Forget the Grinch, Oliver Cromwell and his Puritans really DID steal Christmas - and abolished it for 16 joyless years. It didn't go well...
- Rioting broke out round Britain when the Puritans abolished Yule celebrations
- Soldiers were sent in to break up parties up and down the land
Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, Oliver Cromwell.
Just imagine Christmas being banned. No carols, no holly, no ivy – and definitely no pantos.
Plus the threat of arrest and jail if you kick off a Yuletide party. Yet that's just what happened when King Charles I lost his throne back in the 17th century.
Catholic Charles's divine-right-to-rule attitude towards his politicians had fuelled the rise of republicanism and led to the outbreak of civil war in 1642.
By 1647, Oliver Cromwell had won and Charles was incarcerated at Hampton Court.
King Charles I in a portrait of around 1636. Catholic Charles was dethroned by Puritans who thought Christmas abhorrent
An illustration showing the Trial of King Charles I of England in 1649. He was beheaded that same year
Oliver Cromwell preaches to a Puritan congregation
Front cover of a satirical 17th century pamphlet published during the interregnum when Christmas festivities were prohibited by the Puritans
Dubbing himself the Lord Protector, Cromwell and his Puritan backers set out on a mission to cleanse the nation of – as they saw it - its most decadent excesses.
And top of the list was Christmas with all its festive trappings.
Since the Middle Ages, Christmas had been celebrated in much the same way as it is today: 25 December was the holy day on which the birth of Christ was commemorated, followed by an extended period of merriment, lasting until Twelfth Night on 5 January.
Churches held special services, businesses respectfully kept shorter hours, and people decorated their homes with holly, ivy and mistletoe just they do today.
Acting troupes put on comedy plays - the forerunners of the modern pantomime – and taverns and tap houses brimmed with merrymakers.
Families and friends came together to feast on seasonal food and drink including turkey, mince pies, plum porridge and specially-brewed Christmas ale. And communal singing about the festive season was all the rage.
To Cromwell and his fellow Puritans, though, this kind of behaviour was not only abhorrent but sinful.
Nowhere, they argued, had God called upon man to celebrate Christ’s nativity in such fashion.
And so in 1644, an Act of Parliament effectively banned the festival followed in June 1647 by the Long Parliament passed an ordinance confirming the abolition of Christmas.
Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, Oliver Cromwell. His attempt to abolish Christmas did not go well
Richard Harris, right, as Oliver Cromwell in 1970. The suppression of Christmas led to rioting round the country
A puritan town crier is sent to tell the citizens that Christmas celebrations are prohibited
A woman pays the penalty for celebrating Christmas too vigorously (by baking plum puddings!) against the decree of Parliament in Puritan-controlled Oxford during the Civil War-era of the late 1640s in England, and is placed in the stocks for her 'crime'
It didn't go down well. Within days, rebellion broke out across the country. While some activity took the form of timidly hanging holly in the window, others took more direct action.
In Norwich the mayor was presented with a petition demanding Christmas be brought back.
Fearing for his life, he refused - but turned a blind eye to celebrations which went on regardless. Later there were riots in Norwich when many died.
In Canterbury the annual Christmas football game was defiantly played, and festive holly bushes were prominently displayed outside people's homes.
Over the 12 days of Christmas, partying spread across the whole of Kent and armed force had to be used to break up the fun.
London streets were similarly decked with holly and ivy and shops were closed against Cromwell's orders to stay open.
The churchwardens of St Margaret's, Westminster, insisted on Christmas services going ahead in the church and were arrested for their effrontery.
The London mayor was assaulted as he tried to rip down Christmas decorations with the help of the militia – but he was powerless to stop young men armed with clubs patrolling the streets, persuading shopkeepers to stay shut.
It was a no-win situation for Cromwell.
Christmas parties suddenly became an act of rebellion against the po-faced Roundheads, and King Charles's supporters secretly encouraged people to eat, drink and be merry – and to make a nuisance of themselves.
At Christmas 1647 and and again in 1648, the parties led to riots and the riots led to an armed uprising, which, in turn, caused the Second Civil War that summer.
King Charles fed up with his incarceration and the joyless Yuletide foisted upon his subjects, had escaped from Hampton Court, but was re-arrested on the Isle of Wight.
Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, soldier, statesman and head of the newly declared Commonwealth
Richard Harris , in costume, holding a helmet, and on horseback for the film, 'Cromwell', 1970.
The Restoration of King Charles II - and Christmas - in 1660.
He was brought to trial and condemned to death 'a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy to the good people of this nation' according to the citation.
Under pressure from a rising tide of Protestantism, his downfall had been to believe that a monarch had the divine right to rule absolutely – he did not believe in power-sharing with parliamentarians - and failed to move with the times.
His spent his last Christmas under lock and key at Windsor Castle, and in January 1649, as the monarchy was officially abolished by Cromwell, he was executed in Whitehall.
The nation had to wait 11 long years until King Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, before they got their Christmases back.
But long may they now continue, under King Charles III!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12876559/Grinch-Cromwell-Puritans-DID-steal-Christmas.html
Father of the House: Cromwell's statue in Parliament Square outside the Houses of Parliament
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