Why was the Partridge in the Pear Tree? Read Online Free PDF

toys and Christmas sports that they will not be weaned from them’.
    The cultural and social consequences of the Puritan period were significant. Widespread riots and civil disobedience followed. In London a crowd of apprentices attacked a number of shops in Cheapside which had opened for trading on Christmas Day and forced their owners, ‘diverse holy Londoners’, to close them. In reporting the incident the weekly newspaper, Mercurius Civicus sympathised with the shopkeepers but argued that to avoid ‘disturbance and uproars in the City’ they should have waited ‘till such time as a course shall be taken by lawful authority with matters of that nature’.
    This 1650 note from Oliver Cromwell is found in the National Archive:

    A document dating to 1650 noting Christmas ‘disturbances’ in London.

    Report sent to S[i]r Hen[ry] Mildmay
    The Councell haveing received severall Informations that there was avery wilfull & strict observation of the day com[m]only called Christmasse day throughout the Cittyes of London & Westm[inster] by agenerall keeping of their shops shut up and that there were Contemptuous speeches used by some in favour thereof, which the Councell conceiveing to be upon the old grounds of superstition and malignancy and tending to the avowing of the same and Contempt of the present Lawes and governm[en]t have thought fit that the Parlam[en]t be moved to take the same into Consideration for such further provisions
    and penaltyes for the abolishing & punishing of those old superstitions observations and meeting w[i]th such malicious contradiction of offenders in that behalfe as their wisedomes shall iudge fit, They have likewise received informations of frequent resort unto and exerciseing of the idolatrous masse in severall places to the great dishono[u]r of Almightie God, notorious breach of the lawes and scandal of the governm[en]t wherein according to notice given they have already taken some Course and desire the parlam[en]t will be pleased to take that matter alsoe into their Consideration for further remedies & suppression of that Idolatrie in such way as to them shall seeme meet That it be likewise reported to the Parl[amen]t that the Councell is informed that there are still remaining the Armes and pictures of the late King in severall Churches Halls, upon the Gates and in other publique places of the Citty of London That the parl[amen]t bee moved to appoint whom they shall thinke fitt to see the same armes & pictures taken downe and defaced and to give an Account of their executing the same w[i]thin such tyme as they shall thinke fit to allow for that purpose And S[i]r Henry Mildmay is desired to make this report.

    The DissenterIsaac Watts.
    The following year, when Christmas Day fell on the last Wednesday in the month, the day set aside for a regular monthly fast, Parliament produced the anticipated legal rulings. On 19 December an ordinance was passed directing that the fast day should be observed in the normal way. The tide had started to turn, however and even Royalist satirists and poets were writing widely published works, with titles like ‘Christmas In and Out’ and ‘The Vindication of Christmas’.
    Another similar piece, ‘Women Will Have Their Will or Give Christmas His Due’, which appeared in December 1648, seems to have been aimed particularly at a female audience. It contains a dialogue between ‘Mistress Custom’, a victualler’s wife in Cripplegate and ‘Mistress New-Come’ an army captain’s wife ‘living in Reformation Alley near Destruction Street’. New-Come finds Custom decorating her house for Christmas and they fall into a discussion about the feast. Custom exclaims that:

    I should rather and sooner forget my mother that bare me and the paps that gave me suck, than forget this merry time, nay if thou had’st ever seen the mirth and jollity that we have had at those times when I was young, thou wouldst bless thyself to see it.

    She claims that those who