Christmas: Its Origin and Associations: Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen CenturiesDawson, W. F. (William Francis)
History
Christmas: Its Origin and Associations: Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries
Dawson, W. F. (William Francis)
Christmas -- History
During her "reign of terror" Queen Mary was diverted by Christmas
plays and pageants, and she showed some interest in the amusements of
the people. Strutt's "Sports and Pastimes," in an article on the
"Antiquity of Tumbling," says: "It would seem that these artists were
really famous mirth-makers; for one of them had the address to excite
the merriment of that solemn bigot Queen Mary. 'After her Majesty,'
observes Strype, 'had reviewed the royal pensioners in Greenwich Park,
there came a tumbler, and played many pretty feats, the Queen and
Cardinal Pole looking on; whereat she was observed to laugh
heartily.'" Strutt also mentions that "when Mary visited her sister,
the Princess Elizabeth, during her confinement at Hatfield House, the
next morning, after mass, a grand exhibition of bear-baiting was made
for their amusement, with which, it is said, 'their highnesses were
right well content.'" The idle pageantry of the Boy-bishop, which had
been formally abrogated by proclamation from the King, in the
thirty-third year of Henry VIII., was revived by his daughter Mary.
Strutt says that "in the second year of her reign an edict, dated
November 13, 1554, was issued from the Bishop of London to all the
clergy of his diocese, to have a Boy-bishop in procession. The year
following, 'the child Bishop, of Paules Church, with his company,'
were admitted into the Queen's privy chamber, where he sang before her
on Saint Nicholas Day, and upon Holy Innocents Day. After the death of
Mary this silly mummery was totally discontinued."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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