In Scotland, however, where the reformation took a sterner tone than in the southern kingdom, and where, as we have said, the irregularities committed under cover of the Christmas and other ceremonials laid them more justly open to its censure, the effect of this outcry was earlier and far more sensibly felt; and even so early as the reign of Queen Mary an act passed the Scottish Parliament whereby the Abbot of Unreason and all his "merrie disports" were suppressed. In England, it is true that, according to Sandys, an order of the common council had issued as early as the beginning of _our_ Mary's reign prohibiting the Lord Mayor or Sheriffs from entertaining a Lord of Misrule in any of their houses; but this appears to have been merely on financial grounds, with a view of reducing the corporation expenditure, and to have extended no further. It was not, however, until after the breaking out of the Civil War that the persecution of the Puritans (who had long and zealously labored not only to resolve the various ceremonials of the season into their pagan elements, but even to prove that the celebration of the Nativity at all was in itself idolatrous) succeeded to any extent in producing that result which the war itself and the consequent disorganization of society must in a great measure have effected even without the aid of a fanatical outcry. In the very first year of that armed struggle the earliest successful blow was struck against the festivities with which it had been usual to celebrate this period of the year, in certain ordinances which were issued for suppressing the performance of plays and other diversions; and in the following year some of the shops in London were for the first time opened on Christmas day, in obedience to the feelings which connected any observance of it with the spirit of popery. By the year 1647 the Puritans had so far prevailed that in various places the parish officers were subjected to penalties for encouraging the decking of churches and permitting divine service to be performed therein on Christmas morning; and in the same year the observance of the festival itself, with that of other holidays, was formally abolished by the two branches of the legislature.