Mother-Night, as the parent of other nights; also Mid-Winter. It was likewise called Gule, Gwyl, Yule, or Iul, and half a dozen similar names, respecting the meaning of which learned antiquaries differ: Gebelin and others stating they convey the idea of revolution or wheel; while others, equally learned, consider the meaning to be festival, or holy-day. Gwyl in Welsh, and Geol in Saxon, both signify a holy-day; and as Yule, or I-ol, also signifies ale, an indispensable accompaniment of Saxon and British feasts, they were probably convertible terms. The word Yule may be found in many of our ancient metrical romances, and some of the old mysteries, as applied to Christmas, and is still so used in Scotland, and parts of England. The word Gala would seem to have a similar derivation. The curious in these matters may, however, refer to the learned Hickes’s two folios, Gebelin’s nine quartos, and Du Cange’s ten folios, and other smaller works, and satisfy their cravings after knowledge.

The feast of the birth of Mithras was held by the Romans on the 25th of December, in commemoration of the return of the sun; but the most important heathen festival, at this period of the year, was the Saturnalia, a word which has since become proverbial for high-jinks, and all manner of wild revelry. The origin seems to be unknown, but to have been previous to the foundation of Rome, and to have had some reference to the happy state of freedom and equality in the golden age of Saturn, whenever that era of dreams existed; for, when we go back to the olden times, no matter how far, we find the archæologists of that age still looking back on their older times: and so we are handed back, not knowing where to stop, until we stumble against the Tower of Babel, or are stopped by the prow of the Ark, and then decline going any farther.

The Greeks, Mexicans, Persians, and other great nations of antiquity, including of course the Chinese, who always surpassed any other country, had similar festivals. During the Saturnalia among the Romans, which lasted for about a week from the 17th of December, not only were masters and slaves on an equality, but the former had to attend on the latter, who were allowed to ridicule them. Towards the end of the feast a king or ruler was chosen, who was invested with considerable powers, and may be supposed to be intimately connected with our Lord of Misrule, or Twelfth Night King,—presents also were mutually given, and public places decked with shrubs and flowers. The birth of our Saviour thus took place at that time of the year, already marked by some of the most distinguished feasts. And why should it not have been so? We know that, at whatever period of the year it took place, it would have been, for Christians, “The Feast of Feasts;” and it is surely no derogation to imagine, that it was appointed at this time as the fulfilment of all feasts, and the culmination of festivals. The rising of the Christian Sun absorbed in its rays the lesser lights of early traditions, and it has continued to illuminate us with its blended brilliancy. Abercrombie, in his work on the Intellectual Powers, has some able remarks on the value of an unbroken series of traditional testimony or rites, especially as applicable to Christianity. “If the events, particularly, are of a very uncommon character, these rites remove any feeling of uncertainty which attaches to traditional testimony, when it has been transmitted through a long period of time, and, consequently, through a great number of individuals. They carry us back, in one unbroken series, to the period of the events themselves, and to the individuals who were witnesses of them. The most important application of the principle, in the manner now referred to, is in those observances of religion which are intended to commemorate the events connected with the revelation of the Christian faith. The importance of this mode of transmission has not been sufficiently attended to by those who have urged the insufficiency of human testimony, to establish the course of events which are at variance with the common course of nature.”

During the Commonwealth, some of the Puritan party endeavoured to show that the 25th of December was not really the Birth of our Saviour, but that it took place at a different time of the year. Thomas Mockett, in ‘Christmas, the Christian’s Grand Feast,’ has collected the principal statements corroborative of this view—arguments they cannot be called; and after all, his conclusion is nothing more than, be the 25th of December the right day or not, Christians were not bound to keep it as a feast, because the supreme authority of the land, and ordinances of both Houses of Parliament, had directed otherwise. Parliament, however, cannot control the day of the Nativity, though it can do a great deal; having, on one occasion, according to tradition, nearly passed an act against the growth of poetry (an enactment perhaps not much wanted at present), though this was said to have been a clerical error; and, at another time, after inflicting a punishment of fourteen years’ transportation, gave half to the king and half to the informer; this, as may be supposed, was subsequently repealed. If, however, it is safe to say anything against Parliament, even of two hundred years since, without fear of the pains and penalties of contempt, it might be presumed that, like the patient in the ‘Diary of a Physician,’ they had “turned heads.” Dr. Thomas Warmstry, in ‘The Vindication of the Solemnity of the Nativity of Christ,’ published three years previous to Mockett’s tract, gives satisfactory replies to the objections made by the Puritans, and seems to have embodied the arguments against them, considering it sufficient for us that the Church has appointed the 25th of December for our great feast.

Whether the Apostles celebrated this day, although probable, is not capable of proof; but Clemens Romanus, about the year 70, when some of them were still living, directs the Nativity to be observed on the 25th of December. From his time to that of Bernard, the last of the Fathers, A.D. 1120, the feast is mentioned in an unbroken series; a tract, called ‘Festorum Metropolis,’ 1652, naming thirty-nine Fathers, who have referred to it, including Ignatius, Cyprian, Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen, Ambrosius, Chrysostom, Augustine, and Bede; besides historians and more modern divines. ‘The Feast of Feasts,’ 1644, also contains many particulars of the celebration during the earlier centuries of Christianity. About the middle of the fourth century, the feasting was carried to excess, as may have been the case occasionally in later times; and Gregory Nazianzen wars against such feasting, and dancing, and crowning the doors, so that the temporal rejoicing seems to have taken the place of the spiritual thanksgiving. In the same age there occurred one of those acts of brutality, which throughout all ages have disgraced humanity. The Christians having assembled in the Temple at Nicomedia, in Bithynia, to celebrate the Nativity, Dioclesian, the tyrant, had it inclosed, and set on fire, when about 20,000 persons are said to have perished; the number, however, appears large.

The early Christians, of the eastern and western Churches, slightly differed in the day on which they celebrated this feast: the Easterns keeping it, together with the Baptism, on the 6th of January, calling it the Epiphany; while the Westerns, from the first, kept it on the 25th of December; but in the fourth century the Easterns changed their festival of the Nativity to the same day, thus agreeing with the Westerns. The Christian epoch was, it is said, first introduced into chronology about the year 523, and was first established in this country by Bede. New Year’s Day was not observed by the early Christians as the Feast of the Circumcision, but (excepting by some more zealous persons, who kept it as a fast) with feasting, songs, dances, interchange of presents, &c., in honour of the new year; though the bishops and elders tried to check these proceedings, which were probably founded in some measure on the Roman feast of the double-faced Janus, held by them on this day. According to Brady, the first mention of it, as a Christian festival, was in 487; and it is only to be traced from the end of the eleventh century, under the title of the Circumcision; and was not generally so kept until included in our liturgy, in 1550; although, from early times, Christmas Day, the Nativity, and Twelfth Day, were the three great days of Christmas-tide. Referring to the probability, that the feasting on New Year’s Day might have been derived from the feast of Janus, it must be observed, that some of the early Christians, finding the heathens strongly attached to their ancient rites and customs, which made it difficult to abolish them (at least until after a considerable lapse of time), took advantage of this feeling, and engrafted the Christian feasts on those of the heathen, first modifying and purifying them. The practice may have been wrong, but the fact was so. Thus, Gregory Thaumaturgus, bishop of Neocæsarea, who died in 265, instituted festivals in honour of certain Saints and Martyrs, in substitution of those of the heathens, and directed Christmas to be kept with joy and feasting, and sports, to replace the Bacchanalia and Saturnalia. Pagan temples were converted into Christian churches; the statues of the heathen deities were converted into Christian saints; and papal Rome preserved, under other names, many relics of heathen Rome. The Pantheon was converted into a Romish church, and Jupiter changed to St. Peter.

When Pope Gregory sent over St. Augustin to convert Saxon England, he directed him to accommodate the ceremonies of the Christian worship as much as possible to those of the heathen, that the people might not be too much startled at the change; and, in particular, he advised him to allow the Christian converts, on certain festivals, to kill and eat a great number of oxen, to the glory of God, as they had formerly done to the honour of the devil. St. Augustin, it appears, baptized no fewer than 10,000 persons on the Christmas day next after his landing in 596, and permitted, in pursuance of his instructions, the usual feasting of the inhabitants, allowing them to erect booths for their own refreshment, instead of sacrificing to their idols,—objecting only to their joining in their dances with their pagan neighbours. Thus several of the pagan observances became incorporated with the early Christian festivals; and to such an extent, that frequent endeavours were made, by different Councils, to suppress or modify them; as, in 589, the songs and dances, at the festivals of Saints, were prohibited by the Council of Toledo, and by that of Chalon, on the Saone, in 650. In after times, the clergy still found it frequently requisite to connect the remnants of pagan idolatry with Christianity, in consequence of the difficulty they found in suppressing it. So, likewise, on the introduction of the Protestant religion, some of the Roman Catholic ceremonies, in a modified state, were preserved; and thus were continued some of the pagan observances. In this manner may many superstitious customs, still remaining at our great feasts, and in our games and amusements, be accounted for.

The practice of decorating churches and houses with evergreens, branches, and flowers, is of very early date. The Jews used them at their Feast of Tabernacles, and the heathens in several of their ceremonies, and they were adopted by the Christians. Our Saviour Himself permitted branches to be used as a token of rejoicing, upon His triumphal entry to Jerusalem. It was natural, therefore, that at Christmas time, when His Birth, and the fulfilment of the promise to fallen man, were celebrated, that this symbol of rejoicing should be resorted to. Some of the early Councils, however, considering the practice somewhat savoured of paganism, endeavoured to abolish it; and, in 610, it was enacted, that it was not lawful to begirt or adorn houses with laurel, or green boughs, for all this practice savours of paganism. In the earlier carols the holly and the ivy are mentioned, where the ivy, however, is generally treated as a foil to the holly, and not considered appropriate to festive purposes.

“Holly and Ivy made a great party,
Who should have the mastery
In lands where they go.
Then spake Holly, I am friske and jolly,
I will have the mastery
In lands where they go.”

But in after times it was one of the plants in regular use. Stowe mentions holme, ivy, and bays, and gives an account of a great storm on Candlemas Day, 1444, which rooted up a standard tree, in Cornhill, nailed full of holme and ivy for Christmas, an accident that by some was attributed to the evil spirit. Old Tusser’s direction is “Get ivye and hull (holly) woman deck up thine house.” The misletoe—how could Shakespeare call it the “baleful misletoe?”—was an object of veneration among our pagan ancestors in very early times, and as it is probable it was the golden branch referred to by Virgil, in his description of the descent to the lower regions, it may be assumed to have been used in the religious ceremonies of the Greeks and Romans. His branch appears to have been the misletoe of the oak, now of great rarity, though it is found on many other trees. It was held sacred by the Druids and Celtic nations, who attribute to it valuable medicinal qualities, calling it allheal and guidhel, and they preferred, if not selected exclusively, the misletoe of the oak. Vallancey says it was held sacred because the berries as well as the leaves grow in clusters of three united to one stalk, and they had a veneration for the number three; his observation, however, is incorrect as to the leaves, which are in pairs only. The Gothic nations also attached extraordinary qualities to it, and it was the cause of the death of their deity Balder. For Friga, when she adjured all the other plants, and the animals, birds, metals, earth, fire, water, reptiles, diseases, and poison, not to do him any hurt, unfortunately neglected to exact any pledge from the misletoe, considering it too weak and feeble to hurt him, and despising it perhaps because it had no establishment of its own, but lived upon other plants. When the gods, then, in their great assembly, amused themselves by throwing darts and other missiles at him, which all fell harmless, Loke, moved with envy, joined them in the shape of an old woman, and persuaded Hoder, who was blind, to throw a branch of misletoe, and guided his hand for the purpose; when Balder, being pierced through by it, fell dead. The Druids celebrated a grand festival on the annual cutting of the misletoe, which was held on the sixth day of the moon nearest their new year. Many ceremonies were observed, the officiating Druid being clad in white, with a golden sickle, and received the plant in a white cloth. These ceremonies kept alive the superstitious feelings of the people, to whom no doubt the Druids were in the habit of dispensing the plant at a high price; and as late as the seventeenth century, peculiar efficacy was attached to it, and a piece hung round the neck was considered as a safeguard against witches. In modern times it has a tendency to lead us towards witches of a more attractive nature; for, as is well known, if one can by favour or cunning induce a fair one to come under the misletoe he is entitled to a salute, at the same time he should wish her a happy new year, and present her with one of the berries for good luck; each bough, therefore, is only laden with a limited number of kisses, which should be well considered in selecting one. In some places people try lots by the crackling of the leaves and berries in the fire.

From the pagan Saturnalia and Lupercalia probably were derived those extraordinary but gross, and as we should now consider them, profane observances, the Feast of Asses and the Feast of Fools, with other similar burlesque festivals. In the early ages of Christianity, there were practices at the beginning of the year of men going about dressed in female attire or in skins of beasts, causing occasionally much vice and debauchery; but the regular Feast of Asses and Feast of Fools were not apparently fully established until the ninth or tenth century; a period when it was considered a sufficient qualification for a priest, if he could read the Gospels and understand the Lord’s Prayer. All sorts of buffooneries and abominations were permitted at these representations; mock anthems and services were sung; an ass, covered with rich priestly robes, was gravely conducted to the choir, and provided from time to time with drink and provender, the inferior clergy, choristers, and people dancing round him and imitating his braying; while all sorts of impurities were committed, even at the holy altar. A hymn was sung, commencing—

Orientis partibus
Adventavit asinus;
Pulcher et fortissimus,
Sarcinis aptissimus.
Hez, Sire Asnes, car chantez;
Belle bouche rechignez;
Vous aurez du foin assez.
Et de l’avoine à planter.
Lentus erat pedibus,
Nisi foret baculus,
Et cum in clunibus
Pungeret aeuleus.

and after several verses in this strain, finishing with—

Hez va! hez va! hez va, hez!
Bialx Sire Asnes car allez;
Belle bouche car chantez.

On the mock mass being completed, the officiating priest turned to the people and said, “Ite missa est,” and brayed three times, to which they responded by crying or braying out, Hinham, Hinham, Hinham. This festival is said to have been in commemoration of the flight to Egypt; but there was one kept at Rouen in honour of Balaam’s ass, where the performers, if they may be so called, walked in procession on Christmas Day, representing the prophets and others, as David, Moses, Balaam, Virgil, &c., just as General Wolfe may now be seen as a party in the Christmas play of St. George and the Dragon. Many attempts were made from the twelfth to the end of the sixteenth century to suppress these licentious abuses of sacred things; and although by that time they were abolished in the churches, yet they were continued by the laity, and our modern mummers probably have their origin from them. A pupil of Gassandi, writing to him as late as 1645, mentions having seen in the church at Aix, the Feast of Innocents (which was of a similar nature) kept by the lay brethren and servants in the church, dressed in ragged sacerdotal ornaments, with books reversed, having large spectacles, with rinds of scooped oranges instead of glasses. Louis the Twelfth, in the early part of the sixteenth century, ordered the representation of the gambol of the ‘Prince des Sots’ and the ‘Mère sotte,’ in which, according to a note to Rabelais, liv. i, c. 2, ed. 1823, Julius the Second and the Court of Rome were represented. This was about the time probably when the principality of Chauny wishing to have some swans (cignes) for the waters ornamenting their town, unluckily wrote to Paris for some cinges (singe being then written with a c), and in due time received a wagonful of apes. They could, therefore, have readily proffered their scribe as the prince des sots, excepting that it takes a wise man to make a good fool. At Angers, there was an old custom called Aquilanneuf, or Guilanleu, where young persons went round to churches and houses on the first of the year, to collect contributions, nominally to purchase wax in honour of the Virgin, or the patron of the church, crying out, Au gui menez Rollet Follet, tiri liri mainte du blanc et point du bis; they had a chief called Roi Follet, and spent their money in feasting and debauchery. An order was made by the synod there, in 1595, which stopped the practice in the churches, but another, in 1668, was necessary to modify and restrain it altogether.

Feasts of this description were not much in vogue in England, though they were introduced, as we find them prohibited at Lincoln, by Bishop Grosthead, in the time of Henry the Third; but towards the end of the following century they were probably abolished. There are traces of the fool’s dance, where the dancers were clad in fool’s habits, in the reign of Edward the Third. A full account of these strange observances may be found in Ducange, and in Du Tilliot’s Mémoires de la Fête des Foux.

Christianity was introduced among the Britons at a very early period, but there are no records, that can be considered authentic, of their mode of keeping the feast of the Nativity, though it was doubtless observed as one of their highest festivals. Some of the druidical ceremonies might have been embodied, and even the use of the mysterious misletoe then adopted, the aid of the bards called in, and ale and mead quaffed in abundance. The great and veritable King Arthur, according to the ballad of the “Marriage of Sir Gawaine,”—

“......a royale Christmasse kept,
With mirth and princelye cheare;
To him repaired many a knighte,
That came both farre and neare.”

This, though ancient, is certainly of a date long subsequent to the far-famed hero; but it ought to be taken as authority, for, according to the modern progress of antiquarianism, the farther off we live from any given time or history, the more we know about it; the old Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, and Mediævals, knowing nothing respecting themselves and their next door neighbours, while we are as familiar as if we had been born and bred with them. By the same rule of remoteness, the modern chronicler, Whistlecraft (Frere), should be taken as authority, for the particulars of the ancient Christmas feast, on which he humorously thus dilates:—

“They served up salmon, venison, and wild boars,
By hundreds, and by dozens, and by scores,
Hogsheads of honey, kilderkins of mustard,
Muttons, and fatted beeves, and bacon swine,
Herons and bitterns, peacocks, swan, and bustard,
Teal, mallard, pigeons, widgeons, and, in fine,
Plum-puddings, pancakes, apple-pies, and custard,
And therewithal they drank good Gascon wine,
With mead, and ale, and cider of our own,
For porter, punch, and negus were not known.”

After the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas, were kept as solemn festivals; the kings living at those times in great state, wearing their crowns, receiving company on a large scale, and treating them with great hospitality. The Wittenagemots were also then held, and important affairs of church and state discussed. Knowing the affection of the early Saxons for their ale and mead, and that quaffing these from the skulls of their enemies, while feasting from the great boar Scrymer, was—notwithstanding the apparent sameness of the amusement—one of their anticipated joys in a future state, we can readily imagine that excesses frequently took place at these festivals. The wassail bowl, of which the skull of an enemy would thus appear to have formed their beau idéal, is said to have been introduced by them. Rowena, the fair daughter of Hengist, presenting the British king, Vortigern, with a bowl of wine, and saluting him with “Lord King Wass-heil;” to which he answered, as he was directed, “Drinc heile,” and saluted her then after his fashion, being much smitten with her charms. The purpose of father and daughter was obtained; the king married the fair cup-bearer, and the Saxons obtained what they required of him. This is said to have been the first wassail in this land; but, as it is evident that the form of salutation was previously known, the custom must have been much older among the Saxons; and, indeed, in one of the histories, a knight, who acts as a sort of interpreter between Rowena and the king, explains it to be an old custom among them. By some accounts, however, the Britons are said themselves to have had their wassail bowl, or lamb’s wool—La Mas Ubhal, or day of apple fruit—as far back as the third century, made of ale, sugar (whatever their sugar was), toast and roasted crabbs, hissing in the bowl; to which, in later times, nutmeg was added. The followers of Odin and Thor drank largely in honour of their pagan deities; and, when converted, still continued their potations, but in honour of the Virgin Mary, the Apostles, and Saints; and the early missionaries were obliged to submit to this substitution, being unable to abolish the practice, which afterwards degenerated into drinking healths of other people, to the great detriment of our own. Strange! that even from the earliest ages, the cup-bearer should be one of the principal officers in the royal presence, and that some of the high families take their name from a similar office.

The feast of Christmas was kept in the same state on the Continent, and the bishops were accustomed to send their eulogies—Visitationis Scripta—on the Nativity, to kings, queens, and others of the blood royal. But it is foreign to the purpose of this work to refer to the customs abroad, unless it may be necessary to do so slightly, for the purpose of illustration. It may be mentioned, however, that at this festival, in 800, Charlemagne received from the pope, Leo the Third, the crown of Emperor, and was hailed as the pious Augustus the Great, and pacific Emperor of the Romans.

Alfred, as might be expected from his fine character, reverently observed the festival. On one occasion he gave to the celebrated Asser, by way of gift, an abbey, in Wiltshire, supposed to have been Amesbury; another, at Barnwell, in Somersetshire; a rich silk pall, and as much incense as a strong man could carry on his shoulder,—a truly princely New Year’s gift. He directed Christmas to be kept for twelve days; so that now, if not at an earlier date, the length of the feast was defined, and the name, probably, of Twelfth-day given to the last day of it; though, in the old Runic festivals, among the ancient Danes, it appears to have been more correctly called the thirteenth day, a name which would sound uncouth to our modern ears: Who would eat any thirteenth cake? Alfred was commemorating this festival, with his army, at Chippenham, in 878, when he was surprised by Guthrum, and his Danes, and compelled to fly and conceal himself in the Isle of Athelney, his power fading away for a time, even like that of a twelfth-night king. Something similar happened a century before, when Offa, king of Mercia, about the year 790, was completing Offa’s dyke. The Welsh, despising the solemnity of the time, broke through, and slew many of Offa’s soldiers, who were enjoying their Christmas. The Danish kings kept the feast much in the same manner as the Saxons; and there is a story told of Canute, who had many good qualities about him, which shows the rudeness of the times, even in the royal circle, though such a scene may even now be realized in Oriental courts. While this monarch was celebrating his Christmas in London, A.D. 1017, Edric, earl of Mercia, who had treacherously betrayed and deserted Ethelred and Edmund Ironside, boasted of his services to Canute, who turned to Eric, earl of Northumberland, exclaiming, “Then let him receive his deserts, that he may not betray us, as he betrayed Ethelred and Edmund.” The Norwegian immediately cut him down with his battle-axe, and his body was thrown from a window into the Thames. Such speedy justice would rather astonish a drawing-room now-a-days.

Dancing seems then, even as at present, to have been a favourite Christmas amusement, and certainly in one instance was carried to an extreme. Several young persons were dancing and singing together on Christmas Eve, 1012, in a churchyard, and disturbed one Robert, a priest, who was performing mass in the church. He entreated them in vain to desist: the more he begged the more they danced, and, we may conclude, showed him some of their best entrechâts and capers. What would, in modern times, have been a case for the police, was then a subject for the solemn interference of the powers of the church. Robert, as they would not cease dancing, as the next best thing, prayed that they might dance without ceasing. So they continued without intermission, for a whole year, feeling neither heat nor cold, hunger nor thirst, weariness nor decay of apparel; but the ground on which they performed not having the same miraculous support, gradually wore away under them, till at last they were sunk in it up to the middle, still dancing as vehemently as ever. Sir Roger de Coverley, danced down the whole length of the Crystal Palace, would have been nothing to this. A brother of one of the girls took her by the arm, endeavouring to bring her away; the limb, however, came off in his hand, like Dr. Faustus’s leg, in the hand of the countryman, but the girl never stopped her dancing, or missed a single step in consequence. At the end of the year Bishop Hubert came to the place, when the dancing ceased, and he gave the party absolution. Some of them died immediately after, and the remainder, after a profound sleep of three days and three nights, went about the country to publish the miracle.

It was at Christmas, 1065, that Westminster Abbey was consecrated, in the presence of Queen Edgitha, and a great number of nobles and priests, Edward the Confessor being himself too ill to attend; and indeed he died on the 5th of January, 1066, and was buried in the Abbey on the following day; his tomb there, and his name of the Confessor, given him by the priests, having caused him probably to be better known than any particular merits of his own deserve.

A great change was now about to take place in the government of our country: William of Normandy claimed it as his of right against Harold; and, having power to support his claim, in the space of a few months became King of England, placing his Norman followers in the high places of the land.

CHAPTER II.

THE Anglo-Norman kings introduced increased splendour at this festival, as they did on all other occasions; the king wearing his crown and robes of state, and the prelates and nobles attending, with great pomp and ceremony, to partake of the feast provided by their monarch, and to receive from him presents, as marks of his royal favour; returning, probably, more than an equivalent. William the Conqueror, was crowned on Christmas day, 1066.

“On Christmas day in solemne sort,
Then was he crowned here,
By Albert, Archbishop of Yorke,
With many a noble peere.”

There was some disturbance during the ceremony, owing to the turbulence or misconception of his Norman followers, who, as well as their master, were disposed to rule with a rod of iron. William gave a striking proof of how little his nature was capable of understanding “good will towards men,” when he kept his Christmas at York, in 1069, with the usual festivities, and afterwards gave directions to devastate the country between York and Durham; thus consigning 100,000 people to death, by cold, hunger, fire, and sword. Well, perhaps some of us are William the Conquerors in heart; what else is a bully at school, or a bully in society, or, yet more, a bully in domestic life? Who can count the misery caused by one selfish, one imperious tyrant, whose victims dare not, or will not, complain; the crouching child, the trembling, submissive, broken-hearted, yet even still the loving wife? Oh! woman,—woman, how few amongst us are able to appreciate you! We see you fair and accomplished; we find you loving and affectionate; we know you virtuous and faithful; but, can we estimate your truthfulness, your negation of self, your purity of thought? Partakers of our joys, but partners indeed in our sorrows; how many a weary heart of man, crushed by the pressure of worldly cares and trials, have you not saved, and brought to the contemplation of better things! “She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness.”

It would be easy to give a list of the different places where our monarchs kept their Christmasses, from the time of the Conquest, in nearly, if not quite, an unbroken series; but as this would be scarcely as amusing as a few pages in a well conducted dictionary, it will no doubt be considered to have been wisely omitted. It may be stated, in general terms, that the earlier kings occasionally passed Christmas in Normandy, and that some of the principal towns favoured, besides London and Westminster, appear to have been, Windsor, York, Winchester, Norwich, Worcester, Gloucester, Oxford, Eltham, and Canterbury; and in the time of the Tudors, Greenwich. Some examples of marked or distinguished Christmasses will be given in the following pages.

In 1085, William, who was fond of magnificence, kept his Christmas with great state at Gloucester, which was a favourite place with him and his son William. He was either in a particular good humour, or wished to perform what he might think an act of grace, and compensate the severity with which he treated his conquered, or rather semi-conquered new subjects, by showing favour to his own countrymen;—a sort of liberal disposition of public gifts to family friends, that may be seen occasionally even in modern times—so he gave bishoprics to three of his chaplains, namely, that of London to Maurice, of Thetford to William, and of Chester to Robert. There is a somewhat strange regulation among the constitutions of Archbishop Lanfranc for the government of the monks of his cathedral, which contain numerous injunctions respecting washing and combing, and other matters that would now surprise even a well-regulated boys’ school. On Christmas Eve they are directed to comb their heads before they washed their hands, while at other times they were to wash first, and comb afterwards. We do not see the philosophy of this curious distinction.

William Rufus, the weak and profligate successor of the Conqueror, kept the Christmas in state, like his father, and Henry the First followed their example; even in 1105, which was “annus valde calamitosus,” wherein he raised many tributes, he still kept his Christmas in state, at Windsor. In 1116, he kept it at St. Albans, when the celebrated monastery there was consecrated. In the Christmas 1126-7, which was held at Windsor, anticipating the struggle for the crown that would take place after his death, he assembled all the principal clergy and nobles (David, king of Scots, being also present), and caused them to swear that they would maintain England and Normandy for his daughter, the Empress Matilda, after his death. In these early times, however, a few oaths, more or less, were of little consequence; the “time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary” was of very short date; a week sometimes making a man to forget utterly what he might previously have sworn to; and the vicar of Bray would have been by no means a reprehensible character.

King Stephen, after his accession, wore his crown and robes of state like the former kings, and kept his Christmas at London; but about the fifth year of his reign, the internal wars and tumults became and continued of such magnitude, that during the remainder of this troubled reign, the celebration of festivals was laid aside.

Henry the Second renewed the celebration of Christmas with great splendour, and with plays and masques; and the lord of Misrule appears to have been known at this time, if not at a much earlier date. In 1171, he celebrated the feast at Dublin, in a large wooden house erected for the purpose, and entertained several of the Irish chieftains, as well as the principal men of his own court and army; the Irish were much surprised at the great plenty and variety of provisions, and were especially amused at the English eating cranes; however, after a very short hesitation they joined readily in the feasting themselves, and history does not say that any ill effects followed. Cranes continued to be favourites at Christmas and aristocratic feasts for some time; at the celebrated and often quoted enthronisation banquet of Archbishop Nevil, in the time of Edward the Fourth, there were no less than 204 of these birds. There were some strange dishes, however, in vogue in the time of Henry the Second, as far as the names, whatever the actual merits of the compounds might have been. Dillegrout, karumpie, and maupigyrnun, may have far surpassed some of our grand sounding modern dishes, where the reality sadly disappoints the ear. This dillegrout also was rather an important dish, as the tenant of the manor of Addington, in Surrey, held it by service of making a mess of dillegrout on the day of the coronation. Fancy the anxiety on this ceremony, not only for the excellence of the dish, but that it shall not be proclaimed a failure, and thus risk the possession of the manor, and some more favoured tenant being put in possession, on the tenure of providing a plum-pudding every Christmas, or something similar, like the celebrated King George’s pudding, still tendered to visitors at the Isle of Portland. This dillegrout, too, required some little skill to make it well, being compounded of almond milk, the brawn of capons, sugar and spices, chicken parboiled and chopped, and was called, also, ‘le mess de gyron,’ or, if there was fat with it, it was termed maupigyrnun.

At Christmas, 1176, Roderick, king of Connaught, kept court with Henry at Windsor, and in 1183, Henry kept the feast at Caen, in Normandy, and there wished his son Henry (who died not long afterwards) to receive homage from his brothers; but the impetuous Richard would not consent, the “merry” Christmas was, therefore, sadly interrupted, and fresh family feuds arose; they had previously been but too frequent, Henry’s life having been much embittered by the conduct of his sons.

When Richard himself came to the throne, he gave a splendid entertainment during Christmas, 1190, at Sicily, when on his way to the Crusades, inviting every one in the united English and French armies of the degree of a gentleman, and giving each a suitable present, according to his rank. Notwithstanding, however, the romance of Richard Cœur de Lion affirms that—

“Christmas is a time full honest,
Kyng Richard it honoured with gret feste;”

and an antiquary of course ought to consider these romances of equal authenticity with the old chronicles; yet one cannot help thinking that during Richard’s short reign, his captivity and his absence from his kingdom must have interfered with his Christmas celebrations; in fact, he, of the lion-heart, seems to have been more ornamental than useful in the pages of history.

John celebrated the feast pretty regularly, but seems occasionally to have selected a city or town for the purpose, where some great personage was allowed to provide for the entertainment; as, for instance, the celebrated Hubert de Burgh, at Canterbury, in 1203. In 1213, he kept his Christmas at Windsor with great festivity, and gave many presents. He was accustomed to make a present to his chancellor, every Christmas, of two marks of gold, according to ancient custom, no doubt by way of New Year’s gift, and gave him half that value at Easter and Whitsuntide. In 1214, he was keeping his Christmas at Worcester, when he was informed of the resolution of the barons to withdraw their allegiance, unless their claims were attended to. This information being ill-suited for the festivities then in progress, the king departed suddenly and shut himself up in the Temple; but the barons went to him on the Epiphany of 1215 with their demands, to which he promised a satisfactory answer at the ensuing Easter. The dissensions between himself and his barons, ending in Magna Charta, are well-known matters of history. In the following year the chief barons of the realm were under sentence of excommunication, and the city of London was under an interdict; but the citizens disregarded this, kept open their churches, rang their bells, enjoyed their turtle and whitebait (whatever the turtle and whitebait of that time might have been), drank their hippocras, ale, mead, and claret or clarré, and celebrated their Christmas with unusual festivity. The English had long been celebrated for their pre-eminence in drinking; as Iago says, “your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander, are nothing to your English.” They probably inherited the talent from the Saxons, for their kings had their wine, mead, cyder, ale, pigment, and morat, to which their Norman successors added claret or clarré, garhiofilac, and hippocras. Morat was made from honey and mulberries; claret, pigment, hippocras, and garhiofilac (so called from the girofle or cloves contained in it), were different preparations of wine mixed with honey and spices, no doubt very palatable; and hippocras particularly was indispensable at all the great feasts. Garhiofilac was probably made of white wine, and claret of red wine, as there is an order of Henry the Third in existence, directing the keepers of his wines at York, to deliver to Robert de Monte Pessulano two tuns of white wine to make garhiofilac, and one tun of red wine to make claret for him at the ensuing Christmas, as he used to do in former years. These sheriffs were very useful persons in those times, and performed many offices for our olden monarchs that would somewhat surprise a modern high sheriff to perform now, when he is only called upon to attend to the higher duties of his office, and becomes officially one of the first men in his county. Henry the Third, in his twenty-sixth year, directed the sheriff of Gloucester, to cause twenty salmons to be bought for the king, and put into pies against Christmas; and the sheriff of Sussex to buy ten brawns with the heads, ten peacocks, and other provisions for the same feast.

James Stephanoff, del.

Ashbee & Dangerfield, lith.

USHERING IN THE BOAR’S HEAD.

In his thirty-ninth year, the French king, having sent over as a present to Henry (whether as a New Year’s gift or not does not exactly appear) an elephant—“a beast most strange and wonderfull to the English people, sith most seldome or never any of that kind had beene seene before that time,”—the sheriffs of London were commanded to build a house for the same, forty feet long and twenty feet broad, and to find necessaries for himself and keeper.

The boar’s head just referred to was the most distinguished of the Christmas dishes, and there are several old carols remaining in honour of it.

“At the begynnyng of the mete,
Of a borys hed ye schal hete,
And in the mustard ye shal wete;
And ye shal syngyn or ye gon.”

The dish itself, though the “chief service in this land,” and of very ancient dignity—probably as old as the Saxons,—was not confined to Christmas; for, in 1170, when King Henry the Second had his son Henry crowned in his own lifetime, he himself, to do him honour, brought up the boar’s head with trumpets before it, “according to the manner.” It continued the principal entry at all grand feasts, and was frequently ornamented. At the coronation feast of Henry the Sixth there were boars’ heads in “castellys of golde and enamell.” By Henry the Eighth’s time it had become an established Christmas dish, and we find it ushered in at this season to his daughter the Princess Mary, with all the usual ceremonies, and no doubt to the table of the monarch himself, who was not likely to dispense with so royal a dish; and so to the time of Queen Elizabeth, and the revels in the Inns of Court in her time, when at the Inner Temple a fair and large boar’s head was served on a silver platter, with minstrelsy. At the time of the celebrated Christmas dinner, at Oxford, in 1607, the first mess was a boar’s head, carried by the tallest of the guard, having a green scarf and an empty scabbard, preceded by two huntsmen, one carrying a boar spear and the other a drawn faucion, and two pages carrying mustard, which seems to have been as indispensable as the head itself. A carol was sung on the occasion, in the burden of which all joined. Queen’s College, Oxford, was also celebrated for its custom of bringing in the boar’s head with its old carol. Even in the present day, though brawn, in most cases, is considered as a sort of substitute, the boar’s head with lemon in his mouth may be seen, though rarely, and when met with, may be safely recommended as a dainty; but some of the soi-disant boars’ heads seen at Christmas in a pompous state of whiskerless obesity, may without disparagement take Lady Constance’s words literally and “hang a calf skin on their recreant limbs.” Brawn is probably as old as boar’s head; but the inventor of such an arrangement of hogsflesh must have been a genius, and would have been a patentee in our days, and probably have formed a joint-stock brawn association. We have just observed it in the time of Henry the Third, and the ‘begging frere,’ in ‘Chaucer’s Sompnoure’s Tales,’ says, “geve us of your braun, if ye have any,” and it may be found in most of the coronation and grand feasts; even in the coronation feast of Katharine, queen to Henry the Fifth, in 1421, brawn and mustard appear, though the feast was intended to be strictly a fish dinner, and with this exception and a little confectionary, really was so, comprising, with other marine delicacies, “fresh sturgion with welks,” and “porperous rosted,” the whole bill of fare, however, would match even the ministerial whitebait dinner. This is not the only instance where brawn was ranked with fish; for when Calais was taken, there was a large quantity there; so the French, guessing it to be some dainty, tried every means of cooking it; they roasted it, boiled it, baked it, but all in vain, till some imaginative mind suggested a trial au naturel, when its merits were discovered. But now came the question, in what class of the animal creation should it be placed? The monks tasted and admired: “Ha! ha!” said they, “capital fish!” and immediately placed it on their list of fast-day provisions. The Jews were somewhat puzzled, but a committee of taste, of the most experienced elders, decided that it certainly was not any preparation from impure swine, and included it in their list of clean animals.

At the coronation of Henry the Seventh, a distinction was made between “brawne royall,” and “brawne,” the former probably being confined to the king’s table. Brawn and mustard appear to be as inseparable as the boar’s head and mustard, and many directions respecting them may be found at early feasts. In the middle of the sixteenth century brawn is called a great piece of service, chiefly in Christmas time, but as it is somewhat hard of digestion, a draught of malvesie, bastard, or muscadell is usually drunk after it, where either of them is conveniently to be had.

“Even the two rundlets,
The two that was our hope, of muscadel,
(Better ne’er tongue tript over,) these two cannons,
To batter brawn withal, at Christmas, sir,—
Even these two lovely twins, the enemy
Had almost cut off clean.”

At the palace, and at the revels of the Inns of Court, it seems to have been a constant dish at a Christmas breakfast. Tusser prescribes it amongst his good things for Christmas, and it has so remained to the present time. The salmon recently mentioned, as having been ordered for the king, continued to be a favourite dish for this feast. Carew says—

“Lastly, the sammon, king of fish,
Fils with good cheare the Christmas dish.”

There used to be a superstition at Aberavon, in Monmouthshire, that every Christmas Day, in the morning, and then only, a large salmon exhibited himself in the adjoining river, and permitted himself to be handled and taken up, but it would have been the greatest impiety to have captured him. One would not wish to interfere with the integrity of this legend, by calling on the salmon some Christmas morning, for fear that he may have followed the tide of emigration, or may have been affected by free trade.

The salmon, however, is not the only living creature, besides man, that is supposed to venerate this season.

“Some say, that ever ’gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike;
No fairy tales, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.”

According to popular superstition the bees are heard to sing, and the labouring cattle may be seen to kneel, on this morning, in memory of the cattle in the manger, and the sheep to walk in procession, in commemoration of the glad tidings to the shepherds.

Howison, in his ‘Sketches of Upper Canada,’ mentions an interesting incident of his meeting an Indian at midnight, on Christmas Eve, during a beautiful moonlight, cautiously creeping along, and beckoning him to silence, who, in answer to his inquiries, said, “Me watch to see the deer kneel; this is Christmas night, and all the deer fall upon their knees to the Great Spirit, and look up.”

In our notice of Christmas wines, we must not omit malt-wine or ale, which may be considered, indeed, as our national beverage.

“The nut-brown ale, the nut-brown ale,
Puts downe all drinke when it is stale,”

or, as it has been classically rendered, alum si sit stalum. The Welsh who are still famous for their ale, had early laws regulating it, while the steward of the king’s household had as much of every cask of plain ale as he could reach with his middle finger dipped into it; and as much of every cask of spiced ale as he could reach with the second joint of his middle finger. As millers are remarkable for the peculiarity of their thumbs, no doubt these stewards were gifted with peculiarly long middle fingers. Ale, or beer, was afterwards divided into single beer, or small ale, double beer, double-double beer, and dagger ale; there was, also, a choice kind, called March ale; and our early statute books contain several laws regulating the sale of ale, which was to be superintended by an ale-taster, and the terrors of the pillory and cucking-stool held over misdemeanants.

It maybe expected that “Christmas broached the mightiest ale,” and Christmas ale has, accordingly, been famous from the earliest times.—

“Bryng us in good ale, and bryng us in good ale,
For our blyssd Lady sake, bring us in good ale,”

is a very old wassailing cry, and the wandering musicians always expected a black jack of ale and a Christmas pye. A favourite draught, also, was spiced ale with a toast, stirred up with a sprig of rosemary,—“Mark you, sir, a pot of ale consists of four parts: imprimis, the ale, the toast, the ginger, and the nutmeg.” Mead, or metheglin, was another national drink, and here the steward was only allowed as far as he could reach in the cask with the first joint of his middle finger. That metheglin was so called from one Matthew Glinn, who had a large stock of bees that he wished to make profitable, must be considered more as a joke than a tradition.

Henry the Third generally kept his Christmasses with festivities. In 1230, there was a grand one at York, the King of Scots being present; but four years afterwards he kept it at Gloucester, with only a small company, many of the nobles having left him in consequence of the great favour he was showing foreigners, to their injury. In 1241, he again offended them by placing the Pope’s legate, at the great dinner at Westminster Hall, in the place of honour, that is, the middle, he himself sitting on the right-hand, the Archbishop of York (the Archbishop of Canterbury being dead) on his left-hand, and then the prelates and nobles, according to rank. This etiquette, as to place at table, is certainly as old as the Egyptians, and many a wronged or neglected individual’s dinner has been spoilt, who has failed in getting such a place above the salt, or at the cross table, as he considered his merits entitled him to.

On one occasion, in his forty-second year, Henry rather took undue advantage of the custom of the season, and being distressed for money, required compulsory New Year’s Gifts from the Londoners. His wars frequently distressed him for money, and in 1254, his queen sent him, to Gascoigne, 500 marks from her own revenues, as a New Year’s Gift, toward the maintenance of them. In several instances, he kept his Christmasses at the expense of some of the great nobles, as Hubert de Burgh, and Peter, bishop of Winchester, who, in 1232, not only took all the expense upon himself, but gave the king and all his court festive garments; and, in another year, when Alexander, King of Scots, married his daughter Margaret, the Archbishop of York, where the feast was held, gave 600 fat oxen, which were all spent at one meal, and expended 4000 marks besides. This convenient practice saved the pocket of the sovereign, and gratified the ambition of the subject; but the great expense caused by such a favour, must have been something like the costly present of an elephant, by an Eastern despot, to a subject. In his later years, the king laid aside hospitality very much.

The three Edwards kept the feast much as before, and Edward the First is said to have been the first king who kept any solemn feast at Bristol, holding his Christmas there in 1284. In his wardrobe accounts, there are some valuable particulars of the custom of the king at this time. In pursuance of ancient usage, he offered at the high altar, on the Epiphany, one golden florin, frankincense, and myrrh, in commemoration of the offering of the three kings; a custom carried down with some variation to the present day. In the same accounts, some of the New Year’s Gifts given to him are mentioned; among them, a large ewer set with pearls all over, with the arms of England, Flanders, and Barr, a present from the countess of Flanders; a comb and looking-glass of silver-gilt enamelled, and a bodkin of silver in a leathern case, from the countess of Barr; also, a pair of large knives of ebony and ivory, with studs of silver enamelled, given by the Lady Margaret, his daughter, duchess of Brabant.

The custom of giving New Year’s Gifts existed from the earliest period, and as Warmstry, in his ‘Vindication,’ says, may be “harmless provocations to Christian love, and mutuall testimonies thereof to good purpose, and never the worse because the heathens have them at the like times.” The Romans had their Xenia and Strenæ, during the Saturnalia, which were retained by the Christians, whence came the French term étrennes; a very ancient one, for in the old mystery, “Li Gieus de Robin et de Marion,” in the thirteenth century, Marion says, she will play, “aux jeux qu’on fait aux étrennes, entour la veille de Noël.” The Greek word strenæ, is translated in our New Testament, delicacies; so that, whether delicacies were called strenæ because such gifts were generally of an elegant or graceful nature, or the New Year’s Gifts adopted a word previously applied to delicacies, seems immaterial, as the result is the same. These “diabolical New Year’s Gifts,” as some called them, were denounced by certain of the councils, as early as the beginning of the seventh century, though without effect. They were either in the nature of an offering from an inferior to his superior, who gave something in return, or an interchange of gifts between equals. Tenants were accustomed to give capons to their landlords at this season, and in old leases, a capon, at Christmas, is sometimes reserved as a sort of rent,—

“Yet must he haunt his greedy landlord’s hall,
With often presents at ech festivall;
With crammed capons ev’ry New Year’s morne.”

The practice of New Year’s Gifts is of great antiquity in this country. In the twelfth century, Jocelin of Brakelond, when about to make a gift to his abbot, refers to it, as being according to the custom of the English; and, in very early times, the nobility, and persons connected with the court, gave these New Year’s Gifts to the monarch, who gave in return presents of money, or of plate, the amount of which in time became quite a matter of regulation; and the messenger, bringing the gift, had, also, a handsome fee given him. How much kindly feeling is caused by the interchange of these gifts, and how much taste and fancy displayed at Fortnum and Mason’s, and other places, to tempt us to purchase for the gratification of our younger friends, and receive our reward in the contemplation of their unfeigned pleasure and amusement! Humorous and witty, as well as elegant, bon-bons and souvenirs, drawing the money from us like so many magnets; as Nasgeorgus says—

“These giftes the husband gives his wife,
And father eke the childe,
And maister on his men bestowes
The like, with favour milde.”

There are some particulars in the wardrobe accounts of the New Year’s Gifts of Edward the Second, and also payments made to him to play at dice at Christmas; a custom existing probably long before his time, and certainly continued down to a comparatively recent period, gambling at the groom-porter’s having been observed as late as the time of George the Third. He also gave numerous gifts, being, as is well known, of extravagant and luxurious habits. In his eleventh year, especially, at Westminster, several knights received sumptuous presents of plate from him, and the king of the bean (Rex Fabæ) is mentioned as receiving handsome silver-gilt basins and ewers as New Year’s Gifts. Two of the kings of the bean named, are, Sir William de la Bech, and Thomas de Weston, squire of the king’s household. Edward kept several stately Christmasses, and one at Nottingham in 1324, with particular magnificence, glory, and resort of people. Even when a prisoner at Kenilworth in 1326-7, he kept up a degree of state, although his son, Edward the Third, then aged about sixteen years, was crowned on Christmas Day, 1326, the queen-mother keeping open court, with a great assembly of nobles, prelates, and burgesses, when it was decided to depose the father, whose melancholy fate is well known. Edward the Third became not only a great warrior, but, also, in many respects, a great monarch, and his Christmasses, with other feasts, were held with much splendour. One at Wells, where there were many strange and sumptuous shows made to pleasure the king and his guests, is particularly mentioned; but that at Windsor, in 1343-4, is by far the most distinguished in history, as the king then renewed the Round Table, and instituted the celebrated Order of the Garter, making St. George the patron; whether from the circumstance of the countess of Salisbury having dropped her garter (whence the old Welsh tune took its name of Margaret has lost her garter), cannot now be distinctly proved; but we may as well leave the balance in favour of gallantry. Suffice it, that never has any order of knighthood enrolled such a succession of royal, brave, and world-renowned characters. In 1347 at Guildford, and 1348 at Ottford, in Kent, there were great revellings at Christmas. In the first of these years, there were provided for the amusements of the court, eighty-four tunics of buckram, of divers colours; forty-two visors of different likenesses; twenty-eight crests; fourteen coloured cloaks; fourteen dragons’ heads; fourteen white tunics; fourteen heads of peacocks, with wings; fourteen coloured tunics, with peacocks’ eyes; fourteen heads of swans, with wings; fourteen coloured tunics of linen; and fourteen tunics, coloured, with stars of gold and silver. In the following year, quadrupeds were in the ascendancy, instead of the feathered creation, and amongst the things mentioned in the wardrobe expenses are, twelve heads of men, surmounted by those of elephants; twelve of men, having heads of lions over them; twelve of men’s heads, having bats’ wings; and, twelve heads of wodewoses, or wildmen. A good pantomime decorator would have been invaluable in those days. On New Year’s Eve 1358, Edward, with his gallant son, were in a different scene, fighting under the banners of Sir Walter de Mauny before the walls of Calais, which place the French thought had been betrayed to them; but the plot was counteracted, and they were defeated, and many French knights made captives, who were hospitably entertained by the English king on the following day, being New Year’s Day.

The mummeries, or disguises, just referred to, were known here as early as the time of Henry the Second, if not sooner, and may have been derived originally from the heathen custom of going about, on the kalends of January, in disguises, as wild beasts and cattle, and the sexes changing apparel. They were not confined to the diversions of the king and his nobles; but a ruder class was in vogue among the inferior orders, where, no doubt, abuses were occasionally introduced in consequence. Even now, our country geese or guise dancers are a remnant of the same custom, and, in some places, a horse’s head still accompanies these mummers. The pageants, in former times, of different guilds or trades, some of which still exist, and, at the Lord Mayor’s shows, had all probably a common origin, modified by circumstances; but, with respect to those of the city, I must refer to Mr. Fairholt’s account, printed for the Percy Society, where he has treated largely on the subject. Who knows how many juvenile citizens may not have been fired by ambition at the sight of these soul-stirring spectacles, to becoming common councilmen, aldermen, sheriffs, and lord-mayors themselves—to have at their beck, the copper-cased knights; the brazen trumpets; the prancing horses, bedecked with streamers; the marshalmen, in martial attire; gilded coach, with the sword of state looking out of window!—and then the charms of the dinner, in all the magnificence of turtle-soup, barons of beef, champagne, venison, and minced pies, with Gog and Magog looking benignly on; though they must miss the times, when the Lord Mayor’s Fool used to jump into a huge bowl of Almayn custard.

Edward the Third gave and received New Year’s Gifts, as former kings; and we find an instance of presents given to Roger Trumpony and his companions, minstrels of the king, in the name of the king of the bean. He also made the usual oblations at the Epiphany.

The continental usages were, in many places, similar to our own; but, as before intimated, they will be but slightly noticed. Charles the Fifth, of France, for instance, in 1377, held the feast of Christmas, or Noël as it was called, at Cambray, “et là, fist ses sérimonies impériaulx, selon l’usage,” referring evidently to old customs; he also presented gold, incense, and myrrh, in three gilt cups. Not many years afterwards, the duke of Burgundy gave New Year’s Gifts of greater value than any one, and especially to all the nobles and knights of his household, to the value of 15,000 golden florins; but there was probably as much policy in this, as any real regard for the sacred festival.

Richard the Second was young when he came to the throne, extravagant, fond of luxury and magnificence, and the vagaries of fashion in dress were then, and for a long time after, unequalled; his dress, was “all jewels, from jasey to his diamond boots.” It is to be expected, therefore, that his Christmasses were kept in splendour, regardless of expense; and this appears to have been the case even to the close of his short and unfortunate reign; as, in 1399, there was a royal Christmas at Westminster, with justings and running at the tilt throughout, and from twenty-six to twenty-eight oxen, with three hundred sheep, and fowls without number, were consumed every day. In the previous Christmas, at Lichfield where the Pope’s nuncio and several foreign gentlemen were present, there were spent two hundred tuns of wine, and two thousand oxen, with their appurtenances. It is to be assumed that the pudding was in proportion to the beef; so these, in point of feasting, must have been royal Christmasses indeed.

In the midst of all this grandeur, there was a want of cleanliness and comfort in the rush-strewn floors and imperfectly furnished rooms and tables, that would have been very evident to a modern guest; and the manners at table, even in good society, would rather shock our present fastidious habits. Chaucer, not long previously, in describing the prioresse, who appears to have been a well-bred and educated person for the time, proves the usual slovenliness of the domestic habits, by showing what she avoided—

“At mete was she wel ytaughte withalle;
She lette no morsel from hire lippes falle,
Ne wette hire fingres in hire sauce depe.
Wel coude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe,
Thatte no drope ne felle upon hire brest.
In curtesie was sette ful moche hire lest.
Hire over lippe wiped she so clene,
That in hire cuppe was no ferthing sene,
Of grese, whan she dronken hadde hire draught.”

or, according to the Roman de la Rose, from whence Chaucer took this account,—

“Et si doit si sagement boyre,
Que sur soy n’en espande goutte.”

It must be remembered, however, that there were no forks in those days. The Boke of Curtasye of the same age, reprobates a practice that is even now scarcely obsolete, and may unexpectedly be seen in company, where it excites surprise, to say the least of it;—

“Clense not thi tethe at mete sittande,
With knyfe ne stre, styk ne wande.”

Richard also had his pageants, or disguisings, but instead of looking to the brute or feathered creation for models, we find, on one occasion, there is a charge for twenty-one linen coifs for counterfeiting men of the law, in the king’s play or diversion at Christmas, 1389. If the men of the law had been as plentiful as at present, there would have been no need of making any counterfeits, where a sufficient quantity of real ones might have been procured so cheap. The unfortunate Richard was murdered on Twelfth Day, 1400, a sad finish to all his Christmasses. At the same time, a plan was laid by the earls of Kent and Huntingdon (recently degraded from the dukedoms of Exeter and Surrey), with the earl of Salisbury and others, to gain access, under colour of a Christmas mumming, at Windsor, where Henry the Fourth and the princes were keeping the feast, and thus effect the restoration of Richard; but one of the conspirators, the earl of Rutland (degraded from duke of Aumarle), gave timely notice of it, in order, as it is said, to forestal his father, the duke of York, who had got some knowledge of the plot. Henry the Fourth kept his Christmas feasts in the usual style, and does not require any particular notice, which might tend to needless repetition.

CHAPTER III.

THE wild course of Henry the Fifth, while Prince of Wales, and his brilliant but short career as king, are well known, and are immortalised by Shakespeare;—

“Never was such a sudden scholar made:
Never came reformation in a flood,
With such a heady current, scouring faults;”

his historical plays have probably supplied many with their principal knowledge of the early annals of our country, from King Lear downwards; and we must not quarrel with the dramatic fate of Cordelia, although her real story was more prosperous, as we have, consequently, some of the most pathetic passages in the works of our immortal bard—that is, if such bard there ever was; for the overbearing mass of intellect, imagination, and beauty, presented to us under the name of Shakespeare, is such, that one almost considers the name a myth, and decides that, at least, the Seven Sages must have been engaged in its production. When his warlike avocations allowed him Henry the Fifth kept the feast with splendour; but his reign was nearly brought to a close at its outset, if we are to believe those historians who state that, when he was keeping the Christmas of 1413-14, at Eltham, there was a plot for seizing him and his three brothers, and the principal clergy, and killing them. As this plot was, however, attributed to the Lollards, some of whom were taken and executed, and rewards offered for Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, imputing thereby the attempts to him, the account must be taken with considerable allowance.

Even in the midst of the horrors of war Henry did not forget the Christian mercies of this tide; for during the siege of Rouen in his sixth year, and that city being in great extremity from hunger, he ceased hostilities on Christmas Day, and gave food to all his famishing enemies who would accept of it.

“Alle thay to have mete and drynke therto,
And, again, save condyte to come and to go.”

Something like this occurred, in 1428, at the siege of Orleans, “where the solemnities and festivities of Christmas gave a short interval of repose: the English lords requested of the French commanders, that they might have a night of minstrelsy with trumpets and clarions. They borrowed these musicians and instruments from the French, and Dunois and Suffolk also exchanged gifts.” In his eighth year, Henry, with his queen, the “most fair” Katherine, sojourned at Paris during the feast, and “kept such solemn estate, so plentiful a house, so princely pastime, and gave so many gifts, that from all parts of France, noblemen and others resorted to his palace, to see his estate, and do him honour.” This was a stroke of policy to ingratiate himself with the French, and the French king at the same time kept his Christmas quietly.

Henry the Sixth, for the first few years of his troubled reign, was a mere child; though, in the tenth year of his reign, and the same of his age, having just previously received the homage of the French and Norman nobles at Paris, he celebrated the Feast with great solemnity at Rouen; a place where, not long after, some of those in high places of our country were to disgrace themselves by the cruel punishment of Joan of Arc. He seems afterwards to have kept his Christmas in the usual manner, until the disastrous wars of York and Lancaster, during which the fate of the monarch,—and, indeed, who, for the time being, was such monarch—depended on the predominance of the white or red rose.

There are several instances recorded of New Year’s Gifts, or Christmas Boxes, given to and by him when a boy; amongst others, to his mother Queen Katherine; to Queen Jane, widow of Henry the Fourth; and, to the Cardinal of England; being tablets of gold, ornamented with precious stones. On one occasion he gave his mother a ruby, set in a ring of gold, that the duke of Bedford had given him at a previous Christmas. At another time he gave his mother a tablet of gold, with a crucifix garnished with sapphires and pearls, weighing about fourteen ounces of gold, which was bought of John Patteslee, goldsmith, for forty pounds. The usual payment to the heralds for their largess seems to have been a hundred shillings. A small quarto book, with rich illuminations, given to Henry by the abbot of Edmundsbury, is now in the British Museum. The kings of arms and heralds were accustomed, in preceding reigns, to have their livery out of the great wardrobe, at Christmas, like other squires of the court; but the practice having apparently got into disuse during the boyhood of Henry, they petitioned, in the eighteenth year of his reign, to have them again, which was granted, and they again were decorated as at present, like gilded court cards.

In 1428, a sum of four pounds was given to Jakke Travaill and companions, for making divers plays and interludes before the king, at Christmas.

Plays and interludes, with disguisings and mummings, were of very ancient date, and derived, like many other things, from the heathens. As early as 408 stage plays and spectacles were forbidden by the Concilium Africanum, on the Lord’s day, and other solemn Christian festivals, and by several subsequent councils, whose orders seem to have been but little attended to, showing how deep-rooted was the attachment to these shows. The early secular plays, principally performed by strolling minstrels, were frequently of a comic nature, but of a gross character, and accompanied by music, dancing, and mimicry. About the twelfth century the ecclesiastics introduced miracle-plays and scripture-histories, to counteract the secular plays, and these became common in the time of Henry the Second; the miracle-play of St. Katherine was acted at Dunstaple early in the twelfth century. London became famous for them, and in some places different trade-guilds produced each their separate play or mystery, as we find in the case of the Chester and Coventry Mysteries, and others. It was found expedient in these to introduce some comic passages, to relieve the length of the performances, and attract the notice of the audience, who probably paid on the voluntary system, as each thought proper. Thus, in the ‘Chester Mysteries,’ about the fourteenth century, Noah’s wife refuses to go into the ark, without her gossips, every one, and swears by Christ and by Saint John; and when she is at last forced in, she salutes Noah with a hearty box on the ear. In the Cornish Mystery of the ‘Creation of the World,’ by Jordan, which is, however, nearly three centuries later in date, the lady is much more civil, and is very careful to collect her property, like a thrifty housewife, because “they cost store of money.” In the ‘Secunda Pastorum’ of the Towneley Mysteries, which are said to be about a century later than those of Chester, Mak, the buffoon of the piece, steals a sheep from the Shepherds, while they are asleep, and takes it home to his wife, who puts it into the cradle, endeavouring to make it pass for a child, and praying that if ever she beguiled the Shepherds, who have come in search of it, she may eat the child lying there. The trick, however, is discovered, one of the Shepherds, going to kiss the child, finds the long snout. A similar story is told of Archie Armstrong, the jester, in the seventeenth century, excepting that his fraud was not discovered. In the ‘Slaughter of the Innocents,’ a cowardly character, called Watkyn, requests Herod to knight him, that he may be properly qualified to assist; he is nevertheless well beaten by the women, and goes to complain accordingly.

These Mysteries abound in anachronisms: Pharaoh in his pursuit of the Israelites, when in fear of drowning, recommends his people to lift up their hearts to Mahownde, or Mahomet; Herod constantly swears by him, sometimes even calling him St. Mahomed, as the Sicilian peasants swear by Santu Diavolu, and promises to make one of his counsellors Pope, by way of reward; Noah’s wife swears by Mary; Caiaphas sings mass; and the Shepherds are acquainted with the fools of Gotham; but as individuals of this class are of a very ancient, as well as lasting, breed, the statement may be correct, if applied to some Gotham in Palestine. In the ‘Mactatio Abel,’ of the same collection, Cain is made to speak in the rudest dialect of West York, using the vulgarest phrases, with gross buffoonery.

The pilgrims and crusaders, on their return from the East, introduced other subjects, and the frequent use of the name of Mahomed or Mahomet may have some connection with them. The Christmas play of St. George and the Dragon—

“St. George! that swindg’d the dragon, and e’er since
Sits on his horseback, at mine hostess’ door,”—

with the King of Egypt, and fair Sabra, his daughter, still extant in some parts of the country, may have the same origin. It is evidently of great antiquity; and the fact of its being performed in similar manner in the extreme northern and western parts of the country, a considerable part indeed being nearly identical, tends to prove this. “St. George!” was the old battle cry of the English, or “Sand Jors!” as an old German poem, of the fourteenth century, on the battle of Poictiers, calls it.

After the introduction of miracle-plays and mysteries, if there was a deficiency at any time of ecclesiastical performers, the clergy took secular players to assist them; and besides the fraternities and guilds, as before mentioned, some of the public schools also claimed an exclusive privilege of performing plays at particular times and places; the scholar of Paul’s School, indeed, applied to Richard the Second to prohibit inexperienced persons from presenting the ‘History of the Old Testament,’ which the clergy had been at great expense to represent publicly at Christmas. The parish-clerks were also famed for their representations, which seem frequently to have taken place at Clerkenwell, and occasionally lasted for several days. One is mentioned by Stow, in 1409, at Skinner’s Well, near Clerkenwell, which lasted eight days, commencing from the Creation of the World; which was indeed the favourite beginning, if we may judge from the sets of mysteries still extant; the authors thinking that date sufficiently remote: unlike some pedigree hunters, who some way down their ornamented tree, place a note, stating that about this time the world began; or the Chinese picture of the Creation, which has, in a corner, a Chinese mandarin looking on through a telescope. About the middle of the fifteenth century, moralities, or morals, appear to have been introduced, consisting of allegorical personifications, and with them the Vice with his dagger of lath and fool’s coat. The scripture-plays were not, however, immediately abandoned, and may be met with, though perhaps in the shape of a puppet-show, as late certainly as the time of Queen Anne, when at Heatley’s Booth, at Bartholomew Fair, might be seen the old Creation of the World, newly revived, commencing with the Creation of Adam and Eve, and finishing with rich Dives in Hell, and Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom. The French had representations similar to those of the English, at least as early in date; and, in 1313, Philippe-le-Bel exhibited, on the occasion of conferring knighthood on his children, the following spectacles:—‘Adam et Eve;’ ‘Les Trois Rois;’ ‘Le Meurte des Innocens;’ N. S. riant avec Sa Mère, et mangeant des pommes; Hérode et Caiphe en mitre, &c. In France, and in Spain, where they had their Autos Sacramentales, as they called these mysteries, from an equally early date, these performances have been continued to modern times among the country people, and most of their collections of carols contain two or three short mysteries. The plays exhibited at court, during the Christmas, were probably different from those of the clergy, and more in the nature of mummeries, or disguisings, with pageants, until the time of Queen Elizabeth, when the regular drama was performed before her, a practice which has been renewed in the elegant Christmas festivities of our present Queen.

After Edward the Fourth became the undisputed king of this country, he resumed the custom of keeping Christmas with pomp, wearing his crown, and keeping his estate, and making presents to his household; but the parliament nevertheless, in 1465, thought it necessary to pass one of those useless acts against excess in dress, forbidding cloth of gold, and shoes with pikes more than two inches long, to any under a lord. In 1461, also, all diceing, or playing at cards, was prohibited except at Christmas. Cards forming then, as since, an essential part, in many places, of the Christmas amusements. Among the Christmas gifts, during this reign, several were given to players and minstrels. Margery Paston, in a letter to her husband John Paston, 24th Dec., 1484, says that his eldest son had gone to Lady Morley to know how the Christmas next after her husband’s death was kept, and that there were no disguisings, nor harping, nor luting, nor singing, nor loud disports; but playing at the tables, and chess, and cards.

Richard the Third’s reign was too short and turbulent to give much opportunity for festivities, but he nevertheless kept two or three Christmasses in state, and particularly in 1484, at Westminster, when he wore his crown at a royal banquet on the Epiphany, clad in rich attire, of which he was fond; and it was observed that the princess Elizabeth was dressed in splendid robes of the same form and colour as those of the queen, whence inferences were drawn that he wished to get rid of the queen, either by death or divorce. Yet even now we hardly know the real character of Richard, and whether there were not some lights to relieve the dark shade: ambitious he was, and unscrupulous, but eloquent, and brave or bold; and perhaps, after all, his hump was only a high-shoulder. The old Countess of Desmond, who danced with him in her youth, describes him as a handsome man, somewhat dazzled probably by dancing with royalty. Shakespeare has rather treated him like a mad dog, and given him a bad name.

With Henry the Seventh commenced that series of splendid Christmasses which lasted, with little interruption, until the time of the civil wars, and were especially magnificent in the first half of the reign of Henry the Eighth, and of which historians have left us such particulars, that we can fancy ourselves present at them. In Christmas, 1489, however, the measles were prevalent, and proved fatal to several ladies and gentlewomen, and there were no disguisings, and but few plays, though there was an abbot of Misrule, who “made much sport and did right well his office;” the ambassadors of Spain dined at the king’s board on Twelfth Day, and the officers of arms had their largess, as they were accustomed. In the following year, to make up for it, there was a goodly disguising on New Year’s Night, and many plays during the Christmas. There are some household books of this king still extant at the Chapter-House, which contain many particulars of the payments for the Christmas diversions. Among these there are numerous gifts to different sets of players; dramatic performances, such as they were, being frequent in this reign; but the payments are somewhat of the smallest, varying from ten shillings to £2. 13s. 4d. for each set of players, excepting on occasions when some of the gentlemen of his chapel played before him, who received as much as £6. 13s. 4d. for their services, which sum appears also to have been the usual reward for the lord of Misrule. It is probable, however, that the players had rewards from other people besides the king, and that when the cap was handed round a handsome collection was frequently made. On one occasion no less than £12. was given to a little maiden that danced: now, considering how careful Henry was of his money, and comparing her reward to that of the players, we must presume her to have been the Taglioni of her day. The payments by the nobles were frequently small; in Lord Howard’s account there is one of 3s. 4d. to four players.

Besides the plays, there were disguisings and banquets; and Walter Alwyn and Jakes Haute had, at different Christmasses, each £20 and upwards, for the disguisings or revels. In 1493, on Twelfth Night, there was a great banquet and wassail, and a pageant of Saint George with a castle; and twelve lords, knights, and esquires, with twelve ladies, danced after the wassail. Henry the Eighth at this time was but a fat-cheeked child, so could scarcely reckon his taste for this sort of amusement—in which he afterwards so much delighted—from so early a date, but had plenty of opportunities subsequently of maturing it. On Twelfth Day the king made the accustomed offerings of gold, myrrh, and frankincense: the dean of the chapel sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury the offering by a clerk or priest, who was to have the next benefice in the gift of the archbishop. The king was to wear his crown and his royal robes, kirtle, surcoat, furred hood, and mantle, with long train, and his sword before him; his armills of gold set with rich stones on his arms, and his sceptre in his right hand.

The wassail was introduced in the evening with great ceremony: the steward, treasurer, and comptroller of the household went for it with their staves of office; the king’s and the queen’s sewers, having fair towels round their necks, and dishes in their hands, such as the king and queen should eat of; the king’s and queen’s carvers following in like manner. Then came in the ushers of the chamber, with the pile of cups—the king’s, the queen’s, and the bishop’s—with the butlers and wine, to the cupboard, or sideboard as we should now call it; and squires of the body to bear them. The gentlemen of the chapel stood at one end of the hall, and when the steward came in with the wassail, he was to cry out three times, “Wassail, wassail, wassail!” to which they answered with a good song—no doubt a wassail song or a carol, as they were prevalent at this time.

The terms wassail and wassailing are, as before mentioned, of very early date. Mr. Hunter, in his interesting essay on Robin Hood, notices a payment of a hundred shillings made, in the time of Edward the Second, to Isabelle del Holde and Alisoun Conand, damsels of the queen, for crying Noël and Wessel. They were not, however, absolutely confined to Christmas, but were used to indicate any convivial and festive meetings:—

“The king doth wake to-night, and takes his rouse,
Keeps wassel.”

The meetings indeed were themselves called after them—

“He is wit’s peddler, and retails his wares
At wakes and wassels, meetings, markets, fairs.”

One of the earliest wassail songs is that introduced by Dissimulation, disguised as a religious person, in Bale’s old play of Kynge Johan, about the middle of the sixteenth century. He brings in the cup by which the king is poisoned, stating that it “passith malmesaye, capryck, tyre, or ypocras,” and then sings—

“Wassayle, wassayle out of the mylke payle,
Wassayle, wassayle as white as my nayle,
Wassayle, wassayle in snowe, froste, and hayle,
Wassayle, wassayle with partriche and rayle,
Wassayle, wassayle that muche doth avayle,
Wassayle, wassayle that never wylle fayle.”

In Caxton’s Chronicle the account of the death of King John represents the cup to have been filled with good ale; and the monk bearing it, knelt down, saying, “Syr, wassayll for euer the dayes so all lyf dronke ye of so good a cuppe.”

The loving-cup, at city and other feasts, may be considered as an offshoot of the wassail-bowl, drinc-heil being converted into drink-all. In after times the term became applied almost exclusively to Christmas, perhaps from wassailing being more common at that period, and there was a custom in many places of carrying the bowl round, generally by young women, from door to door, with an appropriate song, the bearer expecting a small gift in return. Selden, in his ‘Table Talk,’ alluding to this custom, says, “The Pope, in sending relics to princes, does as wenches do by their wassails at New Year’s tide, they present you with a cup, and you must drink of a slabby stuff; but the meaning is, you must give them moneys ten times more than it is worth.”

The days generally chosen for the wassail bowl were Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve or Twelfth Night, which in some places was called Wassail eve. Machyn, in his Diary, mentions his being at supper at Mrs. Lentall’s, at Henley-on-Thames, on Twelfth Eve, 1556, when there came in “xij wessells with maydens syngyng with their wessells, and after cam the cheyff wyffes syngyng with their wessells; and the gentyll-woman had hordenyd a grett tabull of bankett, dyssys of spyssys and frut, as marmelad, gynbred, gele, comfett, suger plat, and dyver odur.” Master Machyn is somewhat arbitrary in his spelling, even allowing for the eccentricities in this art at the time in which he wrote.

In the seventeenth century the wassail bowl was carried round to the houses of the gentry and others, the bearers expecting a gratuity:—

“Good dame, here at your door
Our wassel we begin;
We are all maidens poor,
We pray now let us in
With our wassel.
Our wassel we do fill
With apples and with spice,
Then grant us your good will
To taste here once or twice
Of our good wassel.“

The custom is still partially extant. Many great houses had, and no doubt still have, wassail bowls of massive silver. Wassail, in Ben Jonson’s mask of Christmas, is described as a neat sempster and songster; her page bearing a brown bowl, dressed with ribbons and rosemary, before her.

The practice of introducing the bowl is still retained in Christmas meetings, though the component parts are generally ale, sugar, nutmeg, and a toast, omitting the roasted apples, which are necessary to constitute genuine lamb’s wool; “lay a crab in the fire to roast for lamb’s wool;” in olden times indeed the apple was almost an inseparable ingredient.—

“....sometimes lurk I in a gossip’s bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
And on her wither’d dew-lap pour the ale.”

There are several old wassail songs still existing, as well as some that bear a more modern stamp. In Devonshire, and elsewhere, it is an old custom to wassail the apple and pear trees, by pouring out a libation at the foot, in order that they may bear the better.

“Wassaile the trees, that they may beare
You many a plumb, and many a peare;
For more or less fruits they will bring,
As you doe give them wassailing.”

From what we read of the character of Henry the Seventh, we cannot fancy him entering into these amusements with unrestrained hilarity, but to have treated them as part of the state ceremonies, counting the necessary cost with reluctance. All the forms to be adopted for each day were laid down in exact manner, and no doubt the time and quantity of smiles and laughter were properly regulated. Even his jokes were somewhat of a severe practical kind; he once asked an astrologer if he knew where he, the astrologer, should pass his Christmas, and on his professing his ignorance, told him that he was then the most skilled of the two, as he knew the astrologer would pass it in the Tower, and sent him there accordingly, and then we may suppose ate his Christmas dinner with much self-satisfaction. The custom of giving Christmas-boxes and New Year’s Gifts, seems now to have been organised into a regular system; there was a graduated scale for giving and receiving, according to the rank of the parties, and the amount was as well ascertained as the quiddam honorarium to a barrister or a physician.

At New Year’s Day in the morning, an usher of the chamber came to the door of the king’s chamber, and said, “There is a New Year’s Gift come from the queen,” to which the king answered, “Sir, let it come in;” the usher with the gift was then admitted, and afterwards the ushers with gifts from the nobles, according to their rank, and these messengers had rewards given them, from ten marks to the queen’s messenger, if a knight, down to forty shillings to an earl and countess’s servant. The queen received gifts in the same manner, though of less value. The king was on this day to wear his kirtle, his surcoat, and his pane of arms, with his hat of estate, and his sword borne before him. No doubt an accurate list was kept of those expected to give their New Year’s Gifts, and as their messengers arrived they were marked off; or, if they failed in their duty, were looked on with suspicion and ill will. In one year he gave away as much as £120 in New Year’s Gifts, but this was probably in return for presents of much larger amount, or in reward to those bringing gifts; the whole must have been a sadly formal proceeding, and more to the glorification of man than any other purpose.

On Christmas Day and the other feast days, the queen made her offerings, amounting generally to five shillings in each case, and also gave away money in alms, charges being made for sixty shillings for this purpose on New Year’s Eve. She also gave numerous sums at Christmas, in gifts; as, to the grooms and pages of the household £20; to the lord of Misrule 20s.; to my lord privy seal’s fool 3s. 4d.

Cards were much used, as in former times, and sums of a hundred shillings are charged for the queen’s “disporte at cardes.” The lord, or abbot, of Misrule, as he was indiscriminately called, was now an important officer, and an essential accompaniment to the Christmas revels; payments are frequently made to him, generally of ten marks or £6. 13s. 4d. Under these or some other similar names this personage existed from very early times, not only at court, but in the houses of the nobility, of the lord-mayor and sheriffs, in the Inns of Court, and at the different colleges; he is even mentioned in the original draft of statutes, of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1546, soon after which time he appears to have reached the summit of his magnificence. Many of the nobility kept the feast with great splendour, and probably during the time of Henry the Seventh, exceeded even the court in this respect. They had their own players, minstrels, and waits, and officers of their household, in imitation of the royal establishment; having among their retainers many gentlemen and frequently some knights.

Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham, gave some princely entertainments during this reign; on the Epiphany, 1508, he had 459, to dinner, of different degrees, including 134 gentry, with two minstrels, six trumpets, four waits, and four players. The supply of provisions was fully commensurate with the demand, but it would not afford much interest to give it in detail; as unusual dishes now, may be mentioned a salt sturgeon, three swans, two peacocks, two herons, four dog fish, and half a fresh conger; oysters were probably scarce, as only 200 are mentioned, valued at 4d.; the wines were Gascony, Malvoisy, Rhenish, and Ossey, besides 259 flaggons (gallons) and one quart of ale; there were also two gallons of furmity, a dish which has continued in use to the present time. On the previous Christmas Day, the guests being fewer in number, the consumption of ale was only 171 flaggons and one quart, of which seventeen flaggons and three quarts were for breakfast; but this was not far from the time when the maids of honour had a chet loaf, a manchet, a gallon of ale, and a chine of beef for breakfast.

Swans were standard dishes formerly at great houses at Christmas, and other great festivals; Chaucer’s monk, no doubt a good judge,

“A fat swan loved he best of any rost.”

In the Northumberland Household Book, five are directed for Christmas Day, three for New Year’s Day, and four for Twelfth Day. Except in the state of a cygnet, and that rarely, the bird now is not met with at table.

The humbler classes of society also had their rejoicings at this tide, and were allowed certain privileges and facilities for the purpose, the restrictions under which artificers, labourers, and servants were placed as to not playing at cards and certain other games being suspended during Christmas, when there was, among other sports, playing at cards for counters, nails, and points, in every house; but, as Stow says, more for pastime than for gain. The holidays, according to this annalist, extended from All-Hallows Evening to the day after Candlemas Day, and there was a penalty attached to any householder allowing such games, except during this time. Dramatic performances were exhibited at the houses of the great and wealthy, where the tenants and peasantry were allowed access, and cheered with good Christmas hospitality; carol singing was encouraged, and it is not improbable that some of our modern carols may be connected with this age, though somewhat modified.

CHAPTER IV.

WHEN Henry the Eighth came to the throne the festivities at Christmas, as well as those at other seasons, were kept with great splendour. He was then young, of manly address, and tall handsome person, skilled in martial exercises, of great bodily strength and activity, and accomplished; fond of exhibiting his prowess; and, though naturally overbearing, possessed some chivalrous qualities in the early part of his reign, until freed from the advice of Wolsey, and spoiled by flattery and adulation, and the unrestrained indulgence of his passions; for, as the cardinal said of him in his dying state, “he is a prince of most royal courage; rather than miss any part of his will, he will endanger one half of his kingdom.” Had he not been so unfortunate as to rule in what was then a despotic monarchy, he might have passed through life as an impetuous, convivial, somewhat overbearing person, rather keeping his family in fear, but not much worse than characters we all now and then meet with in society, who bully their wives, children, servants, and clerks, bluster at committee meetings, and are somewhat troublesome members of clubs. As the case was, however, he presents a memorable example of the effects of uncontrolled selfishness, pride, and passion.

Plays, masques, pageants, and similar diversions were frequent and splendid during this reign, or rather during the first half of it; for after Henry became interested in the reformed religion, and encumbered with the succession of his wives, and also grew unwieldy in shape, and unfitted for personally partaking in their amusements, they gradually fell off, both in magnificence and in frequency, till they nearly ceased altogether. In his younger days he was generally a performer, and a skilful one, in those pastimes; and numerous entries may be found of payments of every description connected with Christmas—such as for disguisings, lord of Misrule, New Year’s gifts, Christmas-boxes, &c. In his first year he kept it at Richmond with great royalty, and although there had not been time to arrange such a pageant or masque as we shall find in after-times, yet the lord of Misrule, whose payment, in the time of Henry the Seventh, never exceeded £6 13s. 4d., was paid £8 6s. 8d., which was afterwards increased to £15 6s. 8d. The lord of Misrule, in the first and several of the following years, was William Wynnesberry, who also appears in his father’s reign: other persons named in this office are, Richard Pole, Edmund Travore, and William Tolly.

Sir Walter Scott gives a humorous account (except to the sufferer) of the ill usage of an apparitor, or macer, of the see of St. Andrew, in 1547. He was sent with letters of excommunication against Lord Borthwick, and, unluckily for him, chose the time when the inmates of his castle were engaged in the revels of the Abbot of Unreason, as this festive ruler was called in Scotland. The unfortunate apparitor was of course looked on as an alien enemy, or an outlaw, or any other terrible thing, and was immediately seized and well ducked; after which he was compelled to eat the parchment letters of excommunication, which had been previously steeped in a bowl of wine, and then to drink off the wine. In the play of Sir John Oldcastle, a similar incident is introduced, but the sumner of the Bishop of Rochester, who is the sufferer there, and has to eat the waxen seal also, is told that “tough wax is the purest of the honey.”

In 1545, Sir Thomas Cawarden, who died 1560, was appointed master of the revels. In the same year payments were made to Robert Amadas, for plate of gold stuff for the disguising, of £451 12s. 2d.; and to William Buttry, for silk for the same purpose, of £133 7s. 5d.; so that, taking the difference of value of money into account, Henry began his reign with a determination to spare no expense in his entertainments, and subsequently the charges were much increased. In his second year the Christmas was kept at Richmond, and on the Twelfth Day we have a specimen of the pageants afterwards so much in fashion, though rather wild perhaps for our present tastes. This was devised like a mountain, glittering, as if with gold, and set with stones, on the top of which was a tree of gold, spreading out on every side with roses and pomegranates; it was brought towards the king, when out came a lady, dressed in cloth of gold, and the henchmen, or children of honour, who were dressed in some disguise, and they danced a morris before the king; after which they re-entered the mountain, which was drawn back, and then the wassail or banquet was brought in, and so ended the Christmas. These pageants must have been managed something like the pantomime or melo-dramatic devices we see on our own stage, and produced perhaps as much effect, taking into account the increase of modern fancy and expectation in this respect.

James Stephanoff, del.

Ashbee & Dangerfield, lith.

PAGEANT BEFORE HENRY THE EIGHTH.

In his third year, at Greenwich, there was a magnificent Christmas, with such abundance of viands for all comers of any honest behaviour, as had been seldom seen; and the invention of the devisers of pageants was taxed to the utmost, and dancing-masters were doubtless in request for the rehearsals; the clever Mr. Flexmore would have been invaluable. On New Year’s Night, there was erected in the hall, a castle, with gates, towers, and dungeon, garnished with artillery, and other warlike weapons of the most approved form; and in the front of it was written its name, “Le Fortresse dangerus,” that is evidently, dangerous from the ladies’ eyes, and not from the warlike preparations. For in this castle were six fair ladies, no doubt selected for their grace and beauty, all clothed in russet satin, laid over with leaves of gold, and each hood knit with laces of blue silk and gold; and coifs and caps of gold on their heads. From the abundance of gold on these occasions, we could almost imagine that some “diggins” must have been known then. Well, after this castle, with the golden damsels in it, had been drawn about the hall, and the queen had seen it, (for Henry really was attached to her for the first few years of his reign,) in came the king with five select companions, dressed in coats, of which half was of velvet satin, with spangles of gold, the other half of rich cloth of gold, having on their heads caps of russet satin, embroidered with fine gold bullion. These gallant knights vigorously assaulted the castle, and the ladies seeing them so courageous, capitulated with them, and yielded it up, after which they came down and danced together for some time, when the ladies in their turn became the conquerors, and took the knights into the castle, which suddenly vanished out of sight; by which we must assume, not that they all vanished into the air, but that they were drawn out of the hall as fast as the living, and probably concealed machinery used for the purpose, could make away with them. The sports of this Christmas, however, were not yet at an end; for on the night of the Epiphany, the king and eleven chosen companions were disguised after the manner of Italy, called a mask, a thing not before seen in England; they were dressed in long and broad garments, wrought with gold, and had visors and caps of gold; and after the banquet they came in with six gentlemen, disguised in silk, bearing staff torches, and desired the ladies to dance. Some of them were content to do so, but others that knew the fashion of it refused, because it was a thing not commonly seen, something like the hesitation shown when the waltz, the polka, and other strange matters, were first introduced here, the passion for which, after a little time, made up for the shyness with which they were at first admitted into good society.

These pageants must have been gorgeous affairs, as far as dress and decorations, but would hardly suit the present taste; the descriptions here given will enable any one inclined (if any) to imitate them.

In the following year the Christmas was again kept at Greenwich, and on Twelfth Day a mount was introduced, ornamented with flowers of silk, and full of slips of broom, signifying Plantagenet; the branches being made of green satin, and the flowers of flat gold of Damascus. On the top was a goodly beacon giving light, round which sat the king and five others, dressed in coats and caps of crimson velvet, spangled and embroidered with gold. Four wodehouses (or wild men) drew the mount towards the queen, and then the king and his companions descended and danced; the mount then suddenly opened, and out came six ladies, dressed in crimson satin, embroidered with gold and pearls, and with French hoods on their heads, and they danced by themselves for a time; after which the lords and ladies danced together; the ladies then re-entered the mount, which was conveyed out of the hall, and then there was a very sumptuous banquet.

These French hoods were probably a new fashion, and as fashions travelled into the country but slow in those times, when there were neither electric telegraphs, railroads, stagecoaches, newspapers, magazines, nor penny, nor, indeed, any other postage, they do not seem to have got into Cornwall much before the year 1550; for the wife of one of the prisoners condemned to suffer for the riot at that time, intending to go to beg his life, took so long to adjust her new French hood to her taste, that her husband was hung before she arrived. It is to be hoped that she was not taking this course of revenging Henry’s injuries to the sex.

In the fifth year of this reign, Sir Harry Guildford, master of the revels, immortalised his name by inventing an interlude, in which was a moresco dance of six persons and two ladies.

In the sixth year, there was another grand Christmas; and on Twelfth Night the pageant may be considered as a ballet of action, differing from some of modern times, simply in this: that in ours professing to mean something, the meaning cannot be discovered, while in these there was no meaning at all. On New Year’s Night the king and the Duke of Suffolk, his chivalrous brother-in-law, with two others, dressed in mantles, hose, doublets, and coats of cloth of silver, lined with blue velvet, the silver being pounsed, so that the velvet might be seen through, led in four ladies in gowns, after the fashion of Savoy, of blue velvet, lined with cloth of gold; and mantles like tippets, knit together of silver; with bonnets of burnished gold. They were accompanied by four torch-bearers, in white and blue satin. The fanciful attire of the party pleased much, especially the queen, into whose chamber they went and danced, after which they put off their visors, and made themselves known, when the queen heartily thanked the king for her goodly pastime, and kissed him; finding it necessary, in these early times, probably to flatter his vanity, and keep him in good humour.

On Twelfth Night we have the ballet, though what we should call now of limited interest. The king and the queen came into the hall at Greenwich, where this Christmas was kept, when suddenly a tent of cloth of gold entered; before it stood four men-at-arms, armed at all points, with swords in their hands, then, at the sound of trumpets, four more came in, and a fierce, but bloodless, combat ensued, of four to four; but before the victory could be awarded to either party, suddenly (again) there came out of a place like a wood, eight wild men, with ugly weapons and terrible visages, dressed in green moss made of silk, green moss being the assumed substance of which wild men make their apparel. These attacked the knights, but after a terrific combat of eight to eight, were driven out of the hall by the knights, who followed them. After these warlike representations the tent opened, and six ladies and six lords, richly apparelled, came out and danced; after which they again entered the tent, which was conveyed out of the hall; and then the king and queen were served with a right sumptuous banquet, which, indeed, formed an essential part of every entertainment.

There were payments made this Christmas to Leonard Friscobald of £247 12s. 7d., for velvets and silks for the disguising; and to Richard Gybson, for certain apparel for the same, of £137 14s. 0½d.; and, in after years, we find other similar payments to this Gybson; so that trade benefited by these amusements, which is a natural consequence.

In his seventh year Henry kept his Christmas at Eltham; and in the fine old hall there, on Twelfth Night, a castle was introduced, having in it ladies and knights dressed in braids of gold, with moving spangles, silver and gilt, set in crimson satin, and not fastened; the ladies’ heads and bodies being after the fashion of Amsterdam. This castle was attacked by certain vagrant knights, who were, however, repulsed after a severe struggle. Dancing then of course took place; and afterwards a banquet of 200 dishes, with great plenty to everybody.

In his eighth year, there was a grand Christmas at Greenwich; and on Twelfth Night, the Queen of Scots also being a visitor, an artificial garden was set up, called the Garden of Espérance. This had towers at each corner, and was surmounted with gilt rails, and the banks were all set with artificial flowers of silk and gold, the leaves being of green satin, “so that they seemed very flowers.” In the middle was a pillar of antique work, all gold, and set with pearls and stones, and on the top an arch crowned with gold, within which stood a bush of red and white roses of silk and gold, and a bush of pomegranates of like materials. Of course there were knights and ladies, richly apparelled, walking in this garden; there were indeed six of each, who came down and danced, and were afterwards conveyed out of the hall in the garden, and the entertainments concluded as usual with a great banquet. Our friend Richard Gybson had £130 19s. 0½d. for divers things bought by him for this disguising.

In the following year, in consequence of the prevalence of the sweating sickness from July to December, there was no solemn Christmas kept at Court; but in several following years it was kept much as before, and it will be needless to multiply examples, especially as the pageants were in general of a less marked description.

As, in nearly every year, there were payments made to sets of players, the highest being in general £4 to the king’s old players, who are distinguished from the king’s players, whose fee was usually but £3 6s. 8d., it seems that during the Christmas, on what may be called the off-nights, there were some performances by them. The children also of the king’s chapel gave their assistance, but their services were estimated higher, as there are several payments of £6 13s. 4d. to Mr. Cornish, for playing before the king with them.

In his tenth year, also, the gentlemen of the king’s chapel had £13 6s. 8d. for their good attendance in Christmas, and there are similar charges in subsequent years.

In the eleventh year there was another mask, and Richard Gybson received £207 5s. 1½d. for the revels called “a maskelyn” at New Hall, or Beaulieu, in Essex.

In the fourteenth year the Christmas was kept at Eltham, where the Cardinal made many reformations in the royal household, and all that had no masters were sent away; in modern phrase, no followers were allowed.

In the sixteenth year there were grand feats of arms, and an assault made on a strong artificial fort at Greenwich, where the king and the Duke of Suffolk distinguished themselves; the whole concluding with masks and dancing.

In his seventeenth year—in consequence of the prevalence of the plague according to historians, and partly perhaps because he was now maturing his plans for the possession of Ann Boleyn (who would not yield to him, as her sister Mary had done), and for the divorce of Queen Catherine, though not effected until long afterwards—the king kept his Christmas quietly at Eltham, whence it was called the still Christmas. Wolsey, however, would not follow his master’s example, and kept a royal Christmas at Richmond, with plays and disguisings, which gave much offence to see him keep an open court, and the king a secret one.

In the following year, however, the king made up for this intermission of revels, by keeping a solemn Christmas at Greenwich, with revels, masks, disguisings, and banquets; and there were justs kept on the 30th of December, and also on the 3d of January, where 300 spears were broken. Afterwards the king and fifteen others, in masking apparel, took barge, and went to the Cardinal’s place, where was a great company of lords and ladies at supper,—

“..........having heard by fame
Of this so noble and so fair assembly,
This night to meet here, they could do no less,
Out of the great respect they bear to beauty.”

The maskers danced, after which the ladies plucked away their visors, so that they were all known; and the sports were concluded with a great banquet. Previous to this time the Christmas festivities at the Inns of Court had become celebrated, and as we shall find, in subsequent reigns, surpassed those of the court in fancy, and wit, and real splendour; nor is this a matter of surprise when we consider the concentration of talent that must always exist in these communities, some fresh from the universities, embued with classic lore, though in the age of which we are now writing perhaps somewhat pedantic; others, fraught with the accumulated knowledge of years, sharpened by the continual collision with intellects as keen as their own; and few perhaps are better able to appreciate true wit and humour than those who seek it as a relief from deep and wearing mental labour, not that all hard and plodding students can appreciate them, many are but what we used to call at school, muzzes, et præterea nihil.

That the entertainments were somewhat stiff or pedantic was of the spirit of the times, and yet there was a freedom in dancing “round about the coal fire,” which would scarcely suit the present day, though it would attract a considerable number of spectators to see the barristers, dressed in their best, singing and dancing, before the chancellor, judges, and benchers, and that on penalty of being disbarred; a threat absolutely held out, in the time of James the First, at Lincoln’s Inn, because they did not dance on Candlemas Day, according to the ancient order of the Society, and some were indeed put out of commons by decimation. Imagine an unfortunate suitor inquiring about a favourite counsel, who had his case at his fingers’ ends, and being told he was disbarred, because he had refused to dance the night before with his opponent’s counsel; the benchers not having taken into consideration the difficulty of a little man, as he was, polking with a fat barrister, gown, and wig, and all. Dugdale gives the following programme of the performances at a date somewhat later than that of which we are now speaking. “First, the solemn revells (after dinner and the play ended,) are begun by the whole house, judges, sergeants-at-law, benchers; the utter and inner barr; and they led by the master of the revels; and one of the gentlemen of the utter barr are chosen to sing a song to the judges, sergeants, or masters of the bench; which is usually performed; and in default thereof there may be an amerciament. Then the judges and benchers take their places, and sit down at the upper end of the hall. Which done, the utter barristers and inner barristers perform a second solemn revell before them. Which ended, the utter barristers take their places and sit down. Some of the gentlemen of the inner barr do present the house with dancing, which is called the post revels, and continue their dances till the judges or bench think meet to rise and depart.” So that a barrister might be punished for not singing, as well as not dancing. Whether he was obliged to sing carols, or might choose his own song, such as, “Oh! brief is my joy,” “Ye shall walk in silk attire, and siller ha’ to spend,” “Bid me discourse,” &c., does not appear on record. Lincoln’s Inn celebrated Christmas as early as the time of Henry the Sixth, but the Temple and Gray’s Inn afterwards disputed the palm with it, and indeed the latter on some occasions seems to have surpassed the other Inns of Court.

The first particular account of any regulations for conducting one of these grand Christmasses, is in the ninth of Henry the Eighth, when, besides the King for Christmas Day, the marshal, and master of the revels, it is ordered that the King of the Cockneys on Christmas Day should sit and have due service, and that he and all his officers should use honest manner and good order, without any waste or destruction making in wines, brawn, chely, or other vitails; and also that he and his marshal, butler, and constable-marshal should have their lawful and honest commandments by delivery of the officers of Christmas; and that the said King of Cockneys nor none of his officers meddle neither in the buttery nor in the steward of Christmas his office, upon pain of forty shillings for every such meddling; and, lastly, “that Jack Straw and all his adherents should be thenceforth utterly banisht, 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.”

Who this Jack Straw was, and what his offences were, does not appear, unless a kind of Wat Tyler against the peace and dignity of the King of Cockneys. One of the leaders of Wat Tyler’s insurrection, indeed, according to some accounts, the next in command, assumed the name of Jack Straw, others being called Wyl Wawe, Jack Shepherd, Tom Miller, and Hob Carter; besides the celebrated priest, John Ball, who began one of his sermons on Blackheath with

“When Adam dolue and Evah span,
Who was then a gentle-man?”

But there was also a Jack Straw hung and quartered in the eighth of Henry the Sixth.

In the eighteenth year of Henry, the Society of Gray’s Inn got into a worse difficulty than paying allegiance to Jack Straw, and that, too, in perfect innocence on their part; but they had a play or disguising, which had been in great part devised by Serjeant John Roe twenty years before. The plot was, that Lord Governance was ruled by Dissipation and Negligence, by whose misgovernance and evil order, Lady Public-weal was put from Governance, which caused Rumor populi, Inward grudge, and Disdain of wanton sovreignetie to rise with a great multitude to expel Negligence and Dissipation, and restore Public-weal again to her estate. It was set forth with rich and costly apparel, with masks and morescoes, and was highly praised. But the proud Wolsey, who was then busying himself about the intended divorce, fancied it reflected on him, and sent in a great fury for the unlucky serjeant, took his coif from him, and sent him to the Fleet prison, together with one of the actors, Thomas Moyle of Kent, who probably gained this unenviable distinction by having excelled in the performance of the character intrusted to him; all the actors were highly rebuked and threatened. After a time the matter was satisfactorily explained, and the captive revellers were liberated.

It was found prudent from time to time to make regulations in respect to these revels, in order to limit the expenses, and, if possible, to check the rivalry between the different societies, and they were not therefore performed every year.

During the Christmas of 1529, Cardinal Wolsey, who had been disgraced a short time before, was dangerously ill, which produced a short return of favour with the selfish monarch, who became much worried with his state, and also the unsettled position of his own domestic arrangements; for although it was supposed that Ann Boleyn was in fact living with him as his queen, yet no divorce had taken place from Catherine, who had still a strong party in her favour, and excited much sympathy. However, for the king’s recreation, a solemn Christmas was kept at Greenwich, with justs, banquets, masks and disguisings, attended by the two legates and many of the nobility; but the queen gave them no manner of countenance, her mind being so troubled. In the two following years she kept the Christmas with him, and there were masks and interludes; but in his twenty-third year, at a solemn Christmas at Greenwich, there was no mirth, the queen and her ladies being absent—like Queen Vashti she refused to come, and no wonder, for in a very few days after her royal estate was given unto another, and Henry publicly married Anne Boleyn. After this time he does not appear himself to have mixed in the Christmas festivities, though yearly entries may be found of payments to players, for playing before him, and sometimes to the gentlemen of the chapel, and the children as before, with occasional notices of solemn Christmasses; but his temper grew worse, and his zest for these amusements gradually less, as his age and person increased.

In the Christmas of his twenty-ninth year, after the death of Queen Jane in the previous October, he appeared in mourning apparel, which was somewhat unnecessary, as he had made an offer, although an unsuccessful one, to the Duchess Dowager of Longueville, within a month after the death of his wife. His Twelfth Day, 1540, was rather unlucky for him; although great rejoicings were going forward, as he then married Anne of Cleves, from whom, as it is known, he was soon after divorced.

Card playing and other games were still continued, and different payments were made on this account; the king, one Christmas, having as much as £212 10s. for this purpose. Payments were made also to Princess Mary to disport her with at Christmas, generally £20, and in her own private accounts are payments at Christmas, varying from £1 to £4, to have in her purse and to play at cards. The Lady Anne Boleyn received as much as £100 at a time, towards her New Year’s Gift. The Princess Mary, from her childhood, had an establishment of her own, and was accustomed to these festivities before she had completed her sixth year, having a lord of Misrule, John Thurgoode, one of the valets of her household about this time; but the sanction of the great cardinal was necessary even for her; and in 1525 there is an application by the Council of her household to him, to know whether they may appoint a lord of Misrule, and provide for interludes, disguisings, or plays, and a banquet; and whether the princess was to send New Year’s Gifts to the king and queen, and the French queen, and of what value. The princess herself had received New Year’s Gifts as early as her third year, when the cardinal gave her a cup of gold; the French queen, a pomander; Lady Mountjoy, two smocks; a favourite gift by the bye, as we shall hereafter see that Queen Elizabeth had many of these, handsomely decorated, given to her. In after years we find at different times gifts of the following nature given to the Princess Mary. Lady Dorset and others gave her wrought smocks and handkerchiefs; her brother the prince, a little tablet of gold; the Princess Elizabeth, a little chain, and a pair of hose, wrought in gold and silk; the Lady Margaret, a gown of carnation satin of the Venice fashion; Lady Butler, a pepper-box, silver-gilt; the Earl of Hertford, a diamond ring; three Venetians, a fair steel glass; Mr. Thomas Hobbs, yeoman of the robes, a pair of silver snuffers; Mrs. Whelar, a pen and inkhorn, silver-gilt; the Italian dancer, a partlet of gold, wrought; Lady Brown, a fuming-box of silver; and the king’s master-cook, a marchpane; which was the usual present of this functionary. All the servants who brought these gifts had handsome presents in money in return, the king’s messenger having as much as forty shillings given him. Besides money gifts to her own household, and to the king’s minstrels and musicians, among whom the harper had 5s., she gave others of value in various Christmasses to distinguished persons; as, in 1543, a chair to the king, of which the covering and embroidery cost £21 6s. 8d.; also, to the lord admiral, a brooch of gold, of the history of Moses striking water out of the rock, and a balas set in the same; she herself having a brooch of the history of Noah’s flood, set with little diamonds and rubies; the king, and the queen for the time being, and the Prince Edward, as we may imagine, also received gifts from his sisters; and on one occasion the Lady Elizabeth gave him a cambric shirt of her own working. In the present day it would probably have been a couvrette, or an embroidered smoking cap, though he was rather young for that. His times were innocent of this strange fashion, though they had quite sufficient eccentricities of their own to answer for. It is a pity that the recent act, compelling chimneys to consume their own smoke, does not extend to smokers; it is almost worth while mooting the point, whether it does or not.

The nobility kept the feast in manner similar to the court, making allowance for difference of station. They had their lord of Misrule, or master of the revels, and their minstrels, their players, with their interludes and disguisings; the chaplain being frequently the maker of the interludes; and most minute rules were laid down to regulate the different payments and gifts. The Earl of Northumberland, whose household book has been so often quoted in illustration of the manners and customs of this age, used to give, when he was at home, to those of his chapel, if they played the play of the Nativity on Christmas Day, 20s.; and to his master of the revels, 20s.; to the king’s servant, bringing a New Year’s gift, he gave £5, or if a special friend of his own, £6 13s. 4d.; to the queen’s servant, £3 6s. 8d.; but to the servant (probably a domestic), bringing one from Lord Percy, only 12d.; to his three minstrels, on New Year’s Day, for playing at the chamber doors of the different members of the family £1 3s. 4d.; to his six trumpets, 20s.; to his officer of arms, for crying largess, 20s.; to the grooms of his chamber, to put in their box, 20s.; to the abbot of Misrule, 20s.; to his chaplain for making an interlude, the price seems to be 13s. 4d., rather moderate when compared with the other gifts. Different presents also to various sets of players; also 20s. each to the barne-bishops (boy-bishops) of Beverley and York, showing that the custom still existed.

Traces of the boy-bishop may be found as far back as the Constantinopolitan synod in 867, and as early as Edward the First’s reign, one of them was permitted to sing vespers before him at Heton, near Newcastle, in 1299, when on his way to Scotland, and received forty shillings for himself and the boys who sang with him. In the time of Edward the Second payments were made to this personage; and Dean Colet, in his regulations for St. Paul’s School, 1512, directs the scholars to go every Childermas Day to St. Paul’s to hear the child-bishop’s sermon, and each to offer him a penny. Henry the Eighth, however, put down the custom, which was revived by Queen Mary, but finally abolished by Elizabeth.

The Earl of Northumberland’s three henchmen presented him with gloves, and received 6s. 8d. in return; and his footmen also gave him gloves, and received 3s. 4d. in reward. My lord and lady were accustomed to make offerings at high mass on Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, and Twelfth Day; but of rather small amount, his lordship’s being 12d. and her ladyship’s 8d. In lesser establishments there was, of course, less state and smaller payments; and in the household accounts of the Lestranges of Hunstanton, in the eleventh of Henry, is a payment of 4d. to the Lord of Christmas, at Kyngstede. Different sums also are charged for New Year’s gifts.

The lower classes still continued the customs of their forefathers, but occasionally required some check, to prevent their revelries becoming of too gross a description, and to amend abuses. In the third of Henry the Eighth, people were forbidden to appear abroad like mummers, their faces covered with vizors, and in disguised apparel. But it was by no means the intention to debar them from proper recreations during this season; many indulgences being afforded them, and their landlords and masters assisted them with the means of enjoying their customary festivities, listening to their legendary tales round the Yule-log, and occasionally joining in their sports; a practice scarcely yet obsolete in some parts of the country, and pity it should become so.

“A Christmas gambol oft’ would cheer
The poor man’s heart through half the year.”

In the thirty-third of Henry, when certain games were forbidden to artificers, husbandmen, apprentices, servants, and others of that class, they were still allowed to play at tables, tennis, dice, cards, bowls, clash, coyting, and logating, at Christmas; though there is a proclamation by the Sheriff of York, where the privilege is extended beyond our ideas of liberality, as all manner of whores and thieves, dice-players, carders, and all other unthrifty folk, were to be welcome in the town, whether they came late or early, at the reverence of the high feast of Yule, till the twelve days were passed. One fancies a spice of irony in this invitation. Heywood, the epigrammatist, at a little later date, used to say, that he did not like to play at king and queen, but at Christmas, according to the old order of England; and that few men played at cards, but at Christmas; and then almost all, men and boys. Heywood evidently had not been initiated into any of our whist clubs, or he would have found not a few who play at other times than Christmas. And as to that time, there are still many houses where cards are regularly produced on Christmas Day, a practice which, certainly, to those unaccustomed to it, even the old order of England will not qualify.

There is a story told of an ambitious shoemaker, whose Christmas coat was spoiled, in the reign of Henry, by his seeking to imitate his superiors; and this at a time when the distinction of apparel was marked, and not as at present, when simplicity of dress is frequently the best mark of a gentleman. Sir Philip Calthrop, having bought as much fine French tawney cloth as would make him a gown, gave it to a tailor, at Norwich, to make up, when John Drake, a shoemaker, passing by, and admiring it, ordered one of the same materials and fashion. Sir Philip, calling in on a subsequent day, and seeing a similar gown-piece, asked for whom it was made, when he was told it was for a shoemaker, and to be of the same fashion as his own: upon which, his pride being touched, he ordered the tailor to make his gown as full of cuts as his shears would make it. The tailor fulfilled his directions, and performed the same operation for the gown of the unfortunate shoemaker, who, by some accident, could not go to fetch it away until Christmas morning, intending, no doubt, to astonish his wife and dazzle his companions with his splendour. On seeing the havoc made in his intended state dress, he began to cry out vehemently, but was told it was made exactly like the knight’s; upon which he exclaimed, “By my latchet, I will never wear gentleman’s fashion again.”

Payments were made by Henry the Eighth to waits, at Canterbury, as they were by Henry the Seventh, as well as at other places. These, however, were not at Christmas time, nor were they peculiar to Christmas, but formed part of the musical establishments of the court and the nobility. Originally, indeed, they do not seem of necessity to have been of a musical class; or, at any rate, there were some who were not so; as, in the time of Henry the Third, Simon le Wayte held a virgate of land at Rockingham, in Northamptonshire, on the tenure of being castle-wayte, or watch, and the same custom was observed in other places. This Simon le Wayte fled for theft, and was not the only suspected person of his craft: for, at the time the treasury exchequer was broken open and robbed, in the time of Edward the First, Gilbertus le Wayte, who was keeper of the watch, was very naturally taken up on suspicion, but it does not appear what was done with him. After this the wait seems to have been a musician, usually playing the pipe or hautboy, who kept watch at night, and made bon guet at the different chamber doors, particularly at Christmas time; and Edward the Fourth had one attached to his establishment for this purpose. In the old lay of Richard Cœur-de-Lion, there is notice of—

“A wayte ther com in a kernel (battlement),
And a pypyd a moot in a flagel” (flageolet).

Among the minstrels in the household of Edward the Third, there were three waits, who had 12d. a day in time of war, and only 20s. a year in time of peace. Henry the Sixth also had one in his household, and frequent mention is made of them from his time to the end of Henry the Eighth, and in subsequent reigns. In Charles the First’s band, of fifty-eight, there were twenty-five for the waits; and, as is well known, they exist to the present time; the regular wait even exhibiting his regular appointment and badge, with the portcullis, although waking people at most irregular hours, and with most irregular tunes. The City of London had its waits, who attended the Lord Mayor on public occasions, such as Lord Mayor’s day, and on public feasts, and great dinners. They are described as having blue gowns, red sleeves and caps, every one having his silver collar about his neck. Several other towns also had their own establishments of waits, and there are many entries of payments made to them by our kings, and other great personages; as, to the waits of Canterbury, before mentioned, those of Colchester—as far back as Edward the Fourth—Dover, Coventry, Northampton, Newcastle, &c.; and as they appear to have been on the watch to catch any great person that came in their way, they would seem to have handed down this part of their trade to the bell-ringers of the present age, part of whose occupation appears to be to get paid for not ringing. One of the old towers in Newcastle was formerly called the wait’s tower, and was the place of their meeting. There is a tradition of their having played to Oliver Cromwell, on his route to or from Scotland.

CHAPTER V.

ALTHOUGH in the short reign of Edward the Sixth, the splendour of the royal Christmasses was, in general, somewhat reduced, yet, in 1551-2, there was one of the most magnificent revellings on record; for the youthful king being much grieved at the condemnation of the Duke of Somerset, it was thought expedient to divert his mind, by additional pastimes, at the following Christmas. George Ferrers, of Lincoln’s Inn, being a gentleman of some rank, was appointed lord of Misrule, or master of the king’s pastimes, and acquitted himself so well as to afford great delight to many, and some to the king, but “not in proportion to his heaviness.” George Ferrers seems to have been well adapted for his responsible office; not only being a gentleman, but a person of decision, and determined to carry it through, with due spirit and display; and to see that his officers, as well as himself, were well attended to. He complained to the master of the revels, Sir Thomas Cawarden, that the apparel provided for his counsellors was not sufficient, or fit for the purpose, and no doubt had the defect remedied; as, from the account of the expenses, the dresses were handsome, and his own in particular may be called superb. He also stated he should require John Smyth, as his disard, or clown; besides jugglers, tumblers, and fools, &c.; and a new fool’s coat, with a hood, was made for Smyth, what he had already not being fit for the purpose. The dress of this clown, who was probably a well-known court fool, from his being applied for by name, will show that no expense was spared, even about the officers of this gallant lord of Misrule. He had a long fool’s coat, of yellow cloth of gold, all over fringed with white, red, and green velvet, containing 7½ yards, at £2 per yard, garded with plain yellow cloth of gold, four yards, at 33s. 4d. per yard; with a hood, and a pair of buskins, of the same figured gold, containing 2½ yards, at £5; and a girdle of yellow sarcenet, containing one quarter, 16d. The whole value being £26 14s. 8d., a goodly sum for the dress of a jester.

James Stephanoff, del.

Ashbee & Dangerfield, lith.

LORD OF MISRULE.

At the risk of being tedious, the various dresses of the lord of Misrule himself must be mentioned, to give some notion of the style in which this celebrated revelling was got up. On Christmas Day, and during that week, he wore a robe of white baudekyn (a rich stuff, made of silk, interwoven with golden thread), containing nine yards, at 16s. a yard, garded with embroidered cloth of gold, wrought in knots, fourteen yards, at 11s. 4d. a yard; having a fur of red feathers, with a cape of camlet thrum. A coat of flat silver, fine with works, five yards at 50s., with an embroidered gard of leaves of gold, and silk, coloured, containing fifteen yards, at 20s. A cap of maintenance, of red feathers and camlet thrum, very rich, with a plume of feathers. A pair of hose, the breeches made of a gard of cloth of gold, embroidered in panes; nine yards of garding, at 13s. 4d., lined with silver sarcenet, one ell, at 8s. A pair of buskins, of white baudekyn, one yard, at 16s., besides making and other charges, 8s. more. A pair of pantacles, of Bruges satin, 3s. 4d.; a girdle of yellow sarcenet, containing a quarter of a yard, 16s. The whole cost being £52 8s. 8d., independent of the cap of maintenance.

For the remaining dresses, it is unnecessary to state the quantities and particular prices. He had, for New Year’s Day, and that week, a robe of red baudekyn, with an embroidered gard of purple silver; a coat of the same materials, embroidered and garded in like manner; a pair of hose, slopwise; the breeches of cloth of gold figured with red and green velvet, with a cut gard of cloth of gold on it; and a pair of buskins of red baudekyn; the cost being £34 15s. A hunter’s coat, of cloth of gold, figured with red and green velvet church-work, garded with a border of cloth of gold, embroidered, lined with under sleeves of white baudekyn; a hat of plain cloth of gold, garnished with leaves of green satin. The cost £19 14s. 4d. For Twelfth Day, and his progress in London, he wore a robe of wrought purple furred velvet, the inside white and black, like powdered ermine, with a coat, a head-piece, and a scapular, of the same; the garment welted above, with blue and yellow gold tinsel; the hat garnished with purple velvet, striped with threads of silver; and an ell of white and blue taffeta, for laces for the same. A pair of hose, the breeches of purple cloth of silver, welted with purple tinsel and gold. A pair of buskins, striped purple velvet, with threads of silver, £33 12s.; the above sums being exclusive of workmanship, and other necessary materials. These dresses, which were supplied from the king’s stores, must have satisfied the cravings of the most finished exquisite: and, taking into account that he was attended by the following attendants of his court, besides Venus, who formed part of the pageant, and that they were all handsomely or appropriately dressed, it was enough to turn any moderate man’s head. His suite was composed of his heir apparent, who was John Smyth, before mentioned, three other sons, and two natural sons (the sons being represented in handsome fool’s dresses), counsellors, pages of honour, gentlemen ushers, sergeant at arms, a provost marshal, under marshal, lieutenant of ordnance, heralds for himself, others for Venus, a trumpeter for himself, and another for Venus, an orator, interpreter, a jailor, footmen, a messenger, an Irishman, an Irishwoman, six hunters, jugglers, a fool for his lordship, and one for Venus.

On the 4th of January, he went by water, from Greenwich to London, and landed at the Tower wharf, attended by a number of young knights and gentlemen, with trumpets, bagpipes, and flutes, and a morris dance with a tabret. One strange part of the procession, also, was a cart, with the pillory, gibbet, and stocks. He then rode through Tower-street, where he was received by Sergeant Vawee, the lord of Misrule to John Mainard, one of the sheriffs of London, who conducted him to the house of Sir George Barne, the lord mayor, where there was a banquet: and, at his departure, the lord mayor gave him a standing cup, with a cover of silver-gilt, of the value of £10, for a reward. He also set a hogshead of wine and a barrel of beer at his gate, for the train that followed him.

The motto taken by Ferrers was, semper ferians (always keeping holiday), and his crest was the holm-bush, or evergreen holly. He had himself to incur considerable expenses, independent of the assistance he received from the king’s stores; but the honour qualified this, and, of course, men of family and property were selected for the onerous office.

In the following year the revels were kept nearly in the same manner; and, on this occasion, the king’s lord of Misrule was graciously pleased to knight the sheriff’s lord of Misrule; and they had a great banquet at my lord Treasurer’s.

Towards the end of the short reign of Edward, it was enacted, that the Eves of Christmas Day, the Circumcision, and the Epiphany, should be kept as fasts. But this was repealed very early in the reign of Mary, who, about the same time, issued a proclamation to prevent books, ballads, and interludes, from touching on points of doctrine in religion; and which, in effect, stopped all interludes and dramas, without special license. Her short reign was not very congenial to Christmas festivities, her own melancholy temperament, and domestic disappointments, interfering with them at court; but they were still kept up throughout the country, although much checked by the persecutions on account of religion. And what more fierce and rancorous than the persecution of man by his fellow-man, of Christian by his so-called fellow Christian, in the name of the All-merciful God; slaying and torturing by fire and sword, for difference in the worship of that Being, who abounds in pity and compassion for the erring sinner! Proud, cold, vindictive man! it will be an awful question to answer hereafter, “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.”

The Christmas masques were not, however, abandoned, and in the first Christmas after the marriage of Philip and Mary, there was one where the characters seem somewhat incongruous with the disposition of Mary, as there were six Venuses, or amorous ladies, with six cupids, and male and female Turks, &c.

Among the numerous miscellaneous New Year’s gifts presented to Mary in 1556, were the fore part of a kyrtell, and a pair of sleeves, of cloth of silver, richly embroidered all over with Venice silver, and raised with silver and black silk, given by the princess Elizabeth; a table, painted of the queen’s marriage, by Suete, painter; a smock, wrought all over with silk, and collar and ruffs of damask, gold, pearl, and silver, by the Duchess of Somerset; six sugar loaves, six tapnetts of figs, four barrels of suckets, and orange water, &c., by Lady Yorke, who, apparently, had a sweet tooth; two fat oxen, by Mr. Michael Wentworth—in the present time we should have taken them for granted, as prize oxen; two guinea-cocks, scalded by Gent; a marchpane, and two dishes of jelly, by Burrage, master cook; a fat goose and a capon, by Mrs. Preston; a cake of spice bread, by Kelley, plasterer; nutmegs and ginger, and a long stalk of cinnamon elect, in a box, by Smalwodde, grocer; a basket of pomegranates, cherries, apples, oranges, and lemons, by Harris, fruiterer; three rolls of songs, by Sheparde, of the chapel; a fair lute, edged with passamayne of gold and silk, by Browne, instrument maker.

The lord-mayor kept his state as usual, and in the end of January, 1557, the lord treasurer’s lord of Misrule,—for this officer’s power was frequently extended to Candlemas Day—came to the lord-mayor with his suite, and invited him to dinner.

In the following year there is a notice of the lord of Misrule, which would be rather strange if we did not know that going to the Poultry Compter in those days was not always a mark of disgrace or difficulty, as in recent times; but after all allowance made, some part of the account is suspicious; however, as we have not got the name of the master reveller, we may give the story, that on New Year’s Eve a lord of Misrule, with his herald, trumpets, and drums, and several attendants, disguised in white, went to London, and was brought to the Poultry Compter, and divers of his men lay all night there, and they went astray home again, by four and six together, to Westminster, on horseback and on foot. It is to be hoped that those who came disguised in white did not go home disguised in liquor; but let us give them the benefit of the doubt.

Queen Elizabeth, who, to powerful intellect, joined much of the arbitrary temper of her father, possessed also great vanity and fondness of display. In her time, therefore, the festivities were renewed with great pomp and show; and theatrical entertainments were also particularly encouraged, and were frequently performed before the queen, especially at Christmas time. To restrain somewhat the great expenses of these entertainments, she directed, in her second year, estimates to be made of them previously; but this wholesome practice, judging from the cost of after years, did not exist very long. In 1559, which may be called her first Christmas, the play before her, on Christmas Night, unluckily contained some offensive or indecent matter, as the players were commanded to leave off, and the mask came in dancing. On the Twelfth Night following there was a play, and then a goodly mask, and afterwards a great banquet.

In 1561, a lord of Misrule, having with him a train of 100 horsemen, richly apparelled, rode through London to the Inner Temple, where there was great revelling throughout the Christmas; Lord Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester, being the constable and marshal, under the name of Palaphilos; and Christopher Hatton, afterwards chancellor, was master of the game. A sort of parliament had been previously held on St. Thomas’s Eve to decide whether the Society should keep Christmas; and if so, the oldest bencher delivered a speech on the occasion, the oldest butler was to publish the officers’ names, and then, “in token of joy and good liking, the bench and company pass beneath the hearth, and sing a carol, and so to boyer.” It was at this Temple Grand Christmas that Ferrex and Porrex, which may be considered as the first play assuming the character of the regular tragedy, was performed. The revels at these Grand Christmasses generally continued throughout the whole twelve days; Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, and Twelfth Day, being more particularly distinguished. On this occasion, at the breakfast of Twelfth Day, were brawn, mustard, and malmsey; the dinner of two courses to be served in the hall, and after the first course came the master of the game, apparelled in green velvet, and the ranger of the forest in green satin, bearing a green bow with arrows, each of them having a hunting horn about his neck; after blowing three blasts of venery, they paced three times round the fire, which was then placed in the middle of the hall. The master of the game next made three courtesies and knelt down, and petitioned to be admitted into the service of the lord of the feast. This ceremony having been performed, a huntsman came into the hall with a fox, and a purse-net with a cat, both bound at the end of a staff, and nine or ten couple of hounds, the horns blowing. The fox and cat were then set upon by the hounds, and killed beneath the fire; a pleasant Christmas amusement. This sport being finished, the marshal ushered all in their proper places, and after the second course, the oldest of the masters of the revels sang a song, with the assistance of others present; after some repose and further revels, supper of two courses was served, and when that was finished, the marshal was borne in by four men, on a sort of scaffold or framework, and taken three times round the hearth, crying out, “A lord, a lord,” &c.; after which he came down and went to dance. The lord of Misrule then addressed himself to the banquet,—the unfortunate fox and cat ought to have formed part—which ended with minstrelsy, mirth, and dancing; when they all departed to rest.

In 1573, there was some urgent expedition necessary in getting the revels ready in time; for a set of unfortunate plasterers were kept at work all night, and as they could not be spared, nor trusted, to go abroad to supper, they were allowed bread, and cheese, and beer, for that meal. The queen generally had masks of different kinds before her at Christmas time, of greater or less magnificence; but mention must not be omitted of the celebrated Christmas at Gray’s Inn, in 1594, of which an account was published under the title of Gesta Grayorum. Mr. Henry Helmes, the Christmas Prince, took for his style, “The High and Mighty Prince; Henry, Prince of Purpoole; Arch-duke of Stapulia and Bernardia; Duke of High and Nether Holborn; Marquis of St. Giles and Tottenham; Count Palatine of Bloomsbury and Clerkenwell; Great Lord of the Cantons of Islington, Kentish Town, Paddington, and Knightsbridge; Knight of the most heroical Order of the Helmet; and sovereign of the same.” According to our views, the entertainments would be considered heavy and pedantic in their nature; but they were in the style of the age, and seem to have given much satisfaction. There was a cessation of sports from Twelfth Night till the 1st of February, the prince being supposed absent in Russia on public affairs. On that day he was received at Blackwall, as if on his return, and that and the following day were spent in revelling and feasting, which then ceased until Shrovetide, when a mask was performed before the queen, containing, as usual, some gross flattery, and she was so much pleased with the performance, that on the courtiers dancing a measure after it, she exclaimed, “What! shall we have bread and cheese after a banquet.”

She was particularly partial to theatrical performances, and throughout her reign frequent mention is made of the plays performed during Christmas, at Court, and the rewards given to the players; the children of St. Paul’s also, and the scholars on her new foundation in Westminster, often performed before her at this season.

In 1560 and several following years, Sebastian Westcott, master of the children of St. Paul’s, received £6 13s. 4d., for their services, which seems to have been the usual price paid to regular players for a play, until the end of her reign, when it was increased to £10. Richard Farrant, the master of the children of Windsor, received for their services, in 1574, as much as £13 6s. 8d.

In 1560, Sir Thomas Benger was made master of the revels, succeeding Sir Thomas Cawarden; he dying in 1577, Mr. Thomas Blagrave, who had acted since 1573, held the office for a short time; but Mr. Edmund Tylney was appointed in 1579, and died in 1610.

The play performed on Twelfth Night, 1571, was called Narcissus, in which a live fox was let loose and chased by dogs; so that the introduction of live animals on the stage is not a modern invention. On New Year’s Day 1574, the children of Westminster performed Truth, Faithfulness, and Mercy. The scholars on the foundation at Westminster, known as the queen’s scholars, have continued the custom of acting plays to the present time, the performances having for very many years past been one of Terence’s plays, of which four are taken in rotation, and excellent acting is in general exhibited to a select and talented audience; the concluding ceremony of the cap, however, reminds one of the usual termination of the country Christmas play of St. George. In the beginning of this reign there are references to the custom, then called an old one, of scholars being allowed, even by their foundation deed, to bar out their masters a week before Christmas and Easter.

At Christmas 1574, she had a company of Italian players, amongst others, one of them was a tumbler. On New Year’s Night 1582, there were also sundry feats of tumbling by the servants of Lord Strange, besides plays during the Christmas, and a mask of ladies. In several following years a tumbler, called Symons, seems to have been famed for divers feats of activity, and the queen apparently took pleasure in such exhibitions. In 1600, a person, called Nycke, tumbled before her, and 14s. are charged for his silk hose. In her latter years we find Edward Allen, John Heming, and Thomas Pope, presenting plays before her. The rewards given to the players, vary from £6 13s. 4d. to £40. As the ‘Merry Wives of Windsor,’ written at the queen’s request, and other of Shakespeare’s plays, were performed at court, we may fairly presume that some of them were performed at Christmas, and that the great Bard himself may have acted before her.

In 1592, the vice-chancellor, and heads of colleges, at Cambridge, were directed to act a comedy before the queen, at Christmas; but these unfortunate victims of too much learning were obliged to memorialize the vice-chamberlain, stating their inability to act in English, and asking leave to perform in Latin. They must have been in their glory in the reign of Elizabeth’s successor, the pedant James, whom, on one occasion, they addressed as Jacobissime Jacobe. Like her predecessors, the queen would play at dice at Christmas time, but she had dice set for her that threw the high numbers only, as fives and sixes; and, as she knew not the trick, she was kept in good humour by her success, as she, of course, won; and her courtiers probably thought it worth some sacrifice to avoid incurring the effects of the paternal temper existing in her.

Kemp, in his celebrated morris-dance, from London to Norwich, takes particular notice of the Norwich waits, saying that few cities have the like, and none better; who, besides their excellency in wind instruments, their rare cunning on the viol and violin, had admirable voices, every one of them being able to serve as a chorister in any cathedral church. One Richard Reede, a wait of Cambridge, is particularly mentioned, as having 20s. for his attendance at a gentleman’s mansion, during the Christmas of 1574. Besides these, Puttenham speaks of tavern minstrels, that gave a fit of mirth for a groat, much in the style of our present peripatetic street musicians; their matter being for the most part stories of old time, as the tale of Sir Topas, the exploits of Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwick, Adam Bell, and Clymm of the Clough, and such other old romances or historical rhymes, made purposely for recreation of the common people at Christmas dinners, and brideales, and in taverns, and alehouses, and such other places of base resort.

The nobility, as in former times, imitated the court in the manner of keeping Christmas, and the gentry followed in their steps; but they were allured to town by the superior festivities in the metropolis, to the neglect of their friends and dependents in the country, besides dissipating their means in London, and thus causing an inability to preserve proper hospitality and charity in their own neighbourhood. In order to check this practice, an order was made in 1589, directing the gentlemen of Norfolk and Suffolk to leave London before Christmas, and repair to their own countries, there to keep hospitality among their neighbours. Their presence also would not only enable them to increase the real enjoyment of their dependents, but would serve to controul any tendency to riot or debauch at the country alehouses, at this time the resort of many idle strollers, under the guise of minstrels, jugglers, revellers, &c., and would, if right-minded themselves, give a proper direction to the festivities.

“At Christmas be mery, and thanke god of all;
And feast thy pore neighbours, the great with the small.”

In 1581, there was a book written by Thomas Lovell, published by John Aldee, against the ‘Use and Abuse of Dauncinge and Mynstralsye.’ It is of a puritanical nature, being a supposed dialogue between Custom who defends them, and Verity who attacks them and is made victorious. Custom, however, pleads hard for dancing at Christmas time, showing that it had been a usage of long standing.

“Christmas is a mery time,
good mirth therfore to make;
Young men and maids together may
their legs in daunces shake;
Wee se it with some gentlemen
a common use to be,
At that time to provide to have
some pleasant minstrelsie.”

Towards the end of the Queen’s life, when she herself failed in health and spirit, there was in general a great abatement in Christmas festivities; the country taking the tone from the monarch. In ‘Summer’s Last Will and Testament,’ written about this time, Autumn talks of Christmas, as—

“..... a pinch-back, cut-throat churl,
That keeps no open house, as he should do,
Delighteth in no game or fellowship,
Loves no good deeds and hateth talk;
But sitteth in a corner turning crabs,
Or coughing o’er a warmed pot of ale;”

and in ‘Father Hubbard’s Tales,’ by Middleton, the Ant’s Tale, referring probably to the time about the end of this reign, and showing the nature of the amusements in vogue at Christmas, the writer says, “Do but imagine now what a sad Christmas we all kept in the country, without either carols, wassail-bowls, dancing of Sellenger’s round in moon-shine about maypoles, shoeing the mare, hoodman-blind, hot-cockles, or any of our old Christmas gambols; no, not so much as choosing king and queen on Twelfth Night.”

With Elizabeth’s fondness for luxury and dress, and her passion for adulation, it may well be imagined that her New Year’s Gifts were rigidly expected, or exacted, from all classes connected with her; from Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, down to Smyth the dustman; and they were of a most miscellaneous description. In the preceding reigns, when she was princess, she was in the habit of giving and receiving them, but in a comparatively quiet and unobtrusive manner, frequently consisting of presents of gilt plate, and the messengers with gifts to her always receiving rewards; but on one occasion she gave her brother, King Edward, a translation in Latin, in her own hand, of an Italian sermon of Occhini; her pride of scholarship even then showing itself. There are many instances of authors giving compositions of their own as New Year’s Gifts, and of books being printed with that name, no doubt by way of attracting at this season. On New Year’s Day, 1561, Nowell, Dean of St. Paul’s, who preached before the queen on that day, got much blamed by her, for having laid on her cushion, as a New Year’s Gift, a prayer-book richly bound, having several fine cuts and pictures of the stories of saints and martyrs; for she considered these as being contrary to the proclamation against images, pictures, and Romish relics in churches, and desired such mistake might never occur again. One can fancy the venerable Dean shrinking under the stern rebuke of the peremptory young lady on a point of ecclesiastical discipline. In return for the gifts presented to her, she generally gave articles of gilt plate, as cups, bowls, salts, &c., varying according to the rank of the person; from 400 ounces to Sir Christopher Hatton, to two ounces to Mrs. Tomysen, the dwarf; and also presents of money to the servants. It would be useless to insert a long list of these gifts, a few will show the variety, the value and taste of some, and the strangeness, according to our ideas, of others.

James Stephanoff, del.

Ashbee & Dangerfield, lith.

QUEEN ELIZABETH’S NEW YEARS GIFTS.

In 1560, she had a pair of silk stockings given her by Mrs. Montagu, her silk-woman, which by some are said to have been the first pair worn in England; however, they became common soon afterwards. It may be mentioned, as an act of kindness, that in this year she gave sixty French crowns, as a New Year’s Gift, to —— Penne, widow, who had been formerly nurse to King Edward. In the following year she received presents in money from £40 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in a red silk purse in demy sovereigns, to £4 by Lady Cheeke, in a russet silk purse; also various articles of dress, most of them richly wrought, among which were smocks worked in silk; and standing collars and partelets wrought with gold, silver, and silk; and miscellaneous articles, from handsome pieces of jewellery, down to one pye of quinces, by John Betts, servant of the pastry, who received two gilt spoons in return. In subsequent years the gifts are much of the same nature, and a few only need be particularised. Some may be considered as partaking of a professional character: her doctors generally giving a pot of orange blossoms and a pot of ginger, or something similar; and her apothecary a box of lozenges, or a pot of conserves; while her cook gave a marchpane, made into some kind of device; and her serjeant of the pastry, a quince pie, and sometimes a pie of quinces and wardens gilt.

In 1574, the favourite, Earl of Leicester, gave her a splendid fan, that ladies now might envy, being of white feathers, set in a handle of gold; one side of it garnished with two very fair emeralds, one of them especially fine, and garnished with diamonds and rubies; and the other side garnished with diamonds and rubies; and on each side a white bear and two pearls hanging, a lion rampant with a white muzzled bear at his foot. Handsomely wrought smocks are frequently mentioned. This article, as is well known, was different from that in present wear, the ornamental part could be safely exhibited, and gentlemen could present them without breach of decorum; though in our present fastidious days, a New Year’s Gift to a lady of a chemisette, berthe, or gilêt, might be considered as a somewhat eccentric gage d’amour.

In 1578, Philip Sidney gave a cambric smock, which may be considered as quite in the florid or decorated style of workmanship; the sleeves and collar being wrought with black work, and edged with a small bone lace of gold and silver; and a suite of ruffs cutwork, flourished with gold and silver, and set with spangles. In the same year, Sir Gawen Carew gave one worked with Venice gold, and edged with a small bone lace of Venice gold; Smyth, the dustman, gave two bolts of cambric; her doctors and apothecary, pots of ginger and candy; and Mark Anthony, a violl.

In the following year, Morrys Watkins, whoever he might be, gave eighteen larks in a cage, and received 20s. in reward. In several years there are handsome gowns, petticoats, kirtles, doblets, and mantles, some embroidered with precious stones, bracelets, and other ornaments; so that it does not appear so very surprising that at her death, Elizabeth left a hoard of 2000 dresses behind her. It must be presumed, however, that she was not in the habit of giving away any of her apparel, or her ladies’ maids would have had rich perquisites.

In 1582, Lady Howard gave her a jewel of gold, representing a cat and mice playing with her, garnished with small diamonds and pearls; typifying perhaps the queen and her maids; and she received from eight maskers a flower of gold, garnished with sparks of diamonds, rubies, and opals, with an agate of her majesty’s “phisnamy,” and a pearl pendant, with devices painted in it.

In 1589, she had a jewel of gold, like an alpha and omega, whatever that might be, garnished with sparks of diamonds. Sir Francis Drake also gave her a fan of white and red feathers, the handle of gold, enamelled with a half moon of mother of pearl, within that a half moon garnished with sparks of diamonds, and a few seed pearls on one side, having her majesty’s picture within it, and on the other side a device with a crow over it. Lord North, in his Household Book, charges £40, as his New Year’s Gift to the queen, and £16 10s. given at court at New Year’s tide. It need scarcely be observed that the custom of New Year’s Gifts was prevalent among all classes, and many examples might be given of payments on account of them in the domestic records of the age.

The customs in France about this time were very similar to ours. In Sully’s ‘Memoirs,’ 1606, it is stated, “Les cérémonies du jour de l’an, des rois et jours suivans, se passèrent à l’accoustumée, en présens, festins, banquets, balets, mascarades, courses de bague, et autres réjouissances et magnificences, le roy, la reine, et la reine Marguerite vous ayant envoyé vos estrennes, et à madame vostre femme aussi.”

CHAPTER VI.

PLAYS and other Christmas festivities continued throughout the reign of James the First; and amongst others we find ‘Measure for Measure,’ and the ‘Plaie of Errors,’ by Shaxberd—a new reading as to the spelling of the name of our glorious bard—also ‘King Lear,’ and ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost.’ Many of Fletcher’s plays likewise were first acted before the court at Christmas.

Masks were performed almost yearly; and in one of them, the ‘Queen’s Mask of Moors,’ the queen with eleven ladies of honour took parts. Ben Jonson himself wrote several for the court, and Inigo Jones assisted in the scenery and decorations. James performed one good act, by inflicting a penalty of £10 on any one making use, in plays, shows, or pageants, jestingly or profanely, of the Holy Name of God, or of our Saviour, or of the Holy Ghost, or of the Trinity.

At the very commencement of this reign, John Hemynges and his company received £53 for performing six interludes or plays; and on the 8th of January, 1604, the queen and her ladies presented a mask, by Samuel Daniell, called the ‘Vision of the Twelve Goddesses.’ In the following year, Hemynges and his company received £60, for the same number of plays, and £10 a play seems to have been the usual reward. At the same time, the queen and her ladies performed Ben Jonson’s mask of ‘Blackness,’ being the first in which he was employed. It was got up in a magnificent style, having cost the exchequer £3000. After the performance, there was a banquet in the great-chamber, which was so furiously assailed by the hungry guests, that the table and trestles went down before one bit was touched.

There are some strange stories of scenes of excessive conviviality in this reign, particularly during the visit of the Danish king, Christian the Fourth, in 1606, when, on one occasion, during the personation of the mask of ‘Solomon, and the Queen of Sheba’—the King of Denmark being the Solomon of the night—the representative of the Queen of Sheba had imprudently imbibed too much of the nectar that she was to have offered to Solomon, and stumbling, distributed her classic offerings of wine, jelly, and cakes, over his dress. He in his turn, attempting to dance, found it necessary to fall, and cling to the floor, until taken off to bed.

“Cassio. Is your Englishman so exquisite in his drinking?
Iago. Why, he drinks you with facility, your Dane dead drunk.”

Some ladies, representing Faith, Hope, Charity, Victory, and Peace, who were assumed to have been the attendants of the Queen of Sheba, on her celebrated visit, sympathised with their mistress, and were obliged, with proper assistance to guide their tottering limbs, to retire for a time in a state of maudlin sensibility.

From Gervase Markham’s account, in his ‘English Housewife,’ of a moderate dinner of this time, we may somewhat judge of the prevalent profusion:—The first course should consist of “sixteen full dishes; that is, dishes of meat that are of substance, and not empty, or for show—as thus, for example; first, a shield of brawn, with mustard; secondly, a boyl’d capon; thirdly, a boyl’d piece of beef; fourthly, a chine of beef, rosted; fifthly, a neat’s tongue, rosted; sixthly, a pig, rosted; seventhly, chewets baked; eighthly, a goose, rosted; ninthly, a swan, rosted; tenthly, a turkey, rosted; the eleventh, a haunch of venison, rosted; the twelfth, a pasty of venison; the thirteenth, a kid, with a pudding in the belly; the fourteenth, an olive-pye; the fifteenth, a couple of capons; the sixteenth, a custard, or dowsets. Now, to these full dishes may be added, sallets, fricases, quelque choses, and devised paste, as many dishes more, which make the full service no less than two and thirty dishes; which is as much as can conveniently stand on one table, and in one mess. And after this manner you may proportion both your second and third courses, holding fulness on one half of the dishes, and show in the other; which will be both frugal in the splendour, contentment to the guest, and much pleasure and delight to the beholder.”

If this was a frugal—a sort of friendly—dinner, what must have been a state one—of the Belgravian or East Indian class, for instance?