Life in England under Oliver Cromwell
Citation: C
N Trueman "Life in England under Oliver Cromwell"
historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, 17 Mar 2015. 17 Dec 2015.
historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, 17 Mar 2015. 17 Dec 2015.
Oliver Cromwell remains one of
our most famous characters in history. From 1649 to 1653, Parliament ran
England but from Cromwell’s point of view, it was not a system that worked
effectively and England, as a nation was suffering. As a result, Cromwell, backed
by the army, sent home MP’s and he became the effective leader of England from 1653
to 1658…
Cromwell was a Puritan. He was
a highly religious man who believed that everybody should lead their lives
according to what was written in the Bible. The word “Puritan” means that
followers had a pure soul and lived a good life. Cromwell believed that
everybody else in England should follow his example.
One of the main beliefs of the
Puritans was that if you worked hard, you would get to Heaven. Pointless enjoyment
was frowned upon. Cromwell shut many inns and the theatres were all closed
down. Most sports were banned. Boys caught playing football on a Sunday could
be whipped as a punishment. Swearing was punished by a fine, though those who
kept swearing could be sent to prison.
Sunday became a very special
day under the Puritans. Most forms of work were banned…
To keep the population’s mind
on religion, instead of having feast days to celebrate the saints (as had been
common in Medieval England), one day in every month was a fast day – you did
not eat all day….
Cromwell banned Christmas as
people would have known it then. By the C17th, Christmas had become a holiday
of celebration and enjoyment – especially after the problems caused by the
civil war. Cromwell wanted it returned to a religious celebration where people
thought about the birth of Jesus rather than ate and drank too much. In London,
soldiers were ordered to go round the streets and take, by force if necessary,
food being cooked for a Christmas celebration. The smell of a goose being
cooked could bring trouble. Traditional Christmas decorations like holly were banned.
Eastern Algonquian peoples
Main article: Algonquian peoples
The earliest known inhabitants of New England were American Indians who spoke a variety of the Eastern Algonquian languages.[4] Prominent tribes included the Abenaki, Mi'kmaq, Penobscot, Pequot, Mohegans, Narragansett Indians, Pocumtuck, and Wampanoag.
As early as 1600, French, Dutch, and English traders, exploring the New World, began to trade metal, glass, and cloth for local beaver pelts.
On April 10, 1606, King James I of England issued a charter for each of the Virginia Companies, London and Plymouth. These were privately funded ventures, intended to claim land for England, conduct trade, and return a profit. In 1620, Plymouth in present-day Massachusetts was settled by Pilgrims from the Mayflower, beginning the history of permanent European settlement in New England.
In 1616, English explorer John Smith named the region "New England".
Massachusetts Puritans began to settle in Connecticut as early as 1633.[17] Roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts for heresy, led a group south, and founded Providence in the area that became the state of Rhode Island in 1636.[18][19] At this time, Vermont was yet unsettled, and the territories of New Hampshire and Maine were claimed and governed by Massachusetts.[20]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England
Christmas in Puritan New England
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christmas
celebrations in New England were illegal during part of the 17th century, and
were culturally taboo or rare in Puritan colonies from foundation until the
1850s. The Puritan community found no Scriptural justification for celebrating Christmas,
and associated such celebrations with paganism
and idolatry.
When Christmas became a Federal holiday in 1870, the Puritan view was relaxed and late 19-century Americans
fashioned the day into the Christmas of commercialism, spirituality, and nostalgia
that most Americans recognize today.The Puritan view of Christmas
In Puritans at Play (1995), Bruce Colin Daniels writes "Christmas occupied a special place in the ideological religious warfare of Reformation Europe." Most Anabaptists, Quakers, and Congregational and Presbyterian Puritans, he observes, regarded the day as an abomination while Anglicans, Lutherans, the Dutch Reformed and other denominations celebrated the day as did Roman Catholics. When the Church of England promoted the Feast of the Nativity as a major religious holiday, the Puritans attacked it as "residual Papist idolatry".[1]
Cotton Mather, ca. 1700
Puritans
heaped contempt on Christmas, Daniels writes, calling it 'Foolstide' and
suppressing any attempts to celebrate it for several reasons. First, no holy
days except the Sabbath were sanctioned in Scripture, second, the most
egregious behaviors were exercised in its celebration (Cotton Mather railed against these behaviors), and third, December 25 was
ahistorical. The Puritan argued that the selection of the date was an early
Christian hijacking of a Roman festival, and to celebrate a December Christmas
was to defile oneself by paying homage to a pagan custom.
The Examination and Tryal of Father Christmas (1686)
Sir Edmund Andros
During Anglican
Governor Sir Edmund Andros tenure (December 20, 1686 –
April 18, 1689), the royal government closed Boston shops on Christmas Day and
drove the schoolmaster out of town for a forced holiday. Following Andros'
overthrow, however, the Puritan view reasserted itself and shops remained open
for business as usual on Christmas with goods being brought into Boston as on
any other work day.[7]In the aftermath of the American Civil War, Christmas became the festival highpoint of the American calendar. The day became a Federal holiday in 1870 under President Ulysses S. Grant in an attempt to unite north and south. The Puritan hostility to Christmas was gradually relaxed. In the late 19th century, authors praised the holiday for its liberality, family togetherness, and joyful observance.[8] In 1887, for example, St. Nicholas Magazine published a story about a sickly Puritan boy of 1635 being restored to health when his mother brings him a bough of Christmas greenery.[8]
One commentator suggested the Puritans had actually done the day a service …..Christmas was reshaped in late 19th century America with liberal Protestantism and spirituality, commercialism, artisanship, nostalgia, and hope becoming the day's distinguishing characteristics.[11]
Historian Reveals that
Cromwellian Christmas Football Rebels Ran Riot
Originally Published 17 December 2003
Professor Bernard Capp
|
When the Puritans established
themselves in power after the civil war, the new regime not only abolished
Christmas but also banned sports deemed ‘disorderly’. However, new research by
historian Professor Bernard Capp from the University of Warwick reveals that
Christmas Scrooge rebels responded to the ban on festive celebrations by
playing football as a symbol of misrule, and that winter and Easter ‘football
riots’ were fairly common in the 17th century.
While sifting through old
archives Professor Capp uncovered pamphlets from the Puritan Revolution
outlining examples of how football was used as a rebellious force against the
festive bans on Christmas and Easter. For example, when the Mayor of Canterbury
proclaimed the ban on Christmas in December 1647, the crowd responded by
bringing out footballs as a traditional symbol of festive misrule.
In January 1660 13 footballers
were prosecuted at Scarborough, and one of themwas sentenced to sit in the
stocks as a form of public humiliation.
Professor Bernard Capp, from
the University of Warwick, said: "In the Puritan Revolution football
became a flashpoint for social and political tensions between Puritan
authorities and their enemies. Football originated as a seasonal sport, often
played between rival villages on Shrove Tuesday or Easter, so during
traditional times of seasonal festivities, which were then prohibited, such as
during Christmas or before Lent, differences flared."
Professor Bernard Capp added:
"Football has been a passion in Britain for hundreds of years, and
authorities have been worrying about football violence for almost as long.
Football history has a frequently rough and bloody side to it. If the Puritans
were kill-joys, we should recognise that ‘Merry England’ had its darker side
too."
During the Puritans’ rule of
England, celebrating on 25 December was forbidden. Singing yuletide songs then
was a political act, writes Clemency Burton-Hill.
- By Clemency Burton-Hill
When it comes to revolutionary protest songs, what springs to mind? Billie
Holliday’s Strange Fruit? Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ In The Wind? Sam Cooke’s A Change is Gonna Come? I’m guessing the humble
Christmas carol is probably low on your list of contenders, but in
mid-17thCentury England, during the English Civil War, the singing of such
things as The Holly and the Ivy would have landed you in serious trouble.
Oliver Cromwell, the statesman responsible for leading the parliamentary army
(and later Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland), was on a mission
to cleanse the nation of its most decadent excesses. On the top of the list was
Christmas and all its festive trappings.
The first ‘carols’ had been heard in Europe thousands of years before, the
word probably deriving from the French carole, a dance accompanied by
singing. These tended to be pagan songs for events such as the Winter Solstice,
until the early Christians appropriated them: a Roman bishop in AD 129, for
example, decreed that a carol called Angel’s Hymn be sung at a Christmas
service in Rome. By the Middle Ages, groups of ‘wassailers’, who went from
house to house singing during the Twelve Days of Christmas, had at their
disposal many hundreds of English carols featuring nativity themes and festive
tropes such as holly and ivy. Even King Henry VIII (1491-1547) wrote a carol
called Green Groweth the Holly, whose beautiful manuscript can be seen in the British
Library. The phrase ‘Christmas caroll’ is mentioned in an early Latin-English
dictionary, and one of the great lyric 17th Century poets, Robert Herrick,
wrote a carol text beginning: “What sweeter music can we bring?” The original
music by Henry Lawes is sadly lost, but a contemporary setting of the poem by John Rutter is a modern seasonal favourite, proving just how
evergreen the tradition of carol-writing is.
Deck the Halls
The music to Deck the Halls is
believed to Welsh in origin and was reputed to have come from a tune called
"Nos Galan" dating back to the sixteenth century. In the eighteenth
century Mozart used the tune to Deck the Halls for a violin and piano duet J.P.
McCaskey is sometimes credited with the lyrics of Deck the Halls but he only
edited the Franklin Square Song Collection in which the lyrics were first
published. The first publication date of Deck the Halls is 1881.
Deck the halls with
boughs of holly,
Fa la la la la, la la
la la.
Tis the season to be
jolly,
Fa la la la la, la la
la la.
Don we now our gay
apparel,
Fa la la, la la la,
la la la.
Troll the ancient
Yule tide carol,
Fa la la la la, la la
la la.
See the blazing Yule
before us,
Fa la la la la, la la
la la.
Strike the harp and
join the chorus.
Fa la la la la, la la
la la.
Follow me in merry
measure,
Fa la la la la, la la
la la.
While I tell of Yule
tide treasure,
Fa la la la la, la la
la la.
Fast away the old
year passes,
Fa la la la la, la la
la la.
Hail the new, ye lads
and lasses,
Fa la la la la, la la
la la.
Sing we joyous, all
together,
Fa la la la la, la la
la la.
Heedless of the wind
and weather,
Fa la la la la, la la
la la.
