Awesome Advent: Day 19

Awesome Advent Day 19: Christmas Kings

Lots of Kings have got into the Christmas spirit throughout the past. Here are 5 facts about some Christmas Kings:

1. Alfred the Great invented the 12 days of Christmas. Alfred’s law said no free Saxon should be made to work between Christmas and the Twelfth Night.
2. King Henry III hated people who made copies of his coins and kept a special punishment for them that was carried out on Christmas Day. They would have their right hand and their naughty bits chopped off-by the Bishop!
3. In Medieval Scotland, on the Twelfth Night, the King gave up his throne and let someone else rule for a day. This was known as Daft Day, and all you had to do was find a bean hidden in the Twelfth Night cake.
4. On Christmas Day in 1454 Henry VI was suddenly cured of his mental illness which he’d had for over a year. His mental illness meant that he would’ve sat in silence like a  statue for hours, lost his memory, didn’t recognise his own family and struggled to move. A happy Christmas for him and his family that year!
5. When George V gave his Christmas speech on the radio, he sat on his favourite chair (not the throne) and it collapsed! He cried out “God bless my soul.”

Not every King was so jolly, though. Good King Wenceslas was quite different to the carol you sing. The truth is…