Last week we started our Royal Christmas series together for Blogmas 2023. We explored Tudor Christmas and looked at how Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I generally would have celebrated the holiday season. (Spoiler alert: quite differently from our modern celebrations.) This week we are progressing onto my favourite historical dynasty that deserves far more attention than it ever gets: the Stuarts. The House of Stuart (aka Stewart) began life in Scotland in the fourteenth century and lasted through 1714 until the death of Queen Anne. So, let’s jump into the history of Stuart Christmas!
The Gift of Plate
We discussed in our Tudor Christmas post about courtiers being required to give appropriate gifts to the monarch on New Year’s Day that represented both their and the monarch’s social position, and the monarch reciprocating. This continues on in the Stuart period, and the custom of this festive giving and receiving was incredibly rigid.
Once we reach the reign of James VI/I in 1603, the amount of silver or gold plate that a courtier could expect to receive was essentially set in stone and they could almost predict exactly what they would receive. However, the Stuarts finally abolished the practice of the sovereign gifting gold plate to courtiers on New Year’s Day in 1685.
Holiday Masques
Masques are a “a form of amateur dramatic entertainment, popular among the nobility in 16th- and 17th-century England, which consisted of dancing and acting performed by masked players” (as per the Oxford dictionary), essentially a hybrid opera/play/ballet where the nobility were both the performers and the audience. Originally introduced in England in the early sixteenth century, masques reached their peak popularity in England during James I’s reign. Architect and artist Inigo Jones was a frequent favourite to help create a new masque each year.
As the Royal Collection Trust explains,
Members of the royal family would frequently take part in masques, which were usually staged at the Banqueting House at Whitehall. On New Year’s Day 1611, Henry Frederick, Princes of Wales… appeared in the title role of Jonson’s masque, Oberon, the Faery Prince, while his mother Anne of Denmark took part in at least five masques. (Royal Christmas*, 85)
*Cooling, Louise. A Royal Christmas. London: Royal Collection Trust, 2018.
Were you familiar with the history of Stuart Christmas?
Cheers,
The Historian
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