Part 6 (2/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: ROYAL PARTY DINING IN STATE.]
Henry the Third's most splendid Christmas was in the twentieth year of his reign, when he welcomed Eleanor, daughter of the Count of Provence, to whom he was married on January 14, 1236. The youthful princess left Provence amidst the rejoicings of the whole kingdom.
She was accompanied by Henry's amba.s.sadors and a grand cavalcade, in which were more than three hundred ladies on horseback. Her route lay through Navarre and France. On reaching England, at Dover, the princess and her train proceeded to Canterbury, where Henry awaited their coming. It was in that ancient city that the royal pair were married by the Archbishop Edmund and the prelates who accompanied Eleanor. From Canterbury the newly-wedded king and queen set out for London, attended by a splendid array of n.o.bles, prelates, knights and ladies. On the 20th of January, Eleanor was crowned at Westminster with great splendour. Matthew Paris, the historian, gives an interesting description of the royal procession, and the loyal welcome of the citizens of London: ”There had a.s.sembled together so great a number of the n.o.bility of both s.e.xes, so great a number of religious orders, so great a concourse of the populace, and so great a variety of players, that London could scarcely contain them in her capacious bosom. Therefore was the city adorned with silk hangings, and with banners, crowns, palls, tapers, and lamps, and with certain marvellous ingenuities and devices; all the streets being cleaned from dirt, mud, sticks and everything offensive. The citizens of London going to meet the king and queen, ornamented and trapped and wondrously sported their swift horses; and on the same day they went from the City to Westminster, that they might discharge the service of butler to the king in his coronation, which is acknowledged to belong to them of ancient right. They went in well-marshalled array, adorned in silken vestments, wrapped in gold-woven mantles, with fancifully-devised garments, sitting on valuable horses refulgent with new bits and saddles: and they bore three hundred and sixty gold and silver cups, the king's trumpeters going before and sounding their trumpets; so that so wonderful a novelty produced a laudable astonishment in the spectators.” The literary monk of St. Albans also describes the splendour of the feast, and the order of the service of the different va.s.sals of the crown, many of whom were called upon at the coronation to perform certain peculiar services. According to the ancient City records, ”these served in order in that most elegant and unheard-of feast: the Bishop of Chichester, the Chancellor, with the cup of precious stones, which was one of the ancient regalia of the king, clothed in his pontificals, preceded the king, who was clad in royal attire, and wearing the crown. Hugh de Pateshall walked before with the patine, clothed in a dalmatica; and the Earls of Chester, Lincoln, and Warren, bearing the swords, preceded him. But the two renowned knights, Sir Richard Siward and Sir Nicholas de Molis, carried the two royal sceptres before the king; and the square purple cloth of silk, which was supported upon four silver lances, with four little bells of silver gilt, held over the king wherever he walked, was carried by the barons of the Cinque Ports; four being a.s.signed to each lance, from the diversity of ports, that one port should not seem to be preferred before the other. The same in like manner bore a cloth of silk over the queen, walking behind the king, which said cloths they claimed to be theirs by right, and obtained them. And William de Beauchamp of Bedford, who had the office of almoner from times of old, found the striped cloth or _burel_, which was laid down under the king's feet as he went from the hall as far as the pulpit of the Church of Westminster; and that part of the cloth that was _within_ the Church always fell to the s.e.xton in whatever church the king was crowned; and all that was _without_ the church was distributed among the poor, by the hands of William the almoner.” The ancient records contain many other particulars respecting the ceremonies which graced the marriage feast of Henry and Eleanor of Provence, but enough has been quoted to show the magnificence of the celebration.
Year by year, as the Christmas festival came round, it was royally celebrated wherever the Court happened to be, even though the king had to pledge his plate and jewels with the citizens of London to replenish his exchequer. But Henry's Royal Christmases did not allay the growing disaffection of his subjects on account of his showing too much favour to foreigners; and some of the barons who attended the Royal Christmas at Westminster in 1241, left in high dudgeon, because the place of honour at the banquet was occupied by the papal legate, then about to leave England, ”to the sorrow of no man but the king.”
In 1252, Henry gave in marriage his beautiful daughter Margaret, to Alexander, King of the Scots, and held his Christmas at the same time.
The city of York was the scene of the regal festivities. The marriage took place on Christmas Day, the bridegroom and many of his n.o.bles receiving knighthood at the hands of the English king. Henry seems to have conciliated the English barons for a time, for most of them were present at the marriage festivities, and he counted a thousand knights in his train; while Alexander brought sixty splendidly-attired Scottish knights with him. That the banqueting was on no mean scale is evident from the fact that six hundred fat oxen were slaughtered for the occasion, the gift of the Archbishop of York, who also subscribed four thousand marks (2,700) towards the expenses. The consumption of meats and drinks at such feasts was enormous. An extant order of Henry's, addressed to his keeper of wines, directs him to deliver two tuns of white and one of red wine, to make garhiofilac and claret 'as usual,' for the king at Christmas; and upon another occasion the Sheriffs of Gloucesters.h.i.+re and Suss.e.x were called upon to supply part of the necessary provisions; the first named being directed to get twenty salmon, and make pies of them; while the latter was instructed to send ten peac.o.c.ks, ten brawns with their heads, and other things.
And all this provision was necessary, for while Henry feasted the rich, he did not forget the poor. When he kept his Christmas at Winchester in 1248, he ordered his treasurer to fill Westminster Hall with poor people, and feast them there for a week. Twenty years afterwards, he kept his Royal Christmas in London for fifteen days, opening a fair meantime at Westminster, and forbidding any shop to be opened in London as long as the festival lasted. This prohibition of business naturally displeased the citizens of London, but the king would not withdraw his prohibition until they agreed to make him a present of two thousand pounds, upon the receipt of which the prohibition was withdrawn.
We cannot pa.s.s over this period without reference to the summoning of
THE FIRST ENGLISH PARLIAMENT,
which was a great event of Christmastide.
The Barons' Wars interfered seriously with the Christmas festivities, but they solved the problem of how to ensure the government of the realm in accordance with the provisions of the Great Charter. The King (Henry III.) had sworn again and again to observe the Charter, but his oath was no sooner taken than it was unscrupulously broken. The barons, with the patriotic Simon de Montfort at their head, were determined to uphold the rights of the people, and insisted on the king's compliance with the provisions of the Charter; and this struggle with the Crown yielded one of the greatest events of Christmastide: the summoning of the first national Parliament. By summoning the representatives of the cities and boroughs to sit beside the knights of the s.h.i.+res, the barons and the bishops in the Parliament of the realm, Simon de Montfort created a new force in English politics. This first national a.s.sembly met at Westminster, in January, 1265, while the king was a prisoner of Earl Simon. The form of national representation thus inaugurated had an immense influence on the rising liberties of the people, and has endured to our own times. It is not surprising, therefore, that the adoption of this measure by the great Earl of Leicester invested his memory with a l.u.s.tre which has not been dimmed by the lapse of centuries. The paltering of the king called forth the patriotism of the people. ”So may a glory from defect arise.” The sevenfold l.u.s.tre of the rainbow is only seen when there is rain as well as sun.
”Only the prism's obstruction shows aright The secret of a sunbeam, breaks its light Into the jewelled bow from blankest white; So may a glory from defect arise.”[19]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
THE DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD ON CHRISTMAS EVE.
The famous freebooter, Robin Hood, who, according to tradition, flourished in Sherwood Forest in the distracted reign of Henry the Third, is said to have died on Christmas Eve, in the year 1247. The career of this hero of many popular ballads is not part of our subject, though Hone[20] records his death as a Christmas event; and Stowe, writing in 1590, evidently believes in Robin Hood as an historical personage, for he says, ”he suffered no woman to be oppressed ... poor men's goods he spared, abundantly relieving them with that which by theft he got from the abbeys, and the houses of rich old earles.”
From the doubtful doings of the romantic chief and his band of freebooters, we now pa.s.s on to the
REIGN OF EDWARD THE FIRST.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Edward the First was in the truest sense a national king. He was English to the core, and he won the love of his people by his bravery, justice, and good government. He joined freely in the national sports and pastimes, and kept the Christmas festival with great splendour.
There was much of the chivalric in his character, and he shared to the full his people's love of hard fighting. He was invested with the honour of knighthood and went to foreign courts to display his prowess. Matthew of Westminster states that while Edward was travelling in France, he heard that a lord of Burgundy was continually committing outrages on the persons and property of his neighbours. In the true spirit of chivalry Edward attacked the castle of the uncourteous baron. His prowess a.s.serted the cause of justice, and he bestowed the domains which he had won upon a n.o.bler lord. For the sake of acquiring military fame he exposed himself to great dangers in the Holy Land, and, during his journey homeward, saved his life by sheer fighting in a tournament at Challon. At his ”Round Table of Kenilworth” a hundred lords and ladies ”clad all in silk” renewed the faded glories of Arthur's Court, and kept Christmas with great magnificence. In 1277, Llewellyn, Prince of Wales, bidden from his mountain fastnesses ”with a kiss of peace,” sat a guest at the Christmas feast of Edward, but he was soon to fall the last defender of his weeping country's independence in unequal battle with the English King. In 1281-2, Edward kept his feast of Christmas at Worcester, and there was ”such a frost and snow as no man living could remember the like.” Rivers were frozen over, even including the Thames and Severn; fish in ponds, and birds in woods died for want of food; and on the breaking up of the ice five of the arches of old London bridge were carried away by the stream, and the like happened to many other bridges. In 1286 Edward kept his Christmas at Oxford, but the honour was accompanied by an unpleasant episode in the hanging of the Mayor by the King's command. In 1290, 1292, and 1303, Edward the First kept Royal Christmases in the great hall at Westminster. On his way to Scotland, in the year 1299, the King witnessed the Christmas ceremonial of the Boy Bishop. He permitted one of the boy bishops to say vespers before him in his chapel at Heton, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and made a present to the performers of forty s.h.i.+llings, no inconsiderable sum in those days. During his Scotch wars, in 1301, Edward, on the approach of winter, took up his quarters in Linlithgow, where he built a castle and kept his Christmas; and during his reign he celebrated the festival at other places not usually so honoured--namely, Bury, Ipswich, Bristol, Berwick, Carlisle, and Lincoln.
EDWARD THE SECOND
succeeded his father in 1307, being the fourth son of Edward I. and Eleanor of Castile. He took great delight in the Christmas revels and expended large sums of money in the entertainment of his court favourites. In 1311 he kept his Christmas at York, rejoicing in the presence of Piers Gaveston, whom he had recalled from banishment in utter disregard of advice given to him by his father (Edward I.) on his death-bed. Edward II. kept his Christmas in the great hall at Westminster in 1317, when, however, few n.o.bles were present, ”because of discord betwixt them and the King;” but in 1320 the Royal Christmas was kept at Westminster ”with great honour and glorie.” In 1324-5 the King's Christmas was sumptuously observed at Nottingham, but the following year found Edward a prisoner at Kenilworth, while his wife, who had successfully intrigued with Roger Mortimer, leader of the Barons, observed the Christmas festivities with her son at Wallingford, glad at the downfall of her husband. Edward was an irresolute and weak-minded king. He displayed singular incapacity for government, wasting almost all his time in frivolous amus.e.m.e.nts. The chief characteristics of his reign were defeat and disgrace abroad, and misrule ending in misery at home. Instead of following the example of his n.o.ble father, Edward I., who has been deservedly styled ”the greatest of the Plantagenets,” he proved himself the weakest of that line of kings, spending his time in such trifling diversions as ”cross and pile,” a game of chance with coins. He was so utterly devoid of self-respect that he even borrowed money of his barber to carry on this frivolous pastime, such items as the following being found in his wardrobe rolls:--”Item, paid to Henry, the king's barber, for money which he lent the king to play at cross and pile, five s.h.i.+llings.
Item, paid to Pires Barnard, usher of the king's chamber, money which he lent the king, and which he lost at cross and pile; to Monsieur Robert Wattewille eightpence.” At length the barons, tired of Edward's misgovernment, revolted, and made the king a prisoner. During the Christmas festival of 1326, Edward was imprisoned in Kenilworth Castle. While there he was informed that in a Parliament held at Westminster, during Christmas 1326-7, he was deposed, and his son Edward, then only fourteen years of age, elected in his stead. On the 21st of September in the same year Edward II. ended his miserable career in Berkeley Castle, being, it is supposed, cruelly murdered by his keepers.
EDWARD THE THIRD'S CORONATION
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