This update on Andrew and Maria Hubert’s 1990’s title starts with a discussion as to whether William Shakespeare’s family were really recusant Catholics.

While avoiding questions as to the authorship of Shakespeare’s works, this volume goes on to view Christmas through the lens of the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean eras dipping into everything from Loves Labours Lost to Ben Jonson’s Masque.

​

This assemblage of contemporary writings gives an insight into the festive celebrations of a time when change was the norm as radical Protestantism tried to cut back Christmas indulgence in the face of an accepted and very necessary tradition of eating, drinking and merrymaking against the threats of cold and possible starvation should the winter be cruel.

​

Many of the religious traditions were changing as the English Church pushed back against an inherited Roman influence and the life of a playwright or poet could be further complicated by a fine for not attending an Anglican service or making too many references that were deemed unflattering to a royal court that was treading warily around a capricious monarch.

​

Sadly we have little in the way of personal letters that refer to Christmas, yet this book is a timely reminder that Christmas is the great survivor and has gone through many iterations before we get to what we currently believe to be the traditions of turkey, Brussel’s sprouts (unknown in Shakespeare’s time)  and the Christmas tree that still had to wait another three hundred years before it appeared in British living rooms.