Dan Snow's History Hit - When Parliament Cancelled Christmas

Episode Date: December 22, 2020

On 19 December 1644 the English Parliament banned Christmas. EXACTLY 376 years later to the day, Boris Johnson announced that this year the celebration of Christmas would be radically curtailed due to the upsurge in Covid infections. This might be the only thing that Boris Johnson and the 17th Century Puritans have in common. On this podcast Dan meets Dr Rebecca Warren, an expert on the religious history of the 17th Century to find out about the banning of Christmas. Why it happened, and just how stringent was the enforcement? Subscribe to History Hit and you'll get access to hundreds of history documentaries, as well as every single episode of this podcast from the beginning (400 extra episodes). We're running live podcasts on Zoom, we've got weekly quizzes where you can win prizes, and exclusive subscriber only articles. It's the ultimate history package. Just go to historyhit.tv to subscribe. Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/€/$1.

Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit. Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity. Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. Hello everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History. Have I got a story for you everybody? Have I got a story for you? You're not going to believe this. On the 19th of December 2020, Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, radically curtailed the ability of people in England to enjoy Christmas with family. It was followed by the leaders of the devolved administrations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as well. Christmas was going to be a relief from our Covid lockdown. Instead, things were tightened up. Tier four was introduced. It was impossible for millions of people to now travel to enjoy Christmas with their loved ones. People said that Christmas had been cancelled and it kind of sort of vaguely had. But what's amazing is 276 years ago to the day, as you're about to hear, in 1644, Parliament banned Christmas on the 19th of December as well. It's extraordinary.

The minute Boris Johnson made this decision, I decided to talk to Dr Rebecca Warren. She's a historian at the University of Kent, and she is the person to talk about banning Christmas. Enjoy this episode. Thank you very much to everyone who's watching the Christmas Truce on the historyhit.tv. It's proving our most successful program ever. I'm incredibly grateful to you all for watching, for subscribing. It is wonderful. If you want to go on there and watch it for free, you just use the code TRUCE, the voucher TRUCE. And actually, I haven't told you, I'm not meant to be telling people this, but that truce gets you a month for free and then 80% of your first three months of watching historyhit.tv. It's frankly a pretty nuts offer.

So you head over there, watch our drama documentary on the Christmas truce. Enjoy that. But first of all, make sure you listen to Dr. Rebecca Warren talking about banning Christmas. Enjoy. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Enjoy. Puritans hated Christmas and when they were in control of Parliament during the Civil Wars of the 1640s, they kind of banned Christmas. Is there any truth to that? Yes, the essential component of that myth that Christmas was banned in the 1640s is correct.

Now, a lot of other sort of urban myths have grown up around it. Some of those are not correct. But yes, the Puritans who came to power at the beginning of the Civil War in 1642, 1640, 1642, did have very serious problems with the whole idea of the celebration of Christmas, both in terms of what happened, but also in terms of why it happened. I mean, I find whenever I go to church on Christmas, which is not that often, Whenever I go to church on Christmas, which is not that often, the sermon is usually being told off for only coming to church on Christmas. And there is like a strong strain, even today, of like people getting annoyed about the dominance of Christmas, even within a kind of Christian religious calendar. Why did Puritans dislike Christmas? Well, for them, it all stems back to their understanding of the Protestant religion. The Puritans, of course, are very extreme Protestants. Now, if you're a Protestant,

and particularly if you're a Puritan, you look to the Bible as the word of God. That is where you turn for all sorts of things, for comfort, for instruction, for how to understand the world. And the problem is that if you turn to the Bible, you don't find anything in the Bible which tells you that you should be celebrating Christmas on the 25th of December. So there's a real difficulty for them here when they look around at the celebration of Christmas

in the 17th century, which is quite riotous. You know, it's a big feast. It lasts for nearly a fortnight. There's a lot of drunken revelry goes on. There's a lot of feasting, all the kinds of things that might lead one to forget your duties to God and how to live a holy life. And on top of that, there appears to be no reason why you should be doing this because it's not in the Bible. So for the Puritans, there are these two dual aspects. They don't like what goes on, but also they can't find it in the Bible because it's not in the Bible. So for the Puritans, there are these two dual aspects. They don't like what goes on, but also they can't find it in the Bible. If it's not in the Bible,

then it's not what God has instructed them to do. Now, Puritans, here we go. I mean, Rebecca, as you know, the 17th century is a closed book to me. It's too hard. I never got to that level of the game. The Puritans were not a political party. They were not a homogenous group. Who were they? And did they all dress in a particular way? Okay, yes, there are a lot of myths about the Puritans. Again, some verging on reality, some quite far from the truth. But let's just debunk the matter for a moment. So the Puritans are not a political party. The Puritans are this extreme form of Protestantism. And the reason that they are a group that we identify is because these are the people who, when the Tudors broke from the Church of Rome in the 16th century and started to install,

if you like, Protestantism in England and across the UK, the reformation from Catholic to Protestant just didn't seem to be going far enough. Elizabeth's Protestant church just doesn't seem to be Protestant enough. When they look at the Protestant reformation abroad, in places like Geneva, they see a far more radical reformation which really gets rid of every vestige of the old Catholic forms of worship. And at home, that doesn't seem to have happened. We've kind of got stark halfway. So they are not a political group. They are very extreme Protestants who want to reform the English church further. And part of the extreme nature of their Protestantism is the way they behave as well.

So they spend a lot of time worrying about whether they're going to be saved. Now, bear in mind, all Protestants do this, or most Protestants do this in the 17th century. So they're taught by John Calvin that God has already decided if you're going to be saved or not. And there's absolutely nothing that you can do about that. I mean, this is a really difficult deal. Imagine that, waking up not knowing if you're going to be saved or if you're going to be damned and knowing there's nothing that you can do. But the real problem for them is that also God has failed to tell them whether they're going to be saved or not. So they live life, and for the Puritans this happens in an extreme form, they live life in a constant

sense of uncertainty. And for the Puritans that sense of uncertainty leads them to be constantly striving to understand whether they're going to be saved or not. So looking at how they live, looking at how they think, thinking about what they might be able to do. Now they know there's nothing they can do to change God's mind, but they believe that if they find themselves able to live a holy life, then that must be a sign that they're going to be saved. So it's a kind of circle of belief and doubt. And this is what distinguishes the Puritans from the more, if you like, ordinary Protestant. An extraordinary Protestant was King Charles I and all his mates, who looked like they were flirting with Catholicism. They liked a bit of high church. They liked a bit of pageantry, if that's the right word.

He would have been a believer in religious festivals like Christmas. He and his ilk would have been a fan of that, would they? Yes, I think they would. That's right. They didn't take anything like the same hardline approach to Christmas or to festivals, holy days of all sorts, as the Puritans did. And indeed, in 1618, his father, James I, had tried to, if you like, hold back the Puritan tide by doing a number of things. And one of those things that he did was suggested to the Scots, the Scots in particular, who had already banned Christmas, that they really ought to be celebrating Christmas. And we can see from that that James's attitude is, you know, Protestantism, yes, that's fine. But this really extreme form of Puritanism is not the way that we want to go. And so Charles, as you say, who is already following a policy of

trying to re-establish a more liturgical and ceremonial form of Protestantism in the parishes across the nation, Charles too will have had a more relaxed approach to the celebration of Christmas. the nation. Charles too will have had a more relaxed approach to the celebration of Christmas. So in the 1640s, fighting breaks out between the two. Charles leaves London. His opponents who control London control Parliament. It's quite a puritanical group of men, is it? Yes, it is. And one reason for that is because during the 1630s, Charles has irritated so many people across the country, but particularly MPs who've not been in power in the 1630s, Charles has irritated so many people across the country, but particularly MPs who've not been in power in the 1630s. These are men who might have been in the last parliament of 1628-29, have then been out of power, fuming away as some of the king's policies become more and more extreme.

And when they get back into power, even some of these moderates, who would not necessarily have classed themselves as Puritans, are going to go along with the movers and shakers who take power back in 1640 when the long parliament assembles. So in a sense, Charles has been one of his own worst enemies by denying parliament the opportunity to sit during the 1630s. When Parliament finally comes back in 1640, and this is something Charles has to do, he has to call Parliament because he needs money. But what he does is he calls a Parliament which is now very upset with quite a lot of the things that he's done in the 1630s. So the relatively minor faction of extreme Puritans are able to build on this broader spread of support amongst MPs. Once Parliament has sort of ousted Charles from London, a state of war exists. We think about

pursuing that war and doing things like setting up the new model army and things into the mid-1640s. What is their religious and domestic agenda? Things like banning Christmas or their liturgical agenda? Well, as we discussed earlier, partly they want to reform the church from the apparent sort of slide back to Catholicism that Charles and his archbishop seemed to have been engineering during the 1630s. So there's a strong religious agenda there. They wish to bring the country back to a more pure Protestant reformation. And so perhaps I shouldn't have said agenda. What do they actually do? Because for me, I'm sort of so familiar with their war-making decisions, but at the same time they do transform

life in England, do they, in the areas that they occupy? Yes, I think that's a very good point, that there are areas in which they hold very considerable amount of power and there are some areas, certainly in the early 1640s, which are still very much royalist. So at this stage in the early 1640s, power is a difficult thing to wield across the country for either side. But whilst they are trying to win the war, and one has to remember that in the early 1640s, actually, Parliament doesn't really have a plan other than to not be beaten by the king. And most of their energies are going in that direction. But they also are trying to reform, as we say, the religion of the country, but the behaviour of the country also. And part of this stems from the fact that they

believe that the problems that the country is currently facing, and of course, you can't get a greater problem than civil war, are coming down to the fact that God is punishing the country for its sins. And this is very, very typical for devout Protestants and Puritans in the 17th century, that stuff doesn't happen because it's bad luck. Stuff happens because it's a punishment. And so the country is in civil war. This is a punishment for the sins of the nation. And so what they're trying to do is to both reform the church, they're trying to get rid of the liturgy, rid of the ceremonies, they're trying to get rid of the ministers who supported the king, and they're trying to reform the behaviour of the country. Now, this will come into particular focus later on in the 1650s, but even in the 1640s, we can see this happening.

And one of the things they do to do that is to institute what's called a monthly fast day. Now, this happens very early back in 1642. The king actually signs this off, which is the idea that every fourth Wednesday of the month, there will be a monthly day of fasting and humiliation and prayer. And this is one way that they are trying to, if you like, win the war through the minds rather than through weapons. They're trying to change the whole moral focus of the country in order to placate an angry God. Don't tell me that falls on Christmas. Well, in 1644, that falls on Christmas. So it's every last Wednesday. So of course, every seven years, this clash will roll around. 1644, the last Wednesday of December is the 25th of December.

And suddenly this really focuses hearts and minds on just how much they really mean this. And they have to decide, do they get rid of Christmas this year and force the fast across the country? Or do they give way to the kind of national need for a kind of winter celebration and so on? And you won't be surprised to hear that they decide just before Christmas happens on the 19th of December, that's it, we're going to have the day of fasting and Christmas is banned. So hang on, Rebecca, they gave people very little notice. They gave, strangely enough, exactly the same amount of notice as the government did when it installed Tier 4, 19th of December on both occasions. So 276 years to the day, this government

enforces Tier 4, the most severe ban so far, one might say, that we've had in recent months. And at the same time, 276 years ago, Parliament suddenly says, nope, there's going to be a fast. Christmas is cancelled. Wow. Isn't that spooky? I love that. It is spooky. That is fascinating. So how popular was that in the areas under parliamentary control? Because in 1644, this was pre-Nazeby, things were still, is it post Marston Moor?

It's post Marston Moor. Marston Moor has just happened. So the parliamentary armies have had a fairly decisive victory at Marston Moor over the King. But nevertheless, there are still areas of the country over which they don't have control. And so you're right to say, yes, is it different in different areas? And I think we have to assume that the answer is yes. We don't have a lot of evidence. So we are treading on thin ice if we make bold statements about, yes, everybody did this, everybody did that. But we do remember that there are a lot of people who are up for the Puritan line and they are certainly up for the parliamentary argument, which is that we need to placate the wrath of God in order to get ourselves out of this fix. And don't forget, you know,

this is 1644. A lot of people buy into the Puritan line. They buy into Puritanism. So for these people, they are going to go along with the fast. They do see this as a necessity, either from their own religious devotion or because they buy into the idea that we must do something about winning the war. And if that takes fasting at Christmas to make God look favourably upon us, then that's what we'll do. Equally, we all know what human nature is like, and particularly in those areas where the parliamentarians don't hold sway, we have to assume that Christmas goes ahead pretty much as it always did. Land a Viking longship on island shores scramble over the dunes of ancient egypt and avoid the poisoner's cup in renaissance florence each week on echoes of history we uncover the epic stories

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There are new episodes every week. Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit. Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity. Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs, and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. It is hard even today in the 21st century with the police,

with GCHQ monitoring all of our phones, it's hard to stop people behaving in ways the government doesn't want them to behave. So what was the, I mean, who was enforcing this in local areas? There's no police force back then. Yeah, no, you're spot on. It's actually really, really difficult for a government to enforce things unless it has the support of the local gentry. So if it has the support of the JPs,

So if it has the support of the JPs, then the JPs have some powers to start to enforce legislation upon the country. If it has the support of the local parish minister, then that again is quite a strong weapon in the arms of any particular government, in this case the parliamentarians. Having said that, ministers can't just go out and arrest people for having a good time on Christmas Day. So you've got to win the hearts and the minds. And if you don't win the hearts and minds, there are very limited methods that a government has for enforcing its will upon the people. Do we have any accounts of anyone, any justices of the peace, stepping in and examining a table in case there were mince pies on it or anything? I mean, did anyone even try?

I don't know is the answer to that. Certainly not in this early period in the 1640s. By the 1650s, we do know that searches are made of houses on occasion, and we may come on to that in a little while. But in the 1640s, what we do have evidence of is this dual response to the Christmas ban. So even back before the ban happens in 1644, when devout Puritans are starting to think about not celebrating Christmas in 1643, then we see public uprisings trying to force people to,

for example, close up their shops. So Puritans who've decided to carry on working as normal on Christmas Day, open their shops, keep their business open, are eliciting quite violent responses from other locals who want to see Christmas celebrated and therefore wish to see all business stopped. So we can see there's very much a kind of differentiation, depending on what side, what you believe, as to how you're going to respond. So Parliament successfully, well, Parliament banned Christmas because of that rolling fasting day. But later in the 1640s, they go one further, don't they? Well, yes. So it hasn't been an outstanding success in 1644, it must be said. And so very swiftly on the heels of the 1644 ban, although not necessarily

directly as a response. I mean, this has been in planning for some time. The first thing that happens is that in January 1645, they ban the Book of Common Prayer. So the Book of Common Prayer is, of course, the prayer book that we use today in church, if you go to church. And they banned that and instead they issue what's called the Directory for Public Worship. And this is a much looser form of guidance for how to carry out a more godly, a more Puritan, Presbyterian in fact, church service.

But it has a sting in the tail because although it's very loose guidance right at the very end it has a total ban on all church festivals and it says something like there's no day commanded in scripture to be kept holy but the lord's day which is the sabbath and then it says festivals or holy days are not to be continued. So what this has done is this is really writing in now the ban on Christmas into the future of public worship forever. That's pretty punchy. And by this stage, they're in control of most of the country. Yes, increasingly, they've now managed to reduce the royalist threat, certainly in terms of open warfare. The king surrenders, of course, the year later in 1646, and they follow up this temporary lull in the fighting with a ban in 1647 on Christmas.

And this is now legislation. So we've had two different sorts of approaches to how to get rid of Christmas. legislation. So we've had two different sorts of approaches to how to get rid of Christmas. We've had the instructions written into the Directory for Public Worship. Well, that only works if people actually abide by the Directory for Public Worship. And we know that not every parish by any means even bought a copy. So by 1647, seeing that this ban is not really working terribly well, they then legislate for it and they pass a parliamentary order which bans festivities. And this imposes fines on churches which go ahead and, for example, have Christmas services or allow the bells to ring. So now it's got legislative power. That was enforced then until the end of the Commonwealth, till 1660, was it, when Charles II, the Mary Monarch, comes back in?

Well, in theory, yes. In theory, that ban remains until 1660, when all the legislation from the English Revolution is overturned. The reality, of course, is that with the ebb and flow of power and the changes in government from, first of all, flow of power and the changes in government from, first of all, the parliamentarian government of the 1640s through to the Commonwealth government of the early 1650s, and then, of course, the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell in 1654, then there are different degrees of attempt to enforce this ban. So during the Commonwealth in the early 1650s and the early years of the Protectorate in 1654 to 1655, we do see real attempts to enforce this ban without any doubt. And it's quite successful because we certainly know that it was very difficult for people to find church services. And of course you would, wouldn't you? I mean, most of the ministers now are signed up

parliamentarian ministers, not all of them by any means, but a great many of them. But more to the point, they'll be fined. So, of course, they're going to kind of, you know, swallow their pride. Even those people who would like to celebrate Christmas and silence the bells and not hold a service, they're going to be in trouble if they don't. But I have to say that by the latter part of the 1650s, it seems to have been increasingly ignored. And yes, certainly the ban is gone by 1660 with the return of Charles II. You mentioned earlier that there were actually, other than obviously just controlling how people were able to act in church, were there inspections? Did people go into houses and say, what's this Christmas pudding doing here? Again, the evidence is very difficult for that. But

certainly in 1655, the protectorate government is very alarmed by the amount of resistance it's reaching. And it sets up a regional form of, if you like, military regional government called the major generals. And one of the things that we know some, at least, of the Major Generals do is they try hard to enforce a number of aspects of, if you like, more godly living. So they're getting rid of drunkenness, they're trying to get rid of swearing, they're trying to get rid of gambling in the public houses and in people's private lives. And one of the things that we know some of them are doing is actually going into houses and searching to see if Christmas is being celebrated. Because, of course, what you're doing behind your closed doors doesn't necessarily reflect the quiet,

external appearance of a town which seems to be carrying on its normal business. But of course, you go home at the end of the day, and who's to say whether you're having a private Christmas feast with your friends and family? So yes, there's an element of needing to really burrow into the private lives of people to see what's happening. But I would temper that with suggesting that actually this happens very rarely. And one of the reasons we know about it is because it's pretty unusual. They don't have the manpower for this apart from anything else. Just beyond the ability of a state at that point in early modern history. Yes, and we have to remember, of course, that the Puritans are not monsters.

They hold different views, but they're not inhuman. They understand about Christmas. They understand about celebrations. They understand about the importance of family life, they understand about the intrusion into people's personal worlds that this kind of thing is having. These are men who are both in this, if you like, loosome or relaxed society and stand outside it in terms of their principles. They're in a very difficult position. And it must have been a very hard call for the major generals to know how far to go. And of course, some of them are more rigorous than others. Working out public opinion is hard enough in the 21st century. In the 17th century, do we have any sense if the fight for Christmas and Easter and other religious holidays did that make the regime unpopular or is it is all this overrated because actually what sees off

the protectorate is the death of Cromwell and the decision of General Monk to march on London I mean does it does it matter whether or not these decisions were popular or unpopular in in the across the country yes that's a very interesting question, isn't it? I think the answer to that is yes, it does matter, actually. And it matters because of what we've just been saying about enforcement. Unless you have the support of the nation, you are going to struggle to enforce this kind of reformation of daily life. And the Puritans are trying to reform daily life. They're trying to improve people's behaviour apart from anything else. You cannot do that unless you have support. If you strike at one of the most fundamental aspects of, if you like,

the ceremonial year for people, then you are going to irritate and upset a lot of people. So I think one can't say, oh, yes, the banning of Christmas definitely led to the collapse of the protectorate in 1658-59. But what you can say is that it was one more brick in the wall of damaging people's sense of their normal life, of normality, of tradition, taking away from them the things that they held dear. And we have to remember that actually getting drunk at Christmas and any other time is something that a great many English people held dear as one of the things you were allowed to do, particularly in times of civil war.

Swearing and gambling, these are things which are fundamental to human nature, aren't they? And if you have a regime which tries to ban them and get rid of them, the same with the celebration of Christmas, the same with the celebration of Easter, the same with the idea of May Day and Midsummer, all of these moments in the year when you relaxed your guard for a moment and came together with your community, if you ban those things, you are really going to upset the sense that people have of their normality, of their privacy, of their right to go about their lives. And so, yes, I think it probably did. It wasn't critical, but it was one of the aspects that made the governments of the 1650s increasingly unpopular

and therefore increasingly untenable. Well, Rebecca, thank you very much for coming on the podcast to talk about it. That was so kind of you. What's your latest book? Currently working on a book on the church in the interregnum. So there'll be plenty of religious banning and not banning in this. I mean, I'll have to see if I've unlocked the various levels and I'm able to read that book by the time I get to it. I've got a lot of work to do to get to the necessary belt. I haven't got my sort of black belt yet on 17th century religious history, but I'm working on it. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure and thank you very much. It's such a fascinating period and one that everybody should be taking as much notice of as possible in this very difficult time that we're all going through at the moment.

I feel the hand of history upon our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history, our songs, this part of the history of our country, all were gone and finished and liquidated. One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world. He tells us what is possible, not just in the pages of history books, but in our own lives as well. I have faith in you. Hi everyone, thanks for reaching the end of this podcast. Most of you are probably asleep, so I'm talking to your snoring forms, but anyone who's awake,

it would be great if you could do me a quick favour, head over to wherever you get your podcasts and rate it five stars, and then leave a nice glowing review. It makes a huge difference, for some reason, you get your podcasts and rate it five stars and then leave a nice glowing review. It makes a huge difference for some reason to how these podcasts do. Madness, I know, but them's the rules. Then we go further up the charts, more people listen to us and everything will be awesome. So thank you so much. Now sleep well. Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit. Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers

of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity. Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold.