Royalty has influenced many aspects
of our culture and Christmas is no
exception. The following holiday
traditions at least partially owe their
existence to royalty.

Gingerbread Men

While spiced cookies have been a
mainstay of the Christmas season since
the Middle Ages it took a canny act of
diplomacy to make gingerbread men a
reality.

Queen Elizabeth I held elaborate banquets where there
would be served gingerbread men made to represent her
favoured couriers and foreign dignitaries. Queen Elizabeth
carried out a careful balancing act throughout her reign in
order to avoid being sidelined, attacked, or pinned down. Her
banquets were only part of this strategy and allowed the
Queen to signal who was a rising star and to flatter the
representatives of potentially hostile states.  

The Christmas Tree

While evergreens were an important aspect of Europe's Pagan
and folk religions since ancient times the modern Christmas
tree tradition began in Germany in the 16th century when
devout Christians there started bringing the trees into their
homes and decorating them with candles. There is even a
story that this stemmed from Martin Luther wanting to show
his family the beauty of the stars shining amongst the
evergreens one night while he was outside working on a
sermon.

However, without royal intervention the Christmas tree would
likely have remained an oddity in the Western world. In 1846
a sketch appeared in the London News depicting Queen
Victoria, her German husband Prince Albert, and all their
children standing around a Christmas tree. The popular
Queen was quickly imitated at all levels of society and the
Christmas tree was on its way to being a worldwide tradition. 

Christmas Pudding

Christmas Pudding started off as being partly made of meat
(in much the same way as mincemeat pies did) and was more
of a soup than a pudding. This concoction was called
'frumenty'. It was traditionally eaten before Christmas to get
ready for the season.

By the late 1500s the addition of eggs, breadcrumbs, and fruit
had led to a proper pudding. This is where the story gets a tad
fuzzy. It has been said that the Puritans banned Christmas
during the English Interregnum. What is less clear is whether
or not they tried to stamp out the humble Christmas
pudding. The story continues that after the restoration of the
monarchy the pudding was legalized but didn't regain its full
popularity until the reign of King George I in 1714.

Is any part of this dastardly pudding ban story true? Who
knows! But the linkage of Christmas pudding with royalty has
endured.

Christmas Address

In 1932 King George V was persuaded to give a Christmas
address over the radio by the BBC. It would become an
annual tradition (with a few notable lapses) for the Royal
Family. In the years since the tradition has spread to other
monarchies in Europe. Several republics have also taken up
the tradition with the president typically giving an address at
Christmas or on New Years Eve. 

Turkey Dinner

Maybe I should have had more to eat before starting this
article, I keep coming back to food! It is widely reported
that King Henry VIII was the first english king to dine on
turkey but that it was Edward VII who made it fashionable to
eat the bird at Christmas time. Regardless, turkey remained
​a food for the mainly well-to-do until at least the 1950s. 

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As this will be my last post before the 25th I would like to
wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

Edit: This is only the first part of the Prince's address. I
accidentally posted it before I had copied over the whole
thing. You can read the address in its entirety here while
I slowly transcribe the rest. 

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

​---

Gentlemen of the British Association,

Your kind invitation to me to undertake the office of your
President for the ensuing year could not but startle me on its
first announcement. The high position which science
occupies, the vast number of distinguished men who labour in
her sacred cause, and whose achievements, while spreading
innumerable benefits, justly attract the admiration of mankind, contrasted strongly in my mind with the
consciousness of my own insignificance in this respect. I, a
simple admirer, and would-be student of science, to take the
place of the chief spokesman of the scientific men of the day,
assembled in furtherance of their important objects! - the
thing appeared to me impossible. Yet, on reflection, I came to
the conclusion that, if not as a contributor to, or director of
your labours, I might still be useful to you, useful to science,
by accepting your offer. Remembering that this Association is
a popular Association, not a secret confraternity of men
jealously guarding the mysteries of their profession, but
inviting the uninitiated, the public-at-large, to join them,
having as one of its objects to break down those imaginary
and hurtful barriers which exist between men of science and
so-called men of practice - I felt that I could, from the 
peculiar position in which Providence has placed me in this
country, appear as the representative of that large public,
which profits by and admires your exertions, but is unable
actively to join in them; that my election was an act of
humility on your part, which to reject would have looked like
false humility, that is like pride, on mine. But I reflected
further, and saw in my acceptance the means, of which
necessarily so few are offered to Her Majesty, of testifying to
you, through the instrumentality of her husband, that your
labours are not unappreciated by your Sovereign, and that
she wishes her people to know this as well as yourselves.
Guided by these reflections, my choice was speedily made,
for the path of duty lay straight before me.

If these, however, are the motives which have induced me to
accept your flattering offer of the presidency, a request on my
part is hardly necessary that you will receive my efforts to 
fulfill its duties with kind indulgence.

If it were possible for anything to make me still more aware
how much I stand in need of this indulgence, it is the
recollection of the person whom I have to succeed as your
​President - a man of whom this country is justly proud, and
whose name stands among the foremost of the Naturalists in
Europe for his patience in investigation, conscientiousness in
observation, boldness of imagination, and acuteness in
reasoning. You have no doubt listened with pleasure to his
parting address, and I beg to thank him for the flattering
manner in which he has alluded to me in it.

​The Association meets for the first time today in these regions
and in this ancient and interesting city. The Poet, in his works
of fiction, has to choose, and anxiously to weigh, where to lay
his scene, knowing that, like the Painter, he is thus laying in
the background of his picture, which will give tone and colour
to the whole. The stern and dry reality of life is governed by
the same laws, and we are here living, feeling, and thinking
under the influence of the local impressions of this northern
seaport. The choice appears to me a good one. The travelling
Philosophers have had to come far, but in approaching the
Highlands of Scotland they meet nature in its wild and
primitive form, and Nature is the object of their studies. The
Geologist will not find many oddities in yonder mountains,
because he will stand there on the bare backbone of the globe;
but the Primary rocks which stand out in their nakedness,
exhibit the grandeur and beauty of their peculiar form, and in
the splendid quarries of this neighbourhood are seen to
peculiar advantage the closeness and hardness of their mass,
and their inexhaustible supply for the use of man, made
available by the application of new mechanical powers. 

Today Canada enjoys the advantages of being a constitutional monarchy with a monarch who is above the partisan politics of the day. It was not always like this and for centuries monarchs had been heavily involved in political concerns. The transition from a partisan, executive monarchy to a non-partisan, ceremonial one is a long complicated series of events. However, one man certainly helped cement this change: Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Born in 1819 in the Saxon duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld he would marry his first cousin, Queen Victoria, at the age of twenty. Prince Albert was not initially popular with the British public but after an assassination attempt on him and the Queen he was praised in the newspapers for his courage & calmness under fire. His reputation began to improve.

Prince Albert was not made a peer (due to his initial unpopularity) but insisted he did not want to be made one. Indeed he would eventually refine a model of 'soft power' and moral suasion for the Royal Family. While Prince Albert found the position of consort to be constraining early on he eventually realized it was an opportunity to define the position in wider terms. He took on several public roles within the first few months of his marriage including the presidency of the Society for the Extinction of Slavery. Early on he would also express his support for eliminating child labour, improved schooling, and freer trade. He also found various ways to help his queen carry out her duties including assisting with government paperwork and modernizing the royal finances. The revenues from the Duchy of Cornwall would steadily increase under his watch. 

A champion of science he was the committee chairman of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations of 1851. The famed 'Chrystal Palace' was built to hold the exhibition. The entire event was a great success selling over 6 million tickets in five and a half months. It realized a profit of £186,000 which was used to help purchase land in South Kensington where the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum stand today.

Before Queen Victoria's marriage in 1840 she had supported the Whigs and even blocked a Tory Prime Minister (although given the circumstances I would have too). After her marriage it is suggested Prince Albert advised her to be less partisan in her dealing with Parliament. This may be why only one member of the Royal Family was identified with a political party during this time. Indeed, by the end of Queen Victoria's reign the principle that the monarch 'reigns but does not rule' was firmly established. That is not to say Prince Albert, or the Queen, thought the Royal Family shouldn't have a strong voice, as demonstrated above.

Before and after Prince Albert's untimely death at the age of 42 many places were named after him. Albert County (NB), Prince Albert (SK), and the Victoria & Albert Mountains (NU) are just some of the more prominent places named for him in Canada. The province of Alberta is not, however, instead being named for his daughter Princess Louise Caroline Alberta.

Prince Albert was an example of a royal that could have a prominent role in the nation without governing it and created the template future members of the Royal Family would follow. His early death prevented him from fully realizing this new model for the Royal Family and one wonders what he would have accomplished had he been able to. It is an interesting question to consider. 

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour