Jacob Rees-Mogg and David Starkey: the history of the British Christmas

I hope that all my British and Commonwealth readers who celebrated Boxing Day had an enjoyable and relaxing December 26th.

On Christmas night, I managed to catch up on GB News’s festive programmes, one of which was Christmas with Jacob Rees-Mogg, which aired on that evening. I highly commend it to everyone who is interested in history, especially because David Starkey, who has not appeared on GB News for a few months, is in it. It is about 45 minutes long, once one skips through the news and the adverts:

Jacob Rees-Mogg is not only one of our best-known Conservative MPs of recent years but is also a devout Catholic. David Starkey is largely an unbeliever, although he knows a lot about Christianity’s history in the UK.

The programme begins in Canterbury with a young missionary, Augustine (early 6th century – 604), whom Pope Gregory I (540 – 604) — St Gregory the Great — sent from Rome to the land of the Angles to evangelise them. Augustine of Canterbury, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, should not be confused with Augustine of Hippo, St Monica’s son, who lived centuries earlier.

Starkey said that Pope Gregory had been struck by the beauty of young blond boys who were slaves in Rome. They came from England, a new name for the old Roman colony of Britannia, one of the first to break free from the Roman Empire, having been conquered by miscellaneous German tribes who were pagan.

It is worth noting that, near the end of Roman rule, Britannia had been converted to Christianity, and three British bishops had participated in the Council of Arles in France in 314. The number of Christians grew in Britannia until 360. The pagan German tribes settled the southern parts of the former Roman colony while the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms remained Christian.

When Augustine, who was reluctant to go on Gregory’s mission, arrived in Kent on the south east coast, he worked with King Aethelberht, who was married to Queen Bertha, the daughter of a Merovingian king. The Merovingians were famous Frankish rulers whose lands extended from France into parts of what is now western Germany. Augustine converted Aethelberht to Christianity, with the help of Bertha, whom Starkey referred to as a ‘sleeper’, a Christian agent of sorts.

Starkey said that Augustine and Aethelberht worked together to restore the church of St Martin, which, he said Queen Bertha used for her worship.

Despite having a Christian ruler, the people of Kent still lived under pagan influence, even though pockets of Christianity remained. He described the Christians there as ‘frightened’, as the Anglo-Saxons were known for their cruelty. Starkey explained that this is why Augustine was deeply reluctant to take on the mission, as it was a complete departure into the unknown: savagery.

Rees-Mogg and Starkey jump a millennium ahead to the 1600s and a fully Christian Britain. Fortunately, a number of churches from Norman times (beginning in 1066) remain in our great nation, but Starkey calls our attention to the fact that although they were many throughout the Middle Ages, they were quite small. As the centuries passed, the churches grew larger and more elaborate. By the 14th and 15th centuries, the Church was very well established indeed and most people understood the functions within it.

At this point, Starkey discussed Christmas traditions of the time which included the ‘decking of the halls’ — the interior of houses, whether grand or humble — with greenery such as holly and ivy, which grow in abundance here. Starkey made a point of saying that mistletoe was not among the greenery.

Rees-Mogg mentioned that Advent was a time of religious fasting and devotion in the weeks preceding a grand Christmas feast, which would have varied according to one’s personal circumstances. As Britain was largely agricultural at the time and fields would have been to cold or muddy to cultivate, Christmas celebrations lasted for 12 days, from the 25th through January 6. Workers and their employers would have celebrated in their own ways, revelry included. The twelfth day ended with a play. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night was no accident, Starkey said.

Meanwhile, Starkey said, British society and institutions grew in number and in influence. The Church was one such institution, including Oxford and Cambridge, but there were also the Inns of Court for law and the Guilds for trade. Along with this there was social advancement, whereby men of means gave an annual gift to the King on January 1, a holdover pagan ritual to Januarius from Roman times. He emphasised that this ‘giving up’ was a way of buying influence, as the monarch was inclined to ‘give down’ in the form of a token gift in return. Starkey and Rees-Mogg touched on the satirical historical sitcom Blackadder, which portrays Elizabeth I as a queen in pursuit of gold from her courtiers. Starkey said that was not far from the truth; she expected gold from her bishops — and lots of it. A better gift to the ruler eventually purchased position in the court or elsewhere.

Moving back to the Twelve Days of Christmas, Rees-Mogg and Starkey pointed out that the agrarian society of the time have influenced the Church calendar to this day. The major feasts — Christmas, Easter and Pentecost — occur within a six-month timescale. This timing harmonises with the agricultural calendar, i.e. harvests beginning in August and running through October. I would add that, whether all these celebrations were originally pagan turned Christian, they still revolve around the agricultural calendar. Nothing has changed over two millennia.

By the time of the late Middle Ages, towns and villages began keeping written records. The printing press arrived in the 1500s and, with it, the printed Bible. Then came Henry VIII’s divorce from one wife in order to marry another. As such, the Reformation began in Britain.

Starkey said that some devout Christians wanted the Church restored to a more religious state and ‘Christmas is the central victim’.

Rees-Mogg then opened the segment on the Reformation at Loseley (pron. Lows-ley) Park in Surrey, rebuilt for Elizabeth I with stone from a dissolved abbey, Waverley Abbey, and with items from Henry VIII’s Nonsuch Palace. Christmas under the Tudors was still a time of feasting, as managed by the Master of the Revels, a notable position under Elizabeth’s father Henry VIII. In fact, his Master of the Revels owned Loseley Park. As Starkey and Rees-Mogg toured a decorated great hall, they observed that the same type of greenery was used for decoration, as it would have been in the 16th century.

This was a time of transition to opposing viewpoints about Christianity which eventually led to Cromwell’s Interregnum and the Civil War. The gentry who wanted a restoration of biblical Christianity became increasingly opposed to the feasts and revelry of the Twelve Days of Christmas. As they adoped a Calvinistic Christianity from Scotland’s John Knox, they said that it was the Lord’s Day, Sunday, that mattered. Christmas, they said, was a random day on the calendar, except where it occurred on a Sunday. Even then, it was the Sunday and not Christmas Day that was pre-eminent. That, incidentally, is still largely the view of Calvinistic — Reformed — churches today.

Starkey said that while the Reformation in England was a top-down imposition by the monarchy, in Scotland at the time, there was an absence of monarchy and Calvinism took hold. In fact, Scotland, under the state Church (Presbyterianism), had declared Christmas as illegal. Even now, it takes second place to Hogmanay, the celebration of the New Year. This is ironic, because there are few feasts involving as much revelry as Hogmanay, which lasts two days and no doubt has its roots in the pagan cult of Januarius from Roman times.

Starkey and Rees-Mogg discussed the Reformation in England from Henry VIII’s time through to the Civil War and said that it was a time of ebbs and flows.

It should be noted that this was certainly a time of persecution. There were Catholic martyrs and, under ‘Bloody’ Mary I, there were Protestant martyrs.

The third segment of the programme discussed Cromwell’s Interregnum, so called because he had Charles I beheaded and dissolved Parliament. Normality resumed in 1660 when Charles II was restored to the throne.

Starkey called the Interregnum the ‘wokery’ of the day and said that Cromwell was a military dictator with his Roundheads. Starkey said that the Interregnum must not be underestimated in its prohibition of all things enjoyable in the name of religion. He said that the refusal of Puritans of the day was ‘the refusal to compromise’. In some parts of Britain, a Puritan streak still exists. Starkey spoke about his own mother from the north of England who invoked the word ‘principle’ frequently; he said that it meant ‘she didn’t want to listen to reason’ in opposing arguments.

Starkey said that the Puritans viewed their prohibitions as the means to self-improvement, without which people would remain in poverty.

He added that, because the Puritans viewed their principles as the correct ones, their movement resembled today’s wokery — ‘the machinery of compulsion’ — only with more serious consequences, as Puritans were in charge of the law and the courts.

During the early years of the Restoration, Starkey described the reconstruction that went on in Anglican churches. He remarked that Archbishop Laud called these things ‘the beauty of holiness’. Altars were restored or repositioned along with candlesticks and works of art — and, of course, the beautiful Anglican liturgy. Charles II approved a revised edition of the Book of Common Prayer in 1662.

By the end of the century, with all that having been done, Starkey said that life calmed down, not only in church but also in society. The thought of the Enlightenment took root, along with it rationality and a proportional response to life in general. However, Starkey said that Christmas traditions were low-key during this time.

At that point, Starkey’s time on the programme came to an end and Dr Tessa Dunlop, an expert on the Victorian era, spoke at length to Rees-Mogg.

Dunlop met Rees-Mogg at Eastwell Park in Kent, which was the country home of Queen Victoria’s second son, Prince Alfred the Duke of Edinburgh. Eastwell Manor was the place to be seen in the late 19th century. Alfred’s daughter, Marie, who went on to become Queen of Romania, wrote a book in the 1930s which includes a chapter about her life there.

Most of our current Christmas traditions came about with the Victorians. Tom Smith invented the Christmas cracker in that era. Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s German husband, brought in the Christmas tree from his native land. Mince pies, originally filled with spiced meat for the Royals of old, were now made with sweetmeats: dried fruits and citrus peel. Nearly everyone could afford them.

Prince Alfred took Christmas preparations at Eastwell Manor seriously and presided over all of them, from the initial stirring of the Christmas pudding to the arrangement of presents on tables with white tablecloths.

However, with the Industrial Revolution, which started in the 1700s and turned England into a nation of industry rather than farms, employers, eager to make manufacturing targets, granted only one day of Christmas celebration — December 25. By the end of the century, this, too, also changed, although the programme did not cover that development.

As the 1800s progressed, illustrations of Queen Victoria’s family Christmas appeared in print in periodicals, attracting much favourable comment. Before long, even someone who could not afford to buy a weekly magazine knew about the Queen, her family and their festive customs.

Rees-Mogg said that constitutional changes meant that Victoria had little to no power over Parliament, therefore, the Royal Family had to reinvent a new purpose for itself. Hence family celebrations. As Victoria had nine children, she and Albert portrayed their family as the British ideal. Dunlop said that they replaced ‘political power with popularity’.

Marie described in her book the culmination on Christmas Eve, German-style, at which time, the tree, located in the library, was lit with candles (oh, dear!); she remembered ‘the delicious fragrance of singed fir-branches’.

Alfred had created a ritual around the lit tree. Everything was dark and the doors to the library were closed. Marie and her siblings had to walk down a long dark corridor with Alfred dressed as the Christmas ogre, instilling fear and dread. Finally, they reached the library, its doors still closed. At that point, Alfred threw open the doors to the room, illuminated only by the candles on the tree.

Dunlop explained that presents were small and modest in those days. Small sweets were hung and given as gifts. Other bijou gifts could sit on the boughs. It was the Industrial Revolution that brought the capability of toys to be manufactured at a modest price and en masse and, as such, were too heavy to sit in the tree. Consequently, families began placing presents under the tree.

In her memoirs, Marie also discussed the parlour games that followed the main Christmas meal. Even today, many Britons play Charades or a board game after lunch or dinner.

The Royal family also created the tradition for a walk after Christmas dinner. There was (and is) much beauty to be seen at Eastwell Manor and other Royal estates. The post-Christmas dinner walk is another tradition that endures today. I was happy to hear Rees-Mogg say that he has never been a fan of them. Nor have my better half and I.

Dunlop did not mention turkey, another Victorian tradition which Prince Albert appreciated because it could feed him, the Queen and his nine children quite substantially.

More Christmas traditions to follow tomorrow.