ON CHRISTMAS DAY

Waipa Post, Volume 43, Issue 3392, 24 December 1931, Page 3

ON CHRISTMAS DAY

MOMENTOUS HISTORIC EVENTS.

The Star of Bethlehem these twenty centuries has looked down on many a strange, incongruous sight, not counting the too deeply-drunk wassails, the indigestions, and the houses set afire by Christmas trees. Christmastide has been a notable period for and spectacular events. Such, p»iaps, is to be expected. "War, sttpesmanship, and the laying of bricks have customarily taken a holiday at Christmas; the time of the great feast, on the other hand, is one when acts of high ceremony may most fitly take place, and when passions may be diverted from sinister deeds.

: The most notable event of Christmas, after the great and sacred one that occurred on the first inauguration of the festival, took place at -Rome in the year 800. Before a solemn altar cathedral kneels a huge man, blonde-bearded, and clad in royal robes. It is Charles, later to be called Charlemagne, King of the Franks. He has come to Rome, a conqueror and deliverer, after haying beaten the savage Lombards, against whom the Pope had invoked his aid. A stately figure approaches silently behind him. It is the Pope, Leo by name. In his hands he bears a golden crown. He places the diadem on the head of the astonished king, and salutes him as the new Roman emperor. Thus was founded the Holy Roman Empire, which for long centuries dominated the mind and policy of the western world. We skim down a thousand years, and discover a singular coincidence. The Holy Roman Empire receives its death warrant at Christmas in 1805. At Presburg, in Austria, French and Austrian diplomats are gathered. It is Christmas time, but they are negotiating a treaty. A famous military campaign has just been completed, the campaign of Austerlitz, in Which the conquering Napoleon has utterly overthrown the Austrian armies. The victor demands that the Holy Roman Empire, which still has a shadowy existence, be abolished; that the Austrian monarch resign the Imperial crown which had descended to him from Charlemagne. Bonaparte's will is dominant, and the treaty of Pressburg is signed on the day after Christmas. By that document the Holy Roman Empire dies. Charlemagne is not the only great victor of battles to receive a coronation at Christmas.

It is the year 1066. The Normans have invaded England, and have beaten the Saxons on the bloody field of Hastings. Their duke, William the Conqueror, as fond of prayer as he is of the sword, elects to be crowned with the diadem of England at th ensuing Christmas time; and so, when yuletide comes, a great pageant of Norman barons and soldiers is seen at Winchester. There is feasting and blazing ceremony, and the conqueror receives the royal investiture. j A curious coincidence of Christmas occurs in one of the most celebrated affairs of history, the establishment of parliamentary government in England. We see King John, not celebrating the feast sumptuously with his courtiers and barons, but almost alone. Everywhere there is discontent with his misrule, and the nobles of the land are banded against him. A deputation of barons and prelates appears before him. They demand of him certain guarantees of liberties, the guarantees that are embodied in the Magna Charta. They depart, leaving with him the problem of granting or refusing the charter of British political freedom. He does not want to grant it, but finally, on the field of Runnymede, the Magna Charter is signed.

We go on to Christmas sixty years later. Henry, John's successor, has Violated the provisions of the great charter. The nobles demand that he summon a council of the nation, and force him to it. During the Christmas festivities the King sends the call for the assembly, the gathering of the .first Parliament. .It is not astonishing to find famous

religious rites celebrated on Christmas. Cloyis was baptised at the time of the feast. It was a "mighty ceremony when the King of the heathen Franks led his whole nation into Christianity, and the thousands, led by the monarch, reeeived the waters of baptism. As for marriages at Christmas time, we discover the nuptial ceremonies of Henry 111. and the romantic Eleanor, and those of Jerome Bonaparte and Miss Patterson of Baltimore—the latter a melancholy twain who have been a favourite sentimental theme for the romancers. That Christmas should be a time for dark cruelties is surely not harmonious; yet the history of the bright holiday has its sombre pages. The most celebrated crime at Christmas time was the murder of Thomas a'Beckett. The great Archbishop of Canterbury was at the altar in full canonicals. There had been a bitter controversy between the churchman and the monarch, and the King had cried out with an exclamation that had sent a party of his courtiers on a mission of death. Thus it was that they came upon the archbishop in the midst of the churchly ritual of Christmas. They stabbed him to death, and he fell at the foot of the altar. If assassination has been on Christmas, neither have the horrors of war been absent. It is true that in the active fighting during campaigns has usually been suspended during Christmas time. It is related that but for Christmas Alfred the Great 'would not have been defeated by the Danes in his early and unsuccessful struggles against those invaders of England. He retired his army for the festivities of Christmas, but the pagan Danes fell upon the Saxons thus unprepared, and defeated them utterly. Not all other military leaders, however, have been so piously inclined as the King of the West Saxons. One of the most savage of" fights of the Wars of the Roses, the battle of Wakefield, was fought at Christmas time; and during the Napoleonic wars the latter part of the Marengo campaign saw fierce fighting along the river Mincio on 25th and 26th December, ending with the defeat of the Austrians. Nor is to be overlooked that celebrated Christmas Eve 155 years ago, when Washington crossed the Delaware. The Father of his Country knew how to take advantage of Christmas. The Hessians would be full of Christmas cheer and unprepared for battle; and so he crossed the river that bitterly cold night, and the 5 next day surprised the enemy and drove them from the field. But perhaps the strangest Christmas in the history of warfare was that of 1915, when even the hatred of the World War and the harsh rigours of trench fighting could not overcome the holiday spirit, and the British and Germans in Flanders forgot their enmities, and by tacit understanding observed Christmas in mutual fraternising and feasting. There is no war to-day, and let us hope there will be no assassinations. Treaties will not be signed. There may be a few weddings, though no coronations. All of which is merely an indication that the principal business of the day will be devotions and dining. And surely you are no dyspeptic one to shirk your share of either.