their own right pleasant follies, and the expense at which they
maintained them; and to these we will add another, coming from an
adverse quarter, and showing the light in which these costly levities
had already come to be regarded by men of sterner minds so early as the
reign of Elizabeth. The following very curious passage is part of an
extract made by Brand, from a most rare book entitled "The Anatomie of
Abuses,"--the work of one Phillip Stubs, published in London in
1585,--and gives a quaint picture of the Lord of Misrule and his
retainers, as viewed through Puritan optics.
"Firste," says Master Stubs, "all the wilde heades of the parishe
conventynge together, chuse them a grand Capitaine (of mischeef) whom
they innoble with the title of my _Lorde of Misserule_, and hym they
crown with great solemnitie, and adopt for their kyng. This kyng
anoynted, chuseth for the twentie, fourtie, three score, or a hundred
lustie guttes like to hymself, to waite uppon his lordely majestie, and
to guarde his noble persone. Then every one of these his menne he
investeth with his liveries of greene, yellowe or some other light
wanton colour. And as though that were not (baudie) gaudy enough I
should saie, they bedecke themselves with scarffes, ribons, and laces,
hanged all over with golde rynges, precious stones, and other jewelles:
this doen, they tye about either legge twentie or fourtie belles with
rich handkercheefes in their handes, and sometymes laied acrosse over
their shoulders and neckes, borrowed for the moste parte of their pretie
Mopsies and loovyng Bessies, for bussyng them in the darcke. Thus
thinges sette in order, they have their hobbie horses, dragons, and
other antiques, together with their baudie pipers, and thunderyng
drommers, to strike up the Deville's Daunce withall" (meaning the Morris
Dance), "then marche these heathen companie towardes the church and
churche yarde, their pipers pipyng, drommers thonderyng, their stumppes
dauncyng, their belles iynglyng, their handkerchefes swyngyng about
their heades like madmen, their hobbie horses and other monsters
skyrmishyng amongst the throng: and in this sorte they goe to the
churche (though the minister bee at praier or preaçhyng) dauncyng and
swingyng their handkercheefes over their heades, in the churche, like
devilles incarnate, with suche a confused noise that no man can heare
his owne voice. Then the foolishe people, they looke, they stare, they
laugh, they fleere, and mount upon formes and pewes, to see these
goodly pageauntes, solemnized in this sort."
At the Christmas celebration held at Gray's Inn in 1594, to which we
have already alluded, the person selected to fill the office of
Christmas Prince was a Norfolk gentleman of the name of Helmes, whose
leg, like that of Sir Andrew Aguecheek, appears "to have been formed
under the star of a galliard." He is described as being "accomplished
with all good parts, fit for so great a dignity, and also a very proper
man in personage, and very active in dancing and revelling." The revels
over which this mock monarch presided were, as our readers will
remember, exhibited before Queen Elizabeth; and it was the exquisite
performance of this gentleman and his court which her Majesty described
as bearing the same relation for excellence to those of her own
courtiers which a banquet does to bread and cheese. We must refer such
of our readers as are desirous of informing themselves as to the nature
and taste of the devices which could make her Majesty so eloquent, to
the "Gesta Grayorum;" contenting ourselves with giving them such notion
thereof, as well as of the high dignities which appertained to a Lord of
Misrule, as may be conveyed by a perusal of the magnificent style and
titles assumed by Mr. Henry Helmes on his accession. They were enough to
have made her Majesty jealous, if she had not been so good-natured a
queen; for looking at the _philosophy_ of the thing, she was about as
much a mock monarch as himself, and could not dance so well. To be sure,
she was acknowledged by this potentate as Lady Paramount; and to a woman
like Elizabeth, it was something to receive personal homage from--
"The High and Mighty Prince Henry, Prince of Purpoole, Archduke 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"!
It is admitted that no man can be a great actor who has not the faculty
of divesting himself of his personal identity, and persuading himself
that he really is, for the time, that which he represents himself to be;
his doing which will go far to persuade others into the same belief. Now
as her Majesty has pronounced upon the excellence of Mr. Henry Helmes's
acting, and if we are therefore to suppose that that gentleman had
contrived to mystify both himself and her, she would naturally be not a
little vain of so splendid a vassal. But seriously, it is not a little
amusing to notice the good faith with which these gentlemen appear to
have put on and worn their burlesque dignities, and the real homage
which they not only expected, but actually received. If the tricks
which they played during their "brief authority," were not of that
mischievous kind which "make the angels weep," they were certainly
fantastic enough to make those who are "a little lower than the angels"
smile. A Lord Mayor in his gilt coach seems to be a trifle compared with
a Lord of Misrule entering the city of London in former days; and the
following passage from Warton's "History of English Poetry," exhibits
amusingly enough the sovereign functions seriously exercised by this
important personage, and the homage, both ludicrous and substantial,
which he sometimes received:--
"At a Christmas celebrated in the hall of the Middle Temple, in the year
1635, the jurisdiction privileges and parade of this mock monarch are
thus circumstantially described. He was attended by his Lord Keeper,
Lord Treasurer with eight white staves, a Captain of his Band of
Pensioners and of his guard, _and with two Chaplains who were so
seriously impressed with an idea of his regal dignity that, when they
preached before him on the preceding Sunday in the Temple Church, on
ascending the pulpit they saluted him with three low bows_. He dined
both in the Hall and in his Privy Chamber under a cloth of Estate. The
pole-axes for his Gentlemen Pensioners were borrowed of Lord Salisbury.
Lord Holland, his temporary justice in Eyre, supplies him with venison
on demand; and the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of London with wine. On
Twelfth-day, at going to Church, he received many petitions which he
gave to his Master of Requests; and like other kings he had a favourite,
whom--with others, gentlemen of high quality--he knighted at returning
from Church."
The Christmas Prince on this occasion was Mr. Francis Vivian, who
expended from his own private purse the large sum of £2,000 in support
of his dignities. Really, it must have tried the philosophy of these
gentlemen to descend from their temporary elevation, into the ranks of
ordinary life. A deposed prince like that high and mighty prince, Henry,
Prince of Purpoole, must have felt, on getting up on the morrow of
Candlemas-day, some portion of the sensations of Abou Hassan on the
morning which succeeded his Caliphate of a day, when the disagreeable
conviction was forced upon him that he was no longer Commander of the
Faithful, and had no further claim to the services of Cluster-of-Pearls,
Morning-Star, Coral-Lips or Fair-Face. In the case, however, of Mr.
Francis Vivian, it is stated that after his deposition he was knighted
by the king,--by way, we suppose, of breaking his fall.
In Wood's "Athenæ Oxonienses," mention is made of a very splendid
Christmas ceremonial observed at St. John's College, Oxford, in the
reign of our first James, which was presided over by a Mr. Thomas
Tooker, whom we elsewhere find called "Tucker." From a manuscript
account of this exhibition, Wood quotes the titles assumed by this
gentleman in his character of Christmas Prince; and we will repeat them
here, for the purpose of showing that the legal cloisters were not the
only ones in which mirth was considered as no impeachment of
professional gravity, and that humor (such as it is) was an occasional
guest of the wisdom which is proverbially said to reside in wigs--of
_all_ denominations. From a comparison of these titles with those by
which Mr. Henry Helmes illustrated his own magnificence at Gray's Inn,
our readers may decide for themselves upon the relative degrees of the
wit which flourished beneath the shelter of the respective gowns. Though
ourselves a Cantab, we have no skill in the measurement of the relations
of small quantities. Of the hearty mirth in each case there is little
doubt; and humor of the finest quality could have done no more than
produce that effect, and might probably have failed to do so much. The
appetite is the main point. "The heart's all," as Davy says. A small
matter made our ancestors laugh, because they brought stomachs to the
feast of Momus. And, Heaven save the mark! through how many national
troubles has that same joyous temperament (which is the farthest thing
possible from levity,--one of the phases of deep feeling,--) helped to
bring the national mind! The "merry days" of England were succeeded by
what may be called her "age of tears,"--the era of the sentimentalists,
when young gentlemen ceased to wear cravats, and leaned against pillars
in drawing-rooms in fits of moody abstraction or under the influence of
evident inspiration, and young ladies made lachrymatories of their
boudoirs, and met together to weep, and in fact went through the world
weeping. Amid all its absurdity, there was some real feeling at the
bottom of this too; and therefore it, too, had its pleasure. But there
is to be an end of this also. Truly are we falling upon the "evil days"
of which we may say we "have no pleasure in them." Men are neither to
laugh nor smile, now, without distinctly knowing why. We are in the age
of the philosophers.--All this time, however, Mr. Thomas Tucker is
waiting to have his style and titles proclaimed; and thus do we find
them duly set forth:--
"The most magnificent and renowned THOMAS, by the favor of Fortune,
Prince of Alba Fortunata, Lord of St. John's, High Regent of the Hall,
Duke of St. Giles's, Marquis of Magdalen's, Landgrave of the Grove,
Count Palatine of the Cloysters, Chief Bailiff of Beaumont, High Ruler
of Rome, Master of the Manor of Walton, Governor of Gloucester Green,
sole Commander of all Titles, Tournaments, and Triumphs, Superintendent
in all Solemnities whatever."
From these titles,--as well as from those which we have already
mentioned as being assumed by the courtiers of the illustrious Prince of
Sophie, our readers will perceive that alliteration was an esteemed
figure in the rhetoric of the revels.
In order to give our readers a more lively idea of this potentate, we
have, as the frontispiece to our second part, introduced a Lord of
Misrule to preside over the Christmas sports therein described. Although
the titles with which we have there invested him are taken from the
"Gesta Grayorum," the dress in which the artist has bestowed him is not
copied from any one of the particular descriptions furnished by the
different records. He is intended to represent the ideal of a Christmas
prince, and not the portrait of any particular one of whom we have
accounts. The artist's instructions were therefore confined to investing
him with a due magnificence (referring to the records only so far as to
keep the costume appropriate) and with a complacent sense of his own
finery and state, and we think that Mr. Seymour has succeeded very
happily in catching and embodying the mock heroic of the character. The
Prince of Purpoole, or His Highness of Sophie, must have looked just
such a personage as he has represented.
We must not omit to observe that a corresponding officer appears to have
formerly exercised his functions at some of the colleges at Cambridge,
under the more classical title of Imperator. And we must further state
that at Lincoln's-Inn, in the early times of their Christmas
celebrations, there appear to have been elected (besides the Lord of
Misrule, and, we presume, in subordination to him) certain dignitaries
exercising a royal sway over the revelries of particular days of the
festival. In the account given by Dugdale of the Christmas held by this
society in the ninth year of the reign of Henry VIII., mention is
made--besides the Marshal and (as he is there called) the Master of the
Revels--of a King chosen for Christmas day, and an officer for
Childermas day having the title of King of the Cockneys. A relic of this
ancient custom exists in the Twelfth Night King, whom it is still usual
to elect on the festival of the Epiphany, and of whom we shall have
occasion to speak at length in his proper place.
The length of the period over which the sway of this potentate extended
does not seem to be very accurately defined, or rather it is probable
that it varied with circumstances. Strictly speaking, the Christmas
season is in our day considered to terminate with Twelfth Night, and the
festival itself to extend over that space of time of which this night on
one side and Christmas eve on the other are the limits. In ancient
times, too, we find frequent mention of the _twelve_ days of Christmas.
Thus the George Ferrers of whom we have spoken, is appointed "to be in
his hyness household for the twelve days;" and he dates one of his
communications to Sir Thomas Cawarden, "From Greenwich y^{e} second of
January and y^{e} ix^{th} day of o^{r} rule." In the extract from the
Household-Book of the Northumberland family which we have already
quoted, mention is also made of the "Playes, Interludes and Dresinge
that is plaid befor his lordship in his hous in the xijth dayes of
Christenmas." Stow, however, says that "these Lords beginning their rule
at Allhallond Eve, continued the same till the morrow after the Feast of
the Purification, commonly called Candlemas day;" and that during all
that time there were under their direction "fine and subtle disguisings,
masks and mummeries, with playing at cards for counters, nayles and
points in every house, more for pastimes than for gaine." This would
give a reign of upwards of three months to these gentlemen. Dugdale, in
describing the revels of the Inner Temple speaks of the three principal
days being All-hallows, Candlemas, and Ascension days,--which would
extend the period to seven months; and the masque of which we have
spoken as forming the final performance of the celebrated Christmas of
1594, described in the "Gesta Grayorum," is stated to have been
represented before the queen at Shrovetide. At the Christmas exhibition
of St. John's college, Oxford, held in 1607, Mr. Thomas Tucker did not
resign his office till Shrove-Tuesday; and the costly masque of which we
have spoken as being presented by the four Inns of Court to Charles I.,
and whose title was "The Triumph of Peace," was exhibited in February of
1633. In Scotland, the rule of the Abbot of Unreason appears to have
been still less limited in point of time; and he seems to have held his
court and made his processions at any period of the year which pleased
him. These processions, it appears, were very usual in the month of May
(and here we will take occasion to observe parenthetically, but in
connection with our present subject, that the practice at _all_ festival
celebrations of selecting some individual to enact a principal and
presiding character in the ceremonial is further illustrated by the
ancient May King, and by the practice, not yet wholly forgotten, of
crowning on the first of that month a Queen of the May. This subject we
shall have occasion to treat more fully when we come to speak in some
future volume of the beautiful customs of that out-of-doors season).
From what we have stated, it appears probable that the officer who was
appointed to preside over the revels so universally observed at
Christmas time, extended, as a matter of course, his presidency over all
those which--either arising out of them or unconnected therewith--were
performed at more advanced periods of the succeeding year; that in fact,
the Christmas prince was, without new election, considered as special
master of the revels till the recurrence of the season. It is not
necessary for us to suppose that the whole of the intervals lying
between such stated and remote days of celebration were filled up with
festival observances; or that our ancestors, under any calenture of the
spirits, could aim at extending Christmas over the larger portion of
the year. It is, however, apparent that although the common observances
of the season were supposed to fall within the period bounded by the
days of the Nativity and the Epiphany, the special pageantries with a
view to which the Lords of Misrule were appointed in the more exalted
quarters were in years of high festival spread over a much more extended
time, and that their potential dignities were in full force, if not in
full display, from the eve of All-hallows to the close of Candlemas day.
It is stated in Drake's "Shakspeare and his Times," that the festivities
of the season, which were appointed for at least twelve days, were
frequently extended over a space of six weeks; and our readers know from
their own experience that, even in these our days of less prominent and
ceremonial rejoicing, the holiday-spirit of the season is by no means to
be restrained within the narrower of those limits. The Christmas feeling
waits not for Christmas day. The important preparations for so great a
festival render this impossible. By the avenues of most of the senses,
the heralds of old Father Christmas have long before approached to awake
it from its slumber. Signal notes which there is no mistaking, have been
played on the visual and olfactory organs for some time past, and the
palate itself has had foretastes of that which is about to be. From the
day on which his sign has been seen in the heavens, the joyous
influences of the star have been felt and the moment the school-boy
arrives at his home he is in the midst of Christmas. And if the "coming
events" of the season "cast their shadows before," so, amid all its
cross-lights it would be strange if there were no reflections flung
behind. The merry spirit which has been awakened and suffered to play
his antics so long is not to be laid by the exorcism of a word. After so
very absolute and unquestioned a sway, it is not to be expected that
Momus should abdicate at a moment's notice. Accordingly, we find that,
any thing enacted to the contrary notwithstanding, the genial feelings
of the time and the festivities springing out of them contrive to
maintain their footing throughout the month of January; and Christmas
keeps lingering about our homes till he is no longer answered by the
young glad voices to whom he has not as yet begun to utter his solemn
warnings and expound his sterner morals, and for whom his coming is
hitherto connected with few memories of pain. Till the merry urchins
have gone back to school there will continue to be willing subjects to
the Lord of Misrule.
In Scotland, the Abbot of Unreason was frequently enacted by persons of
the highest rank; and James V. is himself said to have concealed his
crown beneath the mitre of the merry abbot. As in England, his revels
were shared by the mightiest of the land; but they appear to have been
of a less inoffensive kind and to have imitated more unrestrainedly the
license of the Roman Saturnalia than did the merry-makings of the
South. The mummeries of these personages (a faint reflection of which
still exists in the Guisars whom we shall have to mention hereafter), if
less costly than those of their brethren in England, were not less
showy; and though much less quaint, were a great deal more free. "The
body-guards of the Abbot of Unreason were all arrayed in gaudy colors
bedecked with gold or silver lace, with embroidery and silken scarfs,
the fringed ends of which floated in the wind. They wore chains of gold
or baser metal gilt and glittering with mock jewels. Their legs were
adorned and rendered voluble by links of shining metal hung with many
bells of the same material twining from the ankle of their buskins to
their silken garters, and each flourished in his hand a rich silk
handkerchief brocaded over with flowers. This was the garb of fifty or
more youths, who encircled the person of the leader. They were
surrounded by ranks, six or more in depth, consisting of tall, brawny,
fierce-visaged men covered with crimson or purple velvet bonnets, and
nodding plumes of the eagle and the hawk, or branches of pine, yew, oak,
fern, boxwood, or flowering heath. Their jerkins were always of a hue
that might attract the eye of ladies in the bower or serving-damsels at
the washing-green. They had breeches of immense capacity so padded or
stuffed as to make each man occupy the space of five in their natural
proportions; and in this seeming soft raiment they concealed weapons of
defence or offence, with which to arm themselves and the body-guard if
occasion called for resistance. To appearance, they had no object but
careless sport and glee,--some playing on the Scottish harp, others
blowing the bagpipes or beating targets for drums, or jingling bells.
Whenever the procession halted they danced, flourishing about the
banners of their leader. The exterior bands perhaps represented in dumb
show or pantomime the actions of warriors or the wildest buffoonery; and
these were followed by crowds who, with all the grimaces and phrases of
waggery, solicited money or garniture from the nobles and gentry that
came to gaze upon them. Wherever they appeared, multitudes joined them,
some for the sake of jollity, and not a few to have their fate predicted
by spae-wives, warlocks, and interpreters of dreams, who invariably were
found in the train of the Abbot of Unreason."
In England, not only was this merry monarch appointed over the revelries
of the great and the opulent, but--as of most of the forms of amusement
over which he presided, so of the president himself--we find a rude
imitation in the Christmas celebrations of the commonalty. Nor was the
practice confined to towns or left exclusively in the hands of corporate
or public bodies. The quotation which we have already made from Stubs's
"Anatomie of Abuses," refers to a rustic Lord of Misrule; and while the
antics which took place under his governance do not seem to have risen
much above the performances of the morris-dancers, the gaudiness of the
tinsel attire paraded by him and his band forms an excellent burlesque
of the more costly finery of their superiors. Nay, the amusements
themselves exhibit nearly as much wisdom as those of the court (with
less of pretension), and we dare say created a great deal more fun at a
far less cost. As to the Scottish practices, our readers will not fail
to observe from our last quotation that the lordly Abbot and his train
were little better than a set of morris-dancers themselves, and that so
much of their practices as was innocent differed nothing from those
which Stubs and his brother Puritans deemed so ridiculous in a set of
parish revellers. In fact, the Lord of Misrule seems to have set himself
up all over the land; and many a village had its master Simon who took
care that the sports should not languish for want of that unity of
purpose and concentration of mirth to which some directing authority is
so essential.