Part 5

Now, if our readers shall be of opinion--as Colonel Mannering and the farmer were--that the attitude and the occupation were scarcely consistent with the dignity of a gentleman whom they had come to consult on very grave matters, we may be as much to blame as was the tavern-waiter on that occasion, in introducing them to the revels of the Inns of Court. We will do what we can to soften such censure by stating that there certainly appears at times to have arisen a suspicion, in the minds of a portion of the profession, that the wig and gown were not figuring to the best possible advantage on these occasions. For, in the reign of the first James, we find an order issued by the benchers of Lincoln's Inn, whereby the "under barristers were, by decimation, put out of commons because the whole bar offended by not dancing on Candlemas Day preceding, according to the ancient order of the society, when the judges were present;" and this order is accompanied by a threat "that, if the fault were repeated, they should be fined or disbarred."

There seems to have been a contest between the four Inns of Court as to which should get up these pageantries with the greatest splendor, and occasionally a struggle between the desire of victory and the disinclination, or perhaps inability, to furnish the heavy cost at which that victory was to be secured. Most curious particulars on these subjects are furnished by the accompt-books of the houses: by the "Gesta Grayorum" (which was published for the purpose of describing a celebrated Christmas kept at Gray's Inn in 1594, and had its title imitated from the then popular work called the "Gesta Romanorum"); by Dugdale, in his "Origines Juridiciales,"; and by Nichols, in his "Progresses of Queen Elizabeth." For some time Lincoln's Inn appears to have carried it all its own way, having been first on the ground. The Christmas celebrations seem to have been kept by this society from as early a period as the reign of Henry VI.; although it was not until the reign of Henry VIII. that they began to grow into celebrity, or at least that we have any account of their arrangements. When, however, the societies of the two Temples, and that of Gray's Inn, began, with a laudable jealousy, to contest the palm of splendor, the necessary expenditure appears occasionally to have "given them pause." Accordingly, they held anxious meetings, at the approach of the season, to decide the important question whether Christmas should be kept that year or not; and one of the registers of the society of Lincoln's Inn, bearing date the 27th of November, in the twenty-second year of the reign of Henry VIII. contains the following order: "Yt is agreed that if the two Temples do kepe Chrystemas, then Chrystemas to be kept here; and to know this, the Steward of the House ys commanded to get knowledge, and to advertise my master by the next day at night."

There is a curious story told in Baker's Chronicle of an awkward predicament into which the society of Gray's Inn brought themselves by a play which they enacted amongst their Christmas revels of 1527. The subject of this play was to the effect that "Lord Governance was ruled by Dissipation and Negligence; by whose evil order Lady Public-Weal was put from Governance." Now, if these gentlemen did not intend, by this somewhat delicate moral, any insinuation against the existing state of things (which, being lawyers, and therefore courtiers, there is good motive to believe they did not), it is, at all events, certain that, as lawyers, they ought to have known better how to steer clear of all offence to weak consciences. That respectable minister, Cardinal Wolsey, felt himself (as we think he had good right to do) greatly scandalized at what, if not designed, was, by accident, a palpable hit; and, in order to teach the gentlemen of Gray's Inn that they were responsible for wounds given, if they happened to shoot arrows in the dark, he divested the ingenious author, Sergeant Roe, of his coif, and committed him to the Fleet, together with one of the actors, of the name of Moyle,--in order to afford them leisure for furnishing him with a satisfactory explanation of the matter.

In Dugdale's "Origines Juridiciales," we have an account of a magnificent Christmas which was kept at the Inner Temple, in the fourth year of Queen Elizabeth's reign; at which the Lord Robert Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester, presided, under the mock-title of Palaphilos, Prince of Sophie, High Constable Marshal of the Knights Templars, and Patron of the honorable order of Pegasus. A potentate with such a title would have looked very foolish without a "tail;" and accordingly he had for his master of the game no less a lawyer than Christopher Hatton, afterwards Lord Chancellor of England, with four masters of the revels, a variety of other officers, and fourscore persons forming a guard. Gerard Leigh, who was so fortunate as to obtain the dignity of a knight of Pegasus, describes, as an eye-witness, in his "Accidence of Armorie," the solemn fooleries which were enacted on the occasion by these worthies of the sword and of the gown.

Of course, it was not to be expected that such shrewd courtiers as lawyers commonly are, if they had ever kept Christmas at all, should fail to do so during the reign of this virgin queen, when its celebration offered them such admirable opportunities for the administration of that flattery which was so agreeable to her Majesty, and might possibly be so profitable to themselves. We have great pleasure in recording a speech made by her Majesty on one of these occasions, nearly so much as two centuries and a half ago, but which for its great excellence has come down to our days. The gentlemen of Gray's Inn (their wits, probably, a little sharpened by the mistake which they had made in her father's time) had ventured upon a dramatic performance again; and, in the course of a masque which they represented before the queen's Majesty, had administered to her copious draughts of that nectar on which her Majesty's vanity was known to thrive so marvellously. They appear, however, with a very nice tact, to have given her no more of it on this occasion than was sufficient to put her Majesty into spirits, without intoxicating her, for by this period of her life it took a great deal of that sort of thing to intoxicate the queen's Majesty; and the effect was of the pleasantest kind, and could not fail to be most satisfactory to the gentlemen of Gray's Inn. For after the masque was finished (in which we presume there had been a little dancing by the lawyers who, would, as in duty bound, have stood on their wigs to please her Majesty), and on the courtiers attempting, in _their_ turn, to execute a dance, her Majesty was most graciously pleased to exclaim, "What! shall we have bread and cheese after a banquet?"--meaning thereby, we presume, to imply that the courtiers could not hope to leap as high or, in any respect, to cut such capers as the lawyers had done. Now, this speech of the virgin queen we have reported here less for the sake of any intrinsic greatness in the thought or elegance in the form than because, out of a variety of speeches by her Majesty, which have been carefully preserved, we think this is about as good as any other, and has the additional recommendation (which so few of the others have) of exhibiting the virgin queen in a good humor. And, further, because having recorded the disgrace into which the gentlemen of Gray's Inn danced themselves, in the lifetime of her illustrious father, it is but right that we should likewise record the ample indemnification which they must have considered themselves to have received, at the lips of his virgin daughter.

The celebrations at the Inns of Court were from time to time continued, down to the period of the civil troubles which darkened the reign of Charles I.; and so lately as the year 1641, when they had already commenced, we find it recorded by Evelyn, in his Memoirs, that he was elected one of the comptrollers of the Middle Temple revellers, "as the fashion of the young students and gentlemen was, the Christmas being kept this yeare with greate solemnity." During this reign, we discover the several societies lessening their expenses by a very wise compromise of their disputes for supremacy; for in the eighth year thereof the four Inns of Court provided a Christmas masque in conjunction, for the entertainment of the court, which cost the startling sum of £24,000 of the money of that day, and in return King Charles invited one hundred and twenty gentlemen of the four Inns to a masque at Whitehall on the Shrove-Tuesday following.

That our readers may form some idea of the kind of sports which furnished entertainment to men of no less pretension than Hatton and Coke and Crewe, we will extract for them a few more particulars of the ceremonies usually observed at the grand Christmases of the Inner Temple, before quitting this part of the subject.

In the first place, it appears that on Christmas Eve there was a banquet in the hall, at which three masters of the revels were present, the oldest of whom, after dinner and supper, was to sing a carol, and to command other gentlemen to sing with him; and in all this we see nothing which is not perfectly worthy of all imitation now. Then, on each of the twelve nights, before and after supper were revels and dancing; and if any of these revels and dancing were performed in company with the fair sex (which, on the face of the evidence, doth not appear), then we have none of the objections to urge against them which we have ventured to insinuate against the solemn buffooneries, to which the bar was fined for refusing to surrender itself, in the time of James I. Neither do we find anything repugnant to our modern tastes in the announcement that the breakfasts of the following mornings were very substantial ones, consisting of brawn, mustard, and malmsey, which the exhaustion of the previous night's dancing might render necessary; nor that all the courses were served with music, which we intend that some of our own shall be this coming Christmas. But against most of that which follows we enter our decided protest, as not only very absurd in itself, but eminently calculated to spoil a good dinner.

On St. Stephen's Day, we learn that, after the first course was served in, the constable marshal was wont to enter the hall (and we think he had much better have come in, and said all he had to say beforehand) bravely arrayed with "a fair rich compleat harneys, white and bright and gilt, with a nest of fethers, of all colours, upon his crest or helm, and a gilt pole ax in his hand," and, no doubt, thinking himself a prodigiously fine fellow. He was accompanied by the lieutenant of the Tower, "armed with a fair white armour," also wearing "fethers," and "with a like pole ax in his hand," and of course also thinking himself a very fine fellow. With them came sixteen trumpeters, preceded by four drums and fifes, and attended by four men clad in white "harneys," from the middle upwards, having halberds in their hands, and bearing on their shoulders a model of the Tower, and each and every one of these latter personages, in his degree, having a consciousness that he, too, was a fine fellow. Then all these fine fellows, with the drums and music, and with all their "fethers" and finery, went three times round the fire, whereas, considering that the boar's head was cooling all the time, we think once might have sufficed. Then the constable marshal, after three courtesies, knelt down before the Lord Chancellor, with the lieutenant doing the same behind him, and then and there deliberately proceeded to deliver himself of an "oration of a quarter of an hour's length," the purport of which was to tender his services to the Lord Chancellor, which, we think, at such a time he might have contrived to do in fewer words. To this the Chancellor was unwise enough to reply that he would "take farther advice therein," when it would have been much better for him to settle the matter at once, and proceed to eat his dinner. However, this part of the ceremony ended at last by the constable marshal and the lieutenant obtaining seats at the Chancellor's table, upon the former giving up his sword: and then enter, for a similar purpose, the master of the game, apparelled in green velvet, and the ranger of the forest, in a green suit of "satten," bearing in his hand a green bow, and "divers" arrows, "with either of them a hunting-horn about their necks, blowing together three blasts of venery." These worthies, also, thought it necessary to parade their finery three times around the fire; and having then made similar obeisances, and offered up a similar petition in a similar posture, they were finally inducted into a similar privilege.

But though seated at the Chancellor's table, and no doubt sufficiently roused by the steam of its good things, they were far enough as yet from getting anything to eat, as a consequence; and the next ceremony is one which strikingly marks the rudeness of the times. "A huntsman cometh into the hall, with a fox, and a purse-net with a cat, both bound at the end of a staff, and with them nine or ten couple of hounds, with the blowing of hunting-horns. And the fox and the cat are set upon by the hounds, and killed beneath the fire." "What this 'merry disport' signified (if practised) before the Reformation," says a writer in Mr. Hone's Year Book, "I know not. In 'Ane compendious boke of godly and spiritual songs, Edinburgh, 1621, printed from an old copy,' are the following lines, seemingly referring to some such pageant:--

'The hunter is Christ that hunts in haist, The hunds are Peter and Pawle, The paip is the fox, Rome is the Rox That rubbis us on the gall.'"

After these ceremonies, the welcome permission to betake themselves to the far more interesting one of an attack upon the good things of the feast appears to have been at length given; but at the close of the second course the subject of receiving the officers who had tendered their Christmas service was renewed. Whether the gentlemen of the law were burlesquing their own profession intentionally or whether it was only an awkward _hit_, like that which befell their brethren of Gray's Inn, does not appear. However, the common serjeant made what is called "a plausible speech," insisting on the necessity of these officers "for the better reputation of the Commonwealth;" and he was followed, to the same effect, by the king's serjeant-at-law till the Lord Chancellor silenced them by desiring a respite of further advice, which it is greatly to be marvelled he had not done sooner. And thereupon he called upon the "ancientest of the masters of the revels" for a song,--a proceeding to which we give our unqualified approbation.

So much for the dinner. After supper, the constable marshal again presented himself, if possible finer than before, preceded by drums,--as so fine a man ought to be,--and mounted on a scaffold borne by four men. After again going thrice round the hearth, he dismounted from his elevation, and having set a good example by first playing the figurant himself for the edification of the court, called upon the nobles, by their respective Christmas names, to do the same. Of the styles and titles which it was considered humorous to assume on such occasions, and by which he called up his courtiers to dance, our readers may take the following for specimens:--

"Sir Francis Flatterer, of Fowlehurst, in the county of Buckingham."

"Sir Randle Rackabite, of Rascall Hall, in the county of Rabchell."

"Sir Morgan Mumchance, of Much Monkery, in the county of Mad Popery."

And so on, with much more of the same kind, which we are sure our readers will spare us, or rather thank us for sparing them. The ceremonies of St. John's Day were, if possible, more absurd than those by which St. Stephen was honored; but, that we may take leave of the lawyers on good terms, and with a word of commendation, we will simply add that the concluding one is stated to be that on the Thursday following "the Chancellor and company partook of dinner of roast beef and venison pasties, and at supper of mutton and hens roasted," which we take to have been not only the most sensible proceeding of the whole series, but about as sensible a thing as they or anybody else could well do.

So important were these Christmas celebrations deemed by our ancestors, and such was the earnestness bestowed upon their preparation, that a special officer was appointed for that purpose, and to preside over the festival with large privileges, very considerable appointments, and a retinue which in course of time came to be no insignificant imitation of a prince's. We are of course speaking at present of the officer who was appointed to the superintendence of the Christmas ceremonials _at court_. The title by which this potentate was usually distinguished in England was that of "Lord of Misrule," "Abbot of Misrule," or "Master of Merry Disports;" and his office was, in fact, that of a temporary "Master of the Revels" (which latter title was formerly that of a permanent and distinguished officer attached to the household of our kings). Accordingly we find that amongst those of the more powerful nobles who affected an imitation of the royal arrangements in their Christmas establishments, this Christmas officer (when they appointed one to preside over their private Christmas celebrations) was occasionally nominated as _their_ "Master of the Revels." In the Household-Book of the Northumberland family, amongst the directions given for the order of the establishment, it is stated that "My lorde useth and accustomyth yerly to gyf hym which is ordynede to be the MASTER OF THE REVELLS yerly in my lordis hous in cristmas for the overseyinge and orderinge of his lordschips Playes, Interludes, and Dresinge that is plaid befor his lordship in his hous in the xijth dayes of Cristenmas, and they to have in rewarde for that caus yerly, xx_s_." In the Inns of Court, where this officer formed no part of a household, but was a member elected out of their own body for his ingenuity, he was commonly dignified by a title more appropriate to the extensive authority with which he was invested, and the state with which he was furnished for its due maintenance; namely, that of "Christmas Prince," or sometimes "King of Christmas." He is the same officer who was known in Scotland as the "Abbot of Unreason," and bears a close resemblance to the "Abbas Stultorum," who presided over the Feast of Fools in France, and the "Abbé de la Malgourverné," who ruled the sports in certain provinces of that kingdom. In a note to Ellis's edition of Brand's "Popular Antiquities," we find a quotation from Mr. Warton (whose "History of English Poetry" we have not at hand) in which mention is made of an "Abbé de Liesse," and a reference given to Carpentier's Supplement to Du Cange, for the title "Abbas Lætitiæ." We mention these, to enable the antiquarian portion of our readers to make the reference for themselves. Writing in the country, we have not access to the works in question, and could not, in these pages, go farther into the matter if we had.

We have already stated that the "Lord of Misrule" appears to bear a considerable resemblance to that ruler or king who was anciently appointed to preside over the sports of the Roman Saturnalia; and we find on looking farther into the subject, that we are corroborated in this view by one who, of course, asserts the resemblance for the purpose of making it a matter of reproach. The notorious Prynne, in his "Histrio-Mastix," affirms (and quotes Polydore Virgil to the same effect) that "our Christmas lords of Misrule, together with dancing, masques, mummeries, stage-players, and such other Christmas disorders, now in use with Christians, were derived from these Roman Saturnalia and Bacchanalian festivals; which," adds he, "should cause all pious Christians eternally to abominate them." We should not, however, omit to mention that by some this officer has been derived from the ancient ceremony of the Boy-Bishop. Faber speaks of him as originating in an old Persico-Gothic festival in honor of Buddha: and Purchas, in his "Pilgrimage," as quoted in the Aubrey manuscripts, says, that the custom is deduced from the "Feast in Babylon, kept in honour of the goddess Dorcetha, for five dayes together; during which time the masters were under the dominion of their servants, one of which is usually sett over the rest, and royally cloathed, and was called Sogan, that is, Great Prince."

The title, however, by which this officer is most generally known is that of Lord of Misrule. "There was," says Stow, "in the feast of Christmas, in the king's house, wheresoever he was lodged, a Lord of Misrule, or Master of merry Disports; and the like had ye for the house of every nobleman of honour or good worship, were he spiritual or temporal. Among the which the Mayor of London and either of the Sheriffs had their several Lords of Misrule ever contending, without quarrel or offence, which should make the rarest pastimes to delight the beholders."

Of the antiquity of this officer in England, we have not been able to find any satisfactory account; but we discover traces of him almost as early as we have any positive records of the various sports by which the festival of this season was supported. Polydore Virgil speaks of the splendid spectacles, the masques, dancings, etc., by which it was illustrated as far back as the close of the twelfth century; and it is reasonable to suppose that something in the shape of a master of these public ceremonies must have existed then, to preserve order as well as furnish devices, particularly as the hints for the one and the other seem to have been taken from the celebrations of the heathens. As early as the year 1489 Leland speaks of an Abbot of Misrule "that made much sport, and did right well his office." Henry the Seventh's "boke of paymentis," preserved in the Chapter House, is stated by Sandys to contain several items of disbursement to the Lord of Misrule (or Abbot, as he is therein sometimes called) for different years "in rewarde for his besynes in Christenmes holydays," none of which exceeded the sum of £6. 13_s._ 4_d._ This sum--multiplied as we imagine it ought to be by something like fifteen, to give the value thereof in our days--certainly affords no very liberal remuneration to an officer whose duties were of any extent; and we mention it that our readers may contrast it with the lavish appointments of the same functionary in after times. Henry, however, was a frugal monarch, though it was a part of his policy to promote the amusements of the people; and from the treasures which that frugality created, his immediate successors felt themselves at liberty to assume a greater show. In the subsequent reign, the yearly payments to the Lord of Misrule had already been raised as high as £15 6_s._ 8_d._; and the entertainments over which he presided were furnished at a proportionably increased cost.

It is not, however, until the reign of the young monarch, Edward the Sixth, that this officer appears to have attained his highest dignities; and during the subsequent reign we find him playing just such a part as might be expected from one whose business it was to take the lead in revels such as we have had occasion to describe; namely, that of arch-buffoon.