The book of Christmas : $b descriptive of the customs, ceremonies, traditions, superstitions, fun, feeling, and festivities of the Christmas seasonHervey, Thomas K.
Religion
The book of Christmas : $b descriptive of the customs, ceremonies, traditions, superstitions, fun, feeling, and festivities of the Christmas season
Hervey, Thomas K.
Christmas
On St. Stephen's Day, we learn that, after the first course was served
in, the constable marshal was wont to enter the hall (and we think he
had much better have come in, and said all he had to say beforehand)
bravely arrayed with "a fair rich compleat harneys, white and bright and
gilt, with a nest of fethers, of all colours, upon his crest or helm,
and a gilt pole ax in his hand," and, no doubt, thinking himself a
prodigiously fine fellow. He was accompanied by the lieutenant of the
Tower, "armed with a fair white armour," also wearing "fethers," and
"with a like pole ax in his hand," and of course also thinking himself a
very fine fellow. With them came sixteen trumpeters, preceded by four
drums and fifes, and attended by four men clad in white "harneys," from
the middle upwards, having halberds in their hands, and bearing on their
shoulders a model of the Tower, and each and every one of these latter
personages, in his degree, having a consciousness that he, too, was a
fine fellow. Then all these fine fellows, with the drums and music, and
with all their "fethers" and finery, went three times round the fire,
whereas, considering that the boar's head was cooling all the time, we
think once might have sufficed. Then the constable marshal, after three
courtesies, knelt down before the Lord Chancellor, with the lieutenant
doing the same behind him, and then and there deliberately proceeded to
deliver himself of an "oration of a quarter of an hour's length," the
purport of which was to tender his services to the Lord Chancellor,
which, we think, at such a time he might have contrived to do in fewer
words. To this the Chancellor was unwise enough to reply that he would
"take farther advice therein," when it would have been much better for
him to settle the matter at once, and proceed to eat his dinner.
However, this part of the ceremony ended at last by the constable
marshal and the lieutenant obtaining seats at the Chancellor's table,
upon the former giving up his sword: and then enter, for a similar
purpose, the master of the game, apparelled in green velvet, and the
ranger of the forest, in a green suit of "satten," bearing in his hand a
green bow, and "divers" arrows, "with either of them a hunting-horn
about their necks, blowing together three blasts of venery." These
worthies, also, thought it necessary to parade their finery three times
around the fire; and having then made similar obeisances, and offered up
a similar petition in a similar posture, they were finally inducted into
a similar privilege.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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