1.14a- Supplemental The War on Christmas

After the Puritans came to power they tried to abolish Christmas. Seriously. 

Direct Link: Supplemental- The War on Christmas

Comments

[D]

Of course, if you do want a riot, telling people the other guys are messing with the holidays is a great way to do it. So what if it's totally fictitious?

[Douglas]

The Puritans had some good points in their argument: namely that the Bible indicates Jesus was born in the summer months, and that it probably wasn't a coincidence that all of those old pagan holidays (and their symbolism) just, ahem, happened to be on the same days as these "new" Christian holidays. As faithful Christians, they were just pointing out the obvious (anti-Catholic stuff aside).

[Dylan]

Sorry Mike, I'm a bit confused on the religious policy at work here. I know most of these big name Parliamentarians were Puritans, but I thought that the independent faction had won out and there was going to be a kind of religious freedom (except for Catholics of course), at least for each locality. So were the people trying to abolish Christmas a rival faction to the independents, or was Christmas considered so overtly Catholic that it had to be abolished.

Also, when Cromwell was helping to run the New Model Army I thought he was with the independents as were most of the other officers. Is this not accurate, or did he change his mind down the road?

[Katherine Meredith]

Hi, New listener. Love the series. Was brought here by the history of Rome. You said in an earlier episode that the speech of Charles the first was lost to the wind when I thought it was one of the most famous speeches in history. I was slightly disappointed that you made no reference and indeed skipped it entirely... I think it sums up the character of Charles and is a thoughtful perspective on the battles between him and the parliament. I have heard from my father that the execution of Charles is the beginning of decline of common law and the rise of statute law. I was wondering why you made no reference and was hoping you would address it in a future episode.

Here's a link to the speech in case you don't have a copy or if anyone else s interested.

http://anglicanhistory.org/charles/charles1.html