me ended. Mr. Attorney-General, being of the
same house, fetched them in his own coach, and carried them to the
court, where the King himself reconciled my Lord Mayor and them
together with joining all hands; the gentlemen of the Temple being
this Shrovetide to present a Mask to their majesties, over and besides
the King's own great Mask, to be performed at the Banquetting-house by
an hundred actors."

We get other glances at

THE CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES IN THE 17TH CENTURY

through contemporary writers of the period. Nicholas Breton,[70]
writing in merry mood, says: "It is now Christmas, and not a cup of
drink must pass without a carol; the beasts, fowl, and fish come to a
general execution, and the corn is ground to dust for the bakehouse
and the pastry: cards and dice purge many a purse, and the youth show
their agility in shoeing of the wild mare: now, good cheer, and
welcome, and God be with you, and I thank you:--and against the New
Year provide for the presents:--The Lord of Misrule is no mean man for
his time, and the guests of the high table must lack no wine: the
lusty bloods must look about them like men, and piping and dancing
puts away much melancholy: stolen venison is sweet, and a fat coney is
worth money: pit-falls are now set for small birds, and a woodcock
hangs himself in a gin: a good fire heats all the house, and a full
alms-basket makes the beggar's prayers:--the maskers and the mummers
make the merry sport, but if they lose their money their drum goes
dead: swearers and swaggerers are sent away to the ale-house, and
unruly wenches go in danger of judgment; musicians now make their
instruments speak out, and a good song is worth the hearing. In sum it
is a holy time, a duty in Christians for the remembrance of Christ and
custom among friends for the maintenance of good fellowship. In brief
I thus conclude it: I hold it a memory of the Heaven's love and the
world's peace, the mirth of the honest, and the meeting of the
friendly. Farewell."

In 1633, William Prynne, a Puritan lawyer, published his
"Histriomastix," against plays, masques, balls, the decking of houses
with evergreens at Christmas, &c., for which he was committed to the
Tower, prosecuted in the Star Chamber, and sentenced to pay a fine to
the King of L5,000, to be expelled from the University of Oxford, from
the Society of Lincoln's Inn, and from his profession of the law; to
stand twice in the pillory, each time losing an ear; to