Christmas is Banned

Copyright Oggbashan November 2019

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.

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The following notice appeared today on the doors of every church in our town, on all places selling food and drink, and in other places as well.

By Order of the Lord Protector

I, James Ifill, Mayor, advise the citizens of our town that the following law has been passed by the Parliament at Westminster and signed by the Lord Protector:

The celebration of Christmas is banned. Because the celebration of Christmas has been the occasion of gluttony, excessive drinking, dancing in public, wenching and whoring the celebration is unlawful.

Every church and place of dining and drinking is to remain locked and shut on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and the day following Christmas Day. There is to be no church services or any other form of celebrating Christmas whether public or private.

Anyone convicted after trial of breaching this law shall suffer only one punishment -- death by public hanging. There shall be no appeal against such conviction nor will any pleas for mitigation of the sentence be allowed.

This notice is published so that our townspeople are aware of this law and the punishment for breaking it.

Given under my hand and seal by I, James Ifill, Mayor on this first day of December in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and fifty seven.

James Ifill, Mayor.

I was part of a small crowd reading this notice on the door of our Parish Church. We were all dismayed about it but our expressions were muted in case there might be a Puritan spy among the crowd. We suspected that the Mayor had issued the notice under duress from Colonel Ironright and his Parliamentary soldiers camped just outside our town walls.

I went back to my lodgings run for me and my fellow students by Mistress Mary Smith and her daughters Ruth and Monica. I knew Mistress Smith was intending to give us a feast on Christmas Day after attending the service at our church. Doing either would now place her at risk of breaking the new law. I am Jonas Simonson who had been studying for a divinity degree but I had changed to a classics degree in Latin and Greek because I couldn't become a Church of England priest under the Commonwealth. All Church of England priests had been replaced by government approved Puritans. All the religious statues had been destroyed in every church even if most of ours had been hidden before they could be smashed. The history of tolerance in our town meant that many of the former priests were still assisting the new Puritans. Whether that could continue? We didn't know.

We suspected that the Mayor had issued the notice under duress from Colonel Ironright who had a large number of Parliamentary soldiers just outside the town. Colonel Ironright and his troops had insisted that we obey the laws about clothing, particularly women's clothes. Breach of those laws would mean a fine, but women seen wearing immodest or over-elaborate clothing was also likely to be abused by the soldiers.

Most of us had been undecided between King and Parliament although a few had gone off to fight for either side. At times we had been occupied by Royalist or Parliamentary forces. Neither had stayed long because despite the remains of our town walls we were not really defensible. They had taken supplies and moved on.

I told Mary who didn't want to believe it. She sent Ruth out to check that I had read the notice properly. Before Ruth left she and her mother made sure that Ruth's hair was completely covered and that she was modestly dressed. At home she didn't cover her hair but elsewhere she had to. I was courting Ruth but outside the house I couldn't hold her hand or even touch her without being arrested for public indecency.

Ruth returned in a few minutes.

"Jonas is right," Ruth said. "He gave the exact wording. If we celebrate Christmas we will be in trouble."

"What do I do about the goose?" Her mother asked. "And I'm not the only one. Most of our neighbours have ordered a goose for Christmas. I was planning a feast on Christmas Day after the morning service. Now there will be no service and if I do the meal I'd planned I would be breaking the law."

She sat down at the kitchen table with her head in her hands.

"And Monica was to play the Virgin Mary in the Nativity play. That is a great honour for her."

There will be no Nativity plays," I said heavily.

"I was brewing some Christmas Ale..."

Mary stopped and looked at me.

"You're in Holy Orders, aren't you Jonas?"

"Technically yes. I'm a deacon. I can never be a priest under the Commonwealth."

"But if we sing hymns, have bible readings and you led us in prayer on Christmas morning with the doors and shutters fastened, no one would know."

"If we were very discreet about it? Probably not. But we would all be risking execution."

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Before the makeshift service on Christmas morning I proposed to Ruth who accepted me. I gave her a ring which she couldn't wear outside the house. Any form of jewellery was banned. Even women's wedding rings had to be plain brass, not gold.

On the table we had turned into an altar we had a nativity scene as well as the candles and a cross. After the service we sat down to a meal with a wide range of dishes, Christmas ale and mulled wine. We were eating the Christmas pudding when the front door was broken down by Colonel Ironright's soldiers and arrested.

WE were taken under armed guard to the old Castle, now the town's prison. There were about fifty more citizens also arrested for celebrating Christmas. We were told we would charged at the Magistrates' Court tomorrow morning and be tried in front of the upper court in the afternoon.

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Our appearance at the Magistrates' Court surrounded by soldiers was very short. We were remanded in custody to be tried that afternoon.

At the Higher Court the Commonwealth-appointed judge castigated all the women for appearing with uncovered hair. He called them 'Whores of Babylon'. He directed that our pleas should be recorded as 'Guilty' to which we objected. Reluctantly he agreed we should be tried by Jury.

The soldiers' evidence was damning. We had all been caught in the act of celebrating Christmas by makeshift services and gluttonous eating. The judge directed the jury to return a verdict of guilty. The jury retired for twenty minutes. On their return the judge asked the foreman for the verdict.

The foreman stood up and said very clearly:

"Ignoramus."

"What does that mean?" The judge spluttered.

"As an educated man, your honour, you should know. 'Ignoramus' means 'We do not know' or in other words we refuse to convict our fellow townsfolk of a crime which only has the death penalty."

The judge sent the jury out again to reconsider. Twenty four hours later, after they had returned three more verdicts of 'Ignoramus' he had the jury arrested on charges of treason. They joined us at the Castle prison.

The next day, before a new jury, the trial resumed but the new jury returned the same verdict of 'Ignoramus' again and again. The judge had that jury imprisoned too.

The following day, the trial resumed. The judge decided not to have a jury, convicted all of us of celebrating Christmas against the law, and condemned us to death. He instructed Colonel Ironright to have gallows erected in the town square for our execution tomorrow. He also convicted both juries, in their absence, of treason and sentenced them to death too.

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That night, the apprentices of our town, all masked, attacked the gallows and burnt them to the ground. While the soldiers tried to stop them, another group of rioters made up of the tradesmen and merchants of our town, all wearing masks to look like Oliver Cromwell, marched to the Castle prison.

They chanted "We are the Lord Protector, come to protect our townsfolk" as they broke into the prison and released all of us. We were escorted to another town a few miles away and taken in by many people in that town.

Colonel Ironright and his soldiers searched our town but we weren't there. Then they had to go to another town twenty miles away to deal with a riot there.

We all returned home after a week. On the advice of Mayor Ifill we all changed our names. Mistress Mary Smith became Mistress Maria Smithers. My fiancée Ruth became Rachel. Her sister Monica became Mary Smithers. I became Simon Jonasson.

The Commonwealth Government sent Commissioners to our town to discover the condemned criminals but no one named on the list was resident now. The Commissioners fined the town council, ten thousand pounds, an enormous sum, for not preventing the riots and ordered that one third of the remaining town walls, that had provided cover for those attacking the prison, should be demolished.

I married my Ruth, now Rachel, in front of an approved minister and then had a private ceremony in front of a dispossessed Church of England priest. We didn't feel properly married until after the second wedding.

After the restoration I was able to complete my divinity degree and become a Church of England parish priest with Rachel as the Vicar's wife.

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Author's Note: The law banning Christmas, the trials at which two juries returned a verdict of 'Ignoramus' and were then arrested, and the riots which released the condemned prisoners are all factual and happened in the City of Canterbury, Kent, as are the fine on the council and the demolition of part of the walls.