When Christmas was not Merry
Christmas was not always “Merry Christmas” in old England, for at one time a strong effort was made to do away with the holiday entirely, after some of the older ways of celebrating the season had become too boisterous for decent God-fearing folk. “At this season,” says old Dr. Stubbs, “all the wild-heads of the parish flocking together choose them a grand captain of Mischief, whom they crown with great solemnity and the title of Lord of Misrule, who chooseth as many as he will to guard his noble person. Then every one of these men he dresseth in liveries of green, of yellow, or other light color; and as though they were not gaudy enough, they bedeck themselves with scarves, ribbons, laces, and jewels. This done they tie about either leg twenty or forty bells, with rich handkerchiefs on their heads, and sometimes laid across their shoulders and necks.... Then march this heathenish company to the church, their pipes piping, their drums thundering, their bells jingling, their handkerchiefs fluttering about their heads like madmen, their hobby horses, dragoons, and other monsters skirmishing among the throng. And in this sort they go to church though minister be at prayer or preaching,—dancing and singing with such a confused noise that no man can hear his own voice.” “My Lord of Misrule’s badges” were given to those who contributed money to pay the expense of this wild fooling; those who refused were sometimes ducked in the cow pond, he adds. It is admitted that these abuses werequite as bad as he described, and that they were among the chief reasons why, in the seventeenth century, Cromwell tried to put down the great old holiday. His Puritan government ordered that the shops were to be opened, that markets were to be held, that all the work of the world should go on as if there had never been carols sung or chimes set ringing “on Christmas Day in the morning.” Instead of merry chimes, people heard a criers harsh-sounding bell and his monotonous voice telling every one “No Christmas! No Christmas!”
In Scotland about the same time bakers were ordered to stop baking Yule cakes, women were ordered to spin in open sight on Yule day, farm laborers were told to yoke their ploughs. In both countries the masks, or Christmas plays, which had been so popular in the houses of rich nobles, were absolutely forbidden; and if one were given, those who merely looked on might be fined and the actors whipped.
But the people would not have their holiday taken away. Shops might open, but few would come to buy. In Canterbury on one Christmas Day the townspeople asked the tradesmen to close their shops. The tradesmen feared the law’s penalties, so refused. In the riot that followed the mob broke the shop windows, scattered the goods, and roughly handled the shopkeepers.
In London even Christmas decorations were forbidden, but when the Lord Mayor sent a man to take down some holiday greens from one of the houses, the saucy London ’prentice-boys swarmed out with sticks and stones and sent him flying. Then came on horseback, fat and lordly, even the great Lord Mayorhimself, who thought his dignity would overawe the unruly boys. But they only laughed and shouted until his horse took fright and ran away—and perhaps he was glad to be let off so easily. Even where the people dared not openly fight the new laws, they did not obey them more than they could help. Spinning-wheels were idle because there was no flax, and ploughs were “gone to be mended” on Christmas Day in many an English village until after the death of Cromwell, when the holiday came to its own again in “merrie England.”
The same dislike for the festival of Christmas, with its drinking, dancing, and stage plays, came over to the New World with the Puritans. Only a year after the landing at Plymouth Governor Bradford called his men out to work, “on ye day called Christmas Day,” as on other days. But certain young men, who had just come over in the little shipFortune, held back and said it went against their consciences to work on that day. So the governor told them that he would spare them till they were better informed. But when he and the rest came home at noon from their work, he found them in the street at play openly, some pitching the bar and some at ball and such like sports. So he went to them and took away their implements and told them it was againsthisconscience that they should play and others work. If they made the keeping of it matter of devotion, he said, let them keep their houses, but there should be no gaming or revelling in the street. Later, in 1659, a law was made that anybody found to be keeping “by feasting, or not working, or in any other way, any such day as Christmas Day, shall pay for every offense five shillings.”