The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

Monday 20 December 2004

The Pudding King and other Royal Christmas Trivia

The holiday season – a time of year like no other. None can so effectively combine deep religious and spiritual meaning and thoughtful and heartfelt giving with frequently boring and tedious holiday parties and inevitable family bickering. So, it is with all the joy of the holiday season in heart and the relief of its challenges in mind that I have devised this week’s column – a collection of fun, interesting and virtually useless Christmas trivia on one of your favorite subjects. As virtually is the key word here, I invite you to use this information to your best advantage to get you through the holidays. Whether you use it to impress your friends and family with your vast knowledge, infuse a boring conversation with something a bit more interesting, halt a more heated family “discussion,” or simply melt away into your happy place when the going gets rough, I wish you much happiness for the holiday season. 

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Most people interested in royalty already know that Queen Charlotte, consort of Britain’s King George III, introduced Britain to the German tradition of the Christmas tree, although it was Queen Victoria and Prince Albert who popularized the tradition outside the royal family. But not even that enduring symbol of Christmas would have been possible had it not been for Britain’s Charles II. You see, when the staunchly Puritan Oliver Cromwell took the reigns of the British government, he abolished not only the monarchy but also the celebration of Christmas. Although it’s wrong to say that he banished Christmas itself, he did ban the objects of merriment that surrounded what he believed should be a strictly pious and religious day. In 1649 – the same year Charles I was executed – Cromwell dictated that Christmas carols, culinary feasts and festive decorations like holly were all forbidden. Those caught celebrating risked arrest. Fortunately, the Merry Monarch restored the celebration of Christmas to a (mostly) grateful nation when he was himself restored to the throne in 1660. 

As much as he hated Christmas carols, even Oliver Cromwell would have been pained to argue the good deeds of Wenceslas I, Duke of Bohemia (b. 907) – also known as Saint Wenceslas – who inspired the Christmas carol named for him, “Good King Wenceslas.” While the words of the carol tell how the ruler gave alms to a poor peasant on St. Stephen's Day (December 26^th, known in Britain as Boxing Day), Wenceslas’ is best known for his efforts to promote Christianity in Bohemia and build churches and cathedrals throughout his lands, including the gothic St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague. (For the complete lyrics of the song, see http://www.santasearch.com/resources/sheetmusic/goodking.html). 

While Wenceslas’ contribution to Christmas tradition was indirect and spiritual in nature, King George I of Great Britain’s contribution was of a more direct and corporeal type. Within months of arriving in London to claim the British throne in 1714, the German whose grasp of the English language was minimal sat down to a Christmas dinner that included a little goody that would become an enduring symbol of an English Christmas – the Christmas pudding. Actually, plum pudding had become the traditional Christmas dessert in England long before George I, but it had disappeared under (you guessed it!) Oliver Cromwell. Perhaps because it had been dubbed by the Puritans a “lewd custom,” the pudding never quite attained its former glory – not even after the Restoration. That is, not until it was served to George I – forever remembered as “The Pudding King” – on that fateful Christmas day in 1714. (For the recipe of George I’s Christmas Pudding, visit http://riogrande.0catch.com/recipes/pudding01.html.) 

Of course, no discussion of Christmas would be complete without some mention of presents. The best royal gifts in history range from the mundane - George VI of Britain supposedly gave away “hundreds of plate warmers” as Christmas gifts in the 1940s, to the ridiculous – Louis IX of France gave Henry III of England a live elephant. Similarly, stories of Christmas spirit and Christmas scroogery exist in equal proportion. Among the most touching stories, in her book “The Royal Jewels,” Suzy Menkes tells how Queen Alexandra gave a footman, who had already received his standard Christmas gift, a pair of gold cufflinks, simply because he was feeling lonely. At the other extreme, Henry VIII let it be known that he was through once and for all with his estranged wife, Catherine of Aragon, when he returned to her the Christmas gifts she sent him in 1531.  

Finally, for all you lovers of “On This Day” history, you’ll be interested to know that Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor on Dec. 25^th, 800; William, Duke of Normandy, was crowned King of England on Dec. 25, 1066; and the Empress Elizabeth of Russia died on Dec. 25, 1761.

Happy Holidays!

- Tori Van Orden Martínez