by Jeff Guinn
No one celebrates Christmas better or with more enthusiasm than the English poor, I reminded myself again, tucking my hands under my cloak, since the November winds were already quite cold. Even though Christmas was still a month away, I knew, somewhere groups of singers were rehearsing traditional carols, since music was such an important part of the national festivities. Soon the streets would be filled with waits, carolers who would please everyone with their renditions of holiday songs. Originally, waits were night watchmen who would call out the hours, but they gradually evolved into this more festive role. And, as the waits sang, hardworking men and women and children would begin to smile, because Christmas was finally drawing near. They would spend precious pennies for boughs and holly, so their homes would briefly be filled with color and fresh scent. Many saved all year to buy a single scrawny goose; after its bones were picked clean at Christmas dinner, they would be boiled for soup. And goose wouldn’t be the only thing served at this special, once-a-year meal. There would be dessert, too, usually a mince pie or plum pudding. Ingredients for these fabulous concoctions were expensive, but on this holiday occasion everyone who could possibly afford to shop for them gladly did so.
Even though St. Nicholas was not welcomed by British rulers and clergy anymore, Father Christmas tried hard to bring little gifts to poor British children while they slept on Christmas Eve. Before he left for America with Felix, my husband very much enjoyed doing this. In his absence, Arthur and Leonardo and I took up the task. Because there were so many deserving boys and girls who had so very little, anything we left was precious to them—a rag doll, perhaps, or a wooden top. One reason we wanted to perfect our peppermint candy was that these children seldom tasted sweets during all the rest of the year. How fine it would be to add to the joy of their Christmas by leaving them such a special treat!
And yet even a visit from Father Christmas was not the highlight of the holiday. That came when everyone was up and dressed.
After church on Christmas Day, working-class people were allowed to call on the very richest people in their neighborhoods. Out in the English countryside, village peasants would gather and happily walk to the manor of whichever lord they served. In city or country, the poor would then serenade their social superiors with loud, happy songs. One that is still sung today captures the spirit of the tradition. Surely you’ve sung “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” though you may not have sung or even know all the original verses.
Huddled together in the December cold, dressed in their best clothes and with smiles on their faces, the common people would sing:We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas
And a happy New Year.
Good tidings we bring,
To you and your king.
Good tidings of Christmas,
And a happy New Year.
You know that part, don’t you? But then the singers would continue,
Oh, bring us a figgy pudding,
Oh, bring us a figgy pudding,
Oh, bring us a figgy pudding,
And a cup of good cheer.
We won’t go until we get some,
We won’t go until we get some,
We won’t go until we get some,
So bring some out here.
This, you see, was the custom. On just one annual occasion, rich people would allow poor people into their homes, and they would give them good food, offer something to drink, and, for a little while, treat them as welcome guests, or even equals. Perhaps some of the wealthy class would have preferred not to, but they wouldn’t—couldn’t—ignore tradition. Of course, afterward they remained in their warm, fine homes, while their visitors had to resume their normal, difficult lives. For rich people, holiday festivities were only beginning on December 25. They would continue enjoying feasts and gifts through Epiphany on January 6—these were the twelve days of Christmas. Poor people went back to work on December 26. But, as Nicholas and the rest of us concluded centuries earlier, at least Christmas Day had brought momentary joy to those who needed it most.
So Christmas on December 25 was, in some ways, all most people in England had to be happy about, and now these Puritans argued that it should be taken away from them. I simply could not imagine why anyone would be so cruel. Though there still weren’t that many Puritans in London, there seemed to be a few more every day. As I walked, it was easy to pick them out.
While everyone else, rich or poor, enjoyed wearing clothes of pleasing colors, Puritan men and women generally preferred black, white, or gray. They thought wearing any other colors might encourage pride, and pride was, in their opinion, sinful. Most Puritan men kept their hair clipped short—one nickname for them was Roundheads—and they would stop and glare at anyone acting in ways they considered inappropriate. They considered almost anything inappropriate—dancing, singing anything other than hymns, even laughing out loud. Above all, they hated any form of religion that worshipped God except in the most basic of ways, sitting in an unadorned church listening to a long sermon. They didn’t even want music played in church—that, too, was supposedly insulting to God. The only respectful music, to their minds, came solely from the human voice.
Christmas became the focus of their unhappiness because, they said, it reduced gratitude for Jesus being born to an occasion where people got drunk and acted badly. They weren’t completely wrong—sometimes that would happen. Though hundreds of thousands of people behaved properly, inevitably a few others would take the opportunity to misbehave. Every Christmas, there would be isolated incidents of someone drinking too much beer and shouting out insults to his upper-class host or of children getting so excited that they became unruly. But the Puritans chose to present these unfortunate moments as typical rather than exceptional—proof, they insisted, that Christmas had become nothing more than an excuse for rowdy, sinful behavior.
Further, they claimed, God was not pleased by so-called Christian celebrations that were simply extensions of pagan ceremonies. Christmas was on December 25 because, prior to Rome embracing Christianity, one of that nation’s emperors worshipped the Persian sun gods. Mithra, the Persian god of light, supposedly was born on that date. In 350, it was just changed to be Jesus’ birthday, instead. Nobody, the anti-Christmas Puritans argued, really knew the date when Jesus was born, so how could anyone be so presumptuous as to simply pick a day instead?
They hated everything about Christmas, including the custom of exchanging gifts. That, they complained, harkened back to Saturnalia, the weeklong celebration in old Rome that lasted through December 23, when people would give each other little trinkets as part of the celebration. Imitating the way the Wise Men brought gifts to the Baby Jesus had nothing to do with this terrible modern tradition of awful Catholic St. Nicholas bringing gifts to British children, the Puritans insisted. It didn’t matter if he was now officially known as Father Christmas. By any name, he was a Catholic saint, and anything remotely connected with Catholicism must be eradicated. Over the years, all of us who traveled and worked with Nicholas had learned everyone has the right to his or her religious beliefs. But we also felt, very passionately, that it is wrong to force your opinions on others who believe differently. I did not dislike the Puritans for what they chose to believe, but I was very offended by their inability to tolerate, let alone respect, the beliefs of others.
“No matter how they try, the Puritans will never be able to take Christmas away from the British people,” I insisted to Arthur and Leonardo when I had finally finished my long walk and returned to their house in London for dinner. We were eating a meal that was very middle class, since there was fruit juice to drink and a little meat to go along with cheese and some asparagus that Leonardo had grown in a small garden. Unlike the wealthy, we had only that one course, with no wine or dessert, but unlike the poor, at least we had more than bread, potatoes, and water. “Celebrating the holiday is ingrained in the national spirit. If the Puritans try to take
it away, all they’ll do is make the common people hate them.”
“I wish I felt as certain, Layla,” Arthur replied, wiping his mouth with a napkin before he took up his knife and spoon again. We didn’t have forks. In 1622, few people did. You picked up your meat on the point of your knife, or else you cut off a tiny slice and used your fingers to transfer the morsel from plate to mouth. “But in our history, too often a few give the orders that must be obeyed by everyone else. King James may protect Christmas for now, but he could change his mind about it tomorrow. Or our next king or queen could agree with the Puritans.”
“They might take everything else, but nobody could ever take Christmas,” I said suddenly, finishing my last bite of cheese and pushing my plate away. “The Puritans can try, but there aren’t enough of them.”
Arthur looked thoughtful. “Actually, their numbers are growing. People still remember their terror when Queen Mary sent Protestants to the stake. So many in England are frustrated with their lives, which are controlled by the beliefs or even whims of those in power. Ordinary folk want power over someone or something, too. The Puritans tell them they can raise their voices against anything that remotely seems Catholic, and for the first time many of these people feel their opinions might make a difference. They’re told by the Puritans that if they join the cause, they’ll instantly be better than anyone who believes differently, even if it’s a king or queen. How tempting that must be to anyone who has never before been shown respect! But I’ll agree with you that the Puritans can’t touch Christmas so long as two things don’t happen. There cannot be a weak English king, someone who says and does foolish things that give the Puritans excuses to encourage outright rebellion. And the Puritans can’t have a charismatic leader, someone intelligent enough to harness their energy, to organize and lead them. If ever we have that terrible combination in England, watch out!”
Less than three years later, Charles I succeeded his father, James, as king of England. Three years after that, an obscure country squire named Oliver Cromwell became a member of Parliament, the elected body that was supposed to advise the king. As Arthur predicted, catastrophe resulted.
In a pleasant sort of way I was telling a vendor he was asking too much for a few pieces of cod when someone bumped violently against my arm. The basket I was holding overturned and beets rolled everywhere. I turned and found myself staring into the thin, mournful face of Charles I, recently crowned king of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland after the death of his father, James.
CHAPTER Seven
I met England ’s new king in a London marketplace soon after his coronation. I was there at Leonardo’s request, shopping for beets, a reddish-colored vegetable that was quite popular with poor people in 1625 Britain. Leonardo didn’t want beets to eat, however. He planned to extract the juice of the vegetable and see if it could be used to dye peppermint candy.
“The appearance of a sweet is almost as important as its taste,” he explained to me in his laboratory at the toy factory. “The peppermint treats we make here are pleasing to the tongue, but insulting to the eye.” He brandished a handful. “Here, look! Round and white—how boring! But if we could only add some color, some flair, how delightful it would be. Bright red, I think, would be the most attractive. But this candy should not be completely red, either. I am picturing it as white with red stripes. Don’t you think this would be just right?”
I agreed that combination would be attractive. In those days, no one yet decorated hard-boiled candy with vivid colors. Remember, there were no modern machines to shape and color products. Everything had to be done by hand, and, besides, people were still in the primitive stages of learning how to dye clothes, let alone confectionary. But Leonardo da Vinci never had the same limits of imagination as anyone else. He asked if I would go to the market for him and buy beets, since he had noticed recently at dinner that when beet juice was accidentally splashed on clothing, the resulting stain was hard to get out.
“Perhaps this juice can be altered in a way that would allow it to retain the red color without the nasty beet taste,” Leonardo said. “Then I can discover a way to make the color stick to the candy, but not to fingers or clothing. Please, Layla, go to the market and buy some beets for me. I’m anxious to begin my experiments.”
Leonardo did not want to go to the market himself because he didn’t want to attract attention. Arthur rarely ventured out in daylight hours for the same reason. They had lived in London now for more than two hundred years, and didn’t look a day older than when they had arrived. If too many people saw them often enough to remember them, at some point there would be gossip about why these two fellows apparently never aged. That attention, in turn, might lead to discovery of the toy factory. So it couldn’t be risked. Having no real friends besides the other longtime companions was a sacrifice we all had to make. In London, Arthur and Leonardo mostly stayed inside.
I had no such restriction because I didn’t always live there. Even after Nicholas and Felix left for the New World, I never moved permanently into the cottage near the London toy factory. I spent much of my time there, to be sure, but I also traveled back to Nuremberg to help out Attila and Dorothea, and, as always, I visited countries in Europe to study their changing Christmas customs and to seek out all the deserving children we would want to reward with gifts. And, unlike Arthur with his forceful personality and Leonardo with his distracted, scholarly airs, I looked and acted perfectly normal. There was nothing remarkable about me. So long as I was careful to keep conversations short and avoid meeting the same people too often, there was little chance they’d even remember me, let alone notice that I never seemed to get older.
It was a sunny summer day, and despite the dusty streets I quite enjoyed my walk from the cottage to the market. Today when people shop in air-conditioned, well-lighted, sterile grocery stores, I think they are missing something. The old outdoor marketplaces of Europe exploded in colors and smells, as people milled about bargaining for squawking chickens and dangling bunches of onions and flapping sets of pantaloons. Vendors set their prices as starting-points for friendly negotiation. If you wanted, let’s say, a bushel of apples, you never bought the first ones you saw. Instead, you visited several stands selling the crunchy fruit, and made your final purchase based on which merchant combined the lowest prices with the freshest produce.
I spent many enjoyable minutes shopping for Leonardo’s beets, which I placed in a wide basket I held by the handle, and then decided I might buy some fish for our supper, since this marketplace was close by the Thames. It was usually easy to get good prices on freshly caught fish, because they would have just been pulled out of the river and needed to be sold before they spoiled in the heat. In a pleasant sort of way I was telling a vendor he was asking far too much for a few pieces of cod when someone bumped violently against my arm. The basket I was holding overturned, and beets rolled everywhere. I turned and found myself staring into the thin, mournful face of Charles I, recently crowned king of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland after the death of his father, James.
“I do beg your pardon, madam,” Charles said, stammering a little over the b and the p. He had a slight speech impediment, though it wasn’t severe enough to make understanding him difficult. “Here, let my guards pick up those vegetables for you.” He had trouble with the v, too.
“Please don’t bother, Your Majesty,” I replied, bowing as protocol required but not feeling in any way intimidated by the presence of royalty. After all, in my more than twelve hundred years of life I had met many legendary figures. Charles I might currently rule England, but in a few hours I would be sharing supper with “King” Arthur, not to mention Leonardo da Vinci.
Besides, seeing the king and even speaking to him was not unimaginable in that time and place. Though Charles had several country estates, he often had to be in his capital city to meet with counselors and converse with members of Parliament, the elected body whose permission he required to raise money through taxat
ion. It was a testy relationship. Parliament wanted the king to consult them about all important policy decisions, including if and when to fight wars and how religion should be regulated. Like his father, James, Charles very much believed in the divine right of kings. Parliament, he insisted, should be told what their ruler wanted and then always support his decisions. As we stood face-to-face while some of his soldiers scrambled about retrieving beets, I guessed Charles must be in London because Parliament was in the process of considering his request for money to attack the Spanish port of Cadiz. Of course, he had no reason to come to the marketplace to buy his own food; the king had plenty of servants to do that. But since he was in London anyway, a royal visit to one of its busiest marketplaces made political sense. Common people would have a chance to see their new ruler, and be both pleased by the opportunity and awed by his appearance. Charles was dressed in the finest coat and trousers, and his long brown hair—what you could see of it under a wide, broad-brimmed hat—glowed in the sunshine. His mustache and beard were freshly barbered. The colors the king wore—gold and green and spotless white—were in absolute contrast to the grim blacks and grays of the Puritans. I noticed that even his hands were spotlessly clean, with the nails of his fingers neatly trimmed. A half-dozen guards stood around in close proximity, and I expected Charles, now that he had acknowledged me and seen to it that my vegetables were picked up and put back in my basket, to move on and greet some of his other subjects. Instead, he smiled and continued speaking to me.
“I see you have purchased beets, and now perhaps some fish,” Charles remarked. Having heard his mild stutter, it no longer really distracted me. “Will these be the things you prepare for your family’s delicious supper?”