On January 8th, another letter of Mr. Chamberlaine thus refers to gaming at Court: "On the Twelfth-eve there was great golden play at Court. No Gamester admitted that brought not £300 at least. Montgomery played the King's money, and won him £750, which he had for his labour. The Lord Montegle lost the Queen £400. Sir Robert Cary, for the Prince, £300; and the Earl Salisbury, £300; the Lord Buckhurst, £500; et sic de cæteris. So that I heard of no winner but the King and Sir Francis Wolley, who got above £800. The King went a hawking-journey yesterday to Theobalds and returns to-morrow.
"Above Westminster the Thames is quite frozen over; and the Archbishop came from Lambeth, on Twelfth-day, over the ice to Court. Many fanciful experiments are daily put in practice; as certain youths burnt a gallon of wine upon the ice, and made all the passengers partakers. But the best is, of an honest woman (they say) that had a great longing to encrease her family on the Thames" (Nichols's "Progresses").
The Reign of James I.'s Favourites
dates from Christmas Day, 1607, when he knighted Robert Carr, or Ker, a young border Scot of the Kers of Fernihurst, the first of the favourites who ruled both the King and the kingdom. Carr had been some years in France, and being a handsome youth—"straight-limbed, well-formed, strong-shouldered, and smooth-faced"—he had been led to believe that if he cultivated his personal appearance and a courtliness of address, he was sure of making his fortune at the Court of James. "Accordingly he managed to appear as page to Lord Dingwall at a grand tilting match at Westminster, in 1606. According to chivalric usage it became his duty to present his lord's shield to his Majesty; but in manœuvring his horse on the occasion it fell and broke his leg. That fall was his rise. James was immediately struck with the beauty of the youth who lay disabled at his feet, and had him straightway carried into a house near Charing Cross, and sent his own surgeon to him.... On Christmas Day, 1607, James knighted him and made him a gentleman of the bedchamber, so as to have him constantly about his person. Such was his favour that every one pressed around him to obtain their suits with the King. He received rich presents; the ladies courted his attention; the greatest lords did him the most obsequious and disgusting homage."[61] He afterwards formed that connection with Frances Howard, Countess of Essex, which resulted in her divorce from her husband, and, subsequently, on his marrying Lady Essex, the King made him Earl of Somerset, that the lady might not lose in rank. On the circumstances attending the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury being brought to light, the complicity of Somerset was thought to be involved in the ascertained guilt of his wife. In May, 1616, the Countess was convicted; a week later her husband shared her fate. After a long imprisonment Somerset was pardoned, and ended his life in obscurity.
In this reign the Court revels and shows of Christmas were imitated at the country seats of the nobility and gentry, and at the Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. An account has been preserved of one of the most remarkable exhibitions of this kind, entitled—
"the christmas prince."
It took place in the year 1607, at St. John's College, Oxford, and the authentic account was published from the original manuscript, in 1816, by Robert Tripbook, of 23, Old Bond Street, London: "To the President, Fellows, and Scholars of St. John Baptist College, in the University of Oxford, this curious Record of an ancient custom in their Society, is respectfully inscribed by the Publisher." Of the authenticity of this description the Publisher says "no doubt can possibly exist, it was written by an eye-witness of, and performer in, the sports; and is now printed, for the first time, from the original manuscript preserved in the College Library.
"From the Boy Bishop, the Christmas Prince may be supposed to derive his origin. Whilst the former was bearing sway in the ecclesiastical foundations, the latter was elected to celebrate the festivities of Christmas in the King's palace, at the seats of the nobility, at the universities, and in the Inns of Court. The custom prevailed till the ascendancy of the Puritans during the civil war; and some idea of the expense, and general support it received, may be formed from the account of the Gray's Inn Prince and an extract from one of the Strafford Papers. The latter is from a letter written by the Rev. G. Garrard to the Earl of Strafford, dated Jan. 8, 1635: 'The Middle Temple House have set up a prince, who carries himself in great state; one Mr. Vivian a Cornish gentleman, whose father Sir Francis Vivian was fined in the Star-Chamber about a castle he held in Cornwall, about three years since. He hath all his great officers attending him, lord keeper, lord treasurer, eight white staves at the least, captain of his pensioners, captain of his guard, two chaplains, who on Sunday last preached before him, and in the pulpit made three low legs to his excellency before they began, which is much laughed at. My lord chamberlain lent him two fair cloths of state, one hung up in the hall under which he dines, the other in his privy chamber; he is served on the knee, and all that come to see him kiss his hand on their knee. My lord of Salisbury hath sent him pole-axes for his pensioners. He sent to my lord of Holland, his justice in Eyre, for venison, which he willingly sends him; to the lord mayor and sheriffs of London for wine, all obey. Twelfth-day was a great day, going to the chapel many petitions were delivered him, which he gave to his masters of the requests. He hath a favourite, whom with some others, gentlemen of great quality, he knighted at his return from church, and dined in great state; at the going out of the chambers into the garden, when he drank the King's health, the glass being at his mouth he let it fall, which much defaced his purple satten suit, for so he was clothed that day, having a cloak of the same down to his foot, for he mourns for his father who lately died. It cost this prince £2,000 out of his own purse. I hear of no other design, but that all this is done to make them fit to give the prince elector a royal entertainment with masks, dancings, and some other exercises of wit, in orations or arraignments, that day that they invite him.'
"The writer, or narrator, of the events connected with the Christmas Prince of St. John's was Griffin Higgs, who was descended of a respectable and opulent family in Gloucestershire, though he was himself born at Stoke Abbat, near Henley on Thames, in 1589. He was educated at St. John's, and thence, in 1611, elected fellow of Merton college, where he distinguished himself, in the execution of the procuratorial duties, as a man of great courage, though, says Wood, of little stature. In 1627 he was appointed chaplain to the Queen of Bohemia, by her brother Charles the First, and during his absence, in the performance of his duties, was created a doctor of divinity at Leyden by the learned Andrew Rivet. He returned, after a residence abroad of about twelve years, when he had the valuable rectory of Clive or Cliff, near Dover, and shortly after the deanery of Lichfield, conferred upon him. During the civil wars he was a sufferer for the royal cause, and, losing his preferment, retired to the place of his birth, where he died in the year 1659, and was buried in the chancel of the church of South Stoke.
"Thomas Tucker, the elected Prince, was born in London, in 1586, entered at St. John's in 1601, became fellow of that house and took holy orders. He afterwards had the vicarage of Pipping-burge, or Pemberge, in Kent, and the rectory of Portshead, near Bristol, and finally obtained the third stall in the cathedral church of Bristol, in which he was succeeded, August 25, 1660, by Richard Standfast."