Oak Apple Day or Royal Oak Day was a formal public holiday celebrated in England on 29 May to commemorate the restoration of the English monarchy, in May 1660. In some parts of the country the day is still celebrated and has also been known as Shick Shack Day, Oak and Nettle Day or Arbor Tree Day.
In 1660, Parliament declared 29 May a public holiday:
- "Parliament had ordered the 29 of May, the King's birthday, to be for ever kept as a day of thanksgiving for our redemption from tyranny and the King's return to his Government, he entering London that day."
The public holiday, Oak Apple Day, was formally abolished in 1859, but the date retains some significance in local or institutional customs. It is, for example, kept as Founder's Day in the Royal Hospital Chelsea (founded by Charles II in 1681).
Traditional celebrations to commemorate the event often entailed the wearing of oak apples (a type of plant gall, possibly known in some parts of the country as a shick-shack, but see the article on its etymology in the external links) or sprigs of oak leaves, in reference to the occasion after the Battle of Worcester in September 1651, when the future Charles II of England escaped the Roundhead army by hiding in an oak tree near Boscobel House. Anyone who failed to wear a sprig of oak risked being pelted with bird's eggs or thrashed with nettles.
These ceremonies, which have now largely died out, are perhaps continuations of pre-Christian nature worship. The Garland King who rides through the streets of Castleton, Derbyshire, at the head of a procession, completely disguised in a garland of flowers, which is later affixed to a pinnacle on the parish church tower, can have little connection with the Restoration, even though he dresses in Stuart costume. He is perhaps a kind of Jack in the Green and the custom may have transferred from May Day when such celebrations were permitted again after having been banned by the Puritans.
Events still take place at Upton-upon-Severn, Northampton, Aston on Clun in Shropshire, Marsh Gibbon in Buckinghamshire, Great Wishford in Wiltshire when villagers gather wood in Grovely Wood, and Membury in Devon. The day is generally marked by re-enactment activities at Moseley Old Hall, one of the houses where Charles II hid in 1651.
At some Oxford and Cambridge colleges a toast is still drunk to celebrate Oak Apple Day.
Famous quotes containing the words oak, apple and/or day:
“The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The goldenrod is yellow,
The corn is turning brown,
The trees in apple orchards
With fruit are bending down.”
—Helen Hunt Jackson (1830–1885)
“The catastrophe
Buried in the stair carpet stayed there
And never corrupted anybody.
And one day he grew up, and the horizon
Stammered politely. The sky was like muslin.
And still in the old house no one ever answered the bell.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)