May the King Be With Us
1660, Week 18
This Tuesday just gone, England saw its first Maypoles erected (publicly, at least) since the Puritan ban of 1644. And what erections they were! Tall, sturdy, bedecked with colourful flags, folk dancing merrily around them with the broadest of smiles… Everyone was getting their poles up for the King!
And no wonder. The Puritan philosophy is that God made us to suffer so that we’ll enjoy nothing more than the eternal hymns to be sung in Heaven. But that same God gave us capacity for joy on Earth, and boy is the best joy to be had when we can get our poles out in public again!
Of course, we didn’t have Maypoles aboard our ships – naval vessels are far too serious for that (although you may not believe it, given the amount of ninepins, music, and wine we’ve enjoyed this week). But we could see the celebrations taking place on the fishing port of Deal, and we soon received letters detailing those from elsewhere.
For me, this May Day had special significance: it is now two years since my stone was extracted by a surgeon via my personal pole. The pain is now thankfully lessened by time, but I am sure I shall never experience the like of it again. Such presses me to enjoy even the tiniest morsel of pleasure available to me.
For the rest of the country, though, this May Day was marked all the more fervently by the imminent return of the King – and the creation of an England unlike any before it. According to the messenger Dunne, Parliament received a letter from the King on May Day itself, in which a sharing of power between the sovereign and the legislature was agreed.
Could there be a more noble arrangement? A country in which all the powers are checked and balanced against each other, all striving to find a common good? And a common good which is all the more likely, with each corner of the government holding great respect and affection for one another?
I am hugely excited for the future of our country arising this week. My one regret is that I couldn’t be celebrating it with my wife at Hyde Park, especially since I also learned from the letters we received that she has taken ill these last few days.
But I couldn’t focus on that regret for long – not when every ship in our fleet marked its pride in the declaration of King and country with pendants loose, guns roaring, caps flying, and loud (if not tuneful) renditions of ‘Vive le Roy’ echoing from one ship to another.
I’m sure I did do some work this week… Well yes, of course! I wrote much the same as that last paragraph in my letter to Doling, which also followed my minute-taking at my first ever Council of War. Ah… I’ve been secretary to a Council of War! What greater sign could there be that England is entering a new period of peace?
As our Parson prayed in our recent service, may the happiness of that peace – and our King – last as long as the Sun and Moon endureth.