Puritans / Did Oliver Cromwell really 'cancel' Christmas? |
It is a cherished myth among Oliver Cromwell’s many critics that our only home-grown military dictator ‘cancelled Christmas’. It gives the Ollie haters yet another reason to loathe the warty-faced old brute, alongside his notorious Irish massacres (of which more later) – but is it true?
In fact, there is no evidence that Cromwell initiated or played any personal part in the series of measures clamping down on traditional Yuletide festivities. These were introduced by an increasingly Puritan-dominated parliament between 1647 in the immediate wake of the English civil war, and 1656 – when Cromwell was firmly in the saddle as Lord Protector – though as a strict Puritan himself, he would doubtless have approved.
Before the civil war, Christmas was widely celebrated in England in ways similar to how we mark it today: in the twelve days between Christmas Eve and 1 January (though then the new year still officially dated from 25 March) there was much merriment, copious quaffing of beer and gross gobbling of turkeys, beef, geese, mince pies and ‘plum pudding’. Presents were exchanged between family and friends, and wealthier folk boxed up small gifts for their servants (hence the origin of........