By virtue of him becoming the face of English Puritanism, warts and all, Cromwell tends to get blamed for the ban on Christmas during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and the Commonwealth. There are plenty of potted histories, especially online, which lay the blame for the ban solely at Cromwell’s feet. This isn’t too surprising; Cromwell is famous for being miserable as sin, only sinning was not allowed. But on this very specific issue, it isn’t accurate. When the English Parliament began passing ordinances against Christmas, Cromwell was still just a regular MP at this point, though as we know from the narrative his position in the New Model Army means his personal influence and power is on the rise. While he would one day rule as Lord Protector, by the time he takes power, critics of Christmas had been taking steps to suppress it for almost a decade.
Christmas in medieval and early modern England was incredibly popular. It was both a holy day and a public holiday, and Christmas Day marked the beginning of the Twelve Days. Special church services were held over these days; decorations of evergreen plants like holly, ivy, and rosemary were displayed; gifts were given and received, traditionally on New Years Day; food and drink was eaten and drunk in vast amounts, with special christmas treats like mince pies and Christmas Ale; the period saw the appearance of the Lord of Misrule in England, and the Abbot of Unreason in Scotland, with Boy Bishops preaching from the pulpit.
All of this made the Twelve Days of Christmas utterly appalling to the hotter sort of Protestant. In England and Wales, Puritans railed against the frivolity and decadence of the holiday. Feasting, drinking, debauchery, partying, these were not appropriate ways to commemorate and celebrate the birth of Christ. There was no biblical justification for Christmas or the Twelve Days. From this point of view, Christmas was also run through with superstition and rituals, holdouts from before the Reformation. So not only were traditional Christmas celebrations needlessly flamboyant and… fun, but they were appalling reminders of Catholicism which the Reformation should have been thrown out along with the Pope. I mean for goodness sake, you can’t even spell Christmas without Mass! Instead, Christians should spend the holiday in sincere contemplation, penance, fasting, and other expressions of faith.
Scottish Presbyterians were way ahead of their southern neighbours. In Scotland, the most famous critic of Christmas was the one and only John Knox. The great reformer railed against the holiday, but as thorough as the Scottish Reformation had been, Christmas remained a Scottish holiday until 1583, when the Kirk successfully had it banned. This ban lasted for the next thirty-odd years, until James VI and I made his one and only return visit to his native Scotland. If you recall all the way back in the narrative, the king forced through the unpopular Five Articles of Perth, which reintroduced high church elements like kneeling at communion and the celebration of holy days such as Easter and Christmas. But as we also saw, the Scottish bishops had enforced the Five Articles with a light touch; the Scottish Kirk did not appreciate the interference of their king. And then twenty years later, with the bishop’s wars the General Assembly of the Kirk reintroduced the ban on Christmas. So, with their kirk once again perfect, the Scots came south to aid their religious brethren in completing the reformation of the Church of England, and winning the civil war.
Plenty of Christmas critics were on the parliamentary side of the civil war, but they were far from dominant. The abolition of Christmas came about from a series of steps; In 1642, parliament banned the performance of plays in London as they were sources of, quote, lascivious mirth and levity’ and not at all appropriate for the quote ‘times of humiliation’ end quote of a civil war. This hit the Christmas period particularly hard, as that was the peak of the theatrical season. The actors appealed the decision the following year, but the ban remained in place. In 1643, parliament decided to sit on Christmas Day, instead of taking the traditional recess. There was no particularly important work that needed to be done, or indeed that was done, on that day. They assembled on that day to make a statement, and then spent the rest of the Twelve Days off. Moderates in parliament had thrown their more zealous colleagues and their Scottish allies a bone, but they weren’t yet prepared to completely reject the holiday.
The true escalation came the following year. Christmas in 1644 also fell on a Wednesday, which is especially relevant because the last wednesday of every month was designated as a day of fasting and penance. This would clash every so slightly with the traditional feasting and debauchery of Christmas, so a decision had to be made on whether an exception for Christmas Day would be made; it was not. In December 1644, parliament passed an ordinance calling for a fast over the Christmas period, with Christmas Day particularly singled out. Quote,
this Day in particular, is to be kept with the more solemn Humiliation, because it may call to Remembrance our Sins, and the Sins of our Fore fathers, who have turned this Feast, pretending the Memory of Christ into an extreme Forgetfulness of him, by giving Liberty to carnal and sensual Delights, being contrary to the Life which Christ led here upon Earth.
Now it has to be said that, whatever parliament said in 1644, Christmas was still celebrated across the kingdom, and even in London. Businesses closed to mark the day. But parliament was determined to take its own ordinance seriously, and they met and worked as if it was any other day. Some particularly-zealous MPs, like Richard Browne, declared the abolition of Christmas.
But that’s not the end of the story. Because, like I said, people kept celebrating, and parliament wasn’t really in a position to stop them. That is, until 1647. In June of that year, parliament reinforced its previous decision with another ordinance, the ‘Ordinance for Abolishing of Festivals’. This ruled that the ‘Feast of the Nativity of Christ’, as well as Easter and Whitsuntide, were no longer festivals and were not to be celebrated. Decorations of ivy, holly, and other evergreens were not to be displayed, carols were not to be sung, and businesses were to open and workers to work as usual. To replace the lost eight days of holiday, the ordinance ensured that every second Tuesday of every month was a holiday. Everyone would have six months to come to terms with this new reality, ordinary folk gained an extra four days off a year, and England was one step closer to being a Godly society.
Except that isn’t exactly what happened. Christmas was incredibly popular, and as we’re seeing in the narrative, parliament was increasingly unpopular. As we’ll cover in the main episodes, the king was becoming a focal point of resistance to the unpopular parliament. All this combined to make the winter of 1647-48 a winter of discontent.
When Christmas came around, and parliamentary authorities began to enforce the June ordinance, riots followed. Violent unrest led to deaths and injuries in Ipswich, Oxford, Ealing, and London. In Canterbury, locals smashed up shops which followed the ordinance and opened as normal. Football, also illegal, was played throughout the streets, preventing the authorities from opening the markets. In London, the Lord Mayor was jeered by the crowds and forced to flee on his horse. Many shops remained closed, and as in Canterbury and elsewhere those who did open risked the anger of the crowds. Even many churches in the capital refused to follow the ban, and went ahead and decorated with evergreens, only for parliamentarian soldiers to arrive and try to remove them. Across England and Wales, Christmas was widely celebrated as ordinary people flouted the ban.
In the aftermath of this unrest, parliament was in a tricky position. The Kentish authorities urged parliament to allow the so-called ringleaders of the unrest in Canterbury to be tried under martial law. Parliament, wisely, refused, and ordered them tried by jury in ordinary courts. The jury refused to convict them, and the rioters walked.
There were pragmatic reasons for enforcing the ban; Christmas celebrations invited demonstrations of support for the king and for the old Church of England. They used the Book of Common Prayer, abolished by the Westminster Assembly of Divines and replaced with the Directory of Public Prayer. Now that parliament had made their war on christmas a matter of state policy, backpedaling would be a disaster. But rigidly enforcing the ban only increased resentment of parliament. It’s also important to remember that not all puritans wanted the complete abolition of the festive period; Oliver Cromwell himself is said to have celebrated that New Year, giving and receiving the traditional New Year gifts, despite many of his spiritual allies condemning the entire Twelve Days.
Officially, the ban on Christmas would be enforced throughout the rest of the reign of Charles I, and into the Protectorate and the Commonwealth. On more than one occasion, soldiers would patrol towns and cities, confiscating food and drink which was believed to be prepared for Christmas. But from here on, public celebrations of Christmas were usually suppressed by the authorities, but behind closed doors Christmas would continue to be celebrated. With the restoration of the Stuarts in 1660, followed the restoration of Christmas in England and Wales. In Scotland, Christmas remained banned until 1712, but the kirk continued to frown on celebrating it. It was only in the 1950s that Christmas became a public holiday once again, which is partly why here in Scotland New Year - Hogmanay - is just as big, if not a bigger, party as Christmas.
For all the things we can throw at Cromwell’s feet, the banning of Christmas in England and Wales is not really one of them. He was in favour of the ban, sure, but anti-Christmas fervour was already strong in parliamentary circles. It would have been banned without his involvement, and it actually was. For the key pieces of legislation, he was away from parliament and unable to vote.
It’s true that as Lord Protector he could have repealed the ban, but it suited his objective to reform society. But that being said, he didn’t aggressively suppress it as long as Christmas celebrations stayed private, and didn’t become associated with royalism or sedition.
So no, Oliver Cromwell did not ban Christmas.
This has just been a short bonus episode to tide you over until the narrative resumes in 2023. There’s a lot to come; the New Model Army - including Cromwell - is about to march on London, Charles I is about to make a deal with the Scots, and political radicals are starting to wonder aloud; do we really need a king? We’re getting to the point where the ‘English Civil War’ becomes the ‘English Revolution.’
To all my listeners who celebrate Christmas, and to all those who don’t, I wish you a very happy holidays and a prosperous new year!
