How Mrs. Claus Saved Christmas

by Jeff Guinn

  “No, it will only make our conversation more interesting,” I replied, and on Saturday afternoon I walked to the Cromwell’s London cottage, which was quite small and undistinguished. When I knocked on the door, it was opened by a fresh-faced woman in her early thirties dressed in the usual Puritan colors of black and gray.

  “You must be Pamela’s friend Layla,” she said cheerfully. “It’s so good of you to come. My husband is in the kitchen. We’re just enjoying some fruit—apples and pears, nothing fancy. But I hope you’ll have a bite or two.”

  The afternoon sun cast shadows through the kitchen windows. Seated there at a table was an average-sized man with close-cut hair and a small mustache. When he stood to greet me, he smiled pleasantly and said, “I’m Oliver Cromwell, missus.” This was a common way for Puritans to address adult married women; they preferred the simpler term to the more formal madam, which they believed copied the social style of the French, who, in turn, they found to be influenced by Catholicism. “Please remind me of your given name.”

  “I’m Layla, Mr. Cromwell,” I replied, being friendly but formal in my turn. “Thank you for inviting me to your home.”

  “Layla?” he answered, gesturing for me to sit down at the table with him and Elizabeth. “An unusual name, which I hope isn’t French. And what is your last name?”

  Now, here was a problem. In my youth, people just went by their first names. Further identification involved where you were from, like “Layla of Niobrara” or “Bishop Nicholas of Myra.” By the time cultural custom got around to requiring last names, too, people like me and my husband and Arthur and Felix simply kept the shorter names we were used to. No one, over the centuries, had ever asked me my last name before. I would learn, though, this sort of question was typical of Oliver Cromwell. He was always every bit as interested in other people as he was in himself, a rare quality in someone with the ambition to become a national leader.

  “Your last name, again?” Cromwell repeated, sounding pleasant but determined to keep asking the same thing until he got an answer. This, too, I would learn was typical of him. Once he started something, he never stopped until it was accomplished.

  Oliver Cromwell

  “Nicholas, Mr. Cromwell,” I finally replied. It was, after all, my husband’s name, and could be a last name as well as a first one.

  “Layla Nicholas,” he said, cutting a bit of pear and using the tip of his knife to raise it to his mouth. “And your husband’s name?”

  “Nicholas,” I answered.

  “You’ve said that already. I mean, what’s his first name?”

  “Nicholas.”

  “That’s his last name. What’s his first?”

  There was something about Oliver Cromwell that made me feel not nervous, but perhaps unsettled. Over the centuries I had met many famous people, and a few who were great, which is an altogether different thing than being famous. Cromwell had an air about him that was only common to great men and women, individuals who had rare qualities of leadership. My husband had this quality, too. Something about them made everyone else feel compelled to be honest. In times of crisis, you would look to them for guidance. Now, in his kitchen, I could have made up some name or other for my husband, but I simply could not lie to Oliver Cromwell.

  “Nicholas is his first name, too,” I answered, because this was, after all, the truth.

  Cromwell looked amused. “Nicholas Nicholas, is it?” he asked. “Well, that’s quite a name. How long has Nicholas Nicholas been in the New World, and what took him there?”

  This was not much safer a topic. As a Puritan, Cromwell would not be pleased by the prospect of the real St. Nicholas bringing Christmas to the New World. What I told him, though, was accurate enough in itself—that my husband and his friend Felix (I was glad Cromwell didn’t ask what his last name was) had longed to see this place known as America, and they’d now been there for several years. They wrote that they were happy enough, and at some point I expected to sail across the ocean myself and rejoin my husband. The Cromwells didn’t seem surprised when I mentioned they were living in a Dutch settlement rather than an English one. Traders and craftsmen went wherever they could make their fortunes, and most New World colonies founded by one country would soon include settlers and merchants from other lands.

  “I am considering taking my family to this place called America,” Cromwell told me. “Though Elizabeth here fears that those natives they call Indians will slay us as we step off the boat onto the shore, I’ve heard America is a place where a man can make his living based on his own ability. Here in England I’m only a person of very modest means—I have a small farm, and must make my living from my own sweat. Though I’ve been elected to Parliament, the king won’t allow Parliament to meet. And you know, of course, how we who call ourselves Puritans are persecuted. In America, at least, you can worship as you like without fear of reprisal.”

  I thought about Plymouth, and how the Puritan leaders there refused to allow anyone to worship differently than they did. “This seems to be a time when few people are willing to tolerate different faith in others,” I said carefully. “That may be the case in the New World as well as in England. I, myself, find it sad when anyone attacks the religious beliefs and activities of anyone else. Take, for example, the matter of Christmas.”

  “Ah, Christmas!” Cromwell exclaimed, putting down his knife and pear. If he had been Richard Harris in the Cromwell film he would have stamped his feet and pounded the table, but he was Oliver Cromwell in real life, and not so theatrical. “A day that has become an occasion for bad behavior rather than worship. Do you celebrate Christmas, Missus Nicholas?”

  Elizabeth Cromwell gently laid her hand on her husband’s arm. “Our guest is here to talk about America, not to debate the merits of Christmas with you.”

  “No, she is the one who raised the subject,” Cromwell replied. “I can guess the holiday is dear to you, Missus Nicholas, but do you deny that it encourages drunkenness and other sinful activities?”

  “Nothing in this world is perfect, and certainly there are isolated instances of bad judgment,” I said. “But will you, Mr. Cromwell, deny that the poor working people of England look forward all year to Christmas, and that it is the one time they can set aside their problems and give thanks for Jesus in the happiest of ways?”

  Cromwell shook his head. “If the purpose of the holiday is to give thanks, why must anything else be involved, like singing loudly in the streets or marching as a mob to rich men’s houses and demanding strong drink from them? Giving thanks to God ought to be a constant thing, and something done solemnly. December 25 is nothing more than a date based on old pagan beliefs, which in themselves are insulting to God.”

  “You would ban Christmas, then?” I asked carefully, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. “You would take that joy away from the English people?”

  Cromwell looked thoughtful. “I have nothing against joy, so long as it is tempered with respect for God. Given the opportunity, I would try to persuade people that there are better ways than Christmas to express pleasure in all God has given us, including his son. Unless the situation was dire, though, I do not believe anything involving religion should be forced on anyone, or taken away, for that matter. Surely you do not deny me my right to believe Christmas is wrong?”

  I was always ready to defend Christmas with all my heart and spirit, but I saw Elizabeth Cromwell looked very uncomfortable. I was a guest in her home, I reminded myself, invited to discuss America rather than the holiday, so I tried to bring my debate with her husband to quick conclusion.

  “Certainly, so long as you do not deny me my right to believe Christmas is precious and must be preserved,” I replied.

  “So be it,” Cromwell said, smiling, and then he cut me some pieces of pear. The Cromwells and I sat at their table for another hour, talking about the New World and the possibilities in it. A few weeks later Pamela Forrest met Elizabeth Cromwell in the marketplace, and learned th
at the Cromwells had decided to stay in England because they could not find a buyer for their farm. Two years after that, Oliver Cromwell inherited a considerable fortune from an uncle and didn’t have to plow his own fields anymore. This enabled him to focus more on politics, so in 1640 when King Charles finally recalled Parliament after eleven years, Cromwell was among its many members who were determined that this time, the king was going to learn that “divine right” was a thing of the past. As Parliament reconvened, Oliver Cromwell was still not considered one of its leaders. But that would come, and soon.

  “Perhaps you and I can debate the issue here in the park. But that must come later.” He gestured toward a half-dozen men gathered nearby. Their hair was cut in the Roundhead style. All but one wore somber black garments. The other man wore black trousers, too, but his cloak was blue.

  CHAPTER Nine

  Divil war is inevitable in England, I’m afraid,” Arthur said in November 1640. “We know from experience that, in times of war, our powers become limited. Layla, this might be the right time for you to go join Nicholas and Felix in the New World. Leonardo and I must stay here, to keep the toy factory operating if we can. But there’s no reason for you to take the risk of remaining, too.”

  “Perhaps there won’t be war,” I said hopefully. “The king has just recalled Parliament again. This time things may go better than in the spring.” In April, Charles had summoned Parliament for the first time since 1629, mostly because he needed money to put down an uprising in Scotland. Instead, members of the House of Commons—the largest branch of Parliament, designed to be the voice of ordinary people—wanted to talk about unfair taxes, and about Charles’s continuing habit of doing whatever he wanted without consulting Parliament first. So, once again, the king told Parliament to go home, but later in the year there was a rebellion in Scotland, and he needed money to raise an army to put down that threat. So now in November, he had asked Parliament to re-form, but its members, including Oliver Cromwell, were in no mood to cooperate.

  “There are more Puritans than ever in Parliament,” Arthur noted. “They have no intention of compromising with the king about anything, particularly since they learned the two oldest princes have gone to Catholic church services with their mother. They’re now convinced the king might return England to the Catholics at any time. Wait and see—something is going to happen that will make war inevitable.” Sadly, he was right.

  Instead of giving the king the money he wanted, Parliament voted that William Laud, Charles’s archbishop of Canterbury, and the Earl of Stafford, the king’s military advisor, were guilty of treason and had to be removed from office. Stafford was executed. Then, before finally giving Charles some of the money he requested, certain new laws were made, taking away many of the king’s powers and requiring him to allow Parliament to meet at least once every three years. Charles hated these laws. As he had in the past, he agreed to them and then ignored them. He still believed in divine right—God had made him king, and so anything he wanted to do was what God wanted, too.

  While Charles was away fighting the Scottish rebels in 1641, Parliament went even further. It wrote prospective laws that required the king to get Parliament’s approval for any ministers he wanted to appoint, and created the Assembly of Divines, a committee that would make new rules for religion in England—rules that would reflect the beliefs of the Puritans.

  “They’re going to ban Christmas right away,” Arthur predicted when the news reached us at the toy factory.

  I thought of Oliver Cromwell, and how he had told me he would try to persuade people to give up Christmas rather than order them to do it. Though he was still not the most prominent member of Parliament, people were starting to mention Cromwell’s name more often. Many poor people in particular admired him. Whenever he made speeches, he always emphasized that the best government was one that let ordinary people have some influence—“democracy” was what he called it.

  “If the Puritans truly want to respect the wishes of the working class, they’ll soon learn that Christmas is too important to too many people for it to be outlawed in England,” I said. “I’ve told you about Oliver Cromwell. Surely if reasonable people like him are involved, Christmas can still be preserved, and peace in England, too.”

  “Don’t be too certain that this Cromwell is going to be around much longer,” Arthur said. “There are rumors that the king intends to charge his main opponents in Parliament with treason, and have them arrested and perhaps even executed. Cromwell could be one of them.”

  On December 25, 1641, Christmas in England was celebrated as usual. Waits strolled through cities and villages singing their joyful holiday songs. Poor people scraped together their few pennies to buy a goose, and on the wonderful day itself groups of working-class people marched to the homes of their wealthy neighbors and shared fine food and drink with them there. Some churches held special holiday services, though Puritan congregations ignored the holiday completely. Arthur, Leonardo, and I had a wonderful time making our quiet way into many, many English homes to leave small gifts of toys and peppermint candy for the children living there. We regretted very much that we could not leave something for Puritan children, but our tradition had always been to avoid homes where, for one reason or another, parents did not want us to go. Still, the overwhelming number of families in England very much wanted visits from Father Christmas, and it was our pleasure to oblige.

  As soon as our special night of gift-giving in England was over, I left for Italy, since the children there hoped to discover gifts from Befana when they woke up on Epiphany, or January 6. There were no Puritans in Italy complaining about this wonderful way of helping celebrate the birth of Jesus. I dressed up as the old woman who had given directions to the Wise Men and loved every moment of it.

  From Italy, I returned to Nuremberg, intending to spend some time there with Attila, Dorothea, and Willie Skokan. In Germany, as in Italy, holiday celebrations were universally enjoyed. For the past hundred years, Germans had started the fine new custom of bringing small evergreen trees into their homes around Christmas, and decorating these trees with candles and bits of bright paper. These Christmas trees were lovely to look at, and their clean scent would perfume the room. Willie Skokan had an idea about these trees, and shared it with me when I briefly stopped in Nuremberg before Epiphany to collect the toys and candy Befana would leave in Italy a few days later.

  “Candles are dangerous, and these trees, once they dry out, might easily catch on fire,” Willie told me. “I’m certain there are already many people who would like decorations that involve less risk. Someday, Leonardo and I will invent some safer kind of lights, but this will take awhile. Meanwhile, I think we ought to find other colorful things to hang from these trees—peppermint candy, for instance.”

  “You’re experimenting with peppermint candy, too, Willie?” I asked. “You know that back in London, Leonardo has found a way to decorate peppermints with bright red stripes.”

  Willie looked reproachful. “Of course I do. Leonardo and I write to each other constantly. He was interested in improving the appearance of the candy. I propose to change its shape. If, instead of round little lumps, we could stretch them longer and thinner, then perhaps we could wedge these bright red-and-white sticks between the fir tree boughs. Even better, what if this candy took on some sort of curved shape, so it could then dangle from the Christmas tree branches?”

  “You mean, something like the kind of cane old people sometimes lean on, Willie?” I replied.

  His eyes lit up with excitement. “Perfect, Layla! Peppermint candy canes! I’ll get to work right away!” I knew Willie would soon have samples to show me, but I wasn’t able to remain in Nuremberg long enough to see them. A letter arrived from Arthur telling us that a final, terrible mistake had been made by the king and that war would erupt in England at any moment.

  “Under no circumstances should you return to England, Layla,” Arthur wrote at the end of his letter. “Any war is bad
enough, and this one may cost everyone here their beloved Christmas holiday. Leonardo and I will do our best to carry on, but things in this country are so dangerous that you must go over to the New World and help your husband spread Christmas joy there.”

  Three days later I walked back into the London toy factory and informed Arthur in friendly but firm fashion that I would decide when and where I went, not him. “I married Nicholas to be a full partner in his mission,” I told my old friend. “You wouldn’t tell my husband it wasn’t safe enough to stay and help you. I know you’re trying to protect me, Arthur, but I really don’t need protection. Now, tell me what has happened.”

  The king, Arthur said, had finally had enough of Parliament telling him what he could and could not do. Acting on their own authority, its members had already tried and convicted his archbishop and his most trusted general, and right after Christmas rumors began to circulate that Parliament next intended to accuse the queen of treason, too, because the Puritans believed she was telling the king to make the country Catholic again. Now, Charles dearly loved Queen Henrietta, and he immediately decided he would eliminate her enemies. He had his staff draw up warrants for five members of Parliament, all of them outspoken critics of the king. Then, leading one hundred musket-bearing soldiers, Charles actually marched to Parliament, interrupted its meeting, and announced he was there to arrest the men.

  “But they had learned he was coming and left the building before he arrived,” Arthur told me. “The king demanded to know where they had gone, and no one would answer. He then dismissed Parliament and told everyone to go back home, but no one left. He stormed out and Parliament carried on with its daily business.” Now, Arthur added, the king had left London for the north of England, where he was beginning to gather an army. Not enough Englishmen were willing to fight for him, so he was trying to hire what were called “mercenary” troops from Europe. Some of the European royal families had also promised to send soldiers to Charles—the last thing they wanted was for their own subjects to see a king deposed in favor of democracy. Queen Henrietta supposedly was ready to cross the English Channel and meet with foreign rulers to make sure they supported her husband.