December 22, 2010 • 18 mins
Oliver Cromwell was a Puritan, military leader and powerful politician in the 17th-century Parliament, but nowadays he's also known as an inveterate grinch. How did he get this reputation -- and, more importantly, did he deserve it? Tune in to learn more.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm to blaying a chuck reboarding,
and it's getting a pretty close to Christmas, so we
thought we would provide you with a fun holiday episode.
(00:22):
Last year, Katie and I did something on Saturnalia and
that was a blast. So this year we're going to
focus on Christmas. And a year ago, to Smithsonian Magazine
put together this list of real life of Grinches. It's
really fun. It included everybody from the British officer who
ended the Christmas Truths in nineteen fourteen to DJ Dick
(00:46):
whitting Hall of CAMPC in Los Angeles, who refused to
play Elvis's Christmas album even when it was a big
smash hit. That's just mean. Yeah, but the number eight
entry on the Smithsonian's US did a lot more than
just refused to play Elvis hits because it might corrupt
the nation's youth. This guy canceled celebrations Christmas celebrations for England, Ireland,
(01:12):
Wales and Scotland and enacted a band that lasted for
years and years. Yeah, we're talking about Oliver Cromwell. But
the thing is he really didn't actually do it, yeah,
at least not personally. But we still want to find
out why would someone cancel Christmas? Yeah? Why? So to
understand that, we've got to go back a little bit
(01:35):
and at least provide a general background on what was
going on in the mid sixteen hundreds in England, because
of course we have civil wars, we have the king
being executed, We famously have Cromwell himself ruling for a
time before the restoration. So we're gonna go back and
(01:55):
sort of cruised through that and take things from the
perspective of our Smithsonian ranked grinch. Oliver Cromwell. He was
born in fifteen nine, the son of minor nobility, and
in his youth he experienced kind of a crisis of
faith and emerged a Puritan. Yeah, and he toyed with
the idea of immigrating to New England for a time, um,
(02:18):
but that fell through, and eventually he was elected partly
because of these Puritan connections he had made to the
short Parliament representing Cambridge. And before we go on from there,
I feel like I should give a little explanation about
the short parliament would be good, I can get kind
of confusing. So so the King would call the parliament,
(02:38):
and for a long time the King, Charles the first
chose to not call the parliament. He just didn't want
to deal with them. But eventually it came to the
point where Charles, who by the way, is the grandson
of Mary Stewart, had to call parliament because he needed money,
and he needed money for wars, and he was hoping
that parliament could alec gets some money for him. But
(03:02):
but the parliament had other issues on its agenda, and
so soon the short Parliament was followed by the Long Parliament,
which had this awesomely terrible power of being the only
body that could dissolve itself, so it basically it could
go on as long as it needed to without the
King saying anything at all. So this kind of means
trouble for the king and a lot of a lot
(03:26):
of possible wars brewing. So the division between the King
and this parliament started in sixty two, and it was
Cromwell who emerged from this division as a really strong
political and military leader. So it's kind of surprising in
the midst of this possible civil war brewing that one
of the things on Parliament's agenda was to clamp down
(03:49):
on Christmas celebrations, and their main point was that Christmas
should be kept as a day of fasting and a
day of reflection, not as feast day, and certainly not
is this holiday that's stretched on and on and on
for well over a week. So why why did they
have an issue with Christmas in the first place. Well,
(04:12):
as the Anglican reverend Henry Borne of Newcastle put it
pretty concisely much later, Christmas was a pretense for drunkenness
and rioting and wantonness. Yeah, that was the way he
put it, So that was basically the reasoning behind it.
And those pagan incorporated traditions that might have helped attract
Christian converts centuries earlier. Feasting, dancing, singing, all these things
(04:36):
were looking pretty sinful to some seventeenth century Puritans, especially
because of that name Christ's Mass, which had a lot
of Catholic undertone. Catholic So seventeenth century English celebrations, Okay,
I mean, if we're gonna go with what Henry Bourne
of Newcastle says, it sounds like things were pretty bad,
but they weren't too different from how a lot of
(04:59):
us celebrate Chris since today, December twenty five was kept
as both a religious and a secular holiday. You know,
people would take time off from their normal work, they
might attend religious services, they'd visit with their family and friends.
They'd feast, they drink, you know, they'd have a good
time for a few days. Decorations, yeah, and the party
(05:20):
would go on until twelfth night, So all twelve days
of Christmas, with some intermittent shop openings and clothings in there. Um.
But you know, there are a few elements that you
can you can see the Puritans maybe honing in on gambling,
for instance, and something called mumming mumming which was basically
(05:42):
a cross dressing and going door to door indulging in
various devices, kind of like a Halloween variation. I'm imagined
what it sounds like to me. Um. So, you know,
the Puritan parliament was looking to make some changes here.
And that's even though Charles the First, who was still
king at this point, supported traditional Christmas festivities, traditional celebrations.
(06:05):
So these changes they start to suggest. One is that
Christmas get rid of the math part. Christmas could be
christ Tide, which is kind of difficult to say. Maybe
why I didn't catch on doesn't really sound very good. Yeah,
that doesn't ever really catch on. Um. The best way
to celebrate christ Tide was by reflecting and by fasting.
(06:29):
So stop feasting, stop drinking, start fasting, and they could
also start fastening the last Wednesday of every month. The
idea behind this, according to the Cromwell Association, was that
eventually christ Tide would just be another fast day, kind
of blend into the background. Um. Okay. So Cromwell proved
(06:50):
remarkably successful in his military command, and by three he
had persuaded the House of Commons to form a new army,
which is called the New Model Army, to fight the
Royalists try to end these civil wars. And meanwhile, Parliament,
which was getting more and more control, waged its own
battle against this christ Tide celebration that was very stubborn
(07:14):
and persisted, and because they had more power, they were
starting to actually pass ordinances by this point. Yeah, I
kept getting stricter and stricter. Definitely in sixty three. To
emphasize the fact that December twenty was not a time
for celebration and leisure, the long Parliament met on Christmas Day,
so like we're working, you shopkeepers should keep your shops open.
(07:36):
In labors, you should just go to work like always exactly.
And then the next year, Christmas fell on the last
Wednesday of the month, which was a mandated fast day
as we mentioned before, and Parliament reminded the country that
Christmas was just for fasting and remembering the sense of
people who had turned it into a feast day. Yeah,
and by early sixty five, the new Directory of Public
(07:59):
Worship ruled that all feast days, so Christmas, Easter, Saints Days,
they were all illegal and the only true Holy days
were Sundays. But that was the only day that you
should um take time off from work and observe. So
later that same year, later in the First Civil War
finally ended when the last of Charles's Field armies were defeated. Um,
(08:24):
at that point Parliament is thinking, well, we don't need
Cromwell's army anymore, and they tried to disband the army,
and they tried to do so chiefly, and Cromwell, if anything,
was incredibly loyal to his own soldiers, so he wasn't
happy about this, and he stood by his men. He
left London, you know, had this, had this break with Parliament,
left London and spent the next year trying to reconcile
(08:48):
this now three ways split the army, the King in Parliament,
and Cromwell was seriously afraid that England might plunge into
anarchy if these parties couldn't be brought to terms. Right,
he also kind of loses respect for King Charles when
the King escapes honorable custody and seeks help in Scotland. Yeah,
(09:09):
Cromwell has sort of been putting his faith in Charles,
you know, like if you go along with these negotiations,
I'll go along with him. Um. At that point, you know,
Charles a lost cause for Cromwell, and Cromwell ends up
being one of the many men who signed Charles's death warrant.
So all right, at that point, the British Isles became
(09:31):
a republic or the Commonwealth, and Cromwell spent the next
few years trying to end the Civil Wars and squashing
out the extreme Puritan rebellions and launching these sometimes very
bloody campaigns against the Irish and the Scots and the
long Parliament. Meanwhile, I mean, I don't want to make
it sound like they didn't do anything else, but the
(09:52):
long Parliament is back in London still reinforcing these bands.
On Christmas UH sixteen seven there was an ordinance confirmed
um and that abolished the feasts of Christmas, Easter and Whitson,
which was like a summer festival. But also there were
a few concessions made to the occasional party loving working
(10:15):
man and that was that the second Tuesday of each
month was a non religious, secular holiday, so they did
get their their time to let loose a little bit.
If you you had the second Tuesday of each month free,
you could throw a little feast for yourself. I guess
these these days are so random that you know the
second Tuesday of each month the last Sunday. I mean,
(10:38):
I don't know. It seems like it would be hard
to get into it. Um. So anyways, by sixteen fifty three,
Parliament had been purged and they handed over the power
to Cromwell himself as Lord Protector, and Cromwell ruled England
with help from a Council of State and from a
parliament um And although we don't have evidence that he
(11:01):
himself helped pass this Christmas banning, legislation. The rumor persisted,
and as Lad Protector he certainly did support the band,
support the existing ordinances that had already come into effect
and their reinforcements. But not everybody was into these bands.
We we shouldn't assume that just because these laws were
(11:23):
being passed people went along with them. Right. Truth be told,
most people were still clandestinely celebrating Christmas, or sometimes not
so clandestinely. In sixteen fifty six, some MPs complained that
they slept poorly on Christmas Eve because of all the
preparations of their neighbors and because all the shops were
in fact closed and they were on their way to work.
(11:45):
I think those might be their real grinch list guys.
The shops were closed and it's Christmas. Um. The Lord
Mayor of London was often asked to ensure that the
city shops stayed open December twenty, and it was apparently
a difficult task because people had other plans they didn't
want to work every single day. UM. So Cromwell held
(12:09):
onto this position as Lord Protector for a few years. UM.
He even refused to accept this offer of the Crown,
and he finally died in sixteen fifty eight and after
that things kind of fell apart without him under the
leadership of his son. By sixteen sixty one, Charles the
Second was restored to the throne. So the monarchy is back.
(12:30):
And of course at that point we get a clean slate.
Charles Second wipes out all of the Protectorate era legislation
and including the Christmas legislation of course, and um he
returns to celebrating Christmas the old fashioned festive way. Um.
But I mean we've got to give Cromwell a break too,
(12:51):
I think, yeah, definitely. I mean, he wasn't a total gridge.
He readmitted juice into England. That was very nice. He
also said an extremely high standard of conduct for clergy
as well as educators, and he opposed capital punishments for
all but the most serious crimes. Yeah, it's interesting. He's
a developed Puritan and one of his goals was to
(13:15):
set up a Puritan church. But he was very tolerant
of other religions. He didn't have a problem long as
he didn't celebrate Christmas. Um. And despite that reputation and
some of you know, I mentioned the brutality and Ireland,
especially in Scotland. Um, he raised the international profile of
England a lot. He he definitely had the country's interests
(13:39):
in mind when he was negotiating internationally. Yeah, but he
also managed in there to raise the international profile of Puritanism.
So if you thought that Christmas in England sounded like
a big downer, then just check out what we've learned
about Christmas in Massachusetts Bay. Yeah, so in colleges it sounded.
(14:00):
It sounded bleak in Massachusetts Bay Colony. In sixteen fifty nine,
it's General Court ordered that people found celebrating Christmas would
be fined five shillings celebrating by taking time off for
feasting or doing something like that. And the band lasted
for twenty two years, but effectively it existed throughout New England,
(14:22):
and it lasted a lot longer than twenty two years.
I think Boston didn't really recover from this band for
about a hundred years. And according to Christmas scholar Stephenissenbaum,
just for an example of some of the strife that
went on between the people living there, the band occasionally
led to some violence. Um In sixteen seventy nine, four
(14:44):
men from Salem Village caroled in a guy named John
Rowden's orchard for some pair wine, and he refused, and
they didn't take it so well. Yeah, I think they asked, like,
was our singing, where's some perry? And he shouts out, no,
it's not um. So I'm not sure if this is
like a great example of Puritan Christmas in Salem, or
(15:07):
maybe just like a case of really bad caroling. I
guess we'll never know. I guess we'll never know. So
this is kind of unfortunate that we have to mention it.
It's probably the least festive way to end a Christmas episode,
but unless you're a fan of the podcast, and then
you're a fan, maybe it's a totally appropriate way. If
you like exhamations, keep listening. If you're ready to go
(15:31):
celebrate or eat your dinner, should probably stop listening now.
So when Cromwell died in sixteen fifty eight, his body
was supposed to be interred at Westminster Abbey, but the
bombers did such a bad job when they were preserving
his body and they were going to there was gonna
be months between his death and the state funeral. He
(15:52):
had to secretly be interred well before the actual ceremony. Yeah,
so the coffin was put in Westminster this date funeral
in November eight but it might have been empty or
maybe somebody else was in there. Um So after the restoration,
Charles the Second obviously was not going to let Cromwell
(16:14):
stay in Westminster Abbey, where we have great leaders buried.
Um so he had somebody and I mean that is
two separate word. Maybe crowmo body, maybe Cromwell's body, maybe not.
Cromwell exhumed from the abbey, hung a tie burn and
beheaded and the body part was buried under the galas.
(16:37):
Whoever it was. The head parts really gross y'all. The
head was put on a pole and it topped Westminster
Hall for the rest of Charles the Second's reign. So yeah,
I think I'd rather have a light up Santa on
the roof for my festive celebrations. I would have to
(16:59):
agree with that. Um Well, I guess that's about it
for yeah, but happy holidays. I know that's such a
cheery way to end it, so um yeah, Happy Hanukkah.
Actually it's Tonica when we're recording right now. Happy Kwanza,
Happy New Year's, Happy Saturnalia, whatever you celebrating. Merry Christmas.
(17:19):
I think especially to people living in the former Massachusetts
Bay colony Mary Christmas, I live it up, enjoy yourself.
So if you have any weird Christmas traditions or interesting
Christmas traditions as the case, happy if you can out
do mumming or singing outside someone's house to get wine.
Um anything that you practice or just Noah that you
(17:40):
want to share with us, hit us up. Um. We're
on Facebook and on Twitter at Miston History or send
us an email at History podcast at how stuff works
dot com. Yeah, and if you want to learn a
little bit more about Christmas and where a few Christmas
traditions came from, I wrote an article of few years
back called how Christmas Works, and you can find it
(18:01):
on the homepage by typing in how Christmas Works at
www dot how stuff works dot com. For more on
this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works
dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click on
the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage.
(18:21):
The How Stuff Works iPhone app has a ride. Download
it today on iTunes.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm to blaying a chuck reboarding,
and it's getting a pretty close to Christmas, so we
thought we would provide you with a fun holiday episode.
(00:22):
Last year, Katie and I did something on Saturnalia and
that was a blast. So this year we're going to
focus on Christmas. And a year ago, to Smithsonian Magazine
put together this list of real life of Grinches. It's
really fun. It included everybody from the British officer who
ended the Christmas Truths in nineteen fourteen to DJ Dick
(00:46):
whitting Hall of CAMPC in Los Angeles, who refused to
play Elvis's Christmas album even when it was a big
smash hit. That's just mean. Yeah, but the number eight
entry on the Smithsonian's US did a lot more than
just refused to play Elvis hits because it might corrupt
the nation's youth. This guy canceled celebrations Christmas celebrations for England, Ireland,
(01:12):
Wales and Scotland and enacted a band that lasted for
years and years. Yeah, we're talking about Oliver Cromwell. But
the thing is he really didn't actually do it, yeah,
at least not personally. But we still want to find
out why would someone cancel Christmas? Yeah? Why? So to
understand that, we've got to go back a little bit
(01:35):
and at least provide a general background on what was
going on in the mid sixteen hundreds in England, because
of course we have civil wars, we have the king
being executed, We famously have Cromwell himself ruling for a
time before the restoration. So we're gonna go back and
(01:55):
sort of cruised through that and take things from the
perspective of our Smithsonian ranked grinch. Oliver Cromwell. He was
born in fifteen nine, the son of minor nobility, and
in his youth he experienced kind of a crisis of
faith and emerged a Puritan. Yeah, and he toyed with
the idea of immigrating to New England for a time, um,
(02:18):
but that fell through, and eventually he was elected partly
because of these Puritan connections he had made to the
short Parliament representing Cambridge. And before we go on from there,
I feel like I should give a little explanation about
the short parliament would be good, I can get kind
of confusing. So so the King would call the parliament,
(02:38):
and for a long time the King, Charles the first
chose to not call the parliament. He just didn't want
to deal with them. But eventually it came to the
point where Charles, who by the way, is the grandson
of Mary Stewart, had to call parliament because he needed money,
and he needed money for wars, and he was hoping
that parliament could alec gets some money for him. But
(03:02):
but the parliament had other issues on its agenda, and
so soon the short Parliament was followed by the Long Parliament,
which had this awesomely terrible power of being the only
body that could dissolve itself, so it basically it could
go on as long as it needed to without the
King saying anything at all. So this kind of means
trouble for the king and a lot of a lot
(03:26):
of possible wars brewing. So the division between the King
and this parliament started in sixty two, and it was
Cromwell who emerged from this division as a really strong
political and military leader. So it's kind of surprising in
the midst of this possible civil war brewing that one
of the things on Parliament's agenda was to clamp down
(03:49):
on Christmas celebrations, and their main point was that Christmas
should be kept as a day of fasting and a
day of reflection, not as feast day, and certainly not
is this holiday that's stretched on and on and on
for well over a week. So why why did they
have an issue with Christmas in the first place. Well,
(04:12):
as the Anglican reverend Henry Borne of Newcastle put it
pretty concisely much later, Christmas was a pretense for drunkenness
and rioting and wantonness. Yeah, that was the way he
put it, So that was basically the reasoning behind it.
And those pagan incorporated traditions that might have helped attract
Christian converts centuries earlier. Feasting, dancing, singing, all these things
(04:36):
were looking pretty sinful to some seventeenth century Puritans, especially
because of that name Christ's Mass, which had a lot
of Catholic undertone. Catholic So seventeenth century English celebrations, Okay,
I mean, if we're gonna go with what Henry Bourne
of Newcastle says, it sounds like things were pretty bad,
but they weren't too different from how a lot of
(04:59):
us celebrate Chris since today, December twenty five was kept
as both a religious and a secular holiday. You know,
people would take time off from their normal work, they
might attend religious services, they'd visit with their family and friends.
They'd feast, they drink, you know, they'd have a good
time for a few days. Decorations, yeah, and the party
(05:20):
would go on until twelfth night, So all twelve days
of Christmas, with some intermittent shop openings and clothings in there. Um.
But you know, there are a few elements that you
can you can see the Puritans maybe honing in on gambling,
for instance, and something called mumming mumming which was basically
(05:42):
a cross dressing and going door to door indulging in
various devices, kind of like a Halloween variation. I'm imagined
what it sounds like to me. Um. So, you know,
the Puritan parliament was looking to make some changes here.
And that's even though Charles the First, who was still
king at this point, supported traditional Christmas festivities, traditional celebrations.
(06:05):
So these changes they start to suggest. One is that
Christmas get rid of the math part. Christmas could be
christ Tide, which is kind of difficult to say. Maybe
why I didn't catch on doesn't really sound very good. Yeah,
that doesn't ever really catch on. Um. The best way
to celebrate christ Tide was by reflecting and by fasting.
(06:29):
So stop feasting, stop drinking, start fasting, and they could
also start fastening the last Wednesday of every month. The
idea behind this, according to the Cromwell Association, was that
eventually christ Tide would just be another fast day, kind
of blend into the background. Um. Okay. So Cromwell proved
(06:50):
remarkably successful in his military command, and by three he
had persuaded the House of Commons to form a new army,
which is called the New Model Army, to fight the
Royalists try to end these civil wars. And meanwhile, Parliament,
which was getting more and more control, waged its own
battle against this christ Tide celebration that was very stubborn
(07:14):
and persisted, and because they had more power, they were
starting to actually pass ordinances by this point. Yeah, I
kept getting stricter and stricter. Definitely in sixty three. To
emphasize the fact that December twenty was not a time
for celebration and leisure, the long Parliament met on Christmas Day,
so like we're working, you shopkeepers should keep your shops open.
(07:36):
In labors, you should just go to work like always exactly.
And then the next year, Christmas fell on the last
Wednesday of the month, which was a mandated fast day
as we mentioned before, and Parliament reminded the country that
Christmas was just for fasting and remembering the sense of
people who had turned it into a feast day. Yeah,
and by early sixty five, the new Directory of Public
(07:59):
Worship ruled that all feast days, so Christmas, Easter, Saints Days,
they were all illegal and the only true Holy days
were Sundays. But that was the only day that you
should um take time off from work and observe. So
later that same year, later in the First Civil War
finally ended when the last of Charles's Field armies were defeated. Um,
(08:24):
at that point Parliament is thinking, well, we don't need
Cromwell's army anymore, and they tried to disband the army,
and they tried to do so chiefly, and Cromwell, if anything,
was incredibly loyal to his own soldiers, so he wasn't
happy about this, and he stood by his men. He
left London, you know, had this, had this break with Parliament,
left London and spent the next year trying to reconcile
(08:48):
this now three ways split the army, the King in Parliament,
and Cromwell was seriously afraid that England might plunge into
anarchy if these parties couldn't be brought to terms. Right,
he also kind of loses respect for King Charles when
the King escapes honorable custody and seeks help in Scotland. Yeah,
(09:09):
Cromwell has sort of been putting his faith in Charles,
you know, like if you go along with these negotiations,
I'll go along with him. Um. At that point, you know,
Charles a lost cause for Cromwell, and Cromwell ends up
being one of the many men who signed Charles's death warrant.
So all right, at that point, the British Isles became
(09:31):
a republic or the Commonwealth, and Cromwell spent the next
few years trying to end the Civil Wars and squashing
out the extreme Puritan rebellions and launching these sometimes very
bloody campaigns against the Irish and the Scots and the
long Parliament. Meanwhile, I mean, I don't want to make
it sound like they didn't do anything else, but the
(09:52):
long Parliament is back in London still reinforcing these bands.
On Christmas UH sixteen seven there was an ordinance confirmed
um and that abolished the feasts of Christmas, Easter and Whitson,
which was like a summer festival. But also there were
a few concessions made to the occasional party loving working
(10:15):
man and that was that the second Tuesday of each
month was a non religious, secular holiday, so they did
get their their time to let loose a little bit.
If you you had the second Tuesday of each month free,
you could throw a little feast for yourself. I guess
these these days are so random that you know the
second Tuesday of each month the last Sunday. I mean,
(10:38):
I don't know. It seems like it would be hard
to get into it. Um. So anyways, by sixteen fifty three,
Parliament had been purged and they handed over the power
to Cromwell himself as Lord Protector, and Cromwell ruled England
with help from a Council of State and from a
parliament um And although we don't have evidence that he
(11:01):
himself helped pass this Christmas banning, legislation. The rumor persisted,
and as Lad Protector he certainly did support the band,
support the existing ordinances that had already come into effect
and their reinforcements. But not everybody was into these bands.
We we shouldn't assume that just because these laws were
(11:23):
being passed people went along with them. Right. Truth be told,
most people were still clandestinely celebrating Christmas, or sometimes not
so clandestinely. In sixteen fifty six, some MPs complained that
they slept poorly on Christmas Eve because of all the
preparations of their neighbors and because all the shops were
in fact closed and they were on their way to work.
(11:45):
I think those might be their real grinch list guys.
The shops were closed and it's Christmas. Um. The Lord
Mayor of London was often asked to ensure that the
city shops stayed open December twenty, and it was apparently
a difficult task because people had other plans they didn't
want to work every single day. UM. So Cromwell held
(12:09):
onto this position as Lord Protector for a few years. UM.
He even refused to accept this offer of the Crown,
and he finally died in sixteen fifty eight and after
that things kind of fell apart without him under the
leadership of his son. By sixteen sixty one, Charles the
Second was restored to the throne. So the monarchy is back.
(12:30):
And of course at that point we get a clean slate.
Charles Second wipes out all of the Protectorate era legislation
and including the Christmas legislation of course, and um he
returns to celebrating Christmas the old fashioned festive way. Um.
But I mean we've got to give Cromwell a break too,
(12:51):
I think, yeah, definitely. I mean, he wasn't a total gridge.
He readmitted juice into England. That was very nice. He
also said an extremely high standard of conduct for clergy
as well as educators, and he opposed capital punishments for
all but the most serious crimes. Yeah, it's interesting. He's
a developed Puritan and one of his goals was to
(13:15):
set up a Puritan church. But he was very tolerant
of other religions. He didn't have a problem long as
he didn't celebrate Christmas. Um. And despite that reputation and
some of you know, I mentioned the brutality and Ireland,
especially in Scotland. Um, he raised the international profile of
England a lot. He he definitely had the country's interests
(13:39):
in mind when he was negotiating internationally. Yeah, but he
also managed in there to raise the international profile of Puritanism.
So if you thought that Christmas in England sounded like
a big downer, then just check out what we've learned
about Christmas in Massachusetts Bay. Yeah, so in colleges it sounded.
(14:00):
It sounded bleak in Massachusetts Bay Colony. In sixteen fifty nine,
it's General Court ordered that people found celebrating Christmas would
be fined five shillings celebrating by taking time off for
feasting or doing something like that. And the band lasted
for twenty two years, but effectively it existed throughout New England,
(14:22):
and it lasted a lot longer than twenty two years.
I think Boston didn't really recover from this band for
about a hundred years. And according to Christmas scholar Stephenissenbaum,
just for an example of some of the strife that
went on between the people living there, the band occasionally
led to some violence. Um In sixteen seventy nine, four
(14:44):
men from Salem Village caroled in a guy named John
Rowden's orchard for some pair wine, and he refused, and
they didn't take it so well. Yeah, I think they asked, like,
was our singing, where's some perry? And he shouts out, no,
it's not um. So I'm not sure if this is
like a great example of Puritan Christmas in Salem, or
(15:07):
maybe just like a case of really bad caroling. I
guess we'll never know. I guess we'll never know. So
this is kind of unfortunate that we have to mention it.
It's probably the least festive way to end a Christmas episode,
but unless you're a fan of the podcast, and then
you're a fan, maybe it's a totally appropriate way. If
you like exhamations, keep listening. If you're ready to go
(15:31):
celebrate or eat your dinner, should probably stop listening now.
So when Cromwell died in sixteen fifty eight, his body
was supposed to be interred at Westminster Abbey, but the
bombers did such a bad job when they were preserving
his body and they were going to there was gonna
be months between his death and the state funeral. He
(15:52):
had to secretly be interred well before the actual ceremony. Yeah,
so the coffin was put in Westminster this date funeral
in November eight but it might have been empty or
maybe somebody else was in there. Um So after the restoration,
Charles the Second obviously was not going to let Cromwell
(16:14):
stay in Westminster Abbey, where we have great leaders buried.
Um so he had somebody and I mean that is
two separate word. Maybe crowmo body, maybe Cromwell's body, maybe not.
Cromwell exhumed from the abbey, hung a tie burn and
beheaded and the body part was buried under the galas.
(16:37):
Whoever it was. The head parts really gross y'all. The
head was put on a pole and it topped Westminster
Hall for the rest of Charles the Second's reign. So yeah,
I think I'd rather have a light up Santa on
the roof for my festive celebrations. I would have to
(16:59):
agree with that. Um Well, I guess that's about it
for yeah, but happy holidays. I know that's such a
cheery way to end it, so um yeah, Happy Hanukkah.
Actually it's Tonica when we're recording right now. Happy Kwanza,
Happy New Year's, Happy Saturnalia, whatever you celebrating. Merry Christmas.
(17:19):
I think especially to people living in the former Massachusetts
Bay colony Mary Christmas, I live it up, enjoy yourself.
So if you have any weird Christmas traditions or interesting
Christmas traditions as the case, happy if you can out
do mumming or singing outside someone's house to get wine.
Um anything that you practice or just Noah that you
(17:40):
want to share with us, hit us up. Um. We're
on Facebook and on Twitter at Miston History or send
us an email at History podcast at how stuff works
dot com. Yeah, and if you want to learn a
little bit more about Christmas and where a few Christmas
traditions came from, I wrote an article of few years
back called how Christmas Works, and you can find it
(18:01):
on the homepage by typing in how Christmas Works at
www dot how stuff works dot com. For more on
this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works
dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click on
the podcast icon in the upper right corner of our homepage.
(18:21):
The How Stuff Works iPhone app has a ride. Download
it today on iTunes.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.