REVELS AT WINDSOR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18278, 20 December 1922, Page 6 (Supplement)

REVELS AT WINDSOR.

Ever since, and long before our fourth Henry, as we read " kept Christmas with tlio ( usual feastings and sports at Windsor,'' Windsor's historic castle has been the scene of such Yuletide junketings as no other castle in the world can boast. Unlimited good cheer has always been the chief feature of the celebrations, and the boar's head and the baron of beef, which still figure on our Sovereign's table, were customary even then, As to the spoits and pastimes, they were of a haistcrous and sometimes barbarous kind. It was at Christmas that a lord of misrule " was elected as a sort of master of the ceremonies; and one of the special diversions led by him was called the " Festival of Fools!" in which was enacted a " mummery " that was an exlraordinaiy jumble of reHgion, profanity and buffoonery. Queen Victoria spent many happy Christmasses at Windsor, until "that terrible December of 1861. which brought with it an untimely widowhood. But it is worth remembering that King Edward VII, spent the first Yuletide of his lifo there.

In one of the Prince Consort's letters, he tells of the Christmas tree lit up in ono of the drawing rooms, and of how it delighted the Princess Royal, while the baby heir-apparent was brought in to see it also, and gazed astonished and open eyed at its many lights, as a babe of! but seven weeks might well do.