Note 1494 — Chapter XVII · MASKS AND MISRULE

Fuller, Good Thoughts in Worse Times (1646), 193 ‘Some sixty years since, in the University of Cambridge it was solemnly debated betwixt the Heads to debarre young schollers of that liberty allowed them in Christmas, as inconsistent with the Discipline of Students. But some grave Governors mentioned the good use thereof, because thereby, in twelve days, they more discover the dispositions of Scholars than in twelve moneths before’; Hist. of Cambridge (ed. M. Prickett and J. Wright), 301 (s. a. 1610-11), describing a University Sermon by Wm. Ames, Fellow of Christ’s, who ‘had (to use his own expression) the place of a watchman for an hour in the tower of the University; and took occasion to inveigh against the liberty taken at that time, especially in such colleges who had lords of misrule, a pagan relic which (he said) as Polidore Vergil showeth, remaineth only in England.’ W. Ames had, in consequence, to ‘forsake his college.’ Polydore Vergil, de Inventoribus Rerum, v. 2 (transl. Langley, f. 102v), speaks of ‘the Christemass Lordes’ of England.