Note 369 — THE THIRD VOYAGE NORTH-WARD TO THE KINGDOMES OF CATHAIA and China, in Anno 1596.

Drie Coninghen Avondt—Three Kings’ Even. The fifth of January, as being the eve of the Feast of the Epiphany, is properly “Twelfth Night”. But, in England, the vigils or eves of all feast days between Christmas and the Purification having been abolished at the Reformation (see Wheatley, Rational Illustration of the Book of Common Prayer, Oxford, 1846, p. 165), this season of festivity, thus deprived of its religious character, was transferred to the evening after the feast; so that Twelfth Night was thenceforward kept on the evening of the 6th of January. ↑