And this was the general feeling. Parliament might sit, as we learn by _The Kingdome's Weekly Intelligencer_, No. 152: "Thursday, December 25, vulgarly known by the name of Christmas Day, both Houses sate. The House of Commons, more especially, debated some things in reference to the privileges of that House, and made some orders therein." But the mass of the people quietly protested against this way of ignoring Christ-tide, and notwithstanding the Assembly of Divines and Parliament, no shops were open in London on that day, in spite of the article published in No. 135 of _Mercurius Civicus, or London's Intelligencer_, which explained the absurdity of keeping Christmas day, and ordained that all shops should be opened, and that the shopkeepers should see that their apprentices were at work on that day. If they needed a holiday, "let them keep the fift of November, and other dayes of that nature, or the late great mercy of God in the taking of Hereford, which deserves an especiall day of thanks giving." It would not so much have mattered if all the Puritans had followed the example of George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, who, "when the time called Christmas came, when others were feasting and sporting themselves, went from house to house seeking out the poor and desolate, and giving them money." Parliament, although they did their best by public example to do away with it, sitting every Christmas day from 1644 to 1656, could not extinguish the deep-rooted feeling in favour of its being kept up in the old-fashioned way, and, in London, at Christmas 1646, those who opened their shops were very roughly used, so much so that in 1647 they asked the Parliament to protect them in future. Certainly, in that year, the shops were all closed, but the irrepressible love of Christmas could not be controlled, and the porters of Cornhill bedecked the conduit with "Ivy, Rosmary, and Bays," and similar decorations were exhibited in other parts of the City--a proceeding which sorely exercised the Lord Mayor and the City Marshal, who rode about, with their followings, setting fire to the harmless green stuff--the doing of which occasioned great mirth among the Royalist party. There were riots about the keeping of Christmas in several parts of the country--notably one at Ealing, in Middlesex; but there was a famous one at Canterbury,[8] the particulars of which are given in a short tract, which I here reprint, as it shows the feeling in the country: [Footnote 8: "Canterbury Christmas; or, A True Relation of the Insurrection in Canterbury on Christmas Day last, with the great hurt that befell divers persons thereby."] "Upon Wednesday, _Decem._ 22, the Cryer of _Canterbury_ by the appointment of Master _Major_,[9] openly proclaimed that Christmas day, and all other Superstitious Festivals should be put downe, and that a Market should be kept upon _Christmas day_. [Footnote 9: Mayor.]