CHAPTER IV.
WHEN Henry the Eighth came to the throne the festivities at Christmas, as well as those at other seasons, were kept with great splendour. He was then young, of manly address, and tall handsome person, skilled in martial exercises, of great bodily strength and activity, and accomplished; fond of exhibiting his prowess; and, though naturally overbearing, possessed some chivalrous qualities in the early part of his reign, until freed from the advice of Wolsey, and spoiled by flattery and adulation, and the unrestrained indulgence of his passions; for, as the cardinal said of him in his dying state, “he is a prince of most royal courage; rather than miss any part of his will, he will endanger one half of his kingdom.” Had he not been so unfortunate as to rule in what was then a despotic monarchy, he might have passed through life as an impetuous, convivial, somewhat overbearing person, rather keeping his family in fear, but not much worse than characters we all now and then meet with in society, who bully their wives, children, servants, and clerks, bluster at committee meetings, and are somewhat troublesome members of clubs. As the case was, however, he presents a memorable example of the effects of uncontrolled selfishness, pride, and passion.
Plays, masques, pageants, and similar diversions were frequent and splendid during this reign, or rather during the first half of it; for after Henry became interested in the reformed religion, and encumbered with the succession of his wives, and also grew unwieldy in shape, and unfitted for personally partaking in their amusements, they gradually fell off, both in magnificence and in frequency, till they nearly ceased altogether. In his younger days he was generally a performer, and a skilful one, in those pastimes; and numerous entries may be found of payments of every description connected with Christmas—such as for disguisings, lord of Misrule, New Year’s gifts, Christmas-boxes, &c. In his first year he kept it at Richmond with great royalty, and although there had not been time to arrange such a pageant or masque as we shall find in after-times, yet the lord of Misrule, whose payment, in the time of Henry the Seventh, never exceeded £6 13s. 4d., was paid £8 6s. 8d., which was afterwards increased to £15 6s. 8d. The lord of Misrule, in the first and several of the following years, was William Wynnesberry, who also appears in his father’s reign: other persons named in this office are, Richard Pole, Edmund Travore, and William Tolly.
Sir Walter Scott gives a humorous account (except to the sufferer) of the ill usage of an apparitor, or macer, of the see of St. Andrew, in 1547. He was sent with letters of excommunication against Lord Borthwick, and, unluckily for him, chose the time when the inmates of his castle were engaged in the revels of the Abbot of Unreason, as this festive ruler was called in Scotland. The unfortunate apparitor was of course looked on as an alien enemy, or an outlaw, or any other terrible thing, and was immediately seized and well ducked; after which he was compelled to eat the parchment letters of excommunication, which had been previously steeped in a bowl of wine, and then to drink off the wine. In the play of Sir John Oldcastle, a similar incident is introduced, but the sumner of the Bishop of Rochester, who is the sufferer there, and has to eat the waxen seal also, is told that “tough wax is the purest of the honey.”
In 1545, Sir Thomas Cawarden, who died 1560, was appointed master of the revels. In the same year payments were made to Robert Amadas, for plate of gold stuff for the disguising, of £451 12s. 2d.; and to William Buttry, for silk for the same purpose, of £133 7s. 5d.; so that, taking the difference of value of money into account, Henry began his reign with a determination to spare no expense in his entertainments, and subsequently the charges were much increased. In his second year the Christmas was kept at Richmond, and on the Twelfth Day we have a specimen of the pageants afterwards so much in fashion, though rather wild perhaps for our present tastes. This was devised like a mountain, glittering, as if with gold, and set with stones, on the top of which was a tree of gold, spreading out on every side with roses and pomegranates; it was brought towards the king, when out came a lady, dressed in cloth of gold, and the henchmen, or children of honour, who were dressed in some disguise, and they danced a morris before the king; after which they re-entered the mountain, which was drawn back, and then the wassail or banquet was brought in, and so ended the Christmas. These pageants must have been managed something like the pantomime or melo-dramatic devices we see on our own stage, and produced perhaps as much effect, taking into account the increase of modern fancy and expectation in this respect.
