NATION’S CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

Northern Advocate, 10 December 1936, Page 9

NATION’S CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

I According to Domesday Book. Wili iian the First arranged to meet the j Witanalemot on Christmas Day, 1085, i to consider the survey of the kingdom, and it was ordered to proceed. I The list of Christmas Day doings in the Plantagenet period is a remarkable one because of the events which so closely concerned the nation’s bid for civil and religious liberty as against the tyranny of the kings. In 1214, at Christmas time, the great Barons of the realm met o discuss the intolerable tyranny of King John, and drew up the Magna Charta, always since then When Charles the First was King considered the keystone of English liberty. / Fifty years later the Barons, with Simon de Montfort as heir leader, opposed the unconstitutional measures of Henry the Tihrd, and compelled him to form what was really the first House of Commons. Those who were to be members received, on Christmas Day, 1264, their notices to attend, and they, met 3oon afterwards. In the same Plantagenet period the Noble Order of the Garter was established on Christmas Day, 1349.

The Tudor days saw some important events at Christmas time. Henry the Eighth instructed Thomas Cromwell to bring about the severance of the Church of England from Rome, and that same Christmas Day marked Henry’s assumption of the title of “Head of the Church.”

Among the many events which have made bygone Christmases memorable one recalls the fact that Robin Hood, the famous outlay, lay down in sickness, and died on Christmas Day.