England would see three monarchs and a republic in the seventeenth century. The Protestant King James I was nearly killed by rebelling Catholics in the famous Gunpowder Plot to blow up the House of Lords in 1605. The thwarted plot is still remembered every year on Bonfire Night, the 5th of November.
In 1625 Charles I succeeded his father, James I. Charles, probably in an attempt to bring his people together, married the Catholic Henrietta of France. But he was showing too much affinity with the Catholic ways, reintroducing several Catholic rituals. France was still considered synonymous with Catholicism, and therefore the enemy. Charles I was eventually beheaded for treason and Britain became a republic for a decade under the Puritan, Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell famously ‘cancelled’ Christmas and banished Friday and Lenten fasts, and their associated traditional dishes. The Puritans wanted a purer worship without rituals and icons and the festivities of Christmas and Easter were too lavish and Catholic for them. The Reformation and the Puritan rule changed English ways and food by making it more simplified and less extravagant.
