feast, which he had published as long ago as
1631 – was clearly motivated by a desire to
stir up popular resentment as well as to turn
a quick profit for its poverty-stricken author.
How far Taylor succeeded in these aims
it is impossible to say, but his satire quickly
provoked a parliamentarian counter-satire
entitled The Arraignment, Conviction and
Imprisoning of Christmas. Published in
January 1646, this publication took great
pleasure in conflating Taylor himself with
the symbolic character of ‘old Christmas
Day’ whose persona the royalist writer had
assumed in his own previous pamphlets.
In one passage, Taylor/‘old Christmas Day’- here described as “an old, old, very old
grey-bearded gentleman” – is portrayed
sitting dejectedly in the midst of the king’s
shrinking territories, while desperately
urging “all you that ever think to see
Christmas again, stick to me now close!”
Any lingering hopes on the part of the
royalists that popular anger at the abolition
of Christmas might somehow transform
their military fortunes were soon to be
dispelled. During early 1646, Charles I’s
remaining field forces melted away almost
as fast as the winter snow and by April the
game was clearly up for the king. In the
closing verse of a contemporary ballad, a
gloomy royalist writer suggested that the
collapse of the king’s cause had sealed the
fate of Christmas itself, remarking: “To
WHAT WAS CHRISTMAS LIKE BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR?
Decorating houses,
churches and other public
buildings with boughs of
holly, iv y, rosemar y and bay
Taking Christmas Day off
work. Many people went
further than this and took the
next 11 days off as well, thus
observing the traditional
‘12 days of Christmas’
Attending a church service
Singing carols, dancing to
music and playing a wide
variety of games
Feasting on all sorts of rich
food, including roast beef,
brawn, Christmas pies and
‘plum pottage’ (this was a
kind of porridge or spiced
broth, which was the
forerunner of today’s
Christmas puddings) Imbibing plenty of
alcoholic drinks, including
‘lambs-wool’, a mixture of
ale, roasted apple, sugar
and spice
In certain aristocratic
households, electing a ‘Lord
of Misrule’. This was a person
of relatively humble status,
who was first declared Lord
of Misrule and then – to mark
the fact that the world had
been temporarily ‘turned
upside down’ for the holiday
period – licensed to lead the
merry-making throughout the
12 days of Christmas
Presenting friends and
relatives with gifts on New
Year’s Dayconclude, I’ll tell you news that’s right,
Christmas was killed at Naseby fight.”
Yet so strong was the popular attachment
to the old festivities that during the
postwar period a number of pro-Christmas
riots occurred. In December 1646, for
example, a group of young men at Bury
St Edmunds threatened local tradesmen
who had dared to open their shops on
Christmas Day, and were only dispersed by
the town magistrates after a bloody scuffle.Pro-Christmas riots
On 10 June 1647, parliament passed an
ordinance which declared the celebration
of Christmas to be a punishable offence.
On Christmas Day that year there was
further trouble at Bury and more riots at
Norwich and Ipswich. In London, a crowd
of apprentices assembled at Cornhill on
Christmas Day, and there “in despite of
authority, they set up Holly and Ivy” on
the pinnacles of the public water conduit.
When the lord mayor despatched some
officers “to pull down these gawds,” the
apprentices resisted them, forcing the mayor
to rush to the scene with a party of soldiers
and to break up the demonstration.
The worst disturbances of all took place
at Canterbury where a crowd of protestors
first smashed up the shops which had been
opened on Christmas Day and then went
on to seize control of the entire city. Thisriot helped to pave the way for a major
insurrection in Kent in 1648 that itself
formed part of the ‘Second Civil War’ –
a scattered series of risings against the
parliament and in favour of the king,
which Fairfax and Cromwell only managed
to suppress with great difficulty.
Following parliament’s victory in the
Second Civil War and the execution of
Charles I in 1649, demonstrations in favour
of Christmas became less common. There
can be no doubt that many people
continued to celebrate Christmas in private,
and in his pamphlet The Vindication of
Christmas (1652), the tireless John Taylor
provided a lively portrait of how, he claimed,
the old Christmas festivities were still being
kept up by the farmers of Devon.
Following Cromwell’s installation as
lord protector in 1653, the celebration of
Christmas continued to be proscribed.
While not personally responsible for
‘cancelling Christmas’, it is evident that
Cromwell was behind the ban, transacting
government business on 25 December as
if it were a day just like any other.
Only with the restoration of the
monarchy in 1660 was ‘old Christmas Day’
finally brought back in from the cold, to
widespread popular joy.An illustration shows the Lord
of Misrule leading villagers in a
festive procession in c1600During the early 1600s, Christmas was celebrated in many ways, just
as it is today. Among the most widely observed customs were...MARY EVANS PICTURE LIBRARY
Mark Stoyle is professor of early modern
history at the University of Southampton