On St Thomas’s Eve the lawyers of the Inner Temple held a mock parliament to decide whether they would keep a grand Christmas that year. If they would, the officers for the revels were named, and bench and company then passed beneath the hearth singing a carol before going to their drinking. Sandys took the account from the Christmas of the fourth year of Elizabeth, when Robert Dudley was the chief of the revels and Christopher Hatton the master of the game.
A parliament on St Thomas’s Eve at the Inner Temple
20 December · Inner Temple, London
No longer kept
in token of joy and good liking, the bench and company pass beneath the hearth and sing a carol, and so to boyer.
From Sandys's Christmas Carols, p. xxxi. Read the original
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