These “Lords of Misrule,” and their mock court and royalty, appear to have been only extinguished with the English sovereignty itself, at the time of our republican government.  Edmund Gayton tells a story, to show the strange impressions of strong fancies:  as his work is of great rarity, I shall transcribe the story in his own words, both to give a conclusion to this inquiry, and a specimen of his style of narrating this sort of little things.  “A gentleman was importuned, at a fire-night in the public-hall, to accept the high and mighty place of a mock-emperor, which was duly conferred upon him by seven mock-electors.  At the same time, with much wit and ceremony, the emperor accepted his chair of state, which was placed in the highest table in the hall; and at his instalment all pomp, reverence, and signs of homage were used by the whole company; insomuch that our emperor, having a spice of self-conceit before, was soundly peppered now, for he was instantly metamorphosed into the stateliest, gravest, and commanding soul that ever eye beheld.  Taylor acting Arbaces, or Swanston D’Amboise, were shadows to him:  his pace, his look, his voice, and all his garb, was altered.  Alexander upon his elephant, nay, upon the castle upon that elephant, was not so high; and so close did this imaginary honour stick to his fancy, that for many years he could not shake off this one night’s assumed deportments, until the times came that drove all monarchical imaginations not only out of his head, but every one’s."[137] This mock “emperor” was unquestionably one of these “Lords of Misrule,” or “a Christmas Prince.”  The “public hall” was that of the Temple, or Lincoln’s Inn, or Gray’s Inn.[138] And it was natural enough, when the levelling equality of our theatrical and practical commonwealths-men were come into vogue, that even the shadowy regality of mockery startled them by reviving the recollections of ceremonies and titles, which some might incline, as they afterwards did, seriously to restore.  The “Prince of Christmas” did not, however, attend the Restoration of Charles the Second.

The Saturnalian spirit has not been extinct even in our days.  The Mayor of Garrat, with the mock addresses and burlesque election, was an image of such satirical exhibitions of their superiors, so delightful to the people.[139] France, at the close of Louis the Fourteenth’s reign, first saw her imaginary “Regiment de la Calotte,” which was the terror of the sinners of the day, and the blockheads of all times.  This “regiment of the skull-caps” originated in an officer and a wit, who, suffering from violent headaches, was recommended the use of a skull-cap of lead; and his companions, as great wits, formed themselves into a regiment, to be composed only of persons distinguished by their extravagances in words or in deeds.  They elected a general, they had their arms blazoned, and struck medals, and issued “brevets,” and “lettres patentes,” and granted pensions to certain individuals, stating