Part 27 (1/2)
1611. ”On Christmas Day the King attended Divine Service at Whitehall, and Bishop Andrews preached on John. i. 14.”
1612. ”On Friday, 25th December, Christmas Day was kept as usual at Whitehall; where the King attended Divine Service, and Bishop Andrews (as usual) preached.”
1613. ”Sat.u.r.day, 25th December, being Christmas Day, was kept with the usual solemnities; the King attended Divine service at Whitehall, and Bishop Andrews preached.”
1614. ”His Majesty returned to keep Christmas Day, as was customary, at Whitehall. Bishop Andrews addressed him from the pulpit as usual.”
1615. ”'On Christmas Day, the King, being sorely troubled with the gout, was not able to go to Divine service; but heard a sermon in private, and took the Sacrament.' The Preacher was, as usual, Bishop Andrews.”
1616. ”On Christmas Day, Thomas, Earl of Arundel, who was educated from his youth in the Popish Religion, and had lately travelled all over Italy detesting the abuses of the Papists, embraced the Protestant religion, and received the Sacrament in the King's Chapel at Whitehall, where Bishop Andrews preached, as was customary, a sermon suited to the Festival of the Nativity.”
1618. ”On the 25th [December], Bishop Andrews resumed his post as preacher on Christmas Day, before the King at Whitehall. His text was from Luke ii. 12, 13.”
1619. ”Christmas was kept by the King at Whitehall, as had ever been his practice; and Bishop Andrews preached then before him, on Sat.u.r.day, the 25th.”
1620. ”During the month of December, before the King left the country, he knighted at Newmarket, Sir Francis Mich.e.l.l, afterward degraded in June 1621; and at Theobalds, Sir Gilbert Cornwall. On the 23rd, his Majestie 'came to Westminster, but went not to Chappel, being prevented by the gout.' On Monday, the 25th, however, being Christmas Day, Bishop Andrews preached before him at Whitehall, on Matt. ii. 1, 2; and during Christmas, Sir Clement Cotterell and Sir Henry Carvell were there knighted.”
1622. ”On the 25th [December] Bishop Andrews resumed his Christmas station in the pulpit at Whitehall, and thence preached to the King and his Court on the same text as he had adopted on the same occasion two years before, Matt. ii. 1, 2.”
1623. ”The King kept inviolate his old custom of being at Whitehall on Christmas Day, and hearing there a sermon from Bishop Andrews, who this year preached on Ephes. i. 10.”
1624. ”On Sat.u.r.day, the 25th of December, Bishop Andrews preached before his Majesty at Whitehall, on Psalm ii. 7, it being at least the seventeenth, as it was the last, Christmas Day on which King James heard that favourite preacher.”
The unique series of ”Seventeen Sermons on the Nativity, preached before King James I. at Whitehall, by the Right Honourable and Reverend Father in G.o.d, Lancelot Andrewes, sometime Lord Bishop of Winchester,” were preserved to posterity by an order of Charles I., who, after Bishop Andrewes's death, commanded Bishops Laud and Buckeridge to collect and publish his sermons. This series of sermons on the Nativity have recently been reprinted in ”The Ancient and Modern Library of Theological Literature,” and the editor, after referring to the ability and integrity of Bishop Andrewes, says: ”An interest apart from that which must be created by his genius, learning, and character, belongs to him as the exponent of the mind and practice of the English Church in the years that intervened between the Reformation and the Revolution.”
THE POPULAR AMUs.e.m.e.nTS OF CHRISTMASTIDE
at this period are thus enumerated by Robert Burton in his ”Anatomy of Melancholy,” published in 1621:--
”The ordinary recreations which we have in winter are cards, tables and dice, shovelboard, chess-play, the philosopher's game, small trunks, billiards, music, masks, singing, dancing, ule games, catches, purposes, questions; merry tales of errant knights, kings, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves, fairies, goblins, friars, witches, and the rest.”
The following curious cut is from the t.i.tle-page of the amusing story of the great ”Giant Gargantua” of this period:--
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Giant Gargantua”]
The legends of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwick, Adam Bell, and Clymme of Clough, were favourites among the lovers of romance; but the people of this age, being very superst.i.tious, were very fond of stories about ghosts and goblins, believing them to be founded on fact, and also attributing feats performed by conjurors and jugglers to supernatural agency. The King himself was equally superst.i.tious, for Strutt in describing the tricks of jugglers says: ”Our learned monarch, James I., was perfectly convinced that these, and other inferior feats exhibited by the tregetours, could only be performed by the agency of the devil, 'who,'
says he, 'will learne them many juglarie tricks, at cardes and dice, to deceive men's senses thereby, and such innumerable false practiques, which are proved by over-many in this age.'”[68]
Looking back to the ancient superst.i.tions about ghosts and fairies, Dryden, the poet, has some lines which may fitly close this chapter:--
”I speak of ancient times, for now the swain Returning late may pa.s.s the woods in vain, And never hope to see the mighty train; In vain the dairy now with mint is dressed, The dairy-maid expects no fairy guest, To skim the bowls and after pay the feast.
She sighs and shakes her empty shoes in vain, No silver penny to reward her pain: For priests, with prayers and other G.o.dly gear, Have made the merry goblins disappear.”
[58] ”Curiosities of Literature.”
[59] ”Memoirs of Ben Jonson.”
[60] ”Progresses of King James the First.”