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 ye second of January and ye ixth day of or 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.
We have already stated, and have made it quite apparent in our descriptions, that the Christmas celebrations of the more exalted classes are not put forward for the consideration of our readers on the ground of any great wisdom in the matter or humor in the manner of those celebrations themselves. But we claim for them serious veneration, in right of the excellence of the spirit in which they originated, and the excellence of the result which they produced. The very extravagance of the court pageantries—their profuse expenditure and grotesque displays—were so many evidences of the hearty reception which was given to the season in the highest places, and so many conspicuous sanctions under which the spirit of unrestrained rejoicing made its appeals in the lowest. This ancient festival of all ranks, consecrated by all religious feelings and all moral influences; this privileged season of the lowly; this Sabbath of the poor man's year,—was recognized by his superiors with high observance and honored by his governors with ceremonious state. The mirth of the humble and uneducated man received no check from the assumption of an unseasonable gravity or ungenerous reserve on the part of those with whom fortune had dealt more kindly, and to whom knowledge had opened her stores. The moral effect of all this was of the most valuable kind. Nothing so much promotes a reciprocal kindliness of feeling as a community of enjoyment; and the bond of good will was thus drawn tighter between those remote classes, whose differences of privilege, of education, and of pursuit, are perpetually operating to loosen it, and threatening to dissolve it altogether. There was a great deal of wisdom in all this; and the result was well worth producing even at the cost of much more folly than our ancestors expended on it. We deny that spectacles and a wig are the inseparable symbols of sapience; and we hold that portion of the world to be greatly mistaken which supposes that wisdom may not occasionally put on the cap and bells, and under that disguise be wisdom still! The ancient custom which made what was called a fool a part of the establishment of princes, and gave him a right in virtue of his bauble to teach many a wise lesson and utter many a wholesome truth—besides its practical utility, contained as excellent a moral and was conceived in as deep a spirit as the still more ancient one of the skeleton at a feast. "Cucullus non facit monachum," says one of those privileged gentry, in the pages of one who, we are sure, could have enacted a Christmas foolery with the most foolish, and yet had "sounded all the depths and shallows" of the human mind, and was himself the wisest of modern men. "Better a witty fool than a foolish wit." There is a long stride from the wisdom of that sneering philosopher who laughed at his fellows to his who on proper occasions can laugh with them; and in spite of all that modern philosophy may say to the contrary, there was in the very extravagances of Coke and Hatton, and other lawyers and statesmen of past times—if they aimed at such a result as that which we have mentioned, and in so far as they contributed thereto—more real wisdom than all which they enunciated in their more solemn moods, or have put upon record in their books of the law.
In the same excellent spirit, too, everything was done that could assist in promoting the same valuable effect; and while the pageantries which were prepared by the court and by other governing bodies furnished a portion of the entertainments by which the populace tasted the season in towns, and sanctioned the rest, care was taken in many ways (of which we have given an example) that the festival should be spread over the country, and provision made for its maintenance in places more secluded and remote. A set of arrangements sprang up which left no man without their influence; and figuratively and literally, the crumbs from the table of the rich man's festival were abundantly enjoyed by the veriest beggar at his gate. The kindly spirit of Boaz was abroad in all the land, and every Ruth had leave to "eat of the bread and dip her morsel in the vinegar." At that great harvest of rejoicing, all men were suffered to glean; and they with whom at most other seasons the world had "dealt very bitterly"—whose names were Mara, and who ate sparingly of the bread of toil—gleaned "even among its sheaves," and no man reproached them. The old English gentleman, like the generous Bethlehemite in the beautiful story, even scattered that the poor might gather, and "commanded his young men saying, . . . 'Let fall also some of the handfuls of purpose for them and leave them, that they may glean them, and rebuke them not.'" And the prayer of many a Naomi went up in answer, "Blessed be he that did take knowledge of thee;" "blessed be he of the Lord!"
Gate of the "Old English Gentleman."—Page 109.