Hone[72] states that "in the ninth year of King Charles I. the four Inns of Court provided a Christmas mask, which cost £2,400, and the King invited a hundred and twenty gentlemen of the four Inns to a mask at Whitehall on Shrove Tuesday following." And Sandys says that on the 13th December, 1637, a warrant under Privy Seal was issued to George Kirke, for £150 to provide masking apparel for the King; and on the 1st of the same month Edmund Taverner had a warrant for £1,400 towards the charge of a mask to be presented at Whitehall the next Twelfth Night. A similar sum for a similar purpose was granted to Michael Oldisworth on the 3rd of January, 1639.
In connection with the entertainments at the Inns of Court, Sandys mentions that by an order, 17th November, 4th Charles I., all playing at dice, cards, or otherwise was forbidden at Gray's Inn, except during the 20 days in Christmas.
As indicating the prolongation of the Christmas revels at this period, it is recorded that in February, 1633, there was a celebrated masque, called "The Triumph of Peace," presented jointly by the two Temples, Lincoln's Inn and Gray's Inn, which cost the Societies about £20,000. Evelyn, in his "Memoirs," relates, that on the 15th December, 1641, he was elected one of the Comptrollers of the Middle Temple revellers, "as the custom of ye young students and gentlemen was, the Christmas being kept this yeare with greate solemnity"; but he got excused.
An order still existed directing the nobility and gentry who had mansions in the country "to repair to them to keep hospitality meet to their degrees;" for a note in Collier's History states that Sir J. Astley, on the 20th of March, 1637, in consequence of ill-health, obtained a license to reside in London, or where he pleased, at Christmas, or any other times; which proves such license to have been requisite.
At this period noblemen and gentlemen lived like petty princes, and in the arrangement of their households copied their sovereign, having officers of the same import, and even heralds wearing their coat of arms at Christmas, and other solemn feasts, crying largesse thrice at the proper times. They feasted in their halls where many of the Christmas sports were performed. When coals were introduced the hearth was commonly in the middle, whence, according to Aubrey, is the saying, "Round about our coal-fire." Christmas was considered as the commemoration of a holy festival, to be observed with cheerfulness as well as devotion. The comforts and personal gratification of their dependants were provided for by the landlords, their merriment encouraged, and their sports joined. The working man looked forward to Christmas as the time which repaid his former toils; and gratitude for worldly comforts then received caused him to reflect on the eternal blessings bestowed on mankind by the event then commemorated.
servants' christmas feast.
Of all our English poets, Robert Herrick, a writer of the seventeenth century, has left us the most complete contemporary picture of the Christmas season. He was born in Cheapside, London, and received his early education, it is supposed, at Westminster School, whence he removed to Cambridge, and after taking his M.A. degree in 1620, left Cambridge. He afterwards spent some years in London in familiar intercourse with the wits and writers of the age, enjoying those "lyric feasts" which are celebrated in his "Ode to Ben Jonson":—
"Ah Ben!
Say how or when