Cromwell’s Christmas

The seventeenth century was a pivotal period in British history. In 1649, after seven years of bitter and bloody war, crowds gathered in Whitehall to watch as Charles I, clad in two shirts so that he would not shiver in the cold and be thought a coward, was led to a scaffold and beheaded. At the time it was an almost unthinkable event, and the Civil War and Interregnum which followed left a deep and lasting mark across British society, including the way in which it celebrated Christmas.