'Or
G>
n
i
-n
g
^lOS-ANGElfr.>
S J -
S^ ^
3NVSOV^
IRENE, E
ANDREWS
HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS.
THE
HISTORY OF COURT POOLS.
DR. DO RAN.
AUTHOR OF 'TABLE TRAITS,' 'HABITS AND MRN,' 'LIFE OF YOUNG, THE PORT,
'QUKRNS OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER,' 'KNIUHTS AND TTTKIR DATS,'
' MONARCHS RETIRED 1'ROM BCStXKf-S,' ETC.
LONDON :
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
in ritnarg to
1858.
PBINTKD BY
JOHN BDWAKD TAYLOR, LITTLE QUEBN STRKKT,
LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS.
Stack
Annex
TO
HEPORTH DIXON,
THIS FRIENDLY HOMAGE
THE AUTHOR.
2055987
CONTENTS.
FA6H
THE FOOL, OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY 1
THE FOOL BY RIGHT OF OFFICE 41
THE FEMALE FOOLS 62
THE OBIENTAL " NOODLE " 68
ENGLISH MINSTREL AND JESTER '84
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS, FROM THE REIGN OF EDMUND IRONSIDE 99
THE COURT FOOLS OF FRANCE 239
JESTERS IN THE NORTHERN COURTS OF EUROPE ....'. 300
THE SPANISH JESTERS 316
THE FOOLS OF THE IMPERIAL AND MINOR COURTS OF GERMANY 322
THE JESTERS OF ITALY 352
JESTERS IN PRIESTS' HOUSES 368
PRINCES WHO HAVE BEEN THEIR OWN FOOLS 380
THE
THE FOOL,-OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY.
IK the days of old, it happened that all Olympus was dull,
and Zeus complained, yawning the while, that there was
not a fool amongst the gods, with wit enough to keep the
divine assembly alive, or to kill the members of it with
laughter.
" Father," said Mercury, " the sport that is lacking here,
may be found for us all, on earth. Look at that broad tract
of lend between the Peneus and Aliacmon. It is all alive
with folks in their holiday gear, enjoying the sunshine, eat-
ing sweet melons, singing till they are hoarse, and dancing
till they are weary."
" What then ?" asked Jupiter.
" It would be rare sport, oh king of gods and men, to
scatter all these gaily-robed revellers, and by a shower, spoil
their finery."
" Thou hast lived to little purpose in witty companion-
ship, complacent son of Maia," observed the Olympian, " if
that be thy idea of sport. But thy thought is susceptible
of improvement. Let that serene priest, who is fast asleep
by the deserted shrine below, announce that a shower is
B
2 HISTORY OF COUET FOOLS.
indeed about to descend, but that it shall wet none but
fools."
A slight sound of thunder was heard, and the aroused
servant of the gods stood in front of the altar, and made
the requisite announcement to the people. There was a
philosopher close by, leaning against the door-post of his
modest habitation. He no sooner heard that the impend-
ing storm was to wet only the fools, than he first hastily
covered his head, and next hurriedly entered his dwelling-
place and shut himself up in his study. Xot another indi-
vidual prepared to avoid the tempest. Each man waited
to see the fools drenched, and every man there was, in two
minutes, wet to the very skin.
When the sun re-appeared, the philosopher walked out
into the market-place. The thoroughly-soaked idiots, ob-
serving his comfortable condition, hailed the good man with
the epithet of " fool." They pelted him with sticks and
stones, tore his gown, plucked his beard, and loaded him
with foul terms that would have twisted the jaw of Aristo-
phanes.
Bruised, battered, deafened, staggering, the philosopher
nevertheless contrived to keep his wits. " Oh, sagacious
asses!" said he to the roaring crowd, who at once sank into
silence at the compliment paid to their wisdom, " have
patience but for a single minute, and I will prove to you
that I am not such a fool as I look." Bending back his
head, and turning the palms of his hands upwards to the
sky, " Oh wise father," he exclaimed, " of the witty and the
witless, vouchsafe to send down upon me a deluge for my
peculiar and individual use. Wet me to the skin even as
these fools are wet. Constitute me, thereby, as great a fool
as my neighbours ; and enable me, in consequence, a fool, to
live at peace among fools."
At these words, the two assemblies, of idiots below, and
of Olympians above, shook with laughter, at once loud and
THE FOOL, OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY. 3
inextinguishable. Down came the shower prayed for, upon
the person of the philosopher, but peculiar influences were
sent down with it, and the dripping sage rose from his
knees ten times wittier than he was before.
Jupiter's beard was yet wagging with laughter, and merry
tears fell from the eyelids of Juno, whose head lay in fro-
licsome helplessness upon the bosom of her hilarious lord,
when the latter exclaimed, " We have spoiled that good fel-
low's robe, but we will also make his fortune."
" That is already accomplished," remarked Juno. " I
have just breathed into the ear of the chief of the district,
and Tie is now taking the philosopher home with him, to be
at once his diverter and instructor."
At night, as all Olympus looked down into the court of
the prince, near whom, at the banquet, the wise fool lay,
pouring out witty truths as fast as his lips could utter them,
the gods both envied the fun and admired the wisdom.
" That fellow," cried Jupiter, " shall be the founder of a
race. Henceforward each court shall have its fool; and
fools shall be, for many a long day, the preachers and admo-
nishers of kings. Children," he added, to the gods and
goddesses, "let us drink his health !"
The brilliant society thus addressed could neither drink
nor speak, for laughing. " Dear master," said Hebe, as she
took her place behind the monarch of divinities, who looked
at her inquiringly, " they laugh, because you did not say
fools, such as he, should henceforward furnish kings with
funny counsel and comic sermons."
" Let their majesties look to it," answered Jove, " here's
a health to the first of fools !"
In the legend of the original jester, we cannot well pass
over, without some brief illustration, the old, yet ever-young
and especial mirth-maker of the court of Olympus itself,
where Momus reigned, the joker of the gods. Perhaps I
should rather say there he was tolerated, than that there
B'J
4 HISTOEY OF COTJET FOOLS.
he reigned. For there was this difference between the sub-
lime immortals and weaker mortals, that the former could
never take a joke from their court fool without wincing,
while the latter laughed the louder as the wit was sharper ;
for they wisely chose to applaud in such jesting,
" the sportive wit,
Which healed the folly that it deigned to hit."
Not so, the irritable gods, with regard to Momus, who
was, significantly enough, the Son of Night. Momus how-
ever cared nothing for the irritability of his august masters
and mistresses. His ready wit pierced them all in turn ;
and the shafts of his ridicule excited many an absurd roar
of anguish. When Minerva had built the house of which
she was so proud, the Olympian fool at once detected the
error made by the Goddess of Wisdom, and remarked,
" Had I turned house-builder, I would have had a mov-
able mansion."
" Why so, you intellectual ass ?" asked the lady, who was
somewhat rough-tongued, and loved antithesis.
" Because," answered the son of Nox, "I could then get
away from bad neighbourhoods, and the vicinity of foolish
women who consort with owls!"
Venus, clad in her usual attire, and proud in the con-
viction of her faultlessness, passed by Sir Momus, and
turning gracefully in his presence, like Mademoiselle Eosati
before a box-full of her admirers, defied him to detect a
flaw in her unequalled and dazzling form.
Momus clapped his hands to his eyes, half-blinded by the
lustre, and said, " It is true enough, Ourania, you are not
to be looked at without blinking ; but before you executed
that charming pirouette, I heard your foot-fall on the
clouds. Now, a heavy-heeled beauty is not a vessel without
a flaw."
Save Venus herself, there was not a goddess within hear-
ing, who did not laugh more or less loudly, at the fool's
THE FOOL, OP LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY. 5
censure. Vulcan, to draw off attention from the queen of
love, and to gain a compliment for himself, directed the
notice of Momus to the clay figure of a man which he had
just executed. The critic looked at it for a moment, and
turned away with a curl on his lip. " My man," said he,
" should have had a window in his chest. Through such a
lattice, I could have looked in, not only upon his ailments,
but his thoughts."
" My bull here," said Neptune, touching Momus with
his trident, which at will he could extend from his own
watery plain to the topmost point of Olympus, " My bull
here, of which I am the artist, is more perfect than our
limping brother's man."
" The beast would have been more perfect still," cried
Momus, from his cradle in the clouds, " if he had had
eyes nearer his horns. He would strike more surely than
he can now. Leave making bulls, oh son of Ops, to your
children in lerne, though, even their bulls shall be as
laughable as your own."
In this way the Fool of the Olympian Court treated with-
out reserve the illustrious company, whom he fearlessly
mocked and censured. They never bore the censure well ;
and, ultimately, they rose and ejected him from Heaven.
With a mask in one hand, and a small carved figure in the
other, he lightly fell to Earth. " You see I come from the
skies," said the crafty fellow to the staring crowds that
gathered round him, " and therefore am worthy of welcome
and worship."
How could the poor people know that he had been kicked
out from Olympus ? They raised an altar, hoisted the ce-
lestial' exile above it, danced round it like fools, and went
home shouting, " Vive la Folie!"
To pretend to show the moral of my story, would be to
insult the good sense of my readers.
It is singular that the successor of Momus, as brewer of
6 HISTOBT OF COUET FOOLS.
laughter to the gods, was Vulcan, and that he also was
kicked out from Olympus. On the ninth day of his descent
he came in sight of Lemnos, where the people, without
stopping to think whether they were about to receive a pre-
cious gift or a rejected waif from Heaven, stretched out
their arms to catch him. It is not everything that seems
to come from above, that is divine.
And mark ! Since Momus fell, Folly has never left the
Earth. But Yulcan taught men to labour ; and the founder
of industry, the great doer of a good work, was reconciled
with Heaven. And Olympus did not continue without its
fools, near or afar. The dances of Silenus, the lumbering
grace of Polyphemus, and the coarse jokes of Pan, were
provocatives of the empty laughter of the gods ; and roy-
stering dances, lumbering graces, and coarse jokes became
the stock in trade of fools of later years and of more mortal
mould.
They who will take the trouble to recall the incidents in
the personal history of many of the philosophers of old,
will not fail to perceive that, in many cases, they fulfilled
the duties which were performed, much less efficiently, per-
haps, by the official fools at modern courts. They appear
to have exercised, generally with impunity, a marvellous
license of speech, and to have communicated disagreeable
truths to tyrants who would not have accepted an unplea-
sant inuendo from an ordinary courtier, without rewarding
it with torture or death. This very rudeness of speech, on
the part of many philosophers, to princes who were their
patrons, was the distinguishing feature of the modern jester.
In this respect they were sometimes imitated by the poets,
who occasionally indulged in the criminal folly of making
execrable puns ; so early do we find an illustration of the
remark of Menage, that in all times the court poet was
accounted as being also the court fool. Indeed, we shall
see, under the head of French Jesters, a whole flock of
THE FOOL, OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY. 7
royal poets vying with each other to receive the patent of
King's Fool, on the death of the official who had just de-
parted full of honours and "doubles entendres."
I believe that a volume might be very respectably filled
with illustrations of the identity of philosopher, or poet, and
fool, in the sense of licensed court wit. My readers will
probably be satisfied with a few rather than with a volume-
full of proofs. Thus, it will be remembered that it was
rather a perilous matter to joke with or to convey rough
truths to the mind of the great Alexander. But his fa-
vourite philosopher, the light-hearted Anaxarchus, was able
to do both, with impunity. What a necessary but disagree-
able truth did he impress on his royal master, when the
latter was bleeding from a recently received wound. "Ah!"
exclaimed the philosopher, pointing to the place, "that shows
that, after all, you are only a man, and not a god, as people
call you, and as you would like to believe."
Alexander only smiled at this very sufficient little sermon,
and did not resent what perhaps he considered as amusing
ignorance. It is remarkable, however, that as in less re-
mote days we meet with potentates who could not tolerate
the free-spoken court fool, so in those earlier times we find
"tyranni," who were utterly unable to digest a joke or a
reproach. Now the speech of Anaxarchus was utterly dis-
gusting to the mind and feelings of Nicocreon of Salamis,
who happened to be present when it was uttered. What the
philosopher's especial patron chose to take without discern-
ing offence in it, it was not for Nicocreon to resent ; but he
never forgot or forgave it. Alexander was hardly dead when
Nicocreon contrived to get Anaxarchus into his power, and
he ordered that the philosopher should be pounded to death
in a mortar. "Pound away! pound away!" exclaimed the
heroic fellow, as the iron hammers were reducing him to
pulp, "it's only my body! you cannot pound my soul!"
Nicocreon told him that if he were not more silent and less
8 ^HISTORY OF COUET FOOLS.
saucy, his tongue should be cut out. To show how little
Anaxarchus cared for the threat, he bit hia tongue in two,
and spat the mangled piece into the face of the tyrant.
There, indeed, his wit may be said to have failed him, and
he acted with less presence of mind than the philosopher
Zeno, when the latter was in a precisely similar situation.
When the inventor of dialectics lay nearly bruised to death
under the pestles of the executioners employed by J^earchus,
he called the latter to him as if he had something of import-
ance to communicate. Xearchus bent over the lip of the
mortar to listen, and Zeno. availing himself of his oppor-
tunity and his excellent teeth, bit off the ear of the tyrant
close to his head. Hence "a biting remark, like that of
Zeno," passed into a proverb.
In a later page, it will be seen how the famous jester,
Gonella, had the boldness of speech, but lacked the bold-
ness of soul, of Anaxarchus and Zeno. There was a saying
of Gronella's that very nearly resembles one of Hippias, a
free-spoken philosopher of Elis, who pleasantly made virtue
consist in the entire freedom of man from all and every sort
of dependence upon his fellow-men. Again, in Anaximenes,
not that philosopher who maintained that the stars were
the heads of bright nails driven into the solid concave of
the sky, but the pupil of Diogenes, we find a parallel with
Chicot, the celebrated jester of the French Kings Henry
III., the last Valois, and Henry IV., the first Bourbon.
Both were occasionally engaged in affairs of political im-
portance, and Anaximenes, on one of these occasions, did
capital service to his employers. Lampsacus was being be-
sieged by Alexander. It had nobly resisted ; but, unable to
hold out any longer, the authorities deputed the philosopher
to make terms with the besieger. As soon as the latter
beheld Anaximenes, guessing his errand, he exclaimed, in
a burst of foolish rage, "1 entirely refuse, beforehand, to
grant what you are about to ask." Chicot used to call
THE FOOL, OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY. 9
Henry III. a "simpleton," but Anaximenes only laughed
pleasantly in the face of Alexander, as he said, " May it
please your irresistible godship, the favour then which I
have to ask is, that you will destroy the city of Lampsacus,
enslave the citizens, and ruin their delegate who stands
before you." The conqueror laughed in his turn, and well
rewarded the ready wit of a man who was for some years
attached to his person.
The poets were not less free than the philosophers.
When King Antigonus once caught his favourite B-hodian
poet, Antagoras, cooking fish, he asked the bard whether
Homer condescended to dress meals while he aspired to
register the deeds of Agamemnon. "I cannot say," an-
swered the Ehodian, " but I very strongly believe this, that
the king did not trouble himself as to whether any man in
his army boiled fish or left it alone ! "
The boldness of some of the old poets was quite on a par
with their wit. Their absolute freedom of speech, like that
of their official successors, the fools, was as useful and fear-
less as the modern freedom of the press. There were very
few of the parasites and jesters of Dionysius who would
venture to tell that disagreeable person beneficial truths.
Antiphon, his poet, was an exception. The. monarch once
asked him, "What brass was the best?" and Antiphon
answered, " That of which the statues of Aristogiton and
Harmodius were made." Considering that these were two
patriots who rescued Athens from the tyranny of the
Pisistratidse, the answer was as daring as it was witty.
Dionysius disregarded the wit, and resented the audacity ;
in a sneaking way, however, for he put Antiphon to
death because he refused to praise the writings of the
despot. In one respect, Dionysius was like Cardinal Riche-
lieu, he looked with spiteful feelings on every man who ven-
ture! to doubt his ability for writing tragedies. But in
another sense, the "tyrannus" was superior to the cardinal,
10 HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS.
for he at least wrote his own tragedies, whereas those of
Richelieu were written for him by his buffoon, Boisrobert,
who might well afford to praise them. For a better reason
than that which induced Richelieu to patronize Boisrobert
(who, buffoon as he was, founded the French Academy),
Philadelphus patronized the comic poet Aristonymus, whom
the king made Keeper of the Library at Alexandria, and
who kept the king in good humour by his joyous conversa-
tion. Aristonymus did not forget that he held a double office;
and as the Bards censured as well as commended the be-
haviour of the people, so he scattered eulogy or blame on
the conduct of his patron, according to the latter's deserts.
We shall find, in subsequent pages, instances of kings
going into mourning on the death of their fools, and of the
royal patrons raising tombs to them. In ancient times we
also have instances of a whole people cherishing their poets
quite as fondly as some monarchs did their jesters. I will
only cite the case of Eupolis, that comic poet of Athens,
whose unlicensed wit was so very little to the taste of Alci-
biades, and who ultimately perished in a naval engagement
between the Athenians and the Lacedemonians. His country-
men were so afflicted at losing a man whose wit and poetry
were as new life to them, that they passed a decree whereby
it was ordered that no poet should ever afterwards goto war.
Artaxerxes did not mourn more truly for his witty but
then deceased slave Tiridates, than the Athenians mourned
for Eupolis. But Artaxerxes did not mourn half so long.
He sat weeping, indeed, for three days, but he found con-
solation when Aspasia offered her ivory shoulder to sup-
port his aching head. So Henry II., of France, mourned
for his dead jester Thony, even commissioning Ronsard to
write his epitaph, but forgetting poet, fool, and epitaph in
contemplating the mature beauty of Diana of Poictiers.
Less forgetful of a favourite dead wit was the patron of
the comic poet, Timocreon of Rhodes ; famous alike for his
THE FOOL, OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY. 11
sharp appetite and verses, and for his power of pouring out
wit and pouring in wine. It was a brother wit who would
not venture to praise him, but who contrived to make the
dead jester censure, by celebrating, himself in the apparently
autograph lines,
" Multa bibens, et multa vorans, mala denique dicens
Multis, hie jaceo Timocreon Rhodius."
" Having drunk much, eaten much, and spoken much evil,
here I lie, Timocreon of Rhodes." This heathen jester lived
nearly five centuries before the Christian era ; I might per-
haps, had I aright to act " Censor," suggest that his epitaph
would not be unsuitable over many a serious but defunct
gentleman, born since that era commenced.
Let me rather do justice to the wit and independence of
the old poets, generally. While doing so, I cannot but add
my conviction that the philosophers were, on the whole, more
independent in their jests than the poets. "When Apollo-
nius repaired from Chalcis to Rome, to become the tutor of
Marcus Antoninus, he refused to go to the palace at all, saying
that it was fitter for the pupil to come to the house of the
instructor than for the latter to go to the dwelling of the
pupil. The imperial hint, good-humouredly conveyed, that
he had himself commenced this latter process by repairing
from Chalcis to Rome, could not move him.
It has been usual, and Flogel* has done it, among others,
to rank the elder Aristippus among the ancient court wits.
Inasmuch as that he was the chief flatterer of Dionysius of
Sicily, and loved Epicurean voluptuousness, the founder of
the Cyrenaic sect may be allowed to pass under that title,
but he had little in common with the court jester of more
modern times. He was as different from the latter in some
respects, as he was from Crassus, the grandfather of Crassus
the 1 tich, who according to Pliny was never known to laugh,
not even when his best friend broke his thigh.
* ' Gteschichte der Hof-Narren.'
12 HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS.
It is certain that Dionysius treated his flatterers as later
sovereigns did their official jesters, allowing for the differ-
ence of manners, morals, and customs. The poor jester
whose head was placed on the executioner's block by the
sportive order of the ducal sovereign of Ferrara, proved in-
deed to be even worse off than the parasite Damocles, when
Dionysius seated him on his throne, beneath an unsheathed
sword suspended from a horse-hair.
Again, the freedom which the court fool subsequently
held by right of office, we find fearlessly exercised by the
philosophic Demochares, the Athenian ambassador, who be-
ing asked, by King Philip of Macedonia, to whom he was
sent, what the king could do to most gratify the Athe-
nians, replied, " The most gratifying thing you could do
would be to hang yourself." The courtiers murmured with
indignation, but Philip dismissed the envoy, with the re-
mark, that he hoped the Athenians would perceive he had
more wit than their representative, seeing that he could
take with indifference such a joke as that flung at him by
Demochares.
There are two philosophers whose names now occur to
me, and of whom some erroneous notions appear to be en-
tertained by their posterity ; Heraclitus and Democritus.
We picture them as " Jean qui pleure " and " Jean qui rit,"
looking on the first as made up of groans, and the latter of
gaiety. The fact however is, that Heraclitus, though given,
as any man might be, at any period, who thought of the
matter, to weep over the wickedness of the world, made
that world laugh heartily by his rough answers to the polite
invitations of Darius, who would fain have had him at the
Persian court. Heraclitus and Darius remind me of Brus-
quet and Charles Y. Democritus, too, was a different man
from what he is generally thought to have been. He
laughed, indeed, but it was at the follies of mankind ; and
he did not disdain, like the weeping Ephesian, to figure at
THE TOOL, OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY. 13
the court of Darius. There is one sample of his wit there,
which is better than anything ever uttered by Bertholdo,
the philosophic buffoon at the court of Alboin, King of the
Lombards. Darius was inconsolable for the loss of his
wife, declaring that he was the only man who had ever
known real adversity. " And I will raise the queen from
the dead in a few minutes," said Democritus, "if I only
" " If you only, what ? " impatiently exclaimed Darius,
interrupting him. " If I only can find three individuals who
have passed through life without adversity of some sort, and
whose names I will engrave on the queen's monument."
Darius knew the case was hopeless, and mournfully smiled.
If he had given a small estate to the witty philosopher, the
latter would have deserved it quite as well as the Joculatores
of our first William and John, whose wit or wisdom was
rewarded by raising them to the very pleasant condition of
holders of land.
It is said of some of the German jesters that they occa-
sionally lived on the people of the town, with the lord of
which they resided in exercise of their office. A parallel to
this may be met with in the annals of the philosophers, in
the person of Demonax, who, leaving to his patrons to clothe
and lodge him, boarded himself in a very facetious and eco-
nomical way, by entering the first house, after he felt him-
self hungry, and there fully satisfying his appetite. But De-
monax belonged to a lower class of the order of philosophers,
as some later fools did to that of the general order of their
profession. There was as much difference between Demo-
nax and Socrates, as there was between Sibilot, as described
by Huguenot authors, and our own light and noble-hearted
Will Sommers. The happiest idea one can have of Socrates
is that of seeing him in the studio of his father Sophrouis-
cus, carving that group of the three Graces, the simplicity
aud elegance of which excited universal admiration. He
was ever the same, a rough labourer patiently and cer-
14 HISTORY OF COTTBT FOOLS.
tainly creating beauty. In him we fail to discern anything
of the mere unlicensed jester. The Platonic and the Xeno-
phontic Socrates may be said equally, though in different
ways and measures, to challenge admiration. Leaving the
philosopher, to encounter him again presently, let us look
over antiquity for traces of the fool in people as in indi-
viduals.
Among the ancients, perhaps the Tirynthians had the re-
putation of being the very merriest of fools. Theophrastus is
cited by Athenaeus in proof of this. Those people of Argo-
lis were so continually mem' that they at last got tired of
it, and applied to the oracle at Delphos to save them from
being any longer such joyous simpletons.
" You shall be cured," said the oracular authority. " if
after sacrificing an ox to Neptune, you can throw the car-
case into the sea. without laughing."
"That will be easy enough," said the Tirynthians, laugh-
ing all the while, " if we can only keep children away from
the sacred fire."
Of course, however, an enfant terrible managed to be
present at the show. He was no sooner discovered than
the now solemn Tirynthians began to drive him away, lest
he should laugh or raise laughter during the ceremony, by
some childish remark or question.
"What are you afraid of?" asked the sprightly lad,
"that I should upset the dish" (and he pointed to the sea)
" that is to hold your beef? "
Poor as the joke was, it so tickled the fancy of the Ti-
rynthians. that they laughed till their sides ached ; and so
they remained merry fools for ever. No jester, at a royal
table, was ever so highly esteemed as an uproariously gay
buffoon from this old city of Hercules roystering Tiryn-
thia.
The Tirynthians were never excelled, except by the
people of Phaestum, who, by all other Cretans, were reckoned
THE FOOL, OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY. 15
as the first jesters in the world. In the days of those
merry fellows, it may be observed, that the cleverest of them
had to exercise their vocation on melancholy occasions.
When Petronius Arbiter was committing slow suicide by
alternately opening and closing his veins, nothing excited
him to more laughter than the sharply comic epigrams
uttered by the jokers who stood around him.
Under the cloak of folly, good service has been rendered
by wise men. By feigning want of wit, the elder Brutus
saved himself to save his country ; revenged a wrong, and
converted regal Rome into a republic. We have another
notable instance in the case of Solon, who, when the Athe-
nian law forbade mention of the subject of Salamis, that
island which gave Athens such an infinite world of trouble,
assumed the bearing of one out of his wits, and, in better
verse than a fool could have indited, told truths that led
to great consequences, and exhibited the patriotic cou-
rage and humour of the celebrated sage. Assuredly Solon
was no fool, for he refused to be a king, and he invented
taxation. I will revert for a moment to Aristippus, the lover
of Lais, and the flatterer of Dionysius, the rosy philosopher
who only cared for the present moment, but who had of the
jester only his liberty of speech. Wben thrust into an infe-
rior seat at table, and being asked, if he liked it as well as
his higher place of the day before: "Ay, truly," said he to
Dionysius ; " for the place I held yesterday, I despise to-
day, since I hold it no longer. I honoured the seat, the seat
did not honour me. So, today's seat, which, yesterday, was
without dignity, because I was not in it, is now dignified by
holding me." The court laughed ; but the wit and the wis-
dom of the speech seem to be of the very mildest nature.
That the ancients carried their idea of " fooling" too far,
may be seen in the fact that, as Sir Thomas Brown observes,
" some drew provocatives of mirth from anatomies, and
jugglers showed tricks with skeletons." It was not any
16 HISTORY OP COUET FOOLS.
reverend gentleman or philosopher who improved the occa-
sion of Egyptian feasts, by showing a model mummy, but a
light-hearted slave who exhibited the ivory effigy to the
garlanded guests with, " Behold what we must all come to ! "
Antiquity went further than this in its patronage of the
fool. In the funeral train, followed the arch-mime lately
retained by the deceased patrician; and it was this good
fellow's business to keep the mourners merry, by imitations
of the speech, gesture, and manners of the deceased himself.
Of this custom, the author last-named rightly says, that " it
was too light for such solemnities, contradicting their fune-
ral orations and doleful rites of the grave." The mourners
must have been sadly in want of the extract of Cachunde or
Liberans, which was once a famous and highly magnified
composition, used in the East Indies, to drive away melan-
choly.
How highly mirth was accounted of, even in grave sport,
is proved by one fact, that Lycurgus raised an image of
Laughter, and caused it to be worshipped as a God. He
loved, he said, to see people merry at feasts and assemblies.
Of the professional wit, we find a trace in a curious cus-
tom of Roman gentlemen. When these discovered that
learning and wit began to be in more general estimation
than arms or wealth, the clever fellows among them got on
well enough, and setting their minds to discipline, became
the favoured guests at the most brilliant parties. The dull
millionaires were rather nettled at this, but they fell upon
an exquisite plan" to be on an equality with their sparkling
rivals. They had neither wit nor learning themselves, but
they purchased slaves, and especially Greek slaves, who pos-
sessed both. Had they to attend an assembly where philo-
sophy was most in fashion, they took with them their ;aore
learned bondsmen ; but was the evening expected to be
mirthful, then the stolid owners ordered the slaves witli
comic dispositions and merry turns of thought and expres-
THE EOOL, OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY. 17
sion, to accompany them. These delightful fellows were
ever welcome, and when their sallies produced explosions
of laughter and applause, their masters stroked their beards
complacently, and assumed a modest composure, as if they
had said all the good things uttered by their serfs.
Like the fools of later ages, these jesters were the more
acceptable, because they helped mortal man to kill Time.
When society was without books, it learned what it could
and amused itself as it might, by the help of philosophers,
minstrels, or jesters. Printing, indeed, killed neither mirth,
music, nor philosophy ; but the decline of the profession of
the hired fool certainly began at the period of the discovery
of printing.
I might find opportunity here of saying something touch-
ing the office of the parasite, as a jester ; but I have treated
that subject at such length, in my " Table Traits," that I
will rather refer my readers to that little volume than repeat
what is said in it, here. I may notice, however, in addition,
that the old classical, professional jesters, in Athens, had the
privilege of entering any company, without invitation
P.lautus, therefore, calls them " Flies.'" The parasite was of
this profession, and there was not much civility vouchsafed
towards him, if he was of the class that did not wait to be
invited. The host would rudely order him to play the fool
for the amusement of the company ; to whom he narrated
all the jokes he could remember, and when his memory ran
dry, he would ignobly descendto read them from manuscripts.
Maitre Gruillaume, a fool at the court of Henri IV., did
much the same. The parasite was interested personally, as
well as pecuniarily, in amusing his hearers, for if he failed
to do so, they had no hesitation in rising, kicking his seat
from under him, raining blows upon his body, breaking the
dishes upon his head, and, fixing a rope, or collar, round his
neck, flinging him headlong into the street.
Xenophon, in his account of the banquet at the marine
c
18 HISTOBT OF COURT TOOLS.
villa of Callias, affords us an excellent idea of the person and
merits of the professional buffoon. The name of the latter
is Philip. This fool by vocation, when all the gentlemen
are at supper, knocks at the door, and with a rollicking sort
of impudence, says to the servant who opens it, " Here we
are ! the gentlemen need not deliberate about letting me in
to supper. I am provided with everything necessary for
doing so. for nothing. My bay horse is tired with carrying
nothing in his stomach, and I am quite as weary with
running about to see how I can best fill my own." And
then forcing his way in, he raises a laugh, by exclaiming
" Gentlemen, you all know me and my professional privi-
lege. But I have come uninvited, chiefly because I have r.n
aversion from ceremony, and a disinclination to put you to
the trouble of a formal invitation."
Callias remarks, ""We must not refuse him his dish;"
and the host then welcomes the jester, by bidding him take
place ; for serious conversation has made the guests dull,
and they will be glad of an opportunity to indulge in
laughter.
Philip cut a thousand jokes without being able to tickle
his hearers into laughter ; and it was only when he affected
to be broken-hearted and about to die with shame at his ill-
success or their dulness, that they promised to try and find
something risible in his professional mirth. And this must
have been a very sorry joke indeed.
The best, perhaps the only tolerable scintillation of wit
struck out by the "laughter-maker," is to be found, after
the circus-girl who accompanies the Syracusan showman
has leaped through the hoop in which knives are planted
with every point towards the passing leaper. Philip has
then a fling at an Athenian alderman who belonged to
the Peace-party of his day : " Ah ! " he exclaims, " what
pleasure should I enjoy to see Pisander, that grave coun-
sellor, taking lessons from this girl ; he that is ready to
THE FOOL, OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY. 19
swoon away at the sight of a lance, and says it is a bar-
barous cruel custom to go to war and kill men ! " This is
not extremely lively, but it is at least as good a joke as
when he says to Socrates, on the assertion of the philo-
sopher that he intended to dance : " Well, I believe your
thighs and shoulders are of the same weight ; and that if
you put the one into one scale, and the other into another,
just as the constable weighs bread in the market-place, you
will not be in danger of being forfeited, so justly poised will
be the respective weights." And, therewith, the buffoon
expresses a desire to dance with Socrates, and begins awk-
wardly imitating the previous graceful dancing of the girl,
raising peals of mirth from the little company of nobles and
sages, and ending, heated and panting, with a sly look to-
wards the slaves standing in grim repose before the board
on which was placed the wine. With a sly remark, he
wishes they were like coachmen, who are the more prized
for being quick in their driving and dexterous in turning.
This remark, of course, sets the wine-bearers rapidly moving
towards Philip and among the company generally.
This professional fool, it is to be observed, is proud of his
profession. "I suppose you value yourself," says Lycon,
" on your power to make men laugh ?"
" Ay, truly," answers Philip ; "and have 1 not better
reason for being proud of this, than the finical Callipides of
piquing himself at making men weep at his tragic verses in
the theatre ? Proud of my trade ! " he subsequently ex-
claims, " oh, oh, I should think so ; for see you, when people
are in the way of good fortune, they invite me to their
houses ; but when misfortune or misery falls upon them,
they carefully avoid meeting me." Nicerates is struck by
the remark, for he is one of those men whose friends, ruined
by their extravagance, expect him to extricate them from
their difficulties. He sighs, when he compares his own
condition with that of the fool, whose vocation at this re-
c 2
20 HISTORY OF COURT TOOLS.
nowned banquet terminates by a taste of his craft, when he
approvingly winks to the Syracusan, and. after his fashion,
says Amen to that lucky showman's prayer, soliciting the
gods to send plenty of everything, wherever he came, save
of judgment and good sense.
This is his last joke, for Socrates grows weary of him and
of his chattering. " But it is not proper," says Philip, a
little nettled, " that we should be silent at a feast.''
" Very true," replies the philosophic son of a statuary
and a midwife, " but it is also true that it is better to be
silent than say what it were more profitable to leave un-
said." And this very strong hint extinguishes the jester.
It is impossible to read the graphic sketch by Xenophon,
taking it as a faithful account of an actual scene, without
feeling wonder that an intellectual party, like the one de-
picted, should need, or should tolerate, such aids to enjoy-
ment as those professed to be afforded by the buffoon and
the mountebank with his pretty dancing-girl and ballet
company. The wit and the wisdom are all on the side of
the gentlemen, and of Socrates in particular, who, to do him
justice, is quite as merry as he is wise. His wit sparkles
throughout the banquet, and perhaps a hecatomb of witty
fools would never have bethought themselves of giving a
description so graceful, so touching, and so true, of the rich
uses and the vast abuses of wine, as Socrates does at this
very party. Nor is stately Xenophon himself without his
joke, as though moved by the fact of his dealing here with
jesters. " When the little ballet of ' Bacchus and Ariadne '
was played out," says the author, " the company found it so
natural in its pantomime, that they became convinced of
what had not previously entered their minds, namely that
the youth and girl who had represented the chief characters
were actually in love with one another. This," adds Xeno-
phon. " caused the guests who were married, and some who
were not, to mount their horses forthwith, and ride full
THE FOOL, OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY. 21
speed to Athens, with the briskest resolutions imaginable."
But while the husbands went home to greet their spouses,
and lovers to pay homage to their respective Lalages, some
stayed behind Socrates was of the number and these
" went a- walking with Lycon, Autolicus, and Callias." But
the fool went not with the philosopher, the nobles, and the
young Autolicus, who had won a prize at the Olympic
Games, and, consequently, we must keep in the company
with which we are bound to journey.
This species of company was not equally pleasant to all
men. AtheuaBus tells us that the Scythian Anacharsis was
once present at a banquet, at which a number of professional
fools did their office so drolly, that every one laughed,
save the Scythian. Presently, a monkey was introduced,
and at this animal's singular tricks, Anacharsis laughed till
the tears ran down his cheeks. As some surprise was ex-
pressed at this, by the company, the Scythian justified him-
self by remarking, " The monkey is comic and risible by
nature, and without effort ; but man is so only by art and
affectation." In a similar sense, Athenseus quotes a passage
from Euripides, in which the poet says : " There are nu-
merous people who study the art of raising laughter by
witty speeches and sparkling repartees. For my part, I
hate these elaborate buffoons ; whose unrestrained tongue
spares not the wise, and whom, indeed, I do not reckon
worthy of being accounted among ' men.' "
In the days of King Philip, the Macedonian, whenever
a man told an extremely witty story, he was pretty sure to
be met with the remark, " Ah, that comes from the Sixty."
It was as much as doubting the originality of the wit.
" The Sixty " was, in fact, a club of wits. They met in
Athens, not at a tavern, but in the temple of Hercules.
We should as soon expect to hear of a convivial body of
wits assembling every Saturday night in " Rowland Hill's
Chapel." They were fellows who had the very highest
22 HISTOBY OF COUET KOOLS.
opinion of their own abilities, for they regularly entered
in a book all the witticisms of the evening. This was,
probably, the very first jest-book ever put together. To
listen to it, when the Secretary took it with him to pri-
vate parties, must have been an antepast of 'Punch.' The
precious book has perished, but Athenaeus has preserved
the names of a few of the members, which, however, are
not worth repeating, though it may be stated, that the
owners had also nicknames ; and one tall, clever, nimble
fellow, Callimedes, was familiarly hailed by his fellow-
clubbists as " the Grasshopper." Philip heard of this
merry, social, witty company, and longing to know more
of them, their sayings and doings, he did not indeed invite
them to his distant court, but he sent them a talent
(nearly 200 sterling), and requested the loan of the last
volume of the transactions of the " Sixty Club." The book
was duly despatched; and perhaps the loan of a volume
was never paid for at so high a rate : the authors thus
played the part of court fools by deputy. Their jokes
were stereotyped, and had a long and merry life of it.
It was useless for any man to fire one off as his own, for
the source was instantly discovered, and the company would
derisively call out, " An Old Sixty !" just as dull retailers
of faded jests are suppressed, in our own day, by the cry
of, "An Old Joe!"
Philip is said to have possessed his own court fool in.
Clisophus. Flogel says, that the latter excited shouts of
laughter by his imitations of his royal master's style, voice,
manner, and even infirmities. But, according to Atheneeus,
Clisophus seems to have been a parasite, who imitated his
patron out of flattery, and did not mimic him in order to
excite risibility. At other courts there were mimics who
played the fool before their sovereign lords, by caricatured
imitations of fencers, singers, and even orators, especially
of their" defects. The most celebrated, perhaps, was Hero-
THE FOOL, OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY. 23
dotus, a burly namesake of the father of history, who kept
the court of Antiochus ever merry by his mimicry, and who
was named, par excellence, Logomimus.
The fools and the philosophers were not always identical,
and they often came in contact, as was to be expected. We
have an instance in the buffoon Satyrion, named by Lucian,
and the grave Alcidamas, who wrote a treatise on death.
The sage could not tolerate the fun and the Egyptian accent
of the ugly and close-cropped fool ; and when the latter
called the man of wisdom a " lap-dog," the philosopher
challenged him to single combat. Some of the guests were
ashamed, and some laughed, to see sciolist and sage heartily
belabouring each other ; but the laughter was universal
when the philosopher, beaten to a mummy, confessed him-
self vanquished, and afterwards stood as mute as a courtesan
in a Greek play.
Socrates (as I have previously remarked) is said, by more
than one writer, ancient and modern, to have united in his
own person the philosopher and the fool. His ugliness,
deformity, and uncouthness, his childish play, his extrava-
gant dancing, his inclination to laugh at everything, all
these and more have been cited as foundations for reckoning
him among the jesters. Zeno, according to Cicero, especially
styled him the " Athenian buffoon," which was probably
meant for a compliment. The best description of him is
that of Alcibiades, in Plato, who says that Socrates resem-
bled the large images of Silenus, which were filled with
little statuettes of the gods. Flogel rejects the picture of
Socrates, represented by Aristophanes in the ' Clouds,' as
" suspicious." But Socrates has nothing of the fool in him
in that play, except that he is represented as proprietor of
the Thinking-Shop, and deriving powers of humbug and
circumlocution, from the clouds. In this play, the recog-
nized freedom of the fool, as regards liberty of speech at the
expense of the audience, is exercised by the characters
24 HISTOBY OF COUB.T FOOLS.
" Just Cause" and " Unjust Cause," as the following sample
will snow :
" Unj. Now, then, tell me : from what class do the law-
yers come ?
" Just. From the blackguards.
" Unj. Very good ! And the public speakers ?
" Just. Oh, from the blackguards, also.
" Unj. And now look ; which class most abounds
among the audience ?
" Just. I am looking.
" Unj. But what do you see ?
" Just. By all the gods, I see more blackguards than
anything else. That fellow, I particularly know ; and him
yonder ; and that blackguard with the long hair."
The above was the true license of the fool, in the profes-
sional use of the term ; and the Athenian blackguards only
laughed to hear themselves thus distinguished.
The above is among the boldest of the personal assaults
made by Aristophanes against the vices or failings of his
countrymen. He claimed the privileges of Comedy, as the
Fool did those of his cap and bells. This he does, especially
in ' The Acharnians,' when Dicaopolis, looking straight at
the audience, says, " Think nothing the worse of me, Athe-
nian gentlemen, if, although I am a beggar, I hazard touch-
ing on your affairs of state, in comic verse ; for even comedy
knows what is proper, and, if you find me sharp, you shall
also find me just." Still nearer did the poet come to the
license of the jester, when, in ' The Knights,' he himself
turns actor as well as author, and so dressed, looked, and
mimicked, without once employing the name of, the great
demagogue whom he was satirizing, that every spectator re-
cognized the well-known Cleon. The same author's attack
on the litigious spirit of the Athenians, in his ' Wasps,' is
another instance of what I am attempting to illustrate. This
is more particularly the case when he makes his characters
THE FOOL, OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY. 25
address themselves immediately to the audience, as may be
supposed to occur in the Parabasis of the last-named piece.
Here the satirist bids the audience to provide themselves
with clearer understandings, if they would enjoy the poets
thoroughly. " Henceforth, good gentlemen," are his words,
" have more love and regard for such of your poets as treat
you to something original. Preserve their sayings, and keep
them in your chests with your apples. If you do this, there
will be a scent of cleverness from your clothes, that shall last
you through a whole year." In his ' Peace,' the finest
touch of satire is not in what is said, but in what is left un-
said ; for the goddess whose name gives a title to the piece,
never once opens her mouth. The licensed jester appears as
broadly in the author's dealings with the gods, whose place
in Heaven is represented as occupied by the Demon of War,
who is engaged in braying the Greek States in a stupendous
mortar. The daring of the author, as exercised in pelting
the gods themselves with jokes, is still more flagrant in ' The
Birds,' where he burlesques the national mythology, in pre-
sence of a people whose jealous fury was just then aroused
by suspicion of a conspiracy existing against the national re-
ligion. That the audience should have tolerated the auda-
city of their favourite jester, is a proof of the power he held
over them. Nevertheless, they were probably more delighted
with his personalities, and they recognized with shouts of
laughter the brace of gallant military gentlemen thus de-
scribed by one of the women in the ' Lysistrata': "By
Jove, I saw a man with long hair, a commander of cavalry,
on horseback, who was pouring into his brazen helmet a lot
of pease-soup, which he had just bought from an old woman.
I saw also a Thracian, with shield and javelin, like Tereus.
He went up to the woman who sold figs, and, frightening
her away with his arms, took up her ripe figs and began
swallowing them." The national satirist is seen again in
the recommendation put in the mouth of the male chorus in
26 HISTOEY Of COUET FOOLS.
the same play, and which is to this effect : " If the Athe-
nians would only follow my advice, their ambassadors should
never go upon their missions, except when drunk. Sobriety
and Common Sense do not go together with us. If, for in-
stance, we send sober legates to Sparta, they only watch
for opportunity to create mischief. If the Spartans speak,
we do not heed them ; if they are silent, we wrongly sus-
pect them. Let our envoys get drunk, and agree in what
they hear, and in the reports they send home." Nor does
Aristophanes spare the women more than the men. How
archly, no doubt, did Mnesilochus look at the audience, when
he uugallantly remarked, in ' The Thesmophoriazusa?,'
" Among all the ladies of the present day, you would seek
in vain to find a Penelope. They are Phaedras, every one of
them." It is not to be supposed that the comic poet ever
offended by his trenchant jests, although a passage delivered
by the chorus, in ' The Ecclesiazusae' (that exquisite satire
against the ideal republics of philosophers, with imprac-
ticable laws), would seem, perhaps, to imply something of
the sort. Turning to the audience, the Chorus remarks,
" I am going to make a little suggestion to you. I wish
the clever among you to be on my side ; for remember how
clever I am myself. They who laugh merrily will prefer
me, I know, because of my own mirthful jesting." This
suggestion sounds as if the dunces and dullards had been
sneering at the satirist for his smartness and sprightliness.
Even if so, he continued to laugh at gods and men. At
both, as in ' Plutus,' where he ridicules the deities for their
many names, by which they hoped to catch a gift under one
appellation, which they lost under another ; and where he
illustrates the irreligiousness of men, by remarking that
nowadays they never enter a temple, except for a purpose
which, it will be recollected, was religiously avoided by the
Essenes on the Sabbath. The last illustration is made in
the very spirit and letter which marked the " Fools" of the
THE FOOL, OP LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY. 27
fifteenth century. They pleaded for such jokes the immuni-
ties of their office, and Aristophanes does something very
like this when he makes Xanthias exclaim, in ' The Frogs,'
" Oh, they are always carrying baggage in comedy !"
Flogel has been too anxious to increase his list of Fools,
by including among them the planus, or impostor. He takes
for a joker, the cheat denounced by Horace in the 17th
of the First Book of his Epistles. That cheat is simply a
street vagabond, who deceives the humane by pretending to
have broken his leg, and who laughs at them when they
have passed on, after giving him relief. Even this sorry
joke he cannot often repeat. Then we have, from Athenaeus,
other comical fellows cited, whose funny things won the
admiration of Greece and Rome, the people of which coun-
tries must have been easily pleased. Among these are
the Alexandrian Matreas, who wrote chapters of a ' Comic
Natural History,' wherein he discussed such questions as,
" Why, when the sun sets at sea, does he not set off swim-
ming?" " Why do the swans never get drunk with what
they imbibe ?" Then we hear of a Cephisodorus, neither
the tragic poet nor the historian, whose stock joke con-
sisted in his running breathless, either from or towards the
city honoured by his residence, and with an air of frantic
terror, informing all whom he passed or encountered, of
some awful calamity. It is hardly possible to imagine that
people laughed more than once, if once, at a sorry fool like
this. Not much more risible was that Pantaleon, who was
wont to address strangers in the street in tirades of bom-
bastic nonsense, utterly meaningless and incomprehensible.
The joke was for the standers-by, who knew Pantaleon, and
enjoyed the astounded look of those whom he addressed.
According to Athenaeus, the last comicality of Pantaleon
was in imposing on his two sons, whom he called separately
to hu side, when dying, and confidentially told each where
he would find a hidden treasure. When they had looked for
28 HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS.
this in vain, they probably understood why their respectable
sire had died laughing. Many of this class of fools can only
be considered as " hoaxers." Such was another Cephiso-
dorus, who disgraced his dignified name by very undignified
tricks, as when he hired a host of hardy day-labourers, and
gave them rendezvous in such a narrow street that, when
all were assembled, it was impossible to move either back-
ward or forward. The " Berners Street Hoax," by Theodore
Hook, was entirely after the fashion of Cephisodorus, and
was not the more excusable on that account.
Forcatulus, a learned writer on law, accepts as true a story,
very like one to be found in Eabelais, and which Flogel
quotes from another accomplished jurist, Accursius. It is a
story in which ignorance is made to pass for wisdom, and is
therefore, although common, yet not quite so excellent a
joke as it would pretend to be ; and is to this effect :
The Romans sent an ambassador to Greece, in order to
procure a copy of the Laws of the twelve Tables. The Greeks
would make no such costly gift till they were satisfied that the
petitioners had men amongst them who could comprehend
the wisdom of the Laws. They despatched an envoy to
look into the matter ; and when the Romans heard of him
and his purpose, they resolved to defeat him by means of a
fool. They clothed the latter in purple, surrounded him
with a guard of honour, and dismissed him to encounter
the accomplished ambassador from Greece, with one single
point of instruction, he was on no account to open his
mouth.
The Athenian commissioner, seeing the representative
of Roman wisdom standing before him, grave and speech-
less, observed, with a smile, " I understand. The gentle-
man is a Pythagorean, and carries on an argument only by
signs. With all my heart!" And, thereupon he raised a
single finger, to imply that there was only one principle of
nature in the universe.
THE FOOL, OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY. 29
The simpleton sent by Home, not dreaming that this was
the opening of a philosophical argunnent, hut looking upon
it rather as a menace, extended two fingers and a thumb
towards the Greek, as if about to take him by the nose.
"Good! very good!" murmured the Athenian. "He
shows me the Pythagorean Trias, the triple God in one.
I must intimate that I understand him ;" and the philo-
sophical envoy approached the stolid Eoman, with the flat
of his hand extended towards him. He intended thereby
to imply that the divine Trias was the upholder of all
things. The Eoman, however, thinking it an approximation
to a box on the ear, drew back a step, lifted his doubled
fist, and awaited the coming of the Greek.
The face of the latter was covered by a radiant smile.
He could only exclaim, " Perfect ! charming ! divine ! The
silent sage tells me that the divine supporter of all things
is in himself All-mighty. Admirably done ! a nation with
such sages must be worthy of laws enacted by the leaders
of civilization."
Now if this story be, as Forcatulus will have it, histo-
rically true, I must add that it has been improved in the
hands of the story-tellers. These, of course, have made it a
Christian disputation, in which the hired fool has but one eye.
The real metaphysician reads in the signs of the simpleton
the whole Christian revelation, but the story is improved by
the fool's own description of the matter. " When I saw him
raise one finger, I thought he mocked me, as having but one
eye ; and I held out two fingers, meaning that my single eye
was as good as his two. But when he, therefore, held out
three fingers, signifying that there were only three eyes be-
tween us, I doubled my fist, to knock him down for his in-
solence."
Among the old class of jesters some writers rank the
Aretalogi, who appear to have been improvisers of merry
or wonderful stories for the amusement of a company, by
30 HISTOBY OF COURT TOOLS.
whom they were invited, or hired. Juvenal says that when
Ulysses, at the table of Alcinous, described the person and
deeds of the cannibal Polyphemus, some of the guests turned
pale, while the narrator, to others seemed only a jester :
" Bisum fortasse quibusdam
Moverat inendax Aretalogusj'
or, as the Jesuit Tarteron translates this passage, " Les
autres painoient de rire, et regardoient Ulysse conime un
diseur de contes faits a plaisir." Some of the guests, in
fact, laughed at Ulysses as they would have done at a
regular romancer.
Again, Suetonius, in the 74th chapter of his Life of Au-
gustus, after describing the pleasant social customs of the
emperor, his agreeable company, and his courteous and
affable manner with them, adds that, to encourage their
mirth and their freedom, " aut acroamata et histriones, aut
etiam triviales ex circo ludios interponebat, ac frequentius
aretalogos." To show the value of this last word, accord-
ing to English writers, I turn to an old translation of Sue-
tonius, published in 1692, and there I find that, " for mirth's
sake, Augustus Avould often have at his table either some
to tell stories, or players, or common Merry Andrews out
of the Circus, but more frequently boast ing pedagogues and
maintainers of paradoxes."
It might easily be concluded that the Aretalogus was
really of the number of professional jesters, were it not that
I find Lampridius quoted by Flogel as including Ulpian in
this class, because he sat at the table of Alexander Severn*,
" ut haberet fabulas literales." But it is almost impossible
to admit of this, for the wise Ulpian was the solemn pre-
sident of the Imperial Council of State, a great lawyer a
great reformer, a moral and a religious man, according to
the light possessed by him. He was, as it seems to me,
rather the Mentor than the Jester of Severus, who was, for
THE FOOL, OF LEQETO) AND ANTIQUITY. 81
a time, the bright example of men, of any and every rank.
The imperial virtues were held to be the result of the teach-
ing and practices of Ulpian. To his frugal table the Em-
peror invited men of learning and virtue, and Ulpian was
invariably of the number. So far, however, was the pro-
found jurisconsult from being a mere jester, that, as we are
told, the pauses in the pleasing and instructive conversa-
tion of himself and fellow-guests " were occasionally en-
livened by the recital of some pleasing composition, which,"
says Gribbon, " supplied the place ofthe dancers, comedians,
and even gladiators, so frequently summoned to the tables
of the rich and luxurious Romans." That there was little
or nothing of the conceited Aretalogus in Ulpian, may be
seen in the fact that his virtue was of too stern a quality,
and that he was slain by the Praetorian guards because he
was more wise than merry.
We next come to the Scurra, a jester, of whom we find
an illustration in ancient comedy. When the witnesses
called by Agorastocles (in the ' Poanulus ' of Plautus) pom-
pously order Collybiscus to walk in their rear, that person-
age remarks,
"Faciunt scurrse quod consuerunt ; pone sese homines locant."
" They act exactly like buffoons, who put every man behind
them;" in which we see something of the ordinarily inso-
lent character of these individuals.
Yet they are themselves said to have been originally the
" followers" in the retinue of great men, and their name,
Scurra, or Seqnura, is derived by some lexicographers from
' sequi,' to follow. Their wit was sharp but polished, and
to be scurrilous, in the olden time, was rather a credit than
a disgrace ; and if the enemies of Cicero called him the
scurra consularis, it was not that they found his sarcasms
coarse, but that they felt them penetrating and fatal.
The Scurrce, however, seem to have sunk to a level with
32 HISTORY OF COrET FOOLS.
the common buffoons, as we collect from the letter of
Pliny to Genitor (1. ix. ep. 17). Pliny's friend had written
to him to express his disgust at a splendid entertainment
where he had been a guest, being marred by the jokes,
antics, and wiles of the professional scurrce, cin&di, and
mwiones. The difference between the first and the last
who belonged to the profession of fools, consisted in this,
the Scurra professed the art of exciting his hearers to risi-
bility by extravagant yet sparkling wit. The Morio worked
more quietly, and as if he joked licentiously by natural dis.
position thereto. It is worthy of observation that Pliny
rather chides his friend. He writes, substantially, in reply,
" Pray smooth your brow. I do not hire such fellows my-
self, but I do not turn up my nose at those who follow a
contrary fashion. There is nothing novel or grateful to me
in the hackneyed gestures of the wanton, the pleasantry
of the jester, or the nonsense of the fool." And the phi-
losopher adds, with great fairness, " You see it is not so
much my judgment as my taste that is against them ;" and,
he says further, " AVhen I have reading, music, or the com-
pany of an actor at my own house, there are some guests
who leave directly, or who, if they stay, look as ' glumpy '
at the diversions I provide, as you did at those which lately
marred your entertainment. The truth is," thus concludes
the philosopher, and it is advice as valuable now as ever,
" we should accept, as well-meant, the diversions provided
for us by others, that they, in their turn, may be indulgent
towards those we provide for them." One thing note-
worthy here is, that the sensible people in Borne did not
really care for the "fool." If the conquest of Scipio Asia-
ticus over Antiochus brought in that sort of entertainment,
the best philosophers (for some stooped to folly) protested
against it by both precept and example.
The Scurra. as I have said, was not in every age a polished
fool. The buffoon at the fair who obtained the applause of
THE TOOL, OF LE&END AND ANTIQUITY. 33
his audience for grunting like a pig, and, as the audience
thought, more like a pig than the animal itself, is called by
Pbaedrus a " Scurra." He probably sank lower in his prac-
tice than any of his class, for he announced that the enter-
tainment he was about to exhibit had never before been
known on any stage. But even the best of the Scurrae seem
to me to justify rather the censure of Genitor than the
praise of Horace. The latter, it will be remembered, on
the famous journey to Brundusium, was present at the
cudgelling of brains between Sarmentus (who had run away
from slavery to set up as a Scurra) and Cicerrus, who was a
well-to-do parasite of his day. Horace asserts that the wit
of these two induced them all to merrily prolong their sup-
per ; and yet all the fun perpetrated was of a dreary cast.
The Scurra joked coarsely on the deformity and infirmity of
the parasite, and the latter retorted by reproaching the
Scurra with his condition of slave, and the puny insignifi-
cance of his body. If Sarmentus was the " delight" of
Cassar Augustus, that monarch was very easily pleased.
Perhaps there was no greater patron of the Scurrae, and
all similar and many more degraded persons, than Sylla.
He wasted his colossal fortune on fools of every description,
some of them monsters of uncleanness. Flogel, when no-
ticing the criminal liberality of Sylla towards the crowds of
debauched followers who occupied his table and house, and
accompanied him abroad, says that for their sakes and
under their influences, he neglected public business. But
the fact is, that Sylla did not lead this disreputable life
until after he had abdicated the dictatorship, and had gone
into his sensual and unhappy retirement at Puteoli.
Antony was not more choice than Sylla in his "jolly
companions," nor in his own conduct. He was often indeed
his own fool, and few great men ever played that character
so thoroughly, but all were not fools and jesters and jug-
glers, whom historians have placed round the table and at
34 HISTOET Ol 1 COURT TOOLS.
the hearth of Antony. Flogel especially errs in classing
among the jugglers retained by the Triumvir the beautiful
Cytheris, or Lycoris, that slave whom the gentle and gallant
G-allus loved, but whose desertion of him for Antony gained
for us the tender eclogue of Virgil.
Juvenal cites with Sarmentus, the name of Galba as a
buffoon or parasite of Augustus, and he does this (Sat. v.)
in order to shame a dissolute friend who saw no harm in
allowing his " loins to grow fat by others' meat." " What !"
exclaims the Satirist, " are you not yet ashamed of your
course of life ? Can you still believe that sovereign happi-
ness consists in living at another man's table, where you
support more insults than were ever heaped on Sarmentus
and Galba at the table of Caesar ? "
Galba was an aristocratic Demonax. He was, moreover,
a short hump-backed fellow, and he seems rather to have
been the cause of wit in others than witty himself. It was
in allusion to his deformity that Augustus remarked, after
Galba had maintained some absurd proposition, " I can tell
you what is right, yet I can't put you straight." It is of
Galba that is told the story of his feigning to go to sleep at
his own table while Maecenas was saying very polite things
to the host's wife ; but when another of the guests at-
tempted to filch something from the board, " Hold there !"
cried Galba, " I am asleep for him, but not for you !"
Martial complains that he himself was less known to his
contemporaries, all witty poet as he was, than Caballus, the
buffoon of Tiberius. This individual is supposed to be the
same with the Claudius Gallus of Suetonius. But Gallus
seems to have been as much of a friend as a man could be, of
an Emperor who was accustomed to behead such of his ac-
quaintances as got the better of him in argument. That
Gallus was hardly a professional fool may be gathered from
the words of Suetonius, according to the quaint translation
of the edition of 1692. " Claudius Gallus, a most notorious
THE FOOL, OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY. 35
old Sir Jolly, who had been formerly branded for his de-
bauches by Augustus, and severely reprimanded by himself
(Tiberius) in the Senate, inviting him (Tiberius) to supper,
he promised to come, on the terms that nothing were omitted
of his usual way of entertainment," which, according to
the context, seems to have been of a terribly licentious
character.
Elogel refers, for an example of the impunity of Court
Tools, in the bold wagging of their tongue at the Courts of
the Roman Emperors, to the remark of a jester to Vespa-
sian. The former had been saying sharp things to all
around him, but, observed the Emperor, " you have ad-
dressed no observation to me." Now Vespasian, whom we
are accustomed to picture to ourselves as a towering per-
sonage of heroic carriage, was a poorly built fellow who
went about in a half-sitting posture, like Mr. Wright in the
part of the retired coachman, whose limbs have stiffened
into the posture which he had preserved through a long
course of years, on the box. The jester joked very inde-
cently on this weakness of the monarch, but I do not think
the sorry humourist was a wit by profession. " Quidam
urbanorum," is the way in which he is described, but this
may mean " one of the men about town," and the old trans-
lation from which I have already made an extract, renders
it " one of the wits of the time." Whichever it be, it seems
to show that the jokers could take great liberties with some
emperors. Other instances prove that some emperors took
deadly vengeance on the jokers.
Commodus Antoninus may be reckoned among those
princes who have been their own fools, and he played the
part rarely ; but it was more in the spirit of insane than
witty folly. His fun, like the club of Hercules, which he
for ever carried on his shoulder, was crushing rather than
exhilarating. Gallienus, who resembled him in many re-
spects, and was as cruel, licentious, depraved, and cold-
D 2
36 HISTOBY OF COURT FOOLS.
hearted, kept a second table for his buffoons ; which they
occupied like regular gentlemen of the Imperial household.
"When this potentate played the fool for his own amuse-
ment, he could be, by caprice at least, less bloodthirsty in
his frolicsomeness than Commodus ; as, for instance, when
he ordered a knave of a jeweller to be flung into the arena,
and let loose upon him not a roaring lion, but a poor
capon. The joke, as poor as the bird, was, of course, re-
ceived with universal applause.
We have some insight afforded us with regard to the
position occupied by the retained jester, in the account of
the strange supper given by ISTasidienus to Maecenas and
others. The guest just named took with him his two " sha-
dows" uninvited. They were expected to contribute to the
hilarity of the feast, and they occupied the same couch with
their patron, the latter reclining between them. Nasidienus
was in the same way supported by his two parasites, one of
whom excited the mirth of the company by swallowing
whole cheesecakes at once, like a clown in a pantomime ;
and the other extolled the dishes generally. These two,
however, drank little or nothing ; they appear to have been
trained to spare their master's wine. The guests and their
parasites observed no such temperance, but tippled freely,
and one of the latter especially kept up the laughter, of the
visitors by mock compliments on the feast, and mock senti-
ment on things, generally.
The Morio, as I have previously observed, was usually a
mis-shapen creature, a sort of monstrous imbecile, heavy
and hideous in body, and childish in mind; a simpleton, whose
naturally foolish remarks contrasted with his strength and
rude shape of body. Ladies in the olden time kept them,
as ladies of a later period kept monkeys, for their amuse-
ment in their own chambers. There was even a market for
them, and at the forum Hforionum, a thoroughly frightful
and foolish animal of this species would fetch about eighty
pounds sterling.
THE TOOL, OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY. 37
Many Emperors, too, bought specimens of these monstro-
sities, a fashion which was only less hideous than the mania
of a later time for china monsters, who exonerated their
stomachs of the liquor required by their mistresses. Helio-
gabalus was a prodigal amateur of the former kind of pro-
perty ; and it has been suggested that an imbecile Morio was
kept by a dull owner, that his own stupidity might seem
wit by comparison.
That a noble Roman maintained slaves whose wit should
entertain himself and his friends, we know from several in-
stances. The same slaves were also employed to lighten the
last hours, and to render death easy to their masters, if
they could. Nay, it must be confessed that it seems they
sometimes succeeded. "Witness the case of Petronius Ar-
biter, that magnificent Consul, who almost renders vice at-
tractive, like Boccaccio, by writing of it in choice and elegant
(yet mournful) phraseology. "When that very superb gen-
tleman was stretched on his death-couch, he might have
remarked, with the Irish squire, that he died in perfect ease
of mind, for he had never denied himself anything. But
Petronius could not die easily without a little stimulant.
He felt himself ennuye, and he sent for his wittiest friends
and his choicest slaves. Of the latter he freed some and
whipped others, and he found a mild pleasure in both. But
the dearest solace of this dying Roman noble was in the
amusing stories and ridiculous epigrams recited to him.
With these he amused his fancy till his jaws suddenly fixed
in a fit of laughter, and the jesters around look down upon
a corpse. Thus died an accomplished Roman gentleman
A.D. 66.
But we are departing from the official fool, of whom it is
said, that, with his place and privileges properly marked in a
household, he was not known in Europe till the period of
the Lower Empire. It is certain that the stern Attila brought
professional jesters, as well as irresistible warriors, with him
38 HISTOBT OF COURT FOOLS.
across the Roman frontiers. When the ambassadors of
Theodosius the Younger were entertained at a banquet by
the Hun, the pomp, gravity, and tremendous drinking were
accompanied by an immoderate amount of foolery. " A
Moorish and a Scythian buffoon," says Gibbon, "succes-
sively excited the mirth of the rude spectators, by their
deformed figure, ridiculous dress, antic gestures, absurd
speeches, and the strange unintelligible confusion of the
Latin, the Gothic, and the Hunnic languages ; and the hall
resounded with loud and licentious peals of laughter. In
the midst of this intemperate riot, Attila alone, without a
change of countenance, maintained his stern and inflexible
gravity." We hear, too, of the presence of a Harlequin at
the state ceremonies of the great barbarian and dignified
chief. It is, however, indisputable that the professional,
though perhaps not exactly the court fool, was known in
Home nearly two hundred years before the period of Attila.
To do honour to the accession of Gallienus (when Valerian
was alive, but a captive in Persia), numbers of Persian pri-
soners were paraded at the festival in Rome. At this festi-
val, certain buffoons, we are told, committed an act of au-
dacity for which the common crowd of spectators had not
courage. They crossed over among the prisoners, and curi-
ously and deliberately scanned the features of every man
there. " Gallienus," as I have noticed in ' Monarchs Retired
from Business,' " expected some mirth, but seeing nothing
come of it, and that the buffoons were retiring with a dis-
consolate look, he asked the meaning of the episode. ' Well,'
said they, with a little hesitation, ' we went over to these
Persians to see if we might discover among them the great
Valerian, your gracious divinity's father.' Gallienus thought
this a very sorry joke indeed. He ordered the buffoons to
be bound together, and to be burnt alive in one batch. It
was a very serious matter to joke with, and it was a mortal
matter to joke against, this Emperor of Rome."
THE FOOL, OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY. 39
We come to a later illustration in the Baron de Beiffen-
burg's book (' Le Lundi,' p. 251), where it is stated that
Theophilus, Emperor of Constantinople, found pleasure in
witnessing the follies of a jester, Danderi, whose spirit of
curiosity led him to the discovery that the Empress Theo-
dora had little images in her oratory to which she prayed.
The fool was not cunning in betraying the secret to the
Iconoclast husband of Theodora. The Empress, more crafty,
persuaded Theophilus that the images were only dolls, for
the amusement of their children. So, at least, says the legend,
which does discredit to the most accomplished of Eastern
Emperors, though he had a hatred for trade, and a love for
gaudy toys and jewellery.
Before leaving this part of my subject, let me notice
another Court appendage from which ancient monarchs drew
incentives to mirth, namely, the Dwarfs. These some-
times rank among the Moriones, and as they formed a por-
tion of the Court household, parents often made dwarfs
of their children, by stunting their growth, in order to
obtain profit by them. The most clever exhibited their
little prowess, in full armour, in mimic fights which some-
times terminated seriously to the combatants, in wounds of
certain gravity. Augustus did not disdain either to con-
verse, or gossip rather, and play at various games with
them ; - or to listen to them chattering and see them playing
with each other. By some writers, this taste of Augustus
is denied, but it may be believed, since of one dwarf, Lucius,
he had a statue sculptured, the eyes of which were of preci-
ous stones. That these little personages sometimes exer-
cised great influence may be seen in a passage of the sixty-
first chapter of the Tiberius (in Suetonius' s " Lives "),
wherein it is said : " A person of Consular dignity, in his
Annals, has this passage, that at a great feast, where he
himself was also present, the question was put suddenly and
loudly to Tiberius by a dwarf, who was standing in waiting
40 HISTOBY OF COURT FOOLS.
near the table among the dirty buffoons ('inter copreas'),
' Why Paconius, who had been condemned for treason, was
still living?' " Suetonius adds indeed that the dwarf was
sent to prison for being impertinent, but also that Tiberius,
thus reminded of the existence of an enemy, sent orders to
the Senate, that speedy care might be taken for his execution.
Domitian was the Emperor who especially delighted in put-
ting arms into the hands of his dwarfs, and setting them to
pink out each other's little lives. From the Court the fa-
shion reached wealthy people generally, and Dio, in his 'His-
tory of Borne,' tells us of these small personages being kept
by Eoman ladies, in whose rooms they ran about all day long,
and perfectly naked. The fashion did not cease till after the
accession of Alexander Severus, who drove from his Court
the whole tribe of dwarfs, male and female, and indeed other
equally unseemly appendages to the household of a grave
and dignified prince. They became matters of attraction to
the mob, and being vulgar, are no more heard of in the
palaces of kings and the mansions of nobles, till a later
period and in highly civilized Christian courts. Let us do
with them as Alexander Severus did, and consider now the
condition of the more modern Court Fool, though in doing
so we may have to look occasionally to a more remote an-
tiquity than that at which I close this Chapter. It will per-
haps be found that kings and their fools must, for a time,
have had a rather pleasant time of it. " He," so ran an old
proverb quoted by Seneca, " he who thinks to achieve every
object that enters his head, must either be a born king or a
born fool." Herein, it is supposed, is intimated the proxi-
mity in degrees of happiness of the respective individuals,
who could neither be called to account for things done nor
for words uttered.
41
THE FOOL BY RIGHT OF OFFICE.
WHEN Erasmus praised Folly, it was only by making Folly
advocate her own cause. After all, her pleading neither re-
commends her cause, nor says much for the wit of the
pleader. Folly, in the abstract, has been denounced alike
by Scripture and ancient heathen sages. " All men are fools,"
was once a received text. Over the text, some have laughed,
some have cried, and upon it, or its equivalent, divines
have preached sermons now mirthful now melancholy. " If
I wish to look at a fool," says Seneca modestly, " I have
not far to go. I have only to look in a mirror." A sharper
saying still was once uttered by Rhodius, a physician of
Marburg, who had adorned the front of his house with full-
length portraits of all the lawyers and doctors in the city,
himself in the centre, and all in the dress of the professional
buffoon. " You have a large number of thorough fools
painted on your walls," once remarked a passer-by. "Ay,
ay," rejoined B,hodius, " but there are still more who pass this
way and look at them." He was something of the opinion of
Schuppius of Hamburg, who used to remark that in this
world, the fools outnumbered the men ; and the Emperor
Maximilian II. delicately expressed a similar sentiment
when he observed that every young fellow must be pulled
by fools' strings, for seven years, and that if, during that
time, he forgot himself for an instant, he had to re-commence
his seven years' service. This potentate distinguished the
dullest of his counsellors by the title of the King of Fools.
On once addressing a prosy adviser by this title, the gen-
tleman neatly enough replied, " I wish, with all my heart, I
42 HISTORY OP COUET FOOLS.
were King of Fools : I should have a glorious kingdom of it,
and your Imperial Majesty would be among my subjects."
The "Fool" was not the exclusive possession of a Sove-
reign King. In course of time, wealthy individuals prided
themselves in their own jesters, as ladies of the last cen-
tury did in their black foot-boys and monkeys. Counts.
Cardinals. Barons, and even Bishops had their professional
makers of mirth. In France the Fou du Boi was an official
title, and Champagne is thought by some to have enjoyed
the monopoly of furnishing his Gallic Majesty with a new
Fou du Boi en titre d' 'office, when the old one died. The
profession, in most Courts, survived the name ; and the office
has been exercised by many gentlemen who, perhaps, little
thought of the duty they were performing. The office has
not seldom been filled, as I have before remarked, by the
Court poet ; and the well-known epigram on Cibber, the
above fact being considered, has a happy application.
The term itself however has often been mis-applied. Thus
Charles the Simple was no fool, but a man of extraordinary
simplicity of mind and feeling. So Homer, when he called
Telemachus, Xi/mos, a fool, or " silly," did not employ it as
a term of reproach, but one of endearment.
The term " fool," " fol," "fou," is said to be of Northern
origin. Every language, however, or nearly so, has an origi-
nal word expressive of the office.
Some French writers deduce the term Fool. that is their
own word Fol or Fou, from the Game of Chess. In the
French game, the pieces which we call Bishops, are called
"Fous;" and in anciently carved sets are represented in the
fool'sdress; hence the say ing of Regnier in his 14th Satire :
" Les Fous sont aui echecs les plus proches des Eois."
Thomas Hyde, in his ' De Ludis Orientalibus,' lib. i. 4, does
away with this derivation by remarking that the chess term
Fou or Fol is derived from the eastern word Phil, an " Ele-
THE FOOL BY EIGHT OF OFFICE. 43
phant ;" he adds that two figures of this animal were always
to be seen on the old boards ; and that they had the oblique
move of our " bishops." This is no doubt true. The line of
Regnier, however, indicates the place of the " Fou," not
only at chess, but at Court -namely, always near the King.
The dignity of the latter, however, was preserved by a
simple arrangement, namely, the ranking as " fool " or of
deranged wit, every one who ventured to utter to his supe-
rior a disagreeable truth. As for a closer connection be-
tween kings and fools, it is marked by Rabelais, who ob-
serves that wearers of crown and sceptre are born under the
same constellation as the wearers of cap and bells.
And this office, it is to be observed, was partly in fashion
as being a good sanitary system ; " Laugh and grow fat " is
a popular saying, with much philosophy therein. " Laugh-
ter," says the Prussian Professor, Hufeland, " is one of the
most important helps to digestion with which we are ac-
quainted ; and the custom in vogue among our ances-
tors, of exciting it by jesters and buffoons, was founded on
true medical principles. Cheerful and joyous companions
are invaluable at meals; obtain such, if possible, for the
nourishment received amid mirth and jollity, is productive
of light and healthy blood."
"Walter Scott, when discussing, in a note to ' Ivanhoe,' the
question whether Negroes were known in England at the
period of that romantic story, cites an instance, whereby he
not only establishes an affirmative, but proves that the pro-
fessional jesters were of value to their patrons in other ways
besides exciting their laughter and improving their digestion .
" John of Rampayne," he tells us, " an excellent juggler
and minstrel" (words implying the professional jester), "un-
dertook to effect the escape of one Andulf de Bracy by pre-
senting himself in disguise at the Court of the King where
he was confined." For this purpose " he stained his hair and
his whole body entirely as black as jet, so that nothing was
44 UISTOET OF COTJB.T FOOLS.
white but his teeth. And succeeded in imposing himself
on the King, as some Ethiopian minstrel. He effected by
stratagem the escape of the prisoner. Negroes therefore
must have been known in England in the dark ages."
When the joyous brotherhood could perform services of this
nature we need not be surprised that prelates as well as
princes entertained them, and that the Council of Paris, in
1212, in vain denounced churchmen who were worldly
enough to maintain fools in their households.
The idea that fools were instituted in order to supply the
wants of a free society is, perhaps, not so strictly true as
that they were gradually allowed to go out of fashion be-
cause their licensed freedom of expression was calculated to
lead to social liberty. At first, a sarcasm from an equal
may have only been considered as an insult ; " yet conver-
sation," says Southey, " wanted its pepper and vinegar and
mustard," and so Fools were allowed to make the seasoning.
When freedom of speech became vulgar (that is, popular or
general), the Fool, as such, began to disappear. The term
is sometimes applied in a singular sense. Thus " Fools'
Pence" was the name given to a tax once levied on the
astrologers of Alexandria, because of the gain of their own
ingenious folly derived from fools.
It is to be observed too that people themselves have been
as sovereigns who possessed their witty fools to teach them
lessons of wisdom. Such servants of the public are to be re-
cognised in Menenius Agrippa, when he taught the rebellious
commons the respective duties of governors and governed,
by repeating to them the apt allegory of " The Belly and
the Members ;" and in Themistocles, when, to the over-taxed
citizens who wished to introduce a new element into the
government, he wittily told, how once a fox entangled in
a bog, was soon covered by flies who sucked nearly half
the blood out of his body. A hedgehog who came near,
politely offered to drive the flies away. "No, no," said the
THE FOOL BY EIGHT OF OFFICE. 45
sly yet suffering fox, " if these be driven away who are well-
nigh glutted, there will coine a new, hungry set, ten times
more greedy and devouring." Another sample we have in
the case of Sertorius, who showed how much wit was better
than strength, by citing the case of two men who were set
to see who could get off the tail of a horse in the shortest .
time. One pulled at the whole tail, and pulled in vain.
The other easily conquered by taking the tail of his horse
and plucking out the hairs, one at a time. There was very
much of this sort of instruction imparted by "fools" to
princes, and by enlightened men to people, when prince and
people equally objected to have their prejudices bruised by
the bitter balsam of advice.
In the courts of princes and the houses of wealthy men
were to be found fools of various sorts, according to the
taste of the lord. Some were coarse, rude, licentious fel-
lows. Others were refined of speech, acute of observation,
quick at repartee, of much learning, and of great memory.
Others again were monstrous deformities, or beasts of stu-
pendous appetite, to contemplate whom was very good mirth
to melancholy lords of evil digestions and twisted minds.
Some princes chose not to be in the fashion at all, and to
keep no retained fool at their Court. Charles Louis, Elec-
toral Prince of the Rhine, was one of these. " How is it,"
asked a friend, "that your serene greatness does. not keep a
court fool ?" "Well, it's easily accounted for," answered
the Prince ; " when I am inclined to laugh, I send for a
couple of professors from college, set them at an argument,
and laugh at their folly."
More than one German prince either feared or despised
the " learned fool." Flogel tells us of one, near whose
castle lived a reverend pastor who, because he knew a little
of the Hebrew grammar, of which no one in the vicinity
knew Aleph from Gimmel, thought himself a prodigy, and
all the rest of the world, asses. He never preached a ser-
46 HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS.
mon without impressing on the bumpkins the advantages
of being acquainted with the Hebrew grammar ; and half
the lords in the country went to hear him as fool-general of
the district. It happened that, on one occasion, the chief
lord went to the church, to stand godfather to the school-
master's child; and as the noble gentleman was a bachelor,
it became the duty of the pastor, according to custom, to
examine him as to his religious principles. We have all
heard of the too-polite English vicar, who, churching a
countess, said, "Lord, save this lady, thy servant;" and of
his equally civil clerk, who, not to be outdone in politeness,
responded, "Who putteth her ladyship's trust in thee !" It
was some such courtesy that was paid by the pastor to his
lord. He would not, as with common peasants, try him in
the Catechism, but inquired, with a sort of dignified fami-
liarity, " Young Sir, may I ask you, what you are ?"
"Certainly," said the noble godfather; "lam a fool!"
" Oh fie !" whispered the pastor ; adding aloud, " I mean,
what is your belief?"
" Well, my belief is that you are as great a fool as I am."
" Oh, nonsense !" exclaimed the pastor, who remembered
his knowledge of the Hebrew grammar ; " that cannot be."
"Ay, but it is so," said the noble catechumen. "The
biggest fools are always the last to acknowledge the fact."
And thereat, all the grand and the common people pre-
sent burst into a loud laugh ; and the courteous godfather
shook them again by the observation, that no fool at Court
was ever half so pleasant a fool, as a fool in a cassock !
The Court, however, would seem to have had the advan-
tage, for there, it was popularly said, were always to be
found two fools, of whom, the Prince treated one just as
he pleased; and the other treated the Prince just as it
pleased him.
Some writer, since Epictetus, who was among the first to
call man the solitary laughing animal, has remarked that
THE FOOL BY BIGHT OF OFFICE. 47
" brutes never make themselves ridiculous ; that is the pe-
culiar prerogative of man. The former, in their strangest
vagaries, act according to nature ; while the latter, in trying
to go beyond her, render themselves contemptible in the
eyes of others, just in proportion as they excel in their
own." Notwithstanding this, the practice of Wit and
Jesting was once no unprofitable profession. The profes-
sion changed, and the practice was modified. Professor
Miller, in his ' Historical View of the English Govern-
ment,' comes to the conclusion that jesters and the lu-
dicrous pastimes of former ages were exploded " by the
higher advances of civilization and refinement," which con-
tributed also, he thinks, " to weaken the propensity to every
species of humorous exhibition." But, he adds, " though
the circumstances and manners of a polished nation are
adverse to the cultivation of humour, they are peculiarly
calculated to promote the circulation and improvement of
wit." The full passage may be found quoted in Sydney
Smith's ' Lectures on Moral Philosophy,' in one of which
he combats the Professor's assertion, by maintaining that
as civilization improves the mind, true humour is better
appreciated under a high than under a low degree of civili-
zation. Idle and illiterate nobles under the latter, could
enjoy the coarse jokes and tumbles of the professional
jester, but idle people who are also intellectual people
" must either be amused or expire with gaping." The
humour that will be acceptable to these civilized yawners
must be, we are told, " of a different complexion from what
would pass current in more barbarous times ; it must be
the humour of the mind^ not the humour of the body. It
must be devoid of every shade of buffoonery and grimace,
and managed with a great degree of delicacy and skill.
Civilization improves the humour, but I can hardly allow
that it diminishes it. I am strongly inclined to think there
will be more humour, more agreeable raillery, and more
48 HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS.
facetious remark displayed between seven and ten o'clock
this evening, in the innumerable dinners which are to be
eaten by civilized people in this vast city, than ten months
could have produced in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth or
Henry VII." This is very high authority, and even to
express a doubt of it may seem justly to expose him who
entertains the doubt, to a charge of presumption. Let the
great men of the respective periods be reckoned, and it
could hardly be proved that the " Table Talk" of the age of
Elizabeth was not as brilliant as that of her cherished suc-
cessor, Victoria. Take, for instance, the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, when "Fools" had not yet disappeared from
Court, and I think it will be conceded that at the Cabinet
or general dinners of such Prime Ministers as Bacon, Bur-
leigh, or Sackville, the company was likely to be as good,
the wit as genial, and the humour as genuine, as at any
of the banquets, Cabinet, general, or "fish dinner" at
Greenwich, which have been presided over by the Victoria
Premiers, Melbourne, Peel, or Eussell, Derby, Aberdeen,
or Palmerston. Then, as for the better taste of our higher
civilization, it is not favourably illustrated in the national
love for Christmas pantomimes, the Fool's portion of which
has neither wit nor decency, but is dull, dreary, and dis-
gusting ; but which seems, nevertheless, to be as generally
venerated by this highly polished nation, as the horrid Bel
and the hideous Dragon were by the elegant Babylonians.
About the middle of the sixteenth century, the favour
which official jesters enjoyed at Court and in noble houses,
far beyond that granted to more worthy men, excited
the disapprobation of many observant commentators. There
was then no better way of amusing an aristocratic company
on a dull evening, in a dreary castle, than by having the
fool into the hall, ana allowing him full license to attack
old and young, married and single, lovers and enemies. Sir
Cockscomb delighted in scandal, and lie sometimes, nay very
THE FOOL BY BIGHT OF OFFICE. 49
often, told stories which made the matrons look down at
the keys hanging from their girdles, the maidens hide their
faces as best they could, and the noble gentlemen laugh
loudly and fling commendations at the jester.
Some of this gentry, on whom their uncultivated betters
depended for amusement, appear to have been a species of
mountebanks, often performing tricks which are only now
accomplished by parti -coloured " artists " in equestrian
circles. The fool who could most wonderfully distort his
body, squint most horribly, turn his face to his back, and
bend himself as if he were made of nothing but one won-
derful series of joints, such a fool was accounted next in
merit to his witty cousin.
And, if the fool pleased everybody, on the other hand, it
was necessary that everybody should please the fool, at
least if he had business that he wished should prosper with
the fool's master. Access to the latter was chiefly to be
had through Sir Knave, a word from whom was often most
effective in bringing about conclusions. The fool often sat
near his patron at table when philosophers stood humbly
in the background, and courtiers laughed servilely at the
jokes, good or bad, made by " Cap-and-bells " at their
expense.
At Courts where several fools were retained, the master of
his company felt as much above his followers as an old Drury
tragedian above a Dunstable actor. He strutted like a pea-
cock, and thought himself an elephant, when he was only an
ass. There was great diversity, however, among them. Or-
dinarily, a clever lord preferred a clever fool, and the dull
lord, who could neither read nor write, found the same sort
of retainer a necessity. Thus the fool of merit, according
to his profession, was the ablest man at Court ; and his
superiors in rank were his inferiors in intellect. As Swift
remarks, " In Comedy, the best actor plays the part of the
droll, while some second rogue is made the hero or fine
E
50 HISTORY OF COUBT FOOLS.
gentleman. So, in this farce of life, wise men pass their
time in mirth, while fools only are serious."
Greatly respected as was the privilege of the fool to speak
the truth on all occasions, whoever might wince under it,
the unrestrained use of such a privilege often brought the
merry speaker in danger of cudgel or dagger. There is a
story of a fool at a continental Court, in early days, who
stirred up all the wrath that could be contained in the
heart of the Lord Chamberlain, by so exact an imitation of
his voice, and so sarcastic a description of his character,
as to excite roars of laughter in every soul in the banquet-
ing room, from the sovereign beneath the dais to the scul-
lion at the door, waiting for the dirty plates. The angry
Chamberlain encountered Sir Fool an hour afterwards, when
he communicated to the latter his intention, at fitting oppor-
tunity, to see if a few inches of his poniard could not stop
the loquacious folly of the other for ever. The merry-andrew
flew to his princely master, and sought protection for his life.
"Be of good heart, merry cock!" said the prince; "if
the Chamberlain dares run his dagger into your throat, his
throat shall be in a halter the day after. I will hang him as
high as Haman."
"Ah, father!" cried the jester, "the day after has but
promise of sorry consolation in it. He may thrust his knife
between my ribs tomorrow ; and couldn't you hang him the
day before ?" *
Some describers of old court manners assure us that there
was often more wise and profitable counsel to be found
under the cap and bella of the jester, than under many a
mantle which hung from the neck of venerable statesmen.
Flogel, on the authority of Don Sylvio di Kosalva, says this
was especially the case in Spain. It appears to have been
also the case in other places, for when a Venetian ambassa-
dor, endeavouring to dissuade Louis XII. from making war
* A similar storv is told of Triboulet.
THE FOOL BY EIGHT OF OFFICE. 51
against Venice, spoke of the wisdom of the Republic, Louis
replied, "J'opposerai un si grand nombre de fous a vos
sages, que toute leur sagesse sera incapable de les resister."
Under another method of expression, Erasmus utters a
similar sentiment. He points out that the wisest men have
been the worst governors of states ; that the greatest ora-
tors were the most easily put out of countenance ; and that
the most able statesmen had fools for their sons. Tully's
son, Marcus, we are told, was a fool, although he was bred
at Athens ; and the children of Socrates had more of their
mother than of their father. Pericles was a great man, but
his two sons were known by the unpleasant appellation of
BAiToju.a/Aai, or " Boobies." A similar name, indeed, used
to be applied to the whole people of Brabant, of whom it
was said, " The older they are, the greater fools they are."
As every fashion has its detractors, so the fashion of fools
could not escape the censure of those who did not care to
be in the mode. The Emperor Henry III., surnamed the
Black, could never comprehend the use of a court fool, a
licensed scoundrel, his Majesty said, who often obtained for
his nonsense rewards that had never properly been show-
ered on the benefactors of mankind. Frederick Barbarossa
had an insurmountable dislike for court fools and proud
courtiers. Nevertheless he had both about him ; and one of
the former, on one occasion, did not hesitate to risk his own
life, in order to save that of his imperial and not over-grate-
ful master. Several other Teutonic potentates shared in
this distaste for the cockscomb wearers, perhaps, because
they could not tolerate unpalatable truths ; and Christian I.
of Denmark once sharply remarked, on a presentation to
him of several court fools, that he was not in want of such
things, and if he were, he had only to give license to his
courtiers, who, to his certain knowledge, were capable of
exhibiting themselves as the greatest fools in Europe.
Fools were free to speak before there was a liberty of the
E 2
52 HISTORY OF COTJBT FOOLS.
press, or even a press at all. But it was Frederick William I.,
King of Prussia, who placed his fools under censorship.
They dared not speak without thinking, which, time out of
mind, has been the privilege of your fool ; and if their wit
oifended against good manners, they ran good chance of a
whipping. It was probably to hold the freedom of the
sprightly corporation in check that Philander von Sittewald
invented and described the Hell of Fools, which he is sup-
posed to have visited. The locality, we are told, was like
the cellar of a palace, which was crowded with Zanies, con-
demned to hear for ever, and to burst with envy at, each
other's jokes. The retribution and the sarcasm are equally
severe. The severity of the former is only inferior to that
developed in another German idea, whereby, in the next
world, all inefficient clergymen are condemned to read all
the bad sermons ever printed in this.
We are not without instances in which the offices of
preacher and fool have been exercised by the same indivi-
dual. In the seventeenth century there was a preacher, named
Schwab, at one of the German Courts, who was as much
skilled in laying a cloth for dinner as in the construction
of his sermons. These were never serious, but they were
sometimes long. When the latter was the case, the not
too pious Prince would interrupt the preacher in full career,
and without waiting for the blessing, would roar aloud,
"John, John, get ye down and lay the cloth!" a com-
mand which met with a joke, by way of benediction, and
instant obedience.
John evidently had not the fool's license of speech, or he
might have improved the occasion. And this reminds me
of a passage and an illustration in Osborn's Letters to his
Son, which have reference to this very subject, and are well
worthy of being quoted. " 'Tis not dutiful," says Osborn,
" nor safe, to drive your prince by a witty answer beyond all
possibility of reply ; it being more excusable to appear rich
THE FOOL BY EIGHT OF OFFICE. 53
than wise at the prejudice of one in superlative power, who
have their ears so continually softened by flattery, as they
easier bear diminutions in their treasure, which they look
upon as below and without them, than in wit, handsomeness,
horsemanship, etc., which their parasites have long made
them believe are inherent in them. This, a carver at court,
formerly in good esteem with King James (I.), found to his
prejudice, who being laughed at by him for saying the Wing
of the Babbit, maintained it as congruous as the Fore Leg of
the Capon, a phrase used in Scotland, and by himself here,
which put the King so out of patience as he never looked
on the gentleman more. The like I have been told of a
bishop who, being reproved for preaching against the papists,
during the treaty with Spain, replied, he could never say
more than his Majesty had writ. ' Go thy way,' quoth the
King, ' and expect thy new translation in Heaven, not from
me,' meaning he would never better his see. This humour
makes these terrestrial gods more auspicious to fools than
those Solomon saith are able to render a reason."
There are instances, too, where the remark of the wit, or
the professional jester, has enlightened while it amused the
monarch. We have such an instance in the case of one of
the Kings of Persia who wished his people to enjoy the
benefits of instruction. Schools were established, and
amongst others, the court fool commenced to learn spelling.
But we are told that at the very commencement of his pro-
gress, at the first junction of syllables and vowels, he opened
the Koran, and pointed out to his Sovereign the passage in
which Mahomet forbids the payment of impost to the kings
of the earth. The fool's vigilance kept the people in ig-
norance and under taxation.
May we not reasonably conclude that there was once con-
siderable dignity attached to the ofiice of fool, seeing that
many ancient families bore the insignia of fools in their
arms ? The chief of these was the family of Briesach, long
54 HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS.
since extinct j and indeed I only know one house now exist-
ing whose crest seems to intimate some connection with the
old jester, or some love of " short, brilliant folly." I allude
to the House of Orford (Walpole). The crest is a male
bust, on whose head is the old official fool's cap, rising from
a coronet. The motto also seems to bear reference to the
circumstance; for Fari qu<s sentias, "Speak what you think,"
was exactly the injunction suited to the court jester.
It must, however, be observed that even the jester, licensed
as he was, could not always do this without watching his
opportunity, and the license at one court was different from
that at another. It was just the same regarding courtiers
and their homage to sovereigns. As Chesterfield reminds
his son, it was respectful to bow to the King of England,
but at that time it was rather a rudeness than otherwise to
bow to the King of France.
And now let us contemplate the outward presence of the
official fool. From the oldest period, the jester is repre-
sented bald, and wise men, monks at least, adopted the
fashion. They shaved their heads, like fools, says Agrippa,
in his discourse on Vanity. The fashion, however, was very
ancient. The Greek Gelatopoios (laughter-maker), the
Mimes, and the Moriones, are never represented otherwise
but bald.
As with the natural, so with the artificial covering of the
head, the fools and the monks followed, or nearly followed,
one mode. The hood attached to the cloak was the cover-
ing for a fool, with an addition signified in a remark of
Erasmus, that the Franciscans only wanted asses' ears and
bells, to look like fools by profession. The Franciscans
would seem to have intended some such profession, for they
called themselves Mundi Moriones, or Fools of the World.
And it was not an unusual thing to meet with highly re-
ligious persons who styled themselves, some, " God's Fools,"
others, " Christ's Fools." Thus, in 1382, Conrad von Quein-
THE FOOL BY BIGHT OF OFFICE. 55
furt, a priest, prays in his epitaph, "Christe, tuum Mimum
salvum facias!" As a jester would address a sovereign to
have mercy on his poor fool, so did Conrad address Christ.
This fashion was adopted by Homagius, in 1609; when that
pious personage called himself, " Fool in the Court of God,"
or " God's Court Fool."
The ass's ears further distinguished our ancient and merry
friend. The Vice in old English plays wore a fool's cap
with ears, a long jacket, and at his side a wooden sword.
Learned men have looked into Greek, and found there the
origin of this word Vice. But, as far as it signifies this
dramatic fool, Flogel's derivation of it, from the old Frank
word Vis (phiz), a face, a mask, may be accepted. Vis-
dase, another old word for fool, is derived by Menage
from " Vis d'dne " (ass-face), and Vizard is a known term
amongst ourselves for the mask or counterfeit representa-
tion, usually comic, of a face.
This derivation seems more satisfactory than that given
by Upton, who tells us that " Old Vice was a droll character
in our old plays, accoutred with a long coat, a cap, a pair of
ass's ears, and a dagger of lath. This buffoon character
was used to make fwn with the devil ; and he had several
trite expressions, as, ' I'll be with you in a trice. Ah, hah,
boy, are you there ? ' etc. ; and this was great entertainment
to the audience, to see their old enemy so belaboured in
effigy. Vice seems to be an abbreviation of Vice-devil, as
Vice-roy, Vice-doge, etc., and therefore called, very pro-
perly, ' The Vice.' He makes very free with his master,
like most other Vice-roys or Prime Ministers, so tha.t he is
the devil's Vice, or Prime Minister. And," adds Mr. Upton,
"this it is which makes him so saucy."
In that dialogue of which Erasmus is the author, called
the 'Franciscani,' Conrad, the monk, asks Pandocheus, " Are
not fools dressed otherwise than wise men?" "Well,"
says Pandocheus, " I do not know which dress would be
most suitable for you; but you only lack long ears and
56 HISTORY OF COUHT FOOLS.
little bells, to look like the fools themselves." " Ay," re-
plied Conrad, " we have not those adornments, and we are
plainly fools as regards the things of this world ; if we are
what we profess to be." " I know nothing about that,"
rejoins Pandocheus : but I do know that there are many
fools, with elongated ears and tinkling bells, who are far
wiser men than they who wear the whole insignia of a
doctor." He even goes so far as to assert, that there were
some who outdid the University philosophers in their lec-
tures, and who, of course, were twenty times as amusing ;
the cockscomb outdoing the doctoral hat.
The cockscomb which surmounted the headpiece of the
fool, is too familiar to require description. Its antiquity
however is undoubted, since Lucian describes, in his ' La-
pithae,' the appearance of a jester with closely-shorn head,
except at the top, where it was left in the form of the
" comb" which decorates the head of the cock.
The fool carried a stick, staff, or club, which, according
to Flogel, was originally nothing more than the plant
(Typha Linnaei) which grows in marshes, and which was
commonly known as the fools' club, or sceptre. It was
afterwards usual to furnish the jester with one made of
leather, something in the shape of Hercules' club, with a
loop to hang it from the arm. It was such an emblem of
bis vocation as this that a fool once received from his lord,
with the command never to give it up except to a greater
fool than himself. Some months after, the donor fell ill,
the doctor visited him frequently, and the latter being
asked on one occasion of his leaving the house, what he
thought of the patient, roughly answered, " He'll be off
soon; he won't stop here long."
The fool heard the words, ran into the stables, and seeing
iin preparation for departure, shook his head as if perplexed.
Tne next day, he heard a similar remark from the doctor,
again looked into the stables, and observing all quiet there,
went up to the chamber of his sick master.
THE FOOL BY RIGHT OF OFFICE. 57
" The doctor," whispered he, " declares that you are going
to leave us. How long will you be away, master mine?
a year?"
" Longer, much longer, merry friend," said the lord.
" So long, that coming back is out of all question."
" But I see no preparation in the stables "
" No, nor elsewhere !" groaned the sick man.
" Then I beg to give you my club," said the jester ; " for
if you are setting out on a journey which you know you
must make, and from which you also know you will never
come back, and all this without getting anything ready for
it, assuredly, master, you are a greater fool than I. But,
perhaps, it is not too late for remedy."
It is said that the poor fool's words touched the rich
man's heart, and that the latter, by prayer, prepared for his
own journey ; and by will provided for the comfort of those
of his kin and household who were to tarry here, till sum-
moned to tread the same inevitable road.
The club and the fool's whip are supposed by some to
have descended from the old wooden sword of the comic
actor. To these two succeeded the slender staff with the
fool's head delicately carved at the top, which remained
one of the signs of his office till the office itself had passed
away. The broad frill was probably not adopted by the fool
until the exaggeration of fashion had rendered it ridiculous.
It still lingers round the necks of Scaramouch, Pierrot, and
others of the family " Stultorum."
Lastly, a fool was only half a fool without his bells. To
show whence this ornament was derived, Mogel has ran-
sacked libraries, and displayed a stupendous amount of
learning to remarkably little purpose ; if that purpose
were, to determine why they were worn by jesters. It is
going to a period more than sufficiently remote, to say, that
golden bells hung from the robe of the Jewish High Priest,
and not for ornament only. They told of his presence ; they
5S HISTORY OF COUET FOOLS.
rang man to thoughts of God ; they rang away all the ill
words that had fallen from human tongues; they repre-
sented the divine shadow ; they warned men of death ;
these and a hundred other significations have been found in
the golden bells of the solemn High Priest.
Further, the Eastern kings, and especially the Persian,
were as famous for the bells they wore as the lady in the
ballad about Banbury Cross. It was but the other day that
the ex-Queen of Oude was received by our own Sovereign
Lady, when the head-dress or crown of the former was re-
markable for its number of jingling ornaments, which
sounded like bells. Christian bishops early adopted this
mode, and for many centuries subsequent to this, the pictures
of some of the greatest personages, male and female, royal
and noble, represent them with bells of fine fashion, attached
to neck-chains, bracelets, or girdle. Knights wore them
on their armour, ladies on their zones ; and people who were
in the very highest of the mode attached them to their
shoes. When this was the custom, the continual jingle at
tournament or ball must have been deafening; and, what
was worse, if cavalier and demoiselle bethought themselves
of taking a quiet walk together beneath the oaks in the
woods, every rustic near was made the confidant of the
pleasant matter, as far as bells could do it. The folly of
this was so patent, that we cannot wonder at fools mount-
ing the bells in their caps.
Indeed, they mounted them not only in their caps, but on
every part of the body. This was especially the case in the
fifteenth century, when the fashion of wearing bells was aban-
doned to the professional merry-men. The mode itself, too,
would seem to have prevailed in the East. As late as the seven-
teenth century, Tartar princes seldom stirred abroad in their
barbaric splendour without a little knot of quaintly-dressed
"Chaouls," or fools, running in front of the gorgeous com-
pany, at whose every step the bells attached to their shoul-
THE FOOL BY EIGHT OF OFFICE. 59
ders, knees, elbows, ankles, etc., jingled merrily. The Chaouls
excited the mirth of their rather moody masters by satirical
songs as they went along. In this latter custom we find a
trace of the old usage of the Roman imperial soldiery who,
at the ovations of Emperors, enjoyed full license of tongue,
and took advantage of the triumph of their lord, to pelt him
in rude songs with sly, rather than censuring, remarks allud-
ing to his known or supposed vices. Suetonius furnishes
us with more than one example of this sort.
As it was said in the olden time that there was no feast
without a Levite, so, at a later period, there was no festival
without a fool. That the latter custom proved a lack of
civilization may perhaps be seen in the fact, that among
savage nations a somewhat similar custom prevails. In its
extreme form we find it among the old Kamtchatkans,
whose gala days were rendered doubly joyous by the per-
formances of the jesters by vocation. One sample however
of the jokes of these gentlemen may suffice. This consists
in harnessing themselves to sledges like dogs ; by their close
imitation of which animal in every respect, they excited
roars of laughter from their not too delicate audience.
The fools who bustled about on the tournament ground
of our knightly forefathers, were less gross in their merri-
ment. They were for ever busy, before, during, and after
the contest. While it was raging, they performed the part
of the ancient Chorus, making sharp remarks on the pro-
ceedings, now full of pity, anon exulting ; and as ready to
help a favourite knight to victory, as to tender succour to
his foe when fallen.
The year 1480 was, in one sense, the very jubilee year of
German fools. It was then that took place the famous
tournament described by Marx Walther, at which were
present not less than fifteen professional fools, in splendid
but grotesque uniform. Two of these were mounted, and
headed the respective companies of opposing knights, play-
60 HISTOKT OF COURT FOOLS.
ing lustily the while on screeching bagpipes. It was their
delight to raise the wildest screaming from these instru-
ments, as the adversaries rushed to the combat. They might
not hope to frighten the knights, but they often succeeded
in frightening the horses ; at which, loudly laughed the
gentle company. Of the remainder of the grotesque chil-
dren of folly, eleven were engaged in racing, leaping,
tumbling, and wildly joking. The remaining two galloped
about the arena, sometimes with young fools, sometimes
young nobles, on their backs. These fought their mock
tournaments ; and as the fools went prancing to the charge
and rolled over one another in the dust, amid volleys of
jokes of every possible description, the spectators conde-
scended to be amused therewith till sterner fighters took
the scene, and the breath which had been wasted in laugh-
ter, was now held in suspense.
While the combat was proceeding, the most restless of
the fools would perhaps try to seek repose with his head
reclining on a tin pot, into which, as he remarked, he had
stuffed a whole sack-full of feathers to render his pillow
softer. When a knight was slain, the fool had at his service
a brief epitaph : " Here you are, gentle Sir, quiet for once
in your lifetime ! " These jokes of the old arena de-
scended to the clowns of the circus ; and manuals of wit
continue to make mention of their sallies.
The descent was natural enough. As noble lords and
ladies patronized fools who figured in the lists, so common
people welcomed them at their village festivals. Some dis-
tricts kept their own fools. There were others who raised
to that distinction any "poor natural" of the locality, out
of whose peculiarities or infirmities it was possible to ex-
tract something to laugh at. In some places, fools were
hired on great occasions, to amuse a company unable to
amuse itself. In the sixteenth century this appears to have
been the case at notable Greek weddings in the Levant.
THE TOOL Bf EIGHT OF OFFICE. 61
Schweigger describes the nuptial feast (at which he was pre-
sent) in 1578, of a patriarchal protonotary with a certain
Irene Moschini, at which all the jollity was produced by a
Jewish fool and other hirelings of the like amusing voca-
tion.
The Jews themselves employed jesters to enliven their
own wedding feasts. This was the case in Silesia as late as
the last century. The company sat gravely enough till the
indispensable jokers and tumblers were introduced, and then
the fun was of the oddest, if not most refined, sort. But
the Silesian Jews were a simple people, unacquainted with
the mendacity and dreariness of wedding-breakfast speeches.
Their fools had full license to abuse truth, but not to be
dreary.
In passing now to the fools of different courts and loca-
lities, I will, by the way, notice a class which may claim
precedence, by right of sex. I therefore proceed to say a
few words of the FEMALE FOOLS.
62
THE FEMALE FOOLS.
I DO not know any earlier instance of a retained female fool
than in the case of the wife of Seneca, who kept in her
house one named Harpaste, and whom the philosopher de-
scribes asfatua, adding that he himself found no pleasure in
such objects ; and (as I have quoted in another page) that
if he found it necessary to take delight in contemplating a
fool, he had not far to go, having only to look in a mirror.
Harpaste may have been retained out of charity, for she
was so witless that, becoming suddenly blind, she was not
conscious of her calamity ; but, remarking how very dark it
was in the house, asked the pa?dagogus to lead her out-of-
doors.
Seneca, it will be remembered, loved folly as little in a
philosopher as in the fool by vocation. " He," observes the
son of the Cordovaner, " who duly considers the business of
life and death, will find that he has little time to spare from
that study. And yet, how we trifle away our hours upon
niceties and cavils ! Will Plato's imaginary ideas make me
an honest man ? . . . A mouse is a syllable, but a syllable
does not eat cheese ; therefore a mouse does not eat cheese ?
Oh, these childish follies ! . . . We are jesting, when we
should help the miserable, ourselves, as well as others."
Jeanne, Queen of Charles I. of France, maintained a
female fool of the name of Artaude du Puy, but of whom
wS know nothing more than that she cost her mistress, or
rather the royal treasury, a considerable sum, for dress.
There is an unpublished autograph letter of Charles, dated
January 3, 1373, an extract from which, printed by the
THE FEMALE FOOLS. 63
author of ' Les Monnaies des EvequesJ etc., shows that the
King orders his treasurers to pay Jean Mandoli, furrier and
citizen of Paris, the sum of 179 gold francs, for certain
gauds and braveries of woman's dress, furnished " to Ar-
taude du Puy, Pole to our dear companion, the Queen."
In 1429, we hear of a moult gracieuse folle (she is so
called by St. Eemy), whose name was Madame d'Or, and
whose wit kept all the noblea laughing at the festival in
honour of the institution of the Golden Fleece, at Bruges,
in 1429. A folle was also attached to the household of
Margaret, the granddaughter of Charles the Bold. Her
position in the household is clearly ascertained by the fact
that, when moving abroad, she followed her mistress in a
chariot, accompanied by the " old ladies in waiting."
In the succeeding century, in the year 1561, we find a
woman, named La Jardiniere, registered as " Fole de la
Hoy ne," attached to the rather gloomy household of the
Queen Dowager, Catherine de Medicis. Catherine seems
to have patronized this sort of official, for in 1568, and for
at least four subsequent years, there was a certain Jacquette,
who held in the Queen's establishment the office of " Plai-
sante de la Eoyne."
As far, however, as witty license of speech went, Cathe-
rine's court ladies not unfrequently excelled the court
fools, male or female. They did not, indeed, let their lightly-
hung tongues ring out at Majesty itself ; but they observed
no such restraint with anybody beneath the rank, even
though the individual might be above the King himself in
power. I may instance, as a case in point, the mighty Car-
dinal of Lorraine, who, despite all his puissance, was often
the butt of the lively ladies of the Court of Catherine de
Medicis and her royal sons. Brantome says of this gay and
intellectual priest, that, when things went well with him, his
arrogance was insufferable ; but that no one could be more
courteous, or more humble, when his projects met with ob-
64 HISTOBY OF COUBT POOLS.
struction. One of the Queen's maids-of-honour, Mdlle. de
la Guyonniere, afterwards Madame de Ligneroles, often car-
ried on a fool's war with the redoubted Cardinal. Whenever
the latter appeared to be meek and polite with this lady,
she, who, according to Brantome's pleasant compendium,
" etoist tres habile fille, belle, honneste, et qui disoit bien le
mot," would, with audacious gaiety, exclaim, " Come, come,
meek Sir, tell us now if you have not met with some check
during the night past ? Confess at once that you have been
humbled, or we will have nothing to say to you ; for, most
assuredly, you have encountered some defeat. So, let us
hear all about it, if you would have us gracious with you."
At a later period, we find another lady whose wit was
wont to give mirth to courtly circles, if not to the French
Court itself. I allude to the sister of that younger De Thou
who was executed, by Richelieu, in 1642, for not revealing
the conspiracy headed by Cinq-Mars, who had trusted the
secret of it with his friend. In after-years, this lady at-
tended the funeral service of the Cardinal, or a service held
for the repose of his ' soul. And there she set the noble
persons present into scarcely suppressed laughter, by ex-
claiming, as she gazed at the coffin where Richelieu lay, or
was supposed to lie, in the words of Martha to Christ,
after the death of Lazarus, " Domine, si fuisses hie, frater
meus non esset mortuus." (" Lord, if thou hadst been here,
my brother had not died.") It was very apt, though a
little profane.
To return to the official female fool, we must go back to
the Court of the father of the King, under whom this lady
lived, namely, the Court of Henri IV. There was there a
Mathurine, who seems to have held the office of Plaisante,
not to the Queen exclusively, but for the benefit and amuse-
ment of the Court generally. Of what quality was the wit of
these plaisantes, some of whom I think were dwarfs, I am
unable to say ; the only certain fact I can tell of them is,
THE FEMALE FOOLS. 65
that they, though not more than the male fools, continued to
wear out the soles of their shoes with great rapidity. The
registers of accounts show an extraordinary consumption
of shoe leather. In the ' Collection de la Chambre des
Comptesj 1 under the year 1319, thirty-two pairs of shoes
are set down as having been supplied at one time to the
Queen's dwarf!
It is said of Mathurine that she employed her wit in
laughing people out of the Huguenot faith into Catholicism.
Mathurine was present in 1594 when Jean Chastel wounded
Henri, in his attempt on that king's life, and she ran great
risk of sharing the fate of the would-be assassin, for the
monarch, aware of her frantic zeal for the Roman Catholic
Church, and that she only looked on Henri as half a Ro-
manist, or believing that she was playing too serious a joke
by right of her office, ordered her under arrest as an accom-
plice. Mathurine, however, proved her innocence, and was
set free. She died previous to the year 1627.
De Tillot quotes two authors who make mention of this
female fool, Mathurine. The first is the anonymous author
of ' La Lunatique,' who, addressing the King's male jester,
"Maitre Guillaume," remarks : "Thou doest well to have
small love for the Reformers. Satan himself looks on them
only with regret ; and for a good reason, seeing that if the
Reformers could have their way, there would soon be an
end of court fools and buffoons. Ah, poor Mathurine, and
you poor fellows, Angouleveut, Maitre Gruillaume, and in-
deed all you other fools, as well without hoods as with,
where would all your pensions be if the Reformers had the
upper hand?"
It is a significant fact, this, of the Reformers being the
opponents of the expensive follies, and their professors, pa-
tronized at Court. Ogive, the second author cited by De
Tillot, speaks also of Mathurine, as a salaried fool, appointed
by the King: " Folle a gages, et appointee du Roi." He
E
66 HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS.
writes, in 1627, saying, "Truly it is a marvellous thing
that noble personages, who have been brought up all their
lives with the parrots and apes of the Louvre, and who do
not less belong to the Court than Math urine did, or the
Queen-Mother's dwarfs do, should not have learnt in their
cabinets to write reasonably."
Thirty- four years after this was written, a Spanish folle ap-
peared at the French Court, and in rather suspicious society ;
that of Don John of Austria, who accompanied the famous
Pimentel to Paris, to negotiate the marriage of Maria The-
resa of Spain with the young Louis XIV. (a marriage which,
as it was to put an end to the war, was more cared for by
Mazarin than a union which might have taken place between
the Cardinal's most clever niece, Marie Mancini, and the
French king). Don John had the impudence to present at
court this woman, whom he called his "Folle." She was
full of fun and wit, and every one sought to excite both.
Louis enjoyed her jokes with wonderful zest. Her name
was Capiton, and no party was thought complete with-
out the presence of the Don's Folle. The cudgelling of
brains between her and Marie Manciui was a gladiatorial
fight. Poor Marie had loved Louis, and Louis was warmly
attached to a woman who had awakened in him the only
good qualities he ever possessed, and who saved him from
being such a mere beast as his successor was. Capiton loved
to provoke Marie, by singing the praises of the Spanish
Infanta, and Marie, sharp-witted, as well as sharply wounded
by these praises of a rival who was to triumph over her, re-
plied by sarcasms that were repeated with intense delight
throughout France. The haughty, eccentric, coarse, and
sensual Don John was proud of his Folle Capitou.
The official female fool survived as late as the year 1722,
when we meet with a certain Kathrin Li?e. She was the
duly-appointed jokeress, if I may so speak, to the Duchess
von Sachseu-Weissenfels-Dahme, who resided in the castle
THE FEMALE FOOLS.
67
of Drehna, and depended upon Kathrin for her mirth. This
is all we know of the last of the line of female jesters.
Before proceeding to sketch an historical outline of our
own English fools, I propose to treat briefly of the Eastern
buffoons. These may fairly claim precedence, on the ground
that in the East the fashion of maintaining household fools
is supposed to have originated, and that it has not yet ex-
pired in that locality. Further, there is, in connection with
barbaric Courts, both in the East and the West, some legen-
dary matter connected with the Fool, of which it may be as
well finally to dispose, prior to dealing with the English
jester as an historical character.
F 2
68
THE ORIENTAL " NOODLE."
As I have just stated, the court or household fool probably
originated in the East. The close of this Chapter will show
that in the East that pleasant or pretentious official still
survives. In a region where aberration of mind is taken to
be a sort of divine inspiration, we need not wonder at find-
ing the professional jester still attached to certain families,
and himself and his vocation treated with a certain degree
of respect.
I have already spoken of the buffoons who could not
move the gravity of their own solemn master Attila ; and we
know that Timour rather kept these people for the amuse-
ment of his guests, than that he experienced any satisfac-
tion himself in the exercise of their craft. They were not
wanting in the Courts of the Caliphs, and the name of
Bahalul conspicuously figures among the cap-and-bell fa-
vourites of Haroon Al-Raschid. It was to him that the
Caliph onoe said, " Fool, give me a list of all the blockheads
in Bagdad." To which Bahalul answered, " That were not
so easy, and would take too long ; but if you want a list of
the wise men, you shall have it in two minutes."
It was in jest that Haroon presented him a document, by
which he was constituted governor of all the bears, wolves,
foxes, apes, and asses, in the Caliphate. " It is too much for
me," said the fool ; " I am not ambitious enough to desire
to rule all your holiness's subjects."
Bahalul one day, finding no one in the throne-room of
the sovereign father of the faithful, seated himself on the
cushions of the priest-monarch. The guards near were
THE OBIENTAL NOODLE. 69
horror-stricken at beholding the jester on the sacred couch
of authority, imitating the manners of Haroon himself ; just
as Chicot, long after, used to mimic those of Henri III.
They speedily dragged him from the throne of cushions, and
began bastinadoing him with such violence that the Caliph,
hearing his cries, entered the hall and demanded the reason
of the outcry. " Uncle," said Bahalul, " I am not scream-
ing on my own account, but on yours. I pity you. I have
only tried royalty for five minutes, and I am already in a
fever with pain inflicted by these fellows. What must you
endure, then, who occupy the same distinguished seat every
day!"
Bahalul seems to have been a dissipated fellow, and the
Caliph enjoined him to marry and live discreetly, loving his
wife, and bringing up his family in honour. The jester so
far obeyed as to go through the nuptial ceremony ; but as he
was conducting his wife to her apartment, the uncourteous
bridegroom suddenly paused, looked as if he were petrified,
and declaring that he had never heard such a tumult in his
life, took to his heels, and did not re-appear for months.
Meanwhile, the deserted bride had procured a divorce, and
then Bahalul made his rentree at Court.
" So !" exclaimed the Caliph, with an inquiring air.
"Ay, ay!" cried the fool, "you would have done as I
The tumult scared me away beyond the hills."
"What tumult?" asked Haroon.
"Why," said Bahalul, " as my wife was entering her room,
there came from her, sounds as of a thousand voices. Amid
them, I could distinguish the cries of 'rent! taxes! doctors!
sons ! daughters ! schooling ! dress ! silks ! satins ! muslins !
drawers! slippers! money! more money! debt! imprison-
ment! and Bahalul has drowned himself in the Caliph's
bath! therewith," added the jester, "terrified at the solemn
warning, and wishing to avoid the profanity of plunging my
person into your brightness's bath, I fled, till the danger
70 HISTOBY OF COURT FOOLS.
was over, and here I am ; owing nothing, and disinclined
to drown myself."
Bahalul, however, was not the most favourite jester of
this Caliph. There is no doubt that the most renowned
of these was Ebn Oaz. We have indeed but one sample of
his quality, but that is excellent. Unfortunately, it is also
well known; but it must not be omitted in this record of the
fraternity. Haroon, it is said, desired to exhibit the best
qualities of the wit in presence of the young Sultana and her
brilliant court ; and he suddenly ordered Ebn Oaz to make
some excuse which should be more offensive than the crime
it was to extenuate. After considerable thought, Oaz slunk
away, and the disappointed spectators were speaking of him
as "incapable," when the Caliph, suddenly starting up from
his seat, with a roar and a look of exquisite anguish, set the
whole court in confusion. The fact was, that Ebn Oaz had
gone behind the curtains of the throne, and, opening them
gently, had given the Caliph so astounding a pinch in the
rear, that he sprang up as if a javelin had pierced him.
Looking on the offender with rage and anguish, he ordered
him to be slain for the treasonable and intolerable assault.
" Stay!" said Oaz to the too-ready officials, who were already
fingering their bow-strings. " Hear my excuse," added he,
turning to the Caliph : " I declare, by way of apology, that
when I pinched your Holiness behind, I thought I was
pinching the Sultana, your wife." Haroon saw at once
that the excuse was worse than the crime, and that he ought
to be delighted ; but he only laughed in a forced way, re-
marking to the Sultana, before he resumed his seat, that he
felt he should not forget the joke for some time to come.
This story has been made wonderful use of, and has been
dished up in a hundred different ways in a hundred different
localities. It belongs, however, originally to the East, as
do so many other of our most ancient and accepted anec-
dotes. I believe that all the facetiae of Hierocles were old
THE OBIENTAL NOODLE. 73
Indian, before they were new Greek stories, and that tL*;
"simpleton" who clung to the anchor when the ship was
sinking, who stood before a. mirror with his eyes closed, to
see how he looked when asleep, who carried about with
him a brick of his house, as a specimen of the building,
who made the experiment of keeping a horse alive without
food, only failing to succeed by the premature death of the
steed ; all these, and some dozens of others like them, had
all drawn laughter from Eastern potentates before they began
to raise a smile in the fairer faces of the Hellenes. But these
stories only amused; and the jester had the prerogative of
being free, as well as the duty of being entertaining.
This freedom of the jester, and the good use to which he
could apply his joke and his license, is exemplified in the
case of the town-fool who entered the hall where Mahmoud
Ghizni was seated in full assembly. Without appearing to
be conscious of the illustrious presence and the august com-
pany, he went prying about into the corners of the hall, as
if in search of some particular object. At length, said he,
"Not one!"
" Not one what ?" roared the Grhiznian.
" Sheep's tail !" said the fool, in a tone of voice which set
every one in a roar of laughter.
" It's no laughing matter," added he ; "I am starving,
and all I ask is a sheep's tail for my dinner."
"Nay!" cried Mahmoud, " thou shalt have one;" and
whispering to an official who stood near, the latter person-
age presently brought in a raw vegetable, which in its shape
somewhat closely resembled the long, heavy, and unctuous
tail of the Eastern sheep. The fool took it without observa-
tion ; and, after thanks to the Prophet for excellent mutton,
he began devouring it. Observing that the monarch smiled,
the jester asked him, with the tail in his mouth, if what he
was doing reminded his Majesty of anything.
" Of what should a sheep's tail in thy mouth remind
7ft HISTORY OF COTTET FOOLS.
16," said Mahmoud, "except of the proverb that 'Ex-
tremes meet '?" The fool was overwhelmed for awhile by
the laughter duly shouted forth by the subordinates at their
great master's joke, but he soon recovered himself, and
when Mahmoud asked him what he thought of his joint, he
answered, " That the thing was eatable enough, but that he
observed that sheep's tails were by no means so fat and
well-flavoured as they had been in the days of his Majesty's
predecessor ; but that, as men were more lean, too, now,
than they used to be, perhaps the fact alluded to was of no
material consequence."
" Thou art not such a fool as thou pretendest to be,"
said the sovereign. " It was but yesterday that one of thy
profession told me of the gratitude the owls felt for me,
because of the many ruined villages in the land ; and now
thou hintest at the misery of the people. Gro thy way,
good fellow, and go thy way with full stomach, and assur-
ance that both evils shall yet be remedied."
In the sixteenth century, when Baber was Emperor of
Hindostan, the merry profession was in favour, but the fur-
nishers of amusement for the monarch comprised others
besides jesters. Thus, at state dinners, as soon as the im-
perial host and his guests took their places, tumblers, rope-
dancers, and jugglers, whom no other country could equal,
exhibited their feats. The highest point of fun was when
the scattering of coin among the performers, excited a
huge uproar. In earlier times, the wordy contests of two
fools used to beguile the half-hour before dinner ; but in
Baber's days, he and similar potentates were wont to be ex-
ceedingly well amused by witnessing a couple of rams but-
ting at each other. It was perhaps as rational for royalty
so to do, as to listen to Ethiopian serenaders chanting har-
monized nonsense.
Some writers have classed the " Mutes" among the pro-
fessional fools of the Eastern courts. This would seem to
THE OBIENTA.L NOODLE. 73
be an error not easily accounted for. The duty of that
official was of a rather severe cast. The fool, however,
was well known among the Turks, and perhaps the most
celebrated was that Nasur ed Deen Chodscha, who was in
the service of the first Bajazet, and who joked to such ex-
cellent effect that he once tickled Timour Leng into such
good humour that the latter paid the fool the high compli-
ment of saving from plunder his native town Jengi-Scheher
(Neapolis) . It was done after this wise :
The inhabitants of the city, hearing of the approach of
the conqueror, prepared to defend themselves with vigour.
Nasur counselled them to do nothing of the sort, but to
trust to him alone, and his mediation with Timour. The
people were doubtful of his success, but they yielded. Be-
fore proceeding to the camp of the besieger, Nasur, who
knew it was useless to approach the great chief without
a present, considered what gift was likely to be most ac-
ceptable. He resolved it should be fruit, but he hesitated
between figs and quinces. " I will consult with my wife,"
said Nasur ed Deen, and he according did so. The lady
advised him to take quinces, as the larger fruit. " Very
good," said Nasur, "that being your opinion, I will take
figs." "When he reached the foot of the throne of Tamer-
lane, he announced himself as the ambassador from the be-
leaguered citizens, and presented, as an offering of their
homage, his trumpery basket of figs. The chief burst into
a rage, and ordered them to be flung at the head of the re-
presentative of the people of Jengi-Scheher. The courtiers
pelted him with right good will ; and each time he was
struck, Nasur, who stood patient and immovable, gently
exclaimed, "Now Allah be praised!" or, " Oh, the Prophet
be thanked!" or, "Oh, admirable! how can I be suffici-
ently grateful ?"
"What dost thou mean, fellow?" asked Timour; "we
pelt you with figs, and you seem to enjoy it ! "
74 HISTOET OF COTJET FOOLS.
" Ay, truly, great Sir," replied Nasur ; " I gratefully enjoy
the consequence of my own wit. My wife counselled me to
bring quinces, but I chose to bring figs ; and well that I did,
for with figs you have only bruised me, but had I brought
quinces, you would have beaten my brains out."
The stern conqueror laughed aloud, and declared that,
for the sake of one fool, he would spare all the asses iu the
city, male and female, them and their property.
"Then," cried Xasur, ' ; the entire population is safe!"
and he ran homewards to communicate the joyful intelli-
gence.
]S"asur, indeed, ranks among the most useful, as well as
the most witty, of his ancient vocation. On one occasion,
Bajazet had condemned many scores of his officers to death,
for some trifling offence, in time of war. " Ay, indeed,"
exclaimed the fool, "hang the knaves! hang them! what
use are they ? kill them for small offences, and rogues will
fear to commit greater! excellent wisdom! Timour is at
hand ; away with them before he comes ! The army can do
without leaders. You take the standard ; I will beat the
drum ; and we will thus meet that troublesome individual at
the head of the forces. "We will see how we can handle the
Tartars, without such knaves as these to help us !" Bajazet
comprehended the implied reproof, and spared the well-
proved and lightly-offending leaders of his host.
On another occasion, Nasur, having succeeded so well
with his figs, acknowledged the clemency of Timour, by pre-
senting him with a few fresh gherkins, for the great war-
rior's supper. The chief ordered him a reward of ten gold
crowns, and Nasur went home rejoiced. When the season
came that other gherkins had grown into cucumbers. Xasur,
expecting commensurate recompense, carried to the resi-
dence of Timour a basket full of the refreshing vegetable.
The door-keeper, however, refused to allow him to pass
until he had agreed to give him half the reward that might
THE ORIENTAL NOODLE. 75
be paid to Nasur by order of the chief. It happened that the
latter was " not i' the vein," and instead of commanding a
recompense of gold crowns, he sentenced the unfortunate
gift-bearer to receive a hundred blows from the stick.
Nasur took fifty patiently ; but then he cried to the un-
pleasant official to hold his hand ; and he explained how the
other half of the acknowledgment belonged to the door-
keeper. Timour swore that the stipulation should be ob-
served, and the remaining half-hundred blows were paid
where they were justly due.
A whole Encyclopaedia might be written of the sayings
and doings of the Eastern " simpletons," alone. My space
is too limited to allow of my doing much more than to offer
a few illustrations ; but, to those who have much curiosity
in the matter, and who may not be disinclined to spend
whole hours with a single class of the Oriental Fools, I re-
commend the well-known book, which contains the birth,
parentage, and education, life, character, and behaviour,
lively sayings, last dying speech and confession of the Groo-
roo Noodle. From that tempting chronicle, I return to
the "Toorke" jester, with the remark that, great as was
his freedom of speech, it was not every witty fellow at
Court who was so licensed. The courtier who ventured to
take a liberty with a Turkish potentate was as uncertain, as
to the effect, as the Roman wits were when bold enough to
joke with the Emperor. Selim, the son of Bajazet, was one
with whom the most favoured of his followers could not with
impunity venture on freedom of speech. When engaged on
his Egyptian expedition, one of his officials the most closely
attached to his person, hazarded the question as to when his
Majesty expected to be at Cairo. " We shall be there,"
said Selim, " when it may please God. As for thy arrival
there, it rather pleases me that thou shalt stay here." And
therewith, on a sign from the Sultan, the unlucky querist
was instantly put to death.
76 HISTOEY OF COUET FOOLS.
Murad the Third, though as savage by nature as Selim,
could take a joke better than his predecessor could a simple
question. There was one thing, however, which he could
not tolerate tobacco ; the use of which he punished with
death. But among the few members of his court was a man
renowned for his wit, and for his power of raising the spirits
of the Sultan, even when these had been depressed by a
three days' fit of drunkenness. Now this court- wit loved
smoking, and was resolved, not only to have his pipe, but to
escape the penalty of death attached to the enjoyment of it.
Accordingly, he caused a deep pit to be dug in his tent, and
when he desired to give himself up to his dearest indulgence,
he would descend into it, sitting there concealed by a sieve-
like construction drawn over the top, and lightly covered
with turf. One evening, Murad became sagacious of the
hookah from afar, and, tracing the offender to the very pit
in which he was quietly smoking, threatened him with in-
stant death. The offender, however, coolly thrusting his
head upward, as he provokingly drew another mouthful of
reeking luxury, exclaimed, " Go to, thou son of a bond-
woman! Thy edicts extend over the earth, certainly; but
they do not extend under it." " Take thy life for thy joke,"
said Murad, laughing and coughing, the first at the jest,
and the second at the odour and vapour, which he detested,
" I only wish thy pipe were as enjoyable as thy wit."
Many samples of this sort I could continue to place be-
fore my readers; but, having regard to the patience of those
who have so often borne patiently with me, I will only trace
the Eastern jester down to modern times. Till after the
commencement of the present century, the courts of the
Hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia were never without
the mirthful official. The latter was usually an Armenian.
Indeed, there were, ordinarily, several at each court. Their
duty was to amuse their lord when he was at table, by every
means in their power, by strange remarks, by droll stories,
THE OBIENTAL NOODLE. 77
or by burlesques more or less extravagant. In processions,
they walked before their masters, and carried long staves
covered with silver bells. Since they fell into disuse, the
Gipsies succeeded to the exercise of one part of their office,
and these are admitted to the palaces of the great, on
particular festivals, to amuse their illustrious hearers with
national and comic songs.
Prom a very early period, the public and private buffoons
of the East seem to have been selected from among the
Armenians. Joinville introduces to us some very sprightly
professionals .of this sort, in his ' History of St. Louis.'
"There came with the Prince," he says, "three minstrels
from Armenia (trois menestriers de la Gran.de Hyrmenie).
They carried three horns, and when they began to perform
on them, you might have taken the sound for that of swans.
They produced the softest melody. . ." He then informs
us how, having fulfilled their office of minstrels, they per-
formed that of buffoons, for the amusement of the illustrious
personages present. " They made three marvellous leaps
(sauts) ; .... a cloth (touaille) being placed beneath their
feet, they threw a somersault upon it, without any spring,
and two of them leaped in this way, head backwards."
The old fashion in the East did not altogether expire till
a very recent period, for we find a jester at the court of the
father of the present Sultan of Turkey. It was said of some
eminent individual, that he had made two centuries illustrious;
and something like it may be said of this oriental jester, who
flourished at the court of Constantinople at the close of the
last, and above a quarter of the present century. In 1836
died Abdi Bey, who, for nearly half a century previous, had
been the favourite jester of successive Sultans. He worked
hard and reaped a large fortune. In the early part of his
career, his masters treated him as a mere brutish buffoon,
on whom they might play any trick. Sometimes they set
him off in a gallop, mounted on a giraffe, or tumbled him
78 HISTOEY OF COURT FOOLS.
headlong into a pond, to the danger of his life. The late
Sultan Mahmoud had no stomach for such sorry jokes, and
Abdi Bey devoted his capacity to keep his patron in good
spirits by amusing him vrith smart sayings and pleasant
stories. He must have been an incomparable fool in his
time, or his masters must have been greater fools than he, for
out of their imperial bounty, he contrived to save 150,000,
which he left to his grateful and deeply -resigned heirs. It
was nearly as much as the late Mr, Greenough made by the
manufacture of lozenges "ten a penny !"
Abdi Bey has been called the last of the household buf-
foons. But this is not the case ; for though the official fool
has disappeared from Court, be is still to be found attached
to families, or heads of families. We even meet with this
rather impudent than merry fellow in the household of
Christian Patriarchs. Only a few years ago, when the Nes-
torian Patriarch was flying, with a large number of his fol-
lowers, from their would-be murderers in the mountains,
they found refuge at Mosul, in the houses of the English
consul and the Rev. Mr. Fletcher. The latter gentleman,
in his ' Notes from Nineveh,' so describes his reverence's
buffoon as to induce us to believe that to have much to do
with him was really " no joke at all." " My new guests,"
he says, " were very orderly in their manners, though wild
in their appearance. Only one decided quarrel broke out
among them during their abode with me ; and this was oc-
casioned by a half-crazy old man who served the Patriarch
in the double capacity of a domestic and buffoon. This
worthy was addicted, like many of his countrymen, to the
vice of intoxication ; and having on one occasion partaken
rather freely of the juice of the grape, he grew riotous, and
addressed a reproachful epithet to one of his companions.
The fiery nature of the mountaineer was excited, and he re-
torted in no complimentary terms. The old buffoon drew
his dagger, and made a rush at his antagonist, who retreated
THE ORIENTAL KOODLE. 79
into an inner apartment and shut the door. Nothing could
equal the rage of old Tohanan at being thus baulked of his
vengeance. Two or three times he burst from those who
were restraining him, and drove his knife into the hard wood
of the door. At length he was quieted, and after sleeping-
off his drunkenness, appeared the next morning with a sober
and abashed countenance." I suppose old Tohanan was
past being amusing, for we are subsequently told, that to
raise the drooping spirits of the Patriarch, an itinerant
Italian juggler w r as hired. At his tricks and witticisms the
pious head of the Nestorian Church forgot the slaughter of
his friends and the devastation of their and his homesteads.
The saintly and sympathetic man laughed till he could
hardly sit upright on his cushions, and only ceased then
because some wonderful stroke of the juggler's art induced
him suddenly to suspect that such marvellous proficiency
was only an inspiration of the devil.
By way of supplement to this Chapter, I will add a few
short illustrations of the jester at other barbarous courts
than those of the East ; and first, of " that beyond the
Atlantic."
When Cortez first visited the court of Montezuma, he
found there various instances of high civilization : among
others, light ladies, strong drinks, court fools, and a spirit
of infidelity against the established church, inspired by an
influence called the " Eational Owl." The Aztec monarch
resembled Heliogabalus in one respect ; " he had a mu-
seum," says Brantz Mayer, in his excellent work, 'Mexico,
Aztec, Spanish, and Kepublican,' "in which, with an oddity
of taste unparalleled in history, there had been collected a
vast number of human monsters, cripples, dwarfs, albinos,
and other freaks and caprices of nature." Bernal Diaz saw
the monarch at dinner, and .among the incidents recorded
80 HISTOET OF COTJHT FOOLS.
by the old Spaniard, is, that, " at different intervals during
the time of dinner, there entered certain Indians, hump-
backed, very deformed and ugly, who played tricks of buf-
foonery ; and others, who they said were jesters." The
fashion of maintaining the latter was followed by the nobles.
"The principal men," says Acoste, quoted by Prescott,
" had also buffoons and jugglers in their service, who amused
them, and astonished the Spaniards by their feats of dexte-
rity and strength."
Montezuma patronized rather the witty buffoons than the
skilful jugglers. " Indeed, he used to say, that more in-
struction was to be gathered from them than from wiser
men, for they dared to tell the truth." Prescott adds in a
note, founded on Clavigero, that " the Aztec mountebanks
had such repute, that Cortez sent two of them to Borne, to
amuse his Holiness, Clement Til." This was only an ex-
change of personages of similar profession, for the European
official house-fool had already been imported into America.
In 1519, at St. Jago, when Velasquez the governor was
beginning to be suspicious of the designs of Cortez to sup-
plant him, the two great men were walking together towards
the port. As they passed on, the fool of the former called
aloud, " Have a care. Master Velasquez, or we shall have to
go a-hunting, some day or other, after this same captain of
ours." "Do you hear what the rogue says?" exclaimed
the Governor to his companion. "Do not heed him," said
Cortez, " he is a saucy knave, and deserves a good whip-
ping." The hint of the fool, however, heightened the sus-
picions of his master ; but how the latter was too slow of
wit and action to profit thereby, is known to all who have
read the graphic pages which tell of the conquest of Mexico.
But neither Aztec nor Spanish monarch rivalled their less
civilized brother of Monomotapa in this peculiar department
of his household. Gallienus alone deserves to be mentioned,
in this respect, with the African potentate, who never stirred
THE OEIENTAL NOODLE. 81
abroad with less than five hundred official fools in his vast
and noisy retinue !
There were, as late as the last century, and there probably
still linger on the Gold Coast, traditions of the mythological
jester of Africa, Nanni, son of the Spider. His busy pa-
rent had spun all the human race from the thread of his
bowels, and found no gratitude from the living produce of
his labours. The Fetis seduced all creation to sin, and the
Spider bethought him how to annoy the Fetis. With what
little material he had left, he spun the last man, and edu-
cated him at his own paternal feet, on the edge of the
domestic web. The tricks the father taught his boy were
long the delight of polished and perspiring African tribes.
Nanni \vas the ebony Owlglas of the land of Ham. He
served the Fetis, but only as Jocrisse did his master, to his
great vexation. Was Nanni commissioned to provide a
chicken for dinner, he knew how, after devouring the bird
himself, to replace bones and skin, and place it before his
employer, the very model of a plump pullet. Was an egg
ordered for breakfast, Nanni first sucked out the contents
through a minute orifice, and filled up the shell with the
finest sand. Nanni, too, was a married man, with number-
l#ss children, and more wives than " that Sardanapalus of
Snobs," Brigham Young. In a time of scarcity, when even
a bean was worth more than its weight in gold, the hungry
wives and offspring of Nanni drove him forth by their im-
portunity, to seek food. He came upon a company of boys
and girls who had been left by their father in charge of a
quantity of beans, to dry and turn them in the air. Nanni
leaped in among them, made them shriek with laughter at
his jokes, and stamp with delight at his dancing. The
latter exercise he concluded by rolling his well-oiled body
among the beans, with which, sticking to him as he rose,
he made off, after bidding the children look at his hands, to
see that he carried nothing away with him. By repeating
82 HISTORY OF COUKT FOOLS.
this feat, he nourished his household for days; and the
alarmed owner of the precious vegetables could not account
for their diminution from any account rendered by the young
guardians. But detecting Xanni in the fact, the owner
chopped off both his hands, as he lay rolling his greased body
among the beans. The wit of the national jester had been
grievously at fault, and his household becoming more hungry
and angry than ever, his wives broke into open revolt, and
eloped in a body, in search of another mate. But Xanni was
beforehand with them in every respect; for taking the guise
of a woodman, and having recovered his lost members, he
met them in their flight, without being recognized by them.
They told him of the fate of their husband, and of their in-
tentions, concluding with a gentle hint that they were well
enough inclined to accept a well-built young wood-cutter for
their common husband. " Xo ! no!" cried Xanni, "times
are so very hard, that I have been obliged to dismiss forty-nine
of my wives, and to live as well as I can with one!" This
speech alarmed the ladies, who forthwith hurried home-
ward ; but the active Xanni encountered them at the thresh-
old, over which he would not allow them to pass till they
had entered into stipulations whereby he was secured in full
and despotic authority over his entire family.
The jokes of Xanni, son of the Spider, for a long time
formed all the history, literature, and amusement of Xegro
circles. A thousand times over have his tricks been told
and acted, in a semi-dramatic way, to delighted groups of
swarthy listeners beneath the African moon. I may notice
that the story-teller has always been a greater favourite in
Africa than the mere jester. I remember, indeed, having
read of one potentate, the Kaffir chief Tshaka, or Chaka,
who would tolerate neither, at his horridly solemn court.
On one occasion, however, and in full council, a merry fellow
gave utterance to a frolicsome thought which he could not
repress. It succeeded admirably, gloomy king and grave
THE OEIENTAL NOODLE. 83
counsellors were thrown into the most convulsive hilarity.
When they had all recovered, the chief, pointing towards
the jester, showed his grateful sense of a rare delight, by
exclaiming, " Take that dog out, and kill him ; he has made
me laugh!"
To make his patron laugh was the especial and variously-
rewarded vocation of the jester whom I now proceed to in-
troduce to my readers. The English Court Fool was a
very peculiar fellow, and in the history of some members
of the order of Motley, in this country, there are incidents
unparalleled in the history of the official jesters of any
other nation. Let us see whence they came, as well as
who they were.
ENGLISH MINSTREL AND JESTER.
ALL writers who have taken the ancient English minstrels
for a subject, agree in stating that the old Saxon invaders
of our land brought with them bards, and a profound re-
verence for the bards themselves and the art they professed.
These highly-esteemed personages were rhyming historians,
chroniclers, theologians, and philosophers. They held the
key, or, what was the same thing to them, men believed
that they held the key, of many secrets appertaining, not
only to earth, but heaven. They were mighty personages
in their day ; but they could not withstand a ray from the
Star of Bethlehem. When the Saxons became Christians,
or at least professed Christianity, the vocation of the old,
mysterious, rapt, inspired bard, with his eternal memory of
the past, and his prophetic view into a long future, was en-
tirely gone. He had been a sort of god, and he became a
mortal who sang for hire. The Jupiter of yesterday was now,
in most cases, and in most men's eyes, only a Jupiter Scapiii.
In most cases, but not in all ; for, such as were scholars
among the bards devoted themselves to the cultivation of
poetry. There were others, like the early German jester
who remarked that he did not know the Lord's Prayer, but
only the tune of it. They had more music in their souls,
such as the music was, and such as their souls were, than
religion. These turned minstrels, and sang and played for
a reward.
With the superior class above noticed, I have nothing fur-
ther to do ; but have to keep companionship with the hired
minstrel, or the itinerating minstrel, who exercised his
ENGLISH MINSTREL AND JESTER. 85
vocation for bread. The latter was not altogether wanting
to the Anglo-Saxon, previous to the period of their conver-
sion. The native gleeman who then exercised his welcome
office, is described by Dr. Lingard, in his ' History and An-
tiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church,' as being a minstrel
who was " either attached to the service of a particular
chieftain, or wandering from place to place, and subsisting
on the bounty of his hearers." Mr. Eccleston, in his 'In-
troduction to English Antiquities,' describes the gleeman
as all-important to the in-door life of the Anglo-Saxons, be-
fore whom he " sang, played, danced, and performed sleight-
of-hand tricks for the pleasure of the company." This
would hardly seem to show that the gleeman was, as some
have asserted, of a higher grade than the common minstrel
of later years. It is certain that he was the popular minstrel
of his day ; his songs were sung in castle and farmyard ;
and when the great St. Adhelm was sensible of a call to
preaching, and was desirous of getting together a congrega-
tion, he knew no better method than to assume the charac-
ter of the gleeman. Thus accoutred, harp in hand, he would
station himself at some cross-road, or at the corner of
a bridge, and rattle forth a series of popular sougs on
passing and popular subjects. He soon drew an audience
around him ; and when he had fairly got them into a train of
attention, he would gradually slip away from his comic songs
and lively airs on the harp, and fulfil his office of Christian
missionary, with as much success as he had played that of
the vivacious gleeman.
There is another legend, showing how the guise of the
minstrel was assumed for a different purpose. The legend
to which I allude is that of Alfred entering the Danish
camp in this false character, and spying out the weakness of
his enemies, while he amused them with his songs to the
harp. The story is altogether apocryphal, and was never
heard of in Alfred's time, nor till two centuries had elapsed
86 HISTOET OF COTJHT FOOLS.
since his death. It is certain that Alfred could not have
safely entered the camp as a Saxon ; and if he found admis-
sion as a Dane, his accent would have betrayed him as a
spy. It has been suggested, that if he ever went at all, he
went as a mimus, or buffoon (a word which had already been
applied to minstrels), and that he amused his fierce enemies
by the ordinary tricks, tumblings, and other performances of
the jester.
For, in course of time, minstrel and buffoon came to be
terms of much the same signification. This we find by
another popular legend, which is supposed to have very little
truth for a basis ; namely, the legend which tells of the
faithful Blondel de Nesle, minstrel to King Richard I., seek-
ing for his captured master, and discovering him by means
of a song, sung outside the prison, to which the royal cap-
tive answered from within. Whether this story be true or
not, it was accepted as truth at an early period, and in
' Les Soirees de Gruillaume Bouchet,' we find, as a comment
upon it, the following query : " I just beg to ask you, if
the wisest man in the world could have done more for his
master; and if this buffoon of a minstrel (ce boufon de
menesfrier~) was not of more profit to King Richard, his lord,
than the wisest scholars at court."
For a long period, the minstrel seems to have been very
well paid for the exercise of his art, at least in presence of
royalty. At the marriage of the Countess of Holland,
daughter of Edward I., every king-minstrel present received
forty shillings ! This guerdon, represented in modern money,
would be not much under as many pounds sterling in value.
The above was, perhaps, an exceptional occasion ; but even
the ordinary guerdon, of twenty and thirty shillings for a
single night's attendance, shows at what an early period the
musical profession was exorbitantly^ remunerated ; for the
individuals here alluded to were actual cantatores, and not
mere joculatores.
ENGLISH MINSTKEL AND JESTEE. 87
The Court always thought better of them than the Church.
"Actors and jesters," says John of Salisbury (1160 circ.'),
"may not be admitted to the Sacrament. Histriones et
minii non possunt recipere sacram Communionem." And
forty years later, there were some people who as much ob-
jected to marry their daughters to the King's jesters, as the
coachman of George II. did to his son marrying a maid-of-
honour. One of the Pipe Eolls, supposed to be of the
date of 1200, informs us that " Nicola, wife of Girard of
Canville, accounts to the King for one hundred marks, for
the privilege of marrying her daughter Maud to whatever
person she pleases, the King's jester excepted exceptis
mimicis Regis. The mimici, whatever their exact office was,
had as part of their duty, evidently, to amuse the King
(John), and they would appear, from the reference made
to them, to have been but a disreputable set of fellows.
They were probably a sort of actors, pantomimic, if not
altogether dramatic ; for the descent of the ancient minstrel
through poet and player to mere jester, is easy to be traced
in the history of the profession in nearly every nation.
As I have but recently remarked, however, the minstrel
proper, as well as he who joined gestas and joculatoria to his
minstrelsy, was very much better paid than the clergy. Just
so in the present day : we pay a tenor e robusto a higher salary
'than the State awards to a general-in-chief or an admiral
of the fleet, while a curate is more shabbily rewarded than
the handicraftsman who makes his garments. To be sure,
the " tenore robusto" can sing, while not one in ten of our
curates knows how to read with effect. Perhaps, for some
such reason, the minstrels of old had the advantage of the
priest. Warton, in his second volume, notices the presence,
in 1430, of a dozen priests and a dozen minstrels, at the
festival of the Holy Cross at Abingdon. Both parties sang
their best ; but the clerics only received fourpence apiece
for their pains, while the more lucky minstrels, who pro-
88 HISTORY OF COrET FOOLS.
bablv had some good jests for the Prior's table, afterwards,
received two shillings and fourpence each, and food for man
and horse. Eleven years later, we are told of a feast held at
the Priory of Maxtoke. near Coventry. Eight priests from
Coventry were present, and half-a-dozen Mi mi. The latter
were players and jesters belonging to Lord Clinton, of Max-
toke. Well, priests and mimes sang, harped, and played, or
sported. the latter doubtless being the additional work of
the " Mimi," while the monks enjoyed themselves in the
refectory. The Mimes received four shillings each, but the
priests were supposed to be sufficiently well paid with just
half the sum. Some such difference will be found by future
examiners of court account-rolls regarding the payment of
foreign and English singers of a very much later period.
But, to return to the festival at Maxtoke. it is further to be
observed, that the poor priests had no further compliment
paid them, whereas the Sub-Prior invited Lord Clinton's
Mimi to sup with him " in the painted chamber," and the
chamberlain did honour to the occasion by putting eight
massy wax tapers on the board. The incidents of this con-
vent supper have not been recorded, but we may, without
being uncharitable, judge them to have been of the jolliest
aspect, with the Sub- Prior in the chair ! At what time Lord
Clinton saw his Mimi return to his castle, is not stated.
The only further incident we hear of the conventual body
at Maxtoke is, that for a sermon preached before its mem-
bers by a travelling ' Doctor Praedicans." the Prior paid
the preacher with sixpence ! But, on consideration, that
may have been as much as the sermon was worth.
If any doubt could exist of the identity of the minstrel
and the jester, it might be removed by remembering that
the jester alone had free access to the King, at any hour of
the day or night, without let or hindrance, and without his
being required to make previous application for permission.
I believe no other official could enter the King's chamber
ENGLISH M1NSTBEL AND JESTER. 89
uninvited, unlicensed, or unannounced. Now I find the
Serjeant Minstrel of King Edward IV. doing this, and on
a very critical occasion. The King was in the North. The
year was 1470 ; Edward had just quelled, or checked, the
Lincolnshire insurrection, and he was passing his time in
York, in gallantries and amusements, while Warwick was
proclaiming Henry VI. One night his Serjeant Minstrel,
Alexander Carlisle, rushed into the room where the monarch
lay in bed, and bade him instantly arise, for enemies were
abroad, and it would be well for him to be on the alert.
"We shall find a similar bold service enacted by the jester of
William of Normandy, when we come to make record of
the individual jesters, rather than of their profession gene-
rally. The above incident will help to show the identity of
minstrel and jester ; and the fact that Richard II., when he
went to Ireland, had not only minstrels, but harpers, in his
train, will serve to prove that the former was not identical
with the latter. The minstrel, indeed, sang or acted, or
did both, some Gest or story, from Scripture or romance.
Hence probably the English term Jester, originally the re-
citer and actor of some made-up poetical legend, with inci-
dents added according to the taste of the hearers. The
harper probably only accompanied the reciter of the Gest
on his instrument.
It is not my province to narrate the history of the pro-
fessional minstrel. It must suffice here to say, that they who
commenced like gods, sank in course of time to a very de-
graded condition. The minstrels certainly belonged to the
class of poor jokers about the time the law began to treat
them as vagabonds. I can adduce an instance in the case
of Bichard Sheale, the author of one of the versions of
the ballad of ' Chevy Chace.' Sheale was a minstrel by
profession, and his home was at Tamworth, on the borders
of Staffordshire and Warwickshire. Mr. R. White, in his
Appendix to his ' History of the Battle of Otterburn,' af-
90 HISTORY OF COUIiT FOOLS.
fords us the following glimpse into the private and public
life of this minstrel. " His wife was a ' sylke woman,' who
sold shirts, head-clothes, laces, etc., at the fairs of Lichfield
and other neighbouring towns. Being once in possession of
above threescore pounds, a large amount in those days,
and intending probably to settle various accounts contracted
by his wife in her business, he left Tamworth on horseback,
having his harp with him, and had the misfortune to be
robbed by four villains who had lain in wait for him near
Dunsmore Heath. The grief of his wife and himself at his
loss the coldness of worldly friends the kindness of his
patrons the exertions of his loving neighbours at Tam-
worth, who induced him to brew a bushel of malt, and sell
the ale for his benefit and his appeal to the public for
assistance, that he might clear off encumbrances, are all re-
lated in his ' Chaunt,' and show him to have been a simple,
harmless man. But both this poem and the ' Farewell'
afford humiliating evidence of the sorry life to which the
poor minstrels were subjected in the early part of Queen
Elizabeth's reign."
But leaving the descent of the English jester from the
minstrel, or the question of their identity, to be decided
upon by my readers, let us turn to the English poets for such
information as they can afford us. The incidents there to
be found in connection with this question, have doubtless
reference to the English " fool " alone, in whatever country
the poet may have located him. We meet with him how-
ever in England, in the tragedy of King Lear. The relation
of fool and master, not a relation of the period of the play,
but of a much later age, is very distinctly marked. Lear
strikes a gentleman, only for chiding Lear's fool ; but the
King keeps a whip for the latter, to be used when the
jester's truths smacked rudely, or were thrust forward un-
necessarily. And these truths are occasionally of the very
roughest quality, as, for instance, when the fool tells Lear,
ENGLISH MINSTBEL AND JESTEE. 91
that he had given away all his titles save " fool," the one
he was born with.
It is perhaps more by the comment of the jester than by
the conduct of the King's daughters, that Lear has fully
revealed to him his state of terrible destitution ; and if it be
not an old traditionary saying of some jester, the advice is
admirably in the jester's way, which shows that if a man
would rise in the world, it were better for him to let go a
descending wheel, and to hang to one going up-hill.
The Yorick of Hamlet is probably a reminiscence of an
English jester. He had carried the young prince on his
back a thousand times, and the childish cavalier had kissed
the merriest of fellows often. These were common incidents
in a family where there was a household fool. Yorick how-
ever poured a flagon of Rhenish on the head of the grave-
digger ; but an English joculator would have drunk off
the wine, and broken the gravedigger's head with the flagon.
The whip was certainly ever present in the house that
held an official Motley, in spite of the boasted license of
speech supposed to be enjoyed by the latter. Touchstone
is told that he shall be whipped for taxation. His qualities
are, being able to string rhymes together in a butter-wo-
man's jog-trot pace to market ; he has a memory for old
verses ; is full of smart sayings against the corrupt in fine
linen, and has the faculty of making an honest calling seem
uncleanly. He is a droll sort of philosopher, with a taste of
the knave in him ; and so far imitates the vices of his pa-
trons, by being marvellously ready to seduce and betray.
Kosalind tells him that he speaks wiser than he is aware,
which a fool only seemed to do : it was part of his office.
One of his happiest expressions has often been uttered by
travellers who have gone abroad only to be disappointed :
" Here am I in Arden. The more fool I ! When I was at
home, I was in a better place ! "
The Duke admirably describes a first-rate jester when he
92 HISTOET OF COUBT FOOLS.
notices Touchstone as " swift and sententious," and that he
" wore his folly as a stalking-horse, and, under presentation
of that, shoots his wit." Touchstone too is a gentleman in
his way, seeing that he has " undone three tailors ! "
The cynicism of the English fool is no doubt alluded to
in Timon of Athens, where he is looked upon as a form of
the old cynic philosopher, as indeed he was everywhere.
To a sharp sentence of the fool, the churlish sage remarks,
"That answer might have become Apemantas."
Perhaps the truest likeness of Shakespeare's fools to
the actual Motleys, is the Clown in Twelfth Night. He
preaches and quotes Latin with the facility of Chicot, and
as if he had been much with the parson. The threat to
hang him or turn him away, may show that loss of service
was held to be a disaster ; while the way in which (upon
permission) he shows his mistress to be a fool, is an excel-
lent illustration of the liberty arrogated by the professor of
wit. Malvolio saw him put down in contention with an or-
dinary fool. These trials of wit were not uncommon when
the household buffoon was common also ; but it was all in
jest. Nothing the jester uttered, however he meant it, was
ever taken for serious. " There is no slander," says Olivia,
" in an allowed fool." This shows the worth attached to
Motley's sayings ; the clown, too, very accurately defines his
own standing, when he says, " I am not her fool, but her
corruptor of words;" and Viola exquisitely and perfectly
portrays all that the fool should be, in the words :
" This fellow's wise enough to play the fool ;
And to do that well craves a kind of wit :
He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons and the time ;
And, like the haggard, check at ev'ry feather
That comes before his eye. This is a practice,
As full of labour as a wise man's art :
For folly, that he wisely shows, is fit ;
But wise men, folly fallen, taint their wit."
ENGLISH HINSTBEL AND JESTER. 93
It is impossible that any pen could better describe the re-
quirements of the jester, his qualifications, the duty to be
performed, and the way to perform it. No court fool of
Shakespeare's time or memory could have sat for the por-
trait. Neither Patch, nor Pace, nor Chester, nor Clod could
have done so ; perhaps Heywood comes nearest to it, but he
was probably not in Shakespeare's mind, when he imagined
a more brilliant fool than ever sat at the hearth of a prince
and railed at his patron.
Beaumont and Fletcher, in the Mad Lover, cannot be
said to be nearly so successful in their description of the
fool and his quality, though there is allusion in it to the
would-be professors, worth noticing.
" Every idle knave that shows his teeth,
Wants and would live, can juggle, tumble, fiddle,
Make a dog-face, or can abuse his fellow,
Is not a fool at first dash. You shall find, Sir,
Strange turnings in this trade."
In the Wit Without Money of these authors, we have a
glimpse of a sort of household joker of those times, in the
person of Shorthose, the widow's fool, who grows dull in
the country, brightens up by town associations, loves good
living, dislikes morning prayers, and has a turn for clever
similes and smart sayings, in the style of stage valets. He
is superior, after all, to Tony, in A Wife for a Month, who
is a mere low-comedy fool, with a wit to which Shakespeare's
jesters would scorn to condescend. In this piece, however,
we again trace the presence of the whip, as a permanent
menace aganst offending Motley, in English houses. The
usurping Frederick, indeed, says to him, " Thou art a fool,
and may' st do mischief lawfully ;" nevertheless, not only
the fool's master, but others of less authority, frequently
threaten to chastise this official with an undefined position.
Gfeta, in the Prophetess, is described as a "jester," but he
is little more than a stage servant, who alludes to " turn-
9J; HISTOET OF COUET FOOLS.
spits," and who becomes duller the higher he rises in station.
Villio, in the Double Marriage, is a type of the philosophical
fool, of whom there were many ; and who, with the wit of
common sense, judges content in a cottage to be better than
a throne with a thorn in the side of the king who sits on it.
"We have still fewer reflections of the jester in Penurio and
Soto, of Woman Pleased, and in Jaques and Pedro of Women's
Prize. Beaumont and Fletcher have more success in paint-
ing the household dwarf than the household fool. The
fidelity of Zoilus, dwarf to a duke's son, in Cupid's Revenge,
is a compliment to his class. He is as ugly as most of these
creatures were, who moreover lived in constant feud with
the more gigantic jester, if there was one in the house.
Zoilus is described as being " an ape's skin stuffed ; with a
pudding in 's belly ;" and yet his lady loves him, for which,
however, he is sent to death. Even Base, the jester to the
passionate lord, in Nice Valour, is but a weak representative
of our official friend. He has but one jest, and that is but
a poor one. A servant says, " There comes a Cupid drawn
by six fools." To which Base replies, "That's nothing, I
ha' known six hundred fools drawn by one Cupid." There
is a finer touch of the real Motley in Massinger's Calan-
drino {Great Duke of Florence), when he remarks :
" I confess,
I am not very wise, and yet I find
A fool, so he be parcel knave, in court
May flourish and grow rich."
And his distinction between country and court air is quite
in the fool's vein :
" As this court air taught me knavish wit,
.By which I am grown rich, if that again
Should turn me fool and honest, vain hopes, farewell !
For I must die a beggar."
Calandrino, however, is but the "merry servant" to the
ENGLISH MINSTREL AND JESTEE. 95
nephew of the Great Duke, and has only the attributes of
the official jester, without actually exercising the office.
It will be remembered that against all fools, and especially
against those introduced on the stage, Sir Philip Sidney
made eloquent protest ; and all that Puttenham could ad-
vance in support of the professional household jester, was
that something amusing was to be found in listening to the
pretended foolishness of a jester, who had the wit to be wise
when he chose so to direct it.
The stage fool expired in 1662, in a prologue spoken by
a " fool." The play is a long-since forgotten piece called
' Thorn ey Abbey,' and the motley speaker of the prologue
affects to reproach the author for writing a drama with a
king and court in it, and omitting the time-honoured cha-
racter of the jester.
Meanwhile, the buffoon was a prominent character, not
only at court, but in corporations, where he measured out
gaiety for the mayor and his guests ; and in great house-
holds, when, for all his license, he sometimes got whipped for
telling stories rather too coarse, in presence of ladies who
could listen to a great amount of that sort of thing without
blushing. We find him also in taverns, where he amused the
topers by his rude jests and ruder minstrelsy, just as Diony-
sius, in his exile, is said to have done, when he enacted buf-
foon in a barber's shop, for his daily bread ; and finally, the
buffoon was that, and bully too, in other establishments open
to the public, but less favourably considered by the law.
We leave these, to follow more exclusively the court and
household fool. The office of the jester was one which, says
Fuller, in his 'Holy State,' "none but he that hath wit
can perform ; and none but he that wants it, ivill perform."
There is little doubt of this, for wit had its miseries, as
Lodge graphically pointed out, in 1599, in a book which,
under the title of ' Wit's Misery,' has especial reference to
this subject. The author, after pointing out the immoderate
96 HISTOBT OF COUBT FOOLS.
and inordinate jollity which was the stock-in-trade of the
fool, his comeliness of person, and his courtliness of dress,
adds that, after all, he was more of an ape than a man,
and that his chief duties were to study the coining of bitter
jests, to practise quaint and antique motions, to sing im-
modest songs, to laugh intemperately on very small occasion
for it, and, when the wine was in bis head, to mouth and
gibe at all around him. The fool, says Lodge, " dances
about the house, leaps over tables, outskips men's heads,
trips up his companions' heels, burns sack with a candle,
and hath all the feats of a lord of misrule in the country ;
feed him in his humour, you shall have his heart ; in mere
kindness, he will hug you in his arms, kiss you on the
cheek, and, rapping out a horrible oath, cry, ' God's soul,
Tom, I love you ; you know my poor heart ; come to my
chamber for a pipe of tobacco; there lives not a man in
this world that I more honour.' In the ceremonies, you
shall know his courting ; and it is a special mark of him at
the table, he sits and makes faces. Keep not this fellow
company ; for in juggling with him, your wardrobe shall be
wasted, your credit cracked, your crowns consumed, and
your time (the most precious riches in the world) utterly
lost." This was written in 1599 ; but only thirty-five years
later, 1684, we find that some jesters at least had not a very
miserable time of it ; for Stafford tells us, in his Code of Ho-
nour, that " he had known a great and competently wise man,
who would much respect any man that was good to his fool."
In many cases, the latter was as much a household ser-
vant as mere jester, and was equally at home at the master's
board, or in the kitchen, where he received such whippings
as he chanced to earn. That he was occasionally as much
relished by the retainers as by his patron, there can be no
doubt, and his position among these is so well described by
Thornbury, in his rattling ' Songs of the Cavaliers and
Kouudheads,' that, in place of illustrating that position by
ENGLISH MINSTREL AND JESTEB. 97
citing old ballads and ballad-makers, I will place before my
readers the lively picture portrayed by a skilful and living
artist, in ' The. Jester's Sermon.'
" The jester shook his hood and bells and leaped upon a chair ;
The pages laughed, the women screamed, and tossed their scented hair j
The falcon whistled, stag-hounds bayed, the lap-dog barked without ;
The scullion dropped the pitcher brown, the cook railed at the lout ;
The steward, counting out his gold, let pouch and money fall :
And why ? Because the jester rose to say grace hi the hall !
" The page played with the heron's plume, the steward with his chain ;
The butler drummed upon the board, and laughed with might and
main ;
The grooms beat on then" metal cans, and roared till they turned red ;
But still the jester shut his eyes and rolled his witty head ;
And when they grew a little still, read half a yard of text ;
And waving hand struck on the desk, then frowned, like one perplexed.
" ' Dear sinners all ! ' the fool began, ' man's life is but a jest,
A dream, a shadow, bubbles, air, a vapour, at the best.
In a thousand pounds of law I find not a single ounce of love.
A blind man killed the parson's cow, in shooting at the dove.
The fool that eats till he is sick must fast till he is well.
The wooer who can flatter most will bear away the bell.
" ' Let no man halloo he is safe till he is through the wood.
He who will not when he may, must tarry when he should.
He who laughs at crooked men should need walk very straight.
Oh, he who once has won a name may lie abed till eight.
Make haste to purchase house and land, be very slow to wed.
True coral needs no painter's brush, nor need be daubed with red.
" ' The friar, preaching, cursed the thief (the pudding in his sleeve).
To fish for sprats with golden hooks is foolish, by your leave.
To travel well, an ass's ears, ape's face, hog's mouth, and ostrich legs.
He does not care a pin for thieves, who limps about and begs.
Be always first man at a feast, and last man at a fray.
The short way round, in spite of all, is still the longest way.
" ' When the hungry curate licks the knife, there 's not much for the clerk.
When the pilot, turning pale and sick, looks up, the storm grows dark.'
Then loud they laughed ; the fat cook's tears ran down into the pan ;
The steward shook, that he was forced to drop the brimming can ;
And then again the women screamed and every stag-hound bayed :
And why ? Because the motley fool so wise a sermon made !"
H
98 HISTOET OF COUET FOOLS.
The preacher, in conclusion, probably took the pearl spoon
he wore in his cap, and ate his porridge with it ; and, his
day's duties terminated, turned to the kennel, and slept the
night out with the hounds. He might have been worse
lodged. There however we will leave him, to treat, hencefor-
ward, more with the especial individual than with the order
generally.
99
ENGLISH COURT POOLS, FROM THE REIGN
OF EDMUND IRONSIDE.
IT is a singular but incontrovertible fact, that there are
many individuals now living, who are indebted for various
benefits, and even no inconsiderable wealth (in their cor-
porate capacity), to the liberality of long-departed jesters
at our English Courts. The estates so long held by the
Cathedral Church of Canterbury, at Walworth, were ori-
ginally the pious gift of the first English jester on record.*
The name of this joculator was Hitard, perhaps Hit-hard,
from the success of his sayings. He belonged to Edmund
Ironside, who, out of gratitude, bestowed on him the town
of Walworth, in the year 1016. That most gallant King
could have had little leisure to listen to the wit of Hit-hard,
for his entire reign was comprised within seven .months of
the year last mentioned, and he was fighting against Canute
and his Danes nearly the whole time. Hit-hard was more
fortunate, for he continued landlord of Walworth during
the reigns of Canute, Harold Harefoot, Hardicanute, and
* Sec Sornner's ' Canterbury,' edited by Batteley, p. 39, where the
donation is thus recorded : "Anno Domini MIL, VillsD de Chertham
et Walworth concessa et confirmata fuerunt per sanctum Edwardum,
cum maneriis jam habitis et multis libertatibus concessis. Predictam
villain Walworth Edmundus Rex dedit cuidam joculatori suo, nomine
Hitardo. Tcmpore tandem Regis Edwardi idem Hitardus, volens limina
Apostolorum Ronue visitare, venit ad Ecclesiam Christi in Dorobernia,
et per conscnsum et concessionem Regis Edwardi, dcdit eaiidem villam
eidem Ecclesise Christi, chartam quoque ejusdem terrse posuit super
altare Christi," etc.
H 2
100 HISTORY OF COURT POOLS.
a portion of the reign of Edward the Confessor. In the
latter reign, after a quiet enjoyment of his dignity for about
thirty years, Hit-hard resolved to proceed to Eome, there
to live the remainder of his days, and there to die. Previous
to setting out, he performed a grateful act most gracefully.
He drew up a deed by which he conferred the whole of his
possessions at Walworth, that was, in fact, the whole of
Walworth itself, upon the Cathedral of Canterbury. He
even went down to the ancient city, and entering the church,
placed the deed of conveyance, with his own hands, upon
the high altar. And then the venerable ex-jester to the
gallant Ironside set off to the Holy City, helped on his way,
no doubt, by many a " Pax vobiscum !"
In the stormy times that followed, we have no record of
any individual court jester, though there is no reason to
doubt of the presence of that official at our Courts before
the Conquest. William, both as Duke and King, possessed
this ordinary gay appendage to his household. He loved
mirth, as he loved good living ; and as we know that he con-
ferred a manor on his cook, for making an excellent soup,
we may be prepared to find that he was not an indifferent
patron to a meritorious fool.
Accordingly, the great Conqueror, solemn man as he
sometimes was, did not think his household complete with-
out the jester. Indeed, we hear of more than one. They
were princely fellows, and had a right princely master.
One of these, Gollet, or Gallet, a native of Bayeux, hearing
of a conspiracy against William's life, went to his chamber-
door, and roused the great Duke out of his first sleep, by
beating against it with an iron hammer, and crying out at the
same time, according to the rhymed edition of the story, by-
Robert Waice :
" Ouvrez, dit-il, ouvrez, ouvrez !
Ji morrez tout ; levez, levoz !"
This good turn merited great recompense ; but we know
ENGLISH COURT POOLS. 101
not what Grollet got for his faithful service. On the other
hand, we hear of a guerdon to another of William's fools, but
we are not told of any special act of which it was the reward.
The lucky personage was Berdic, the Joculator, who retired
from Court and merry duty, the lord of three towns, with
five carucates of land, and all rent-free ; notice of which will
be found in Domesday Book, under the head of " Gloucester."
So cunning was Berdic in mixing sweet and pungent to-
gether, that he died a sort of Croesus, but he was neither
the first nor last of court fools who left land and gold-
pieces, at his death. It is a pity that the Norman could
not take a joke as readily as he could reward a jester. We
all know how, by resenting the sarcasm of the French King
Philip, on his obesity, he lost his own life.
We hear of no fool of merit at the bachelor and up-
roarious Court of William Rufus. That King, indeed, hardly
needed one, for he was accustomed not only to make his own
jokes, but to laugh louder at them than any other person.
We know that the fool often combined the office of servant
with that of jester, and it is, perhaps, not unreasonable to
conclude that the chamberlain of llufus was also his jocula-
tor. He certainly fooled his master. Witness the occasion
when llufus burst into a fit of fury at the chamberlain
bringing him a pair of boots that had cost but three shil-
lings. "Sou of an ass !" exclaimed the ruby-faced and
flaxen-haired monarch, " bring me a pair that costs a silver
mark!" The chamberlain obeyed, after a court-fool's
fashion. He changed the boots for a pair of inferior value,
charged Eufus a higher price, and laughed in his sleeve at
seeing the King well pleased, and unconscious that he had
been tricked.
There was one other person at this Court who had some-
thing of the jester in him ; namely, that well-known priest
Ralph, whose wit raised him to an eminence that cost Eng-
land rather dear. When he was in power, and the King
102 HTSTOET OP COURT POOLS.
ordered a tribute to be levied, Balph ordered one of double
the amount, and exacted it with stringent severity. At
this process Eufus would laugh heartily; and he had
little cause to pay a fool, when he possessed a witty
follower like Ealph, whose tricks were so much to the taste
and so greatly to the profit of this rude but discriminating
monarch.
The court of his brother and successor, Henry I., was less
riotous, but not less luxurious or licentious, than his own.
Henry was naturally prodigal, and in his Queen, Matilda, he
possessed a partner who helped him pleasantly on the road
to ruin. Matilda cared less for the jester than for the
minstrel, and accordingly, she wasted much of her wealth,
her husband's, and that of the public, on melodious clerks,
foreign joculators who could chant a merry stave, and " sing-
ing scholars," who crowded to a Court where they found,
in return, as good entertainment as they could give.
Among these gay fellows, or minstrels, was an individual
of some celebrity, a Picard or Norman, it is not exactly
known which, and who is sometimes described as a "barber."
His name was Eahere, and of all court minstrels or jesters
he is the one above all others whose memory hundreds of
living people have good reason to bless daily. Stow speaks
of Eahere as " a pleasant-witted gentleman, and therefore,
in his time, called the King's Minstrel." There have been
writers who have questioned the correctness of this descrip-
tion, but it is, in a very great measure, supported by the
author of a paper in the Cottonian Manuscripts.*
According to this valuable record, the writer of which
relies on the authority of men who "saw Eahere. heard him,
and were present in his works and deeds, of the which,"
adds the writer, "some have taken their sleep in Christ,
and some of them be yet alive, and witnesseth of that that
we shall after say." According, then, to the manuscripts
* See also Dugdale, Mon. Ang. vol. ii. p. 166.
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 103
above-named, " this man, Rahere, springing or born of low
lineage, when he attained the flower of youth, he began
to haunt the households of noble men and the palaces of
princes." The writer goes on to state that Rahere spared
neither tricks, nor flattery, nor pleasant deceits, in order to
draw towards him the friendship of those above him. Nor
was he content with all this, says the chronicler, " but often
haunted the King's palace, and among the noiseful press
of that tumultuous court, enforced himself with polite and
carnal suavity, by the which he might draw to him the
hearts of many one there ; in spectacles, masks, and other
courtly mockeries and devilish intendings, he led forth the
business of all the day." Kahere was constantly, we are
told, in attendance on the King, or in the suite of noble-
men ; " proffering service that might please them, he busily
so occupied his time that he might obtain the rather the
petitions that he might desire of them. Thiswise, to King
and great men, gentle and courteous, and knowing and
familiar, he was." In short, according to the manuscript
writer, Eahere was an exceedingly joyous and cunning fellow,
who, having played the fool at Court for great men's pleasure
and his own profit, was soon after made wise through Grace,
by the intervention of Bartholomew the Apostle. He had
spent half his days in harping and dancing and jesting, and
then, growing weary of it, hurried to Home, there to repent
of his sins and be converted from his fiddling, dancing,
drinking, jesting, and philandering ways. And this was so
effectually accomplished, that on his road homeward he had
a vision " full of dread and of sweetness." The chief figure
therein was the apostolic Bartholomew, who, intimating that
Eahere had been taken from the foolery of an earthly to be
an agent of a celestial Court, added with great topographic
and indeed general lucidity, that he (the Apostle) "had
chosen a place in the ' Subburbs ' of London, at ' Smyth-
feld,' where in my name," said he to the ex-jester, "thou
104 HISTORY OF COUBT FOOLS.
shalt found a church, and it shall be the house of God,
where there shall be the Tabernacle of the Lamb, the
Temple of the Holy Ghost." Eahere woke from his dream,
and was inclined at first to take it all for a mere fantasy ;
but weighing the matter well, he ultimately, after long con-
sideration, resolved to devote his fool's gains to pious ends ;
and he founded, not without some little opposition on the
part of those who
"Preferred, no doubt,
A rogue with venison, to a saint without,"
and who hoped he had come back rather a merry sinner
than a solemn saint, a church and priory, of which he
was, as was due to him, appointed the first Prior. Kings
of England, in after-time, learned to respect the holy place ;
but there was a world of trouble before the entire object
was carried out. Eahere had adversaries of every sort ; but
he had not lost his wit for having acquired a sense of piety,
and so he bent himself to every humour, still played the
fool awhile in various forms, when he could draw help to-
wards the attainment of his end, and had merry words for
everybody, in order that everybody might in return lend
him ready succour. He, of course, overcame all opposition ;
holy men assembled around him ; he preached sermons of
varied character, to suit his audiences ; he worked pretty
little miracles, wrought wonderful cures, and, if he was
occasionally in a difficulty, and seemed for a moment no
wiser than an ordinary mortal, St. Bartholomew stepped in
and helped him through triumphantly. Nothing at last
became too difficult for him to surmount, and a hidden
thief or a secret sin could no more escape his bodily or
mental eye, than the seat of disease can be concealed from
the sight of Mr. Luther Holdeu, who now demonstrates
anatomy on the spot where the ex-court-jester changed his
mirth and motley for prayers, cassock, and good works.
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 105
The successors of old Rahere in the Priory had much of
the spirit of their founder. They were at the head of a
high-spirited corporation, full of zeal, cheerfulness, and
indomitable independence. They enjoyed separate juris-
diction, and resisted all interference on the part of prying
prelates who endeavoured to force-in the wedge of episcopal
authority. When this was the case, the brotherhood cried,
" .Rahere to the rescue ! " and defied the whole membership
of bishops. One result was that they were let alone, and
this immunity they purchased by their gallantry, having
successfully resisted an attempt to meddle with their affairs,
by sorely thrashing the offending bishop and terribly maul-
ing his body of followers. The time came, however, when
the downfall of their house was inevitable. It shared in the
general dissolution of religious houses, and Henry VIII.
founded it anew, out of the old prior-minstrel's funds, as
an hospital " for the combined relief and help of a hundred
sore and diseased." Much more than this is now effected
in the establishment of St. Bartholomew, which has grown
out of the pious foundation of Rahere. There is no disease
or suffering that medical care can assuage, which is turned
away from this great temple of charity. Let the call be
made at any hour of the day or night, there is ready answer,
and as ready help at hand. The sufferer has but to knock,
or those who act for him in his helplessness, and "it is
opened to him." He has no need of a letter of recom-
mendation to entitle him to receive balm for his wounds.
There is now accommodation for about 600 in-door patients,
of whom there are ten times that annual number, and among
them a mortality of about one a day. The out-door patients
amount to nearly twenty thousand ; the casualty patients
to some thousands more. It is a pleasing sight, to see the
wards where anguish is soothed, and the mutilated made
whole. It is almost a mirthful sight, to witness the busy
crowd at the dispensary bar, carrying off their bottles of
106 HTSTOET OP COTTET FOOLS.
variously coloured liquids, the elixir, and not the aqua vittf,
which is to pour strength into their veins and infuse it into
their muscles. Let me add that it is a touching, solemn,
and instructive sight, which may be looked upon silently
and reverently, in that little dead-house, with its cover over
it, as if it would be less obtrusive on the eye of idle passers
by. There may be seen many a stalwart form that possessed,
a few days since, the strength of giants, and which, crushed
beyond the reach of science or art to repair, lie there prema-
turely ready for the inevitable grave.
In speaking of St. Bartholomew's, it would be ungrateful
to pass over the name of Dr. Badcliffe, the most munificent
of its modern benefactors. But the establishment itself
would probably never have existed, certainly would not have
existed here, but for the King's minstrel, the "pleasant-
witted gentleman," who was the gayest at the gay court
of Henry Beauclerc, and whose bones lie in the adja-
cent church of St. Bartholomew the Great. The tomb is
worth visiting, for it covers the dust of a noble man. His
effigy, watched by an angel, and prayed for by two canons,
lies under a canopy of great richness and elaborate work-
manship. It was probably erected by his admirers of much
later times than that which immediately followed his de-
cease, for the shields upon it are those of England and
France united, a combination that was not known for many
years subsequent to the decease of the founder of the old
priory. One can hardly stand altogether unmoved in pre-
sence of such a memento. There is great temptation, when
looking at the effigy, and remembering the self-denial and
charity, of the man, to fall into the pleasantest bit of Popery,
on turning away, and to pray with all one's heart that Grod
may have mercy on the soul of the King's minstrel, Kahere !
The reign of Stephen does not furnish us with the names
of any fool of distinguished quality ; though Stephen him-
self, and particularly previous to his accession to the throne,
ENGLISH COUBT FOOLS. 107
was remarkable for the affability with which he associated
with men of every condition. This was more especially the
case when he was keeping house with his bride in the Tower-
Royal. But neither in court or castle was there much patron-
age of the jester during the nearly nineteen years of the
calamitous reign of Stephen. The court of his successor
saw the joyous brotherhood fully restored, and its members
seem even, not merely to have practised before him at home,
but to have accompanied him abroad. " When King Henry
sets out of a morning," says his secretary, Peter of Blois,
" you see multitudes of people running up and down, as if
they were distracted ; horses rushing against horses, car-
riages overturning carriages, players, gamesters, cooks, con-
fectioners, morris-dancers, barbers, courtesans, and parasites,
making so much noise and, in a word, such an intolerable
tumultuous jumble of horse and foot, that you imagine the
great abyss hath opened, and that hell hath poured forth all
its inhabitants." The court of Henry's consort, Eleanor of
gay Guienne, was a not less joyous one than her husband's ;
but the joy was only empty noise and outward show, and
beneath all the glittering were grief and settled gloom.
During the reign of their lion-hearted successor, we meet
with an illustration, showing how fools could be employed
in order to support a vicious political system. Eichard the
First's Chancellor, William Longchamp, may with propriety
be called, the "proud," for he sealed public acts, says Lord
Campbell, " with his own signet seal, instead of the Great
Seal of England." Proud as he was, this Picard prelate (who
was Bishop of Ely) was of very mean extraction. To him
Richard left, conjointly with the Bishop of Durham, the
guardianship of the realm, during the King's absence in the
Holy Land. Longchamp however clapped his colleague
into prison, and ruled England by his sole authority. He
maintained the state of the most ostentatious of sovereigns,
and set such an example of arrogance and want of pinciple,
108 HISTORY OF COTJET FOOLS.
that his body-guard became terrible for their rapine and
licentiousness ; and his servants, even when their master
lodged for a night in a monastery, devoured in that one
night the revenue of several years. The people at large
suffered in proportion, and suffering was followed by grum-
bling, and that was succeeded by wrath. But, says the author
of ' The Lives of the Chancellors,' (apparently translating a
passage from Eoger Hoveden in Ricardo /., p. 340,) " to
drown the curses of the natives, he brought over from
France, at a great expense, singers and jesters, who sang
verses in places of public resort, declaring that the Chan-
cellor never had his equal in the world." The above, it will
have been seen, is an example of jesters being employed,
not with license to speak bold and droll truths to their mas-
ter, but with commission to utter sorry jokes and dreary
falsehoods, for the purpose of deceiving a nation.
I have previously noticed that Blondel, whom tradition
makes the discoverer of his captive master, by means of a
song, is called, by Bouchez, " that buffoon of a minstrel."
By others he is styled a "troubadour knight." However
much or little of the character of the jester may have en-
tered into the character of the minstrel Blondel, it would
not be easy to say. We may speak with more certainty
of another of Richard's minstrels, Anselme Fayditt, whose
poetry the Proven9al critics eulogized for its wit and good
sense, "poesie a bons mots et de bon sens." A third min-
strel, Fouquet de Marseilles, is also celebrated for his ready
wit, w T hich made him the " delight of the court." There pro-
bably was some difference of quality in the latter minstrels,
for while Fayditt ultimately travelled about the country, on
foot, in search of a livelihood, singing songs, and accompanied
by a runaway nun who sang as well as Fayditt himself.
Fouquet, in strong contrast with such a vagabond, aban-
doned minstrelsy, turned monk, and became Bishop of Tou-
louse.
ENGLISH C'OTJBT FOOLS. 109
Of the above quality were the most favoured plaisants at
the Court of Eichard. The private households had their
jesters of a less refined quality, and the following graphic
description of one attached to a Saxon master, is probably
as faithful a portrait as could be drawn of a Saxon noble-
man's fool in the days of King Eichard the First.
" Beside the swineherd was seated, on one of the fallen
Druidical monuments, a person about ten years younger in
appearance, and whose dress was of a fantastic appearance.
His jacket had been stained of a bright purple hue, upon
which there had been some attempts to paint grotesque
ornaments of different colours. To the jacket he added a
short cloak, which scarcely reached halfway down his thigh.
It was of crimson cloth, though a good deal soiled, lined
with bright yellow ; and as he could transfer it from one
shoulder to the other, or at his pleasure throw it all around
him, its width contrasted with its want of longitude, formed a
fantastic piece of drapery. He had thin silver bracelets on
his arms ; and on his neck a collar of the same metal ; bear-
ing the inscription, ' Wamba, the son of "Witless, is the
Thrall of Cedric of Eotherwood.' This personage had san-
dals, and his legs were encased in a sort of gaiters, of which
one was red and the other yellow. He was provided also
with a cap having around it more than one bell, about the
size of those attached to hawks, which jingled as he turned
his head from one side to the other. And, as he seldom re-
mained a minute in the same posture, the sound might be
considered as incessant. Around the edge of this cap
was a stiff bandeau of leather, cut at the top into open
work, resembling a coronet, while a prolonged bag arose
from within it, and fell down on one shoulder, like an old-
fashioned night-cap or jelly-bag, or the head-gear of a modern
hussar. It was to this part of the cap that the bells were
attached, which circumstance, as well as the shape of his
head-dress, and his own half- crazed, half-cunning, expression of
HO HISTORY OF COUET FOOLS.
countenance, sufficiently pointed him out as belonging to the
race of domestic clowns or jesters maintained in the houses
of the wealthy, to help away the tedium of those lingering
hours which they were obliged to spend within-doors. He
bore a scrip attached to his belt, but had neither horn nor
knife, being probably considered as belonging to a class
whom it is esteemed dangerous to entrust with edge-tools.
In place of these he was equipped with a sword of lath, re-
sembling that with w hich Harlequin operates his wonders
upon the modern stage."
Of what quality was the wit of "VTamba, may be seen in
the romance of ' Ivanhoe,' from which, it is hardly necessary
to say, the above extract is made. We come now to the
successor of Richard, whom we shall find a liberal master to
his fool.
King John was a very lugubrious joker himself; but he
not only kept a merry jester, he also knew how to be ex-
ceedingly liberal to him. Of the King's deadly practical
joking we have an instance in his conduct to Geoffrey, Arch-
deacon of Norwich, who had retired from his office in the
Exchequer in obedience to the terms of the Papal edict.
The King shut him up in prison, and, making him wear a
ponderous sacerdotal cope of lead, which covered him from
the head to the heels, left him thus helpless, to die of famine.
It was after another fashion that John rewarded his fool.
The name of this official was "NVilliam Piculph (or Picol),
and he received from the monarch who possessed so little
land of his own, a landed estate. This fool by feudal tenure
held his territory and its dependencies at Fons Ossane, in
Mortain, of John, under an easy quit-rent; namely, that
during his life he should act as jester to the King, provi-
ding his Grace with as much fun as could make him smile.
After the death of Piculph, the domain was to descend to his
heirs, on condition of their presenting the sovereign annuallv
with a pair of gilt spurs. A copy of the original deed is
ENGLISH COUET FOOLS. Ill
to be found in the ' Monnaies Inconnues des Eveques, des
Innocents, et des Fous.'
It is just twenty years ago, since M. Rigollet, under the
modest appellation of "M. J. R. D'Amiens," published in
his work on the then hitherto unknown coins and tokens of
various Brotherhoods of the olden time who took Folly for
their patron, a copy of the document by which our King
John may be said to have ennobled his fool. This document
has not escaped the acute vision of Mr. W. J. Thorns, who
has cited it, in his selections from the L' Estrange papers ;
but as its singularity is fully equal to its brevity, my readers
will, I hope, approve of my venturing to place it before
them. It is to this effect : " Joannes, D. G., etc. Sciatis nos
dedisse et preseuti charta confirmasse WILL. PICOL, Folio
nostro, Fontem Ossane (Menil-Ozenne, pays de Mortain),
cum omnibus pertinenciis suis, habend. et tenend. sibi et
heredibus suis, faciendo inde nobis annuatim servitium unius
Ifolli quoad vixerit ; et post ejus decessum heredes sui earn
de nobis tenebunt, et per servitium unius paris calcarium
deauratorum nobis annuatim reddendo. Q.uare volumus et
firmiter precipimus quod predict. Piculphus et heredes sui
habeant et teneant in perpetuum, bene et in pace, libere et
quiete, predictam terrain."
The substance of this document, the original of which was
found in the then Royal Library of France, is given in my
description of it, above ; I will only add, therefore, that ample
pains seem to have been taken to settle this estate upon Picol
the fool. It may be doubted, however, whether the fools of
Edmund Ironside, William the Conqueror and John were the
only merry officials who held land. The celebrated Baldwin
Lepetteur (in another reign) must have belonged to the pro-
fession, and we know that, in return for some royal grace, he
was bound on every Christmas- day to execute before his lord
the King, at Hemmingston Manor, a saltus, a sufflatus, and
a lumlulus. At no time, indeed, do our Kings seem to have
112 HISTOEY OF COUET FOOLS.
been reluctant to pay for mirth. Henry III. once gave a
crown to a witty fellow who had caused him to laugh ; but we
are not told what the jest was that earned so great a guerdon.
Edward II. was even more liberal, for he gave four crowns
for the same cause. It does not appear that wit was always
the provocation to royal laughter, a fool's trick would do
as well. We see as much by an entry in one of the last King's
accounts, cited in the 'Antiquary's Repertory.' "Item
"When the King was at AVoolmer, to Morris, then clerk of the
kitchen, who, when the King was hunting, did ride before
the King, and often fall down from his horse, whereat the
King laughed greatly : 20s."
To return, however, to the reign of Henry III., the suc-
cessor of John, I may notice as an incident of the social
history of the period, that there were few places where the
itinerant jester was more warmly welcomed than at the
lonely cells of the Friars. We have an instance of this in
a story told by Wood, and quoted by Warton, to this effect.
A couple of strangers applied one night at the gates of a
cell of Benedictines near Oxford, for admission. The itine-
rants were taken for jesters, and gained a ready admission
under that supposition. Cellarer, sacrist, and the whole of
the confraternity looked forward to having a merry night of
it with the yesticulatoriis ludicrisque artibus of their guests.
But these proved to be grave men of long prayers and short
meals ; very poor in purse, but rich in saving knowledge ;
without power or taste to make a joke, but with will and
ability to enjoin their hosts to live cleanly and soberly and
religiously, to serve God faithfully, hono\ir the King loyally,
and to put away from themselves all naughtiness. The Bene-
dictines did not care a fig for such serious persons, or their
admonitions. They had admitted the wayfarers, supposing
them to be jesters ; and illogically concluding, because the
siipposed jesters were monks, they themselves had been de-
ceived by them, they set upon the poor fellows, thrashed
them soundly, and turned them out-of-doors.
ENGLISH COURT TOOLS. 113
Of a joculator at the court of Henry III. we probably
obtain a glimpse in the personage of a certain Master
Henry, who is called the " versificator," a term which was
sometimes given to the joculator. " In one of the Tower
Bolls," says Miss Strickland, " dated, Woodstock, April 30,
in the thirty-second year of Henry III.'s reign, that mon-
arch directs his treasurer and chamberlain to pay Master
Henry, the poet, whom he affectionately styles, ' Our be-
loved Master Henry, the versificator, one hundred shillings,
due to him for the arrears of his salary, enjoining them to
pay it without delay, though the Exchequer was then shut."
This Master Henry was, doubtless, Henry of Avranches,
who is sometimes designated as poet laureate to the King,
and of whose works some specimens yet remain. We must
not forget the assertion of Menage, that court poet and
court fool were sometimes one and the same; and that
Master Henry was qualified for the latter, we may gather
from the description given of him in a satirical poem by an
angry Cornish writer, Michael Blaunpayne, who thus depicts
the royal versificator, enjoying a salary of a hundred shil-
lings a year : " You have the legs of a goat, the thighs of a
sparrow, and the sides of a boar. You have a hare's mouth,
a dog's nose, the teeth and cheeks of a mule. Your face is
a calf s, your head is a bull's, and from top to toe you are
as swarthy as a Moor." It must be acknowledged, if this
signalement may be accepted, that, in outward appearance,
Master Henry was well qualified to enact the buffoon at the
court of his royal namesake.
The next King, the crusading Edward I., is known to
have had a minstrel, harper, or joculator in constant attend-
ance upon him. This official rendered his master good service
on that occasion, at Ptolemais, when an assassin wounded
Edward with a poisoned knife. It is said that the faithful
fellow, hearing the struggle, rushed in and slew the assassin.
We detect more of the professional jester in another ac-
i
114 HISTORY OF COUBT FOOLS.
count by Eitson, which says that the citharceda, as he is
called, did not interfere till Edward himself had killed his
assailant ; and that then the minstrel, or whatever may be
his proper designation, snatching up a trivet, tripod, or
three-legged stool, began beating the dead man's brains out.
The joke seemed of so unworthy a quality to the King, that
he rated the valiant coward soundly. The name of the
joculator is not given ; but we are more fortunate in the
succeeding reign, for there we not only meet with an un-
doubted court fool, but we learn his name, and are intro-
duced to a member of his family.
First, let me observe that in the ' Liber Quotidianus,' the
daily wardrobe account of the fourteenth of Edward II.
(1320-21), there are entries of rewards to several noble-
men's minstrels, or joculatores, who performed before the
King in his own chamber. The singing and the jests were
probably rude enough, for Edward II. was a roystering
fellow, addicted to getting drunk in as roysteriug company
abroad, and accustomed to pay the people who picked him
up and saw him safe home. There is an entry in this very
account to that effect, of recompense to persons who thus
looked after him, " in itiueribus suis noctanter."
We get too, as I have just intimated, at the name of the
King's fool, who was probably often abroad with him on
these occasions, by an entry in some accounts, quoted in the
' Archa3ologia' (vol.ii. p. 6) ; and not only of the fool, but of
his mother, by whose surname indeed we arrive at that of
the jester. The entry runs thus : " To Dulcian "Withastaf,
mother of Robert, the King's fool, coming to the King,
at Baldock, of the King's gift, 10*." " Wit-Ji as-staff" or
" Witty-staff" or " WitJi-a-staff" sounds very like a sobri-
quet for Eobert himself; and perhaps Dame Dulcian de-,
rived the surname from her son's occupation. At all events,
it is pleasant to see Edward acting generously towards the
old lady, when she hurried over to the court, at Baldock, to
ENGLISH COTJBT TOOLS. 115
behold her son in all the glory of cap, bells, cock's-comb, and
run of the larder.
I might have included among my "Female Jesters" a
nameless Joculatrix, or Ministralissa, who, if not attached
to the household of Edward II., yet played her part before
him for the amusement of himself and a noble company. It
was on occasion of the festival of Whitsuntide, which, the
King was celebrating in the great Hall at Westminster, in
the year 1316. While the royal host and his illustrious
guests were seated at the banquet, this Joculatrix rode into
the Hall on a closely-clipped horse, and caracolled round
about the tables, jesting the while, to the great amusement
of the company. The Joculatrix terminated her performance
by placing a letter in the King's hand; after which she
gracefully rode away, with countless greetings, to the right
and left. The letter contained a remonstrance against the
unbounded favour exhibited by the King to unworthy per-
sons, while he neglected his faithful knights and trusty ser-
vants. Not one of the latter, probably, would have dared to
present the remonstrance ; but the license allowed to the
jester, or mime, ensured free access, and other immunities,
to an agent chosen from among the joyous brotherhood, and
still more to a sister of the gay profession. The gates of
royal houses were always open to them : " Non esse mores,"
is the remark quoted by Percy, " domus regia3 histriones ab
ingressu quomodolibet prohibere."
Edward II. not only admired a Joculatrix who could ride,
but still more a joculator who could not, or who feigned to
be unable to keep in the saddle. I have, in a previous page,
cited from the roll of expenses of this King, an entry of
twenty shillings to a jester who rode before him, who kept
continually tumbling off, and who thereby raised an amount
of hilarity in the sovereign, that was set down as being
worth twenty shillings. Just double the amount, and ten
shillings over, were also paid to a jester who, dancing on a
i 2
116 HISTORY OF COUET FOOLS.
table in the King's presence, caused him to laugh immode-
rately.
The great Scottish contemporary of Edward Bruce
could also, like other heroic men, stoop to find amusement
in the sallies of an official fool. Of this individual, we
know indeed only the name, and are not acquainted with his
quality. Mr. Irving, the author of a recently published
' History of Dumbartonshire,' informs us that Bruce, in his
retirement at Cardross, kept for his solace, or his sport, a
fool and a lion. The same author quotes the chamberlain's
book of accounts, in which there is an item containing the
record of one shilling and sixpence having been expended
for the conveyance of Patrick, the fool, to Tarbut, on Loch
Fyne : " In expensis hominum transeuntium cum Patricio
stulto veniente de Anglia usque Le Tarbutt, 18 denarii;"
by which it would seem that Bruce' s fool at Cardross was
probably an Englishman. He is sometimes called Peter;
and this, and the fact of his being in the household of Bruce,
constitute all that we know touching this fool to a hero.
Of the minstrels and jesters of Edward III. we know
even less than we do of that of Bruce, for we are un-
acquainted with any of their names. During the long reign
of half a century, the chivalrous Edward was either exulting
in glory acquired, or mourning at impending or overwhelm-
ing calamity. In the mere official jester he took no delight ;
but there was a peculiar court amusement of his own de-
vising, which pleased others as highly as it pleased himself,
namely, the tournaments, at which he would tilt in disguise,
revealing himself to the deb'ghted spectators only when he
had achieved victory. In the shape of a good court jest, too,
were the appearances of himself and family at tournaments
in the City. At these, Edward would appear in the bustling
character of Lord Mayor, fulfilling all its functions. Two of
his sons, on these occasions, represented the sheriffs, and
the other two, with several noblemen, enacted the parts of
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 117
aldermen. At these festivals, the royal family seemed to
have turned into jesters and players, for the entertainment
of a public who witnessed the performance with hilarity and
admiration.
At the court of Edward's grandson and successor,
Eichard II., the ordinary official joculators were doubtless
to be found ; but we are unacquainted with the name of any
especial or favourite individual. They formed part of a very
gay and extravagant household, as long as Eichard could
maintain such an establishment. The very idea of the out-
lay of this rollicking court even frightened the Commons
into a respectful remonstrance; but the King reminded
them that, as long as he did not ask them to pay for his
pleasures, their interference was only an impertinence. The
epoch was undoubtedly one of vast extravagance. It was
the period when ladies in England first wore trains, a
fashion which elicited a biting satire from a merry divine.
He entitled his work, ' Contra caudas dominarum,' Against
the tails of the ladies, and it was productive of more mirth
at court than a whole year's wit of a whole household of
jesters.
What little gaiety there was at the court of Henry IV.
was to be found at Eltham ; but even there it was of a very
indiiferent quality. If kings could not be merry but by the
aid of a jester, no monarch more needed a joculator than the
once handsome Bolingbroke, whose face became so ugly by
eruptions, that even a jester could hardly have looked at it
with a smile. Henry, too, was one of those men who are
satisfied in their own minds that success in an enterprise
is warrant of the approbation of Heaven ! He required some
of the rough homilies of the court fool to drive him out
of a belief which he did not surrender till he ceased to
enjoy his usual triumphs. His son kept court apart, and it
may fairly be said, that if there was ever Prince or King
at whose court we might have expected to meet a more
118 HISTORY OF COTHT TOOLS.
than ordinary number of the licensed mirth-makers to
royalty, it was that of Harry of Monmouth, who has been
poetically, popularly, and historically represented to us as,
from his youth upwards, addicted to associate with dis-
sipated and facetious companions ; and who, according to
tradition, thought as little of smiting the heart of his father
as he did of striking his father's representative, solemn
Judge Gascoyne. But all these matters are proved to have
been myths, and the son of Bonligbroke neither drank deep
with Falstaff, nor fooled it with the philosophic fool Pistol,
nor sang staves with Bardolph. nor bandied nonsense with
Poins. The Boar's Head, Eastcheap, is a picture, but it
represents no historical fact. The dying father was not
robbed of his crown by his son ; and they who look upon the
tomb of Gascoyne in Harewood Church, Yorkshire, waste
all their sympathy, if they give any there to the sleeping
judge, on the ground of his having been insulted by a lawless
prince. All this, however, will continue to be believed, for
Shakespeare, who has set Mark Antony down to whist, has
said it ; and Bapin, dull, pompous, and obstinate, has declared
that Prince Henry's court was the receptacle of libertines,
debauchees, buffoons, parasites, and the like. Carte, on the
other hand, asserts that Henry of Monmouth's court was
crowded by the nobles and great men of the land, when his
father's court was comparatively deserted. But no one has
so perfectly sifted the many tales touching the inclination of
this prince for buffoons and rovsterers as Tyler, in his ' Life
of Henry V.' This writer, whose patient and painstaking
spirit I envy, tells us that if Prince Henry was often in the
city, and in Eastcheap in particular, it was not for dissipa-
tion, but for serious business. It is from this reverend author
we learn, that in March 1410. the father of much-abused
Prince Harry signed a deed in which it is said, " Know ye
that, by our especial grace, we have granted to our dearest
son Henry, Prince of Wales, a certain house or place, called
ENGLISH COUBT FOOLS. 119
Coldharbour, in our city of London, with its appurtenances,
to hold for the term of his life, without any payment to us
for the same." In this right fair and stately house, which
was not far from Eastcheap, councils were held, at which
the Prince himself presided. Mr. Tyler not only proves
that Henry did not resort to what he calls " a low and vul-
gar part of London," for the purposes of riot and revelry
with unworthy and dissolute companions ; but he shows how
the charge of being guilty of such offence may have arisen.
" History," he says, " records nothing of the Prince dero-
gatory to his princely and Christian character during his
residence at Coldharbour : it does indeed charge two of the
King's sons with a riot there ; but they are stated by name to
have been Thomas and John. Henry's name does not occur
at all in connection with any disturbance or misdoing."
Henry's father, however, seems to have provided for the
good cheer of the Prince of Wales ; for in the same year
that he gave his son the house at " Coldehabergh," he also
gave him an order on the Collector of the Customs for twenty
casks and one pipe of the red wine of Gascony, to be de-
livered free of duty. This, as Pennant says, was " to stock
his cellars ; " and it was not likely that, thus provided, he
would have resorted to neighbouring taverns at Eastcheap.
One might as soon expect to hear of the Prince Consort at
the Cider-cellars. If the assertion of the chroniclers, that
Henry, on his accession, became altogether a reformed man,
seems irreconcilable with his modest bearing when heir-
apparent, we must remember, on the other hand, that there
is no contemporary record of his having committed any act
of wildness, riot, and dishonour, while there are many bear-
ing testimony to his virtues ; namely, the records of Parlia-
ment, which bear witness to his rectitude, modesty, and
steadiness ; the despatches of Hotspur; the people of Wales;
the gentlemen of various counties ; and contemporary chro-
niclers, generally. Of the extravagant expenditure of his
120 HISTOET OF COURT FOOLS.
father's household there are very numerous complaints ; but
none of that of his own household, either when he was Prince
or King. In the latter capacity, Henry V. patronized the
sacred minstrels rather than the laughing fools. He loved
minstrelsy, psalms, and decent songs ; and he made this
love, as Mr. Tyler tells us, " contribute to the gratification
of himself and the partner of his joys and cares. . . Whether
in their home at Windsor, or during their happy progress
through England, in the halls of York and Chester, or in
the tented ground on the banks of the Seine, before Melun,
our imagination has solid foundation to build upon, when we
picture to ourselves Henry and his beloved Princess passing
innocently and happily, in minstrelsy and song, some of the
hours spared from the appeals of justice, the exigencies of
the State, or the marshalling of the battle-field." For Henry's
other good qualities, and for his defects also, I must refer
my readers to Mr. Tyler's volumes, resting content with
showing here, that Henry was not a patron of court fools.
It may indeed be said that the jester and the minstrel were
often to be found in the same person, in England, from the
time that the Saxons hovered in the land, or since Canute*
his tJiingmen, and his bards, all sang joyously together, when
they celebrated a conquest, than which that of the Norman
was not more wonderful. But it is clear that Henry's min-
strels were of a better character than those alluded to above,
and that buffoonery was not encouraged at his court. War-
tou ; in his ' History of English Poetry,' supports this asser-
tion by saying, that the number of harpers in Westmin-
ster Hall at Henry's coronation was innumerable. "They
undoubtedly accompanied their instruments with heroic
rhymes. The King, however," adds Warton, " was no great
encourager of the popular minstrelsy, which seems at this
time to have flourished in the highest degree of perfection."
For all secular vanities his disgust was great ; and he even
forbade his triumph at Agincourt to be chanted by the
ENGLISH COUET FOOLS. 121
harpers or others. Lingard indeed says, that " success gave
a tinge of arrogance to his character ; " and I may add, that
although Henry V. loved books more than court fools, he
set an example for the now common and detestable prac-
tice, of borrowing books and not returning them to their
owners ; he had better learned wisdom from fools, than com-
mitted this miserable sort of petty larceny.
It is difficult to conclude that the official fool was alto-
gether absent from court in these days, when we remember
an incident connected with Henry's widow, Katherine of
Valois. There is some reason to believe that Owen Tudor,
when he danced awkwardly before Katherine, and ended by
falling into her lap, only played one of those tricks which, by
exciting laughter, acquired favour for the performer. The
widow of Henry V. resolved to marry the handsome clown ;
but a deputation was sent to Anglesea to report on the
condition of the lady-mother of Owen, and the style of
her living. This was a deputation of lords ; but they appear
to have had the court fool with them, if we may judge from
the report they rendered on their return. Such an official
was not an uncommon appendage to legations of any sort,
and I think he could not have been lacking here. The En-
glish envoys found the mother of Owen sitting on a bank
in a field, surrounded by her perpendicularly -horned goats,
and eating a fried herring, with her knees for a table. "What
report could be made to a Queen-Dowager resolved upon
marrying this same lady's son ? The court wit hit upon one
which exactly met the contingency; and when the deputation
returned to London, their report was, " that they had found
the lady seated in state, surrounded by her javelin men, in a
spacious palace, and eating her repast from a table of such
great value, that she would not take hundreds of pounds
for it!"
In the next reign, that of Henry VI., we find that monarch
opening a commission, in 1454, for procuring minstrels for
122 HISTOET OF COUBT FOOLS.
his service, by force. A press-gang, as it were, went forth
and carried off any likely fellow that suited them, with a
good voice, just as the gentleman in the French Opera car-
ries off the " Postilion de Longjumeau." The levy was made
de ministraliis propter solatium Regis providendis, for pro-
curing minstrels, even by force, for the solace or entertain-
ment of the King. The commission enjoins that these shall
not only be skilled in their art, as minstrels, but also hand-
some and elegantly shaped. A reference to the matter will
be found in the fourth volume of Warton's 'History of English
Poetry;' the author of which, perplexed with the different
meanings attached to the word minstrel, would have been
inclined to have taken the persons here designated, as singers
only, or singers for the Eoyal Chapel exclusively, but for the
directions as to their good looks and comely shapes. These
directions seem to him to point to jesters, " tumblers or pos-
ture-masters." It is certain that about a century later, in
the reign of Edward VI., it was lawful, when the Chapel
Eoyal lacked young choristers, to carry off duly qualified
children from their homes, wherever they might be found.
There is proof that the household jester, as well as minstrel
- the two characters often under one hood was a very
common and a liberally-patronized professor of his respective
arts, in the days of Henry VI. Warton, in his first volume,
cites the Prior's accounts of Maxtoke, in Warwickshire (to
which I have before alluded), under one of its general heads,
" De Joculatoribus et Mimis." Under this head, and having
reference only to various years in the reign of Henry VI.,
we find several sums expended by the brotherhood for
itinerant entertainers who have different names, but whose
shades of professional difference it is not so easy to deter-
mine. Thus we find, " To ajoculator, in the Michaelmas week,
the sum of fourpence." Again, " At Christmas, to a citliariste
and other joculators, 4<7." The following entries are further
illustrations : " To the mimes of Solihull, 6^." " To the
ENGLISH COURT TOOLS. 123
mimes of Coventry, 2<M" "To Lord Ferrers' mimes, Qd."
"To the I usores from Eton, 8d." "Ditto, from Coventry,
8J." "To those from Daventry, 12rf," "To the mimes
from Coventry, 12d." "To Lord Astley's mimes, 12<?."
"To four of Lord Warwick's mimes, 1(W." "To a blind
mime, 2<1" "To six mimes of the household of Lord Clin-
ton." ..." To two mimes from Eugby, Wd." " To a cer-
tain cithariste, 6d." " To another from Coventry, 6d." " To
two others from Coventry, 8t?." "To the mimes of Rugby,
8d." " To Lord Buckridge's mimes, 20d." " To the mimes
of Lord Stafford, 2s." "To the lusores from Coleshill, Sd."
"It is here to be observed," says Warton, "that the min-
strels," or jesters, "of the nobility, in whose families they
were constantly retained, travelled about the country to the
neighbouring monasteries ; and that they generally received
better gratuities for these occcasional performances, than
the others."
After the death of Henry VI., there appears on the stage
a court jester who is said to have made half England merry
with his jests. I allude to the famous Scogan (or Scoggin,
or Scogin), who was attached to the household of Edward IV.,
and whose name is not forgotten in these later days.
Oriel College, Oxford, counted about a century and a half
from the time of its foundation, in the reign of Edward II.
(1326), when, if credit may be attached to the story told by
merry Andrew Borde, of Pevensey, Scogan became a student
in that college. The young student is said to have been of
a good family ; and tradition, to be more or less trusted as
the reader pleaseth, has preserved a few incidents of his life
there, and in other localities. We have a hint of his royster-
ing career in the little incident of FalstafF in his salad days,
who "broke Scogan's head at the court gate." Ben Jonson
alludes to him, in the Masque of ' The Fortunate Isles,' as
"A fine gentleman, and a Master of Arts,
Of Henry the Fourth's time, who made disguises
124 HISTORY OF COUET TOOLS.
For the King's sons, and writ in ballad royal
Daintily well. . . . ,
In rhyme, fine tinkling rhyme, and flowing verse,
With now and then some sense ; and he was paid for 't,
Regarded and rewarded, which few poets
Are, nowadays."
The specimens we have of Scogan's poetry do not war-
rant the praise above given ; and we know, from some of his
rhymes, that he held the University graduates in very abso-
lute contempt. What he said of the M.A.'s, is not to be
repeated. The substance was, that they were mere dolts,
beyond the schools ; and Scogan did not rank the B.A.'s
much higher, as may be seen in the succeeding couplet, which
says,
"A B.A. is not worth a straw,
Except he be among fools."
The joyous Suffolk student for Scogan, it is believed,
came from Bury became, in time, a very merry and not very
scrupulous tutor. Every sage has his maxim, and Scogan's
was, that " A merry heart doeth good, like a medicine."
"With such a lecturer, the pupils must have conferred on
Oriel a reputation something resembling that which Merton
once derived from its students; of which college an old
warden used to say, that there could be little doubt of the
learning it possessed, seeing that every pupil brought a little
with him, and took none away. But even Oriel, in Scogan's
time, had its solemn seasons ; and when the plague of 1471
broke out at Oxford, which ultimately caused more devasta-
tion in England than the fifteen years of war through which
the country had recently passed, Scogan followed the Uni-
versity fugitives who took refuge, and found safety, in the
rural hospital of St. Bartholomew.
If the season of trial rendered other men serious, it had
no such effect upon Scogan. His irregularities were nume-
rous, and not the least offensive of them was the irreligious
ENGLISH COUET TOOLS. 125
spirit, combined with avarice, which induced him to help an
unworthy candidate into the priesthood, for the bribe of a
horse, presented to him by the candidate's father. Even
Oxford grew at last weary of Scogan's want of decorum ;
and under compulsion, or following his inclination, the
merry Suffolk Punch withdrew from the University, but did
not long lack employment. He presented himself to Sir
William Neville, a country gentleman, and requested to be
engaged by him as his household fool. This negotiation
was happily carried out ; and some time after, Sir "William
introduced Scogan to Edward IV. The knight took his
jester to court, probably out of vanity ; for it was not every
household fool that had the wit, talent, and education of
this gentle man -joculator. The King was so pleased with
his gossip that there was nothing left for the loyal knight,
but to offer to make over his joyous retainer to a royal
patron. Henceforward, Scogan became the court buffoon,
of Edward ; but, as far as I can judge from the sorry or
dirty five dozen of "jests" of which Andrew Borde makes
him the hero, he assumed the office of buffoon and dropped
that of wit. The choicest story told of him, is that wherein
he is described as standing, for a long period, beneath a
water-spout, under heavy rain, for a reward, (or for a wager,
by which he may not have profited in the same degree,) of
twenty pounds, a large sum in those days, but not too
large for the fool who thus risked his life.
It was the characteristic of our English kings, to be liberal
to their buffoons, more liberal, indeed, than they were to
more valuable servants, as I shall more especially show,
presently. Edward was so well satisfied with Scogan, that
he conferred upon him a town-house in Cheapside, and,
still greater mark of the Royal consideration, a country
mansion at Bury. At the latter place, he and the princely
Abbot were on the most intimate terms, and those of a
very joyous complexion :
126 HISTORY OF COUET FOOLS.
" They 'd haunch and ham ; they 'd cheek and chine ;
They'd cream and custard, peach and pine.
And they gurgled their throats with right good wine,
Till the Abbot his nose grew red.
No De Profundis there they sang,
But a roystering catch to the rafters rang ;
And the bell for matins, it went ' ting tang,'
Ere the last of them rolled to bed."
Scogan, it would seem, was married at this period ; and it
would also appear that his wife was a fine lady in her way,
who, among other matters connected with the fine-ladyism
of her times, was very desirous of having a page who might
precede her, as she went humbly, in state, to church. In
fact, she intimated that it would be impossible for her to
find her way to church, without a page. " Poor lass !" said
the jester, one Saturday night, " you shall have a guide to
church, before the bells ring tomorrow morning." Accord-
ingly, on the Sunday morning, Scogan arose early, and
chalked the road which lay between his house and the
church-door ; he either strewed the chalk, or drew lines with
it. When church-time came, he led his wife to the thresh-
hold of their dwelling, to see her new page. AVhen the ex-
tremely fastidious lady beheld the practical trick played her
by her husband, she waxed so wroth that all his wit could
hardly pacify her.
Among the practical jokes of this court fool I recog-
nize many that really belong to a much earlier period, and
which must have been current as " stories" at the time
they are narrated as having been performed by Scogan
himself. The following, however, is said to be properly
assigned to him. He had borrowed a large sum of money of
the King. Some stories say the Queen, and Flogel even
names Queen Elizabeth as the patroness of this jester ! The
sum is set down at 500, which is extremely doubtful. Be
this as it may, a day for payment had been named; and
when that day had arrived, Scogan was not prepared to pay
ENGLISH COUET FOOLS. 127
the debt. After much thought upon the matter, he fell sick
and died, and requested his friends to bury him in such a
way that the Sovereign should encounter the funeral. They
entered into the joke with great alacrity, put on the trap-
pings of mitigated affliction, and in due time carried Scogan
forth on a comfortably-arranged bier, when they contrived, as
directed, to encounter Edward. When Louis XV. saw the
funeral of his old favourite, Madame de Pompadour, he had
the bad taste to cut a sorry joke. When Edward met the
funeral procession of Scogan, he regretted the loss of his
merry follower ; and among other kind things to which he
gave utterance, remarked, that he freely forgave Scogan and
his representatives the sum for which the jester was in-
debted to him. The buffoon, who had expected this act of
release, immediately jumped up, thanked his illustrious cre-
ditor, and prudently called all present to bear witness to
the Eoyal act of grace : " It is so revivifying," said Scogan,
" that it has called me to life again." If this incident be
true, we may also believe, as we are requested to do, that
great mirth followed thereupon.
Perhaps Scogan presumed upon the liberties allowed him
by the King ; for we are told that his pranks at court be-
came so boisterously intolerable, that he was at last exiled,
and forbidden to return on English soil, upon pain of death.
He went to France, thence came back with his shoes full of
the soil of Picardy, and he claimed impunity, on the ground
that he was not standing on English land. This sort of
story is told of so many jesters, that I leave its acceptance
or rejection to the decision of my readers. We come again to
facts, when we encounter Scogan dwelling for awhile at Jesus
College, Cambridge ; and there is, probably, foundation for
the story which represents him travelling in Normandy.
In the collection of ' Scogan's Jests,' to which I have
before alluded, as being collected by merry Andrew Borde,
of Pevensey- that learned and mirthful doctor who Latin-
128 HISTOEY OF COUET FOOLS.
ized his name into " Perforatus," we are informed, " How
Scogan made the country-people of Normandy offer their
money to a dead man's head."
" Upon a time when Scogan lacked maintenance, and had
gotten the displeasure of his former acquaintance by reason
of his crafty dealing and unhappy tricks, he bethought
himself in what manner he might get money with a little
labour. So, travelling up into Normandy, he got him a
priest's gown, and clothed himself like a scholar, and after-
wards went into a certain churchyard, where he found the
skull of a dead man's head, the which he took up and made
very clean, and after bore it to a goldsmith, and hired him
to set it in a stud of silver. Which being done, he departed
to a village there by, and came to the parson of the church,
and saluted him, and then told him, that he had a relic,
and desired him to do so much for him as to show it unto
the parish, that they might offer to it ; and withal promised
the parson that he should have one-half of the offerings.
The parson, moved with covetousness, granted his request,
and so, upon the Sunday following, told his parishioners
thereof, saying, that there was a certain religious scholar
come to the town, that had brought with him a precious
relic ; and that he that would offer thereunto should have
a general pardon for all his forepassed sins ; and that the
scholar was there present himself, to show it to them. AVith
that, Scogan went up into the pulpit, and showed them the
relic that he had ; and said to them that the head spoke
to him, and bade him that he should build a church over
it ; and that the money that the church should be builded
withal should be well-gotten. But when the people came
to offer unto it, Scogan said unto them, ' All you women who
have been faithless to your husbands, I pray you sit still,
and come not to offer, for the head bade me that I should
not receive your offerings.' Whereupon, the poor men
and their wives came thick and threefold to this offering ;
ENGLISH COUET FOOLS. 129
and there was not a woman but she offered liberally, because
that he had said so ; and he gave them the blessing with the
head. And there were some that had no money, that offered
their rings ; and some of them that offered twice or thrice,
because they would be seen. Thus received he the offerings
both of the good and the bad, and by this practice got a
great sum of money."
That he subsequently came again to England, may be
gathered from stories of a later date. One legend tells us of
the King condemning him to be hanged, but allowing him
the privilege of choosing a tree from which he was to be
suspended. Scogan avoided the penalty by being unable to
fix on a tree exactly to his mind. The story, however, is
related of earlier jesters than Scogan, and seems to have
originally belonged to the buffoon of Alboin, King of the
Lombards.
There is nothing more left worth telling, though there
is much more that might be told, of Scogan, the gentleman-
buffoon of Edward IV. His last expressed desire was cha-
racteristic of his vocation and his humour: "Bury me,"
said he, " under one of the water-spouts of "Westminster
Abbey ; for I have ever loved good drink, all the days of my
life." It was a fool's wish ; but for the grave of him who
made it, no less an author than Cardinal Pole composed in
his younger days, an epitaph which may be worthy the jester,
but is certainly less worth citing than that composed by
Swift for one of the last of our household fools, and which
will be found in a subsequent page of this volume.
The stupid book, edited by Borde of Pevensey, and known
to many an antiquary whose patience is not stout enough
to hold out to the end of the dirt, dullness, and dreariness
which mark what is called ' Scoggin's Jests,' reminds me
of a saying of Balzac, with reference to two of the wittiest
Frenchmen of the great revolutionary era, Chamfort and
Kivarol. "Those good fellows," remarks Balzac, "put a
K
130 HISTORY OF COUET FOOLS.
whole volume into one of their witty sayings ; but now-a-
days, it is difficult to find one witty saying in a whole vo-
lume." The last part of this remark is most applicable to
collections of jests to which the name of some court-fool
was appended in order to give them currency and an air of
authenticity. Even if Scogan's so-called " Jests " were au-
thentic, they would not be worth citing. They offend in
every possible way, and it is impossible to read them and be-
lieve them to be genuine, without feeling surprise at an Ox-
ford student becoming such a buffoon, and at such a buffoon
as their hero being so liberally recompensed as he was, by
the royal Edward.
Let us pass, then, from Scogan and from a King who, with
all his patronage of the fool, could least of all the Kings of
England bear a political joke, to one who had scant time
to listen to jesting. But I will here remind the reader that
out of Edward IV. 's barbarity, in executing a merry trades-
man in Cheapside, merely for saying that he would make his
son heir to the Crown, meaning his house of business, dis-
tinguished by that sign, Fuller, in his 'Holy State,' draws an
argument against profane jesting which might have profited
all, court fools as well as others, could they only have heard
the arguer. Puller upheld harmless mirth as a cordial for
restoring wasted spirits ; and he only pronounced jesting
unlawful when it trespassed in quantity, quality, or season.
When speaking against jesting with God's word, he asks,
" AVill nothing please thee to wash thy hands in, but the font?
or to drink healths in, but the church chalice ?" AVith
earthly monarchs, fools may have their privilege ; but then
Fuller remembers the poor mercer's joke which so angered
Ed \vard IV., and he exclaims, " More dangerous still is it to
wit-wanton it with the majesty of God." Finally, he gives
these rules against profane jesting, rules which, when lie
wrote, while fools were yet in remembrance, if not in favour
at court, he knew had been daily transgressed. "If," he
EKGLISH COURT TOOLS. 131
says, " without thy will, and by chance-medley, thou hittest
Scripture in ordinary discourse, yet fly to the city of refuge,
and pray God to forgive thee. Scoff not at the natural de-
fects of any which are not in their power to mend. Oh ! 't is
cruel to beat a cripple with his own crutches. Neither scorn
any for his profession, if honest, though poor and painful.
He that relates another man's wicked jest, adopts it for his
own. He that will lose his friend for a jest, deserveth to die
a beggar by the bargain. We read that all those who were
born in England the year after the beginning of the great
mortality, in 1349, wanted their four cheek-teeth. Such let
thy jests be," adds the humorous commentator, "that they
may not grind the credit of thy friend ; and make not jests
so long till thou becomest one." Such was the comment of
a moralist on jesting, suggested by the consequence of non-
professional joking on royalty.
From the young King Edward V., no jester had oppor-
tunity to draw a smile, except at the banquet at Hornsey
Park, the only festival which young Edward held between
his accession and his death. His uncle Eichard lacked
leisure to be " i' the vein" for these follies ; but his wife,
Lady Anne, and the young Princess Elizabeth (afterwards
Queen of Henry VII.) kept, for a brief season, such joyous
court at Greenwich, such minstreling, and dancing, and
witnessing or playing jests, that the oppressed and impover-
ished people looked on grimly, and murmured rather above
their breath. Henry VII., again, was too mean or too wise
to lavish money on any mere court gauds, though he was
not ungenerous in other respects. He was, at all events,
the first English King who lived within his income ; and he
was better pleased by lending money to fit out the first
European expedition that ever reached the American conti-
nent than he could have been by any jest, good, bad, or in-
different, that he might have to pay for. Nevertheless, in
the days of the Tudors, court fools abounded, and indeed,
ff 2
132 HISTORY OF COTJHT TOOLS.
till the fall of the monarchy under the Stuarts, the nest of
ninnies was filled with a chirruping brood.
Among these was Patch, who is said to have been jester to
Henry YIIL By some, this name is supposed to stand for
" fool " generally. Others, with better reason, believe that
Patch was the cant-name of "Williams and Saxton, fools of
Cardinal Wolsey. However this may be, we may be sure
that a jester alone could have dared to make such a King
as Henry VIII. look ridiculous, as a fool called by this name,
" Patch," is said to have done when he besought the King
to grant him a warrant authorizing him to exact an egg
from every husband who had serious reasons to be dissa-
tisfied with the conduct of his wife. The King thought it a
fair joke, and the warrant being drawn up in sportiveness,
he signed the document in full gaiety of spirit. The ink
was scarcely dry when the jester, bowing with rnock gravity,
demanded the first egg from the King. " Tour Grace,"
said he, " belongs to the class of husbands on whom I am
entitled to make levy." The joke was not very well relished,
and the warrant was cancelled.
John Heywood, himself a "King's Jester" and a poet,
has made Cardinal Wolsey's fool the subject of an epigram,
which serves, with its title, to show both the real and the
nick-name of the merry retainer. The former, according to
Heywood, was Sexton and not Saxton. The epigram is en-
titled, A Saying of Patch, my Lord Cardinal's Fool,' and
runs thus :
Master Sexton, a person of unknowen wit,
As he at my Lord Cardinal's board did sit,
Greedily caught at a goblet of wine.
" Drink none ! " said my lord, " for that sore leg of thine."
" I warrant, your Grace," quoth Sexton, " I provide
" For my leg ; for" I drinke on" the tother'side."
That Patch was the name of a fool retained by the Cardi-
nal, we ? _have further evidence in the touching biography of
EN<SH COTJET FOOLS. 133
"Wolsey by Cavendish, his "gentleman-usher." And that
Patch had merit of a superior quality, may also be seen in.
the same little work. "When the fallen statesman was
proceeding up the hill near Putney, on his way to Esher,
having been just before compelled to retire from York
House, he was overtaken by Norris, a gentleman of the
Royal bed-chamber, who brought with him a gold ring and a
letter from the King, with assurances of his own that the
Cardinal would soon recover both favour and power. Wolsey,
in sudden ecstasy, slipped from his mule; went on his knees
in the mud ; poured forth very unheroic phrases, ringing of
gratitude, but the key-note of which was struck by self-
gratulation. The Cardinal was for giving anything he pos-
sessed to the bearer of such good news ; but then he had so
little left to bestow ! At length, he rewarded Norris with
a gold chain, to the end of which was attached a relic of the
True Cross, " which," said "Wolsey, " when I was in prospe-
rity, I would not have parted with for a thousand pounds."
Norris having been thus rewarded, the downfallen but hope-
ful dignitary looked around for a fitting messenger to con-
vey the expressions of his thankfulness to Henry, " To
that good master whom I have loved more than myself, and
whom I have well served. And to say that I have no one
now to convey to him the expression of my gratitude !" At
this moment, his eye fell upon poor faithful Motley, and the
Cardinal immediately exclaimed, " But Patch, my fool, who
is with me, will be my interpreter to his Majesty, with you,
my good Norris. I give him to his Majesty : Patch is worth
a thousand pounds.' 1 ' 1
The jester, who was thus set at as high a value as a relic
of the True Cross, had no inclination at all to become a
court fool. Cavendish describes the unwillingness of Patch
in an almost pathetic manner. The jester refused to leave
his old master, but six stout men bound him to a horse,
not without great difficulty, according to Mr. Tytler ; but
134 HISTORY OF COUBT FOOLS.
having accomplished the task, the steed was set off at full
gallop, and Patch was thus promoted to a court jestership,
in spite of himself.
Patch seems to have been bold enough, when he got used
to his new service, if the anecdote I have told of him
and the King be well founded ; but the best known of the
jesters who fooled courtiers to the very top of their bent,
at the court of Henry VIII., and did not spare the King
himself, was Will Sommers, whose aDeged portrait at Hamp-
ton Court is familiar to all who have resorted to that most
pleasant locality. Armin, in his ; Xest of Xinnies,' has given
another portraiture of Will, one that may be relied on, for
Armin gave it when many persons were alive, well able to
judge of its correctness ; and this portrait I proceed to place
before my readers.
" Will Sommers, born in Shropshire, as some say,
Was brought to Greenwich, on a holiday,
Presented to the King ; which fool disdain' d
To shake him by the hand, or was ashamed.
Howe'er it was ; as ancient people say,
With much ado was won to it that day.
Lean he was, hollow-eyed, as all report,
And stoop he did too ; yet in all the court,
Few men were more beloved than was this fool,
Whose merry prate kept with the King much rule.
When he was sad the King with him would rhyme ;
Thus Will exiled sadness manv a tune.
I could describe him, as I did the rest,
But in my mind, I do not think it best ;
My reason this, howe'er I do descry him,
So many knew him, that I may belie him ;
Therefore, to please all people, one by one,
I hold it best to let that pains alone ;
Only this much : He was a poor man's friend,
And help'd the widow often in her end.
The King would ever grant what he did crare,
For well he knew Will no exacting knave ;
But wish'd the King to do good deeds great store,
Which caused the court to love him more and more."
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 135
Will seems to have been contemporary with Saxton, or
Sexton, a fool of some notoriety at the Tudor' s Court, from
the circumstance of his being the first jester who wore a
wig. There is an entry from the accounts of the Treasurer
of the Chambers, quoted in the Archseologia, to the follow-
ing effect : " Paid for Saxton, the King's fool, for a wig,
20s." Is it not possible that this jester may have assumed
this mode in order to ridicule the new fashion of the ladies,
who had now, for the first time in England, adopted the wig
which English lords had begun to wear as early as the
reign of Stephen ? However this may be, the above is all we
know of Saxton in his capacity of fool to Henry. How
Sommers looked at Court, the following entry will suffici-
ently show : " For making a doublet of worsted, lined with
canvass and cotton, for William Som'ers, our fool. Item, for
making of a coat and a cap of green cloth, fringed with red
crape and lined with frieze, for our said fool. Item, for
making of a doublet of fustian, lined with cotton and canvass,
for our said fool. For making of a coat of green cloth, with
hood to the same, fringed with white and lined with frieze
and buckram, for our fool aforesaid."
In this suit and office, Will's reputation so stirred Shrop-
shire, that his old uncle trudged up to town to visit him at
court. The \mcle was no ill man to look at, for when the
"kinde old man," as Armin calls him, entered Greenwich,
and on asking the way to the palace, was laughed at by
saucy pages, who directed him across the water to Blackwall,
others pitied his simplicity, and had respect for a man " with
a buttoned cap, a lockram falling band (coarse but clean),
a russet coat, a white belt of a horse-hide (right horse-collar,
white leather), a close round breech of russet sheep's- wool,
with a long stock of white kersey, a high shoe with yellow
buckles, all white with dust, for that day, the good old
man had come three-and-twenty miles on foot." Lusty old
yeoman ! How much more respectable than the flaunting
136 HISTORY OF COURT TOOLS.
" gard and gentlewomen in their windows," who " had much
sport" to see him pass on his way. But the old man thought
his nephew as good as any of them, and, with dignified self-
possession, inquires, " if there be not a gentleman in the
court dwelling, called by the name of Master Will Sommers."
This was giving Will a high position, but it was recognized;
and the old uncle was led to Will, who was talcing an after-
noon sleep in the park, with his head on a cushion supplied
by a woman whose son, addicted to the gentle pursuit of
piracy, Will saved from the hangman and the gallows at
Blackwall. After a little fooling and much hearty greet-
ing, Will took his uncle by the hand : " Come," says he,
" thou shalt see Harry, Cockle, the only Harry in Eng-
land;" so he led him to the chamber of presence, and ever
and anon cries out, " Awere ! room for mje ami my uncle !
and, knaves, bid him welcome!" This' was done, perhaps,
with a little mock gravity, but Armin tells us that " the old
man thought himself no earthly man, they honoured him so
much."
Will, however, paused awhile, for he saw his uncle's
country suit, pronounced it unfit for the King's presence,
and, telling the old man that he must first don a full court-
dress, Will takes him to his chamber, and attires him in his
best fool's suit, cap and all. The simple old man simply
wore the costume, and when the two stood before the King,
Harry laughed at the ridiculous spectacle. The old man,
and Will too, seem to have had some purpose in the whole
aifair, for when the King encouraged them to talk, the uncle
bade Will tell him all about TirrelFs Frith, a common, of
the use of which the Shropshire poor had been deprived by
Master Tirrell, who had enclosed it. The King was so in-
terested that he gave orders that the common should be
thrown open again ; and thereby the sturdy old uncle had
not his long walk for nothing, seeing also that, when he re-
turned to his native county, " he, while he lived, for that
ENGLISH COUBT FOOLS. 137
deed was allowed bayly of the common, which place was
worth twenty pound a year."
Of Will's power to please the King in his moody mo-
ments, we have specimens in certain questions put, and in-
deed answered, by the fool. He put them, as the fool of the
play does, "with an anticke look, to please the beholders;"
for example, " What is it, that the lesser it is, the more it is
to be feared ?" which proves to be, " a little bridge over a
deep river," ab which the King " smiled." At more foolish
riddles, the King " lauglit ;" and at others, which cannot
possibly be set down here, we are told that " the King laught
heartily, and was exceeding merry." For being made so
merry, Harry promised Will any favour he might ask ; Will
undertook to, apply when he had grace to petition. " One
day I shall" >said- he, " for every man sees his latter end,
but knows not his beginning." And with this jester's quip,
Will took his leave and went away, " and laid him down
among the spaniels to sleep."
Will was but scantily in favour with Cardinal Wolsey,
whom he once mulcted of ten pounds. He had entered
the King's private apartment when the Sovereign and
the Cardinal were together ; and Will apologized for the
intrusion by saying, that some of his Eminence's cre-
ditors were at the door, and wanted to be paid their due.
Wolsey declared he would forfeit his head if he owed a man
a penny ; but he gave Will ten pounds, on his promise to
pay it where it was due. When Will returned, he exclaimed,
" To whom dost thou owe thy soul, Cardinal ?" " To God,"
was the reply. " And thy wealth ?" " To the poor." At
which, Will declared the Cardinal's head forfeit to the
King. " For," said he, " to the poor at the gate I paid the
debt, which he yields is due." The King laughed, and the
Cardinal feigned to be merry, " but it grieved him to give
away ten pounds so; yet worse tricks than this Will Som-
mers served him after, for indeed he (the Cardinal) could
never abide him."
138 HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS.
Will was not above human infirmities ; he was jealous,
like greater men at court, and especially when a rival fool
vied with him to gain smiles and moidores from the King.
We have an instance in the case when " a jester, a big man, of
a great voice, long black locks, and a very big round beard,"
was juggling and jesting before the King. Armin tells us,
that "lightly one fool cannot endure the sight of another;"
and Will, angry at his huge rival, sought to recover hia
supremacy by dashing a bowl of bread and milk over the
head, eyes, and beard of his titanic rival. " This lusty jester,
forgetting himself in fury, draws his dagger, and begins to
protest. ' Nay,' says the King, ' are ye so hot ?' claps
him fast ; and though he draws his dagger here, makes him
put it up in another place. The poor abused jester was
jested out of countenance, and lay in durance a great while,
till Will Sommers was fain (after he broke his head, to give
him a plaister,) to get him out again. But never after
came my juggler in the Court more so near the King, being
such a man to draw in the presence of the King;" who
(after all) could not have been mortally stricken, seeing that
jesters carried only daggers of lath ; but probably the act
itself was considered a bad example and a serious oifence.
Of the generous feeling of Will, there is a well-known
instance recited in Grainger ; according to which it would
appear, that in early life Will had been a servant in the
family of a Northamptonshire gentleman named Eichard
Farmer or Fermor. This gentleman was of a compassionate
spirit, and hearing of a destitute priest incarcerated in the
gaol at Buckingham for denying the King's supremacy,
the kind gentleman sent him a couple of shirts and eight-
pence. This small but acceptable and praiseworthy charity
entirely ruined the donor. It laid him open to a charge of
prcemunire ; and for giving a change of linen and the price
of a meal to a captive Papist, the King confiscated this Fer-
mor's estates, and reduced him to beggary and starvation.
Will found opportunity to serve his old master, but not till
ENGLISH COUET FOOLS. 139
death was pressing hard upon the King, and making his heart
also something less tough and obdurate than it was wont to
be. The fool improved his opportunity, and leaving to others
to bid the sick monarch repent of his sins, hinted that it
would be a better joke if he were to make reparation for
them. The fool's divinity was not so contemptible, for it
worked on the dying King, "who," says Mr. Thorns, in a
note to Mr. Collier's reprint of the ' Nest of Ninnies,'
" caused the remains of Fermor's estate, which had been
^dismembered, to be restored to him."
The tracts and plays of succeeding years found purchasers
or spectators because they reproduced Sommers in his jests,
gait, dress, and manners. Rowland has him in his ' Grood
and Bad News ;' Rowley, in his chronicle play, ' When you
see me you know me ;' and Nash, in his ' Summers' Last
Will and Testament.' From these sources, no indifferent
idea may be gained of the once famous Will. The incidents
of Rowland's poem are to be found in Rowley's play. The
latter, printed in 1605, is a chronicle play, including the
years 1537-1546, the last year being the one before Henry's
death. It abounds with anachronisms, but also with illus-
trations of the manner in which Sommers lived at court,
how he joked with the King, capped rhymes with their
Majesties, and was sometimes anything but decent in his
jokes. At his first appearance, Will enters the presence " at
Whitehall," booted and spurred, upon which the following
dialogue takes place :
" K. Why, where hast thou been ?
W. Marry, I rise early, and ride post to London, to know
what news was here at Court.
K. Was that your nearest way, William ?
W. Oh, ay, the very foot-path, but yet I rid the horse-
way to hear it. I warrant there is ne'er a Cundid-head
keeper in London, but knows what is done in all the courts
in Christendom.
140 HISTOEY OF COUET FOOLS.
Wols. And what is the best news there, "William ?
W. Good news for you, my Lord Cardinal, for one of
the old women water-bearers told me for certain, that last
Friday, all the bells in Eome rang backward ; there was a
thousand dirges sung ; six hundred Ave-Marias said ; every
man washed his face in holy water ; the people crossing and
blessing themselves to send them a new Pope, for the old
is gone to purgatory. . . . The news," adds Will, "after
leaving Eome last Friday, was at Billingsgate by Satur-
day morning ; 'twas a full moon, and came up in a spring-
tide."
Queen Jane is represented as looking "bigger" upon the
jester; "But I care not," says Will to the King, "an she
bring thee a young prince, Will Sommers mayhaps be his
fool when you two are both dead and rotten. " Do you hear,
wenches P" he subsequently says to the maids of honour,
likely to be anxious to announce the issue of the event al-
luded to. " She that brings the first tidings, however it fall
out, let her be sure to say that the child's like the father, or
else she shall have no reward."
Will is described as extravagantly free, not only to the
maids of honour, but to the King's sister. Patch, in this
piece, is not the King's fool, but Wolsey's. " All the fools
follow you, my lord," he says to the Cardinal, when the lat-
ter observes the two fools near him : " I come to bid my
cousin Patch welcome to court ; and when I come to York
House, he'll do as much for me." To which Patch, who
seems here a natural rather then an artificial fool, replies,
" Yes, cousin ; hey, da, darry, diddel, day, day." Will's at-
tempts to make the King merry are sometimes roughly re-
compensed. " He gave me such a box on the ear," says the
fool, "that strake me clean through three chambers, down
four pair of stairs. I fell over five barrels in the bottom of
the cellar, and if I had not well liquored myself there, I had
never lived after it." Patch, too, declares that the King had
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 141
almost killed him " with his countenance." This sort of fool's
flattery has been very acceptable, it may be observed, to all
despotic princes, from Augustus down to the Czar Nicholas.
The most amusing of Roman, historians tells us that Augus-
tus was always well pleased with those persons who, in ad-
dressing him, looked upon the ground, as though there were
a divine splendour in his eyes, too dazzling for them to gaze
upon. " Gaudiebatque," says Suetonius, " si quis sibi acrius
contuenti, quasi ad fulgorem solis, vultum submitteret."
His eyes nevertheless grew dim as he grew old, when the
lustre of the left one, in particular, went out in a most un-
godlike fashion.
The Czar Nicholas had a similar weakness, and he used his
eyes to frighten or fascinate people. Playing them mildly,
he subdued Lieutenant Koyer into ecstatic admiration ; and,
according to Mr. Turnerelli, Nicholas once, with one of his
terrible glances, terrified a Swedish Admiral into the Russian
service. On another occasion, happening to encounter a
poor fellow who had strolled into a private part of the Im-
perial park, the Czar gazed at him with such lightning in his
glance, that the intruder was stricken with brain fever ; an
amount of flattery which even Patch never piled up as tribute
to the withering power of the terrible looks of Henry VIII.
Patch indeed had cause to be afraid of Henry, for his rude
essay to make the melancholy Monarch merry, is rewarded
by a kicking ; for which, however, the King makes compen-
sation. Patch gets an angel, to buy him points ; but "Will,
who contrived that his cousin fool should incur the punish-
ment, obtains a new cap and suit for his pains ; for, sayeth
he, " so long as the King lives, the Cardinal's fool must give
way to the King's fool." But in the latter there is some
sound sense, as, for instance, when he exclaims : " Dost hear,
old Harry, I am sure the true faith is able to defend itself,
without thee! " For some such remark, Wolsey styles him
" a shrewd fool." "Will is ready to do anything but flatter,
142 HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS.
which is against his vocation ; and get drunk, which is against
his health ; but he no sooner declines to follow Patch to the
cellar, when he foregoes his resolution, and foolishly drinks
away his wit, but sleeps it back again.
Its awakening is first tried on the new Queen Catherine ;
and it is in the accomplished jester's vein. " Look to thy
husband, Kate, lest he cozen thee ; provide civil oranges
enough, or he'll have a lemon, shortly." This play upon
the word leman, or " mistress," was subsequently employed
by Heywood, the " King's Jester." to point a jest made in
the hearing of Queen Mary. Will, however, is much more
addicted to uttering bitter sentences against Wolsey, than
jokes on the King, Queen, or little Prince Edward. He
is especially severe on the " Smoake pence," a most un-
popular tax levied by the priest, and turned, as AYill im-
plies, to the Cardinal's especial profit. The jester pro-
poses to the King, that Wolsey shall be permitted to take
the chimneys, since there were bricks enough in the land,
or materials for them, to build others. But he protests
against the coin of the realm being carried away, seeing, as
he says, that there is no mint whence new money can be
issued. Indeed nothing can exceed the boldness of Will's
jokes against the Cardinal, except the nastiness of those
levelled at the ladies. Both are doubtless traditional, and
we may believe that they were uttered with impunity, from
the stereotyped speech of the King, " Well, William, your
tongue is privileged."
Sommers was also brought upon the stage by Nash, in
his 'Summers' Last Will and Testament.' This piece was
written in 1593, and printed some years later. There were
then persons living who may have remembered Will, as
having seen him in their youth ; and what is said of him per-
sonally in this piece, may be accepted, I think, as having
some foundation in fact. The incidents spoken of con-
nected with his life at court, may also rest upon a basis
ENGLISH COUET FOOLS. 143
of truth, and are therefore worth noticing. Nash's play is
more like a masque than a comedy, and Rowley's chronicle-
drama abounds in anachronisms. The probable facts, how-
ever, are only mistimed, and both dramatists agree, in the
main, in the character of "Will, "who," says Mr. Thorns, in
the reprint of the ' Nest of Ninnies,' " in all probability owes
his reputation rather to the uniform kindness with which
he used his influence over bluff Harry, than to his wit or
folly. "
In the dramatic portrait, then, of this once famous court
fool, as limned by Nash, we find Will describing himself as
" used to go without money, without garters, without girdle,
without a hatband, without points to my hose, and without
a knife to my dinner." As in Eowley, so here, Will quotes
Latin; he is also apt at old proverbs, and verbose with
old classical stories and tales, in which there are more
words, however, than wit. His Latin, indeed, is not always
to the point, for he translates memento mori, " Kemeniber
to rise betimes in the morning;" nor are his classical
stories true to historical tradition, nor his tales remarkable
for delicacy of illustration. He has a simpleton's philo-
sophy, and talk s little matters of science very much after
the fashion of ' Conversations at Home.' He has, too, a
fool's contempt for learning, as may be seen in the following
passage, which contains some allusions to his early life :
" Who would be a scholar ? not I, I promise you ! My
mind always gave me this learning was such a filthy thing,
which made me hate it so as I did. When I should have
been at school construing Batte mi fill, mi fill mi Batte, I
was close under a hedge, or under a barn wall, playing at
span-counter or Jack-in-a-box. My master beat me, my father
be; it me, my mother gave me bread and butter, yet all this
would not make me a squitter-book. It was my destiny.
I thank her as a most courteous goddess, that she hath not
cast me away upon gibberish ;" and so on, with a diatribe
144 HISTORY OF COTJET TOOLS.
against the divisions of grammar, and parts of speech ge-
nerally, as forming a portion of " the devil's Pater-noster."
And yet, out of the accidence, he coins almost his only
fragment of wit throughout a play in which he enacts the
character of " Chorus." " Verba dandi et reddendi," says
Will, " go together in the grammar rule ; there is no giving
but with condition of restoring." Altogether we obtain
fewer ideas of what Will may have been, from Nash, than
from Rowley. The former makes him less attractive, and
when the jester closes the piece with a " Valete spectatores,
pay for this sport with a Plaudite, and the next time the
wind blows from this corner, we will make you ten times as
merry," we are glad to rejoin, vale et tu, and to get away
without paying the price asked for sport which, had it
been ten times as merry as is vouched for the next play,
would not have sinned with excess of mirthfulness.
It only remains for me to add, that Will survived to hold
office under Edward VI. How he sustained his reputation
during a portion of the six years' reign of that young
monarch, I am unable to inform my readers. The only
trace I have found of him is in a paper by Bray, in the
eighteenth volume of the ' Archaeologia,' from which we
learn, according to a citation from the household expenses,
that the sum of twelvepence was paid " for painting Will
Somers' garments."
Before proceeding to the next reign, I will take this
opportunity to narrate an anecdote of the learned and skil-
ful diplomatist, Pace, not because he was the namesake
of Pace, the "bitter fool" of Queen Elizabeth's days, but
because the anecdote itself has reference to subjects from
which Henry could draw amusement, and that there is an
illustration in it, in connection with the court jesters.
Pace, we are told, in the collection of letters to and from
Erasmus (Basle, 1558), was once in the church at Wood-
stock, with the King and court, when the Franciscan monk
ENGLISH COTJBT FOOLS. 145
who preached, confined himself in his sermon to denouncing
the Greek language, and devoting to destruction all who
studied it. The choice of such a subject, and the manner
in which it was treated, were the more remarkable, as, a
short time previously, a Franciscan monk had been silenced
for preaching in the same sense. The Oxford students had
hooted him in his cell, and the authorities had to interfere.
The King had written to the heads of colleges in favour of
the study of Greek ; and his amazement was all the more
unbounded at the audacity of the new monk, who went even
further in his wrath against Greek than the Jewish Rabbis,
who were wont to solemnly pronounce accursed the man
who allowed his children to learn that language. If the
King was enraged, the grave and learned Pace, who sat near
him, was delighted. He did not dare exhibit his ecstasy ;
but he was so overcome with a propensity to burst out
laughing, that he was compelled to bury his face in both
hands, to conceal his strong and risible emotion. He was
rather bolder when Henry subsequently ordered the monk
to attend him in his closet, where the king pelted him with
questions and menaces, and nearly frightened him out of
his senses. The poor preacher had been abusing Erasmus
without having read his works. He had, however, as he
tremblingly remarked, " cast his eye over some pages of
the ' Eulogy of Polly.' " " Ah," said Pace, " I really believe
that the work was especially written with a view to your
reverence." The monk meekly smiled. He had not heart
enough to confront the scholar, but he had sense enough to
creep out of the difficulty into which he had fallen. He
confessed himself to be reconciled with Greek from the
sudden conviction which had descended upon him, that it
was derived from the Hebrew. King and courtiers present
burst into loud laughter at this sapient observation, under
shelter of which the speaker was allowed to withdraw in
safety. Pace declared that the monk had wit enough to
L
146 HI8TOET OF COURT FOOLS.
make the fortune of a court jester ; for if it did not save
him from getting into a scrape, it certainly was strong
enough to draw him out of one.
Having mentioned the faithful fool of Cardinal "Wolsey,
Patch, I cannot pass over the simpleton, or Morio, Patte-
son, retained in the household of Wolsey' s successor in
the Chancellorship, Sir Thomas More. All persons who are
familiar with the biography of the latter eminent individual,
will remember how heartily Sir Thomas, from his youth
upwards, was addicted to jesting. When he was a page,
being then fifteen years of age, in the family of Cardinal
Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, he kept the octoge-
narian prelate and all his guests in roars of laughter, as he
waited on them at table. Morton was delighted with the
frolicsome boy, who, especially at Christmas and other joyous
seasons, was worth any number of ordinary household fools,
seeing that his improvised jests were superior to anything
done or uttered by the professional joker. More's manner
on these occasions was. however, quite after the fashion of
" cousin Motley." Thus, when the players were representing
some comic drama, for the entertainment of their reverend
patron, "young More," as Roper relates in his Life, "would
suddenly step up among the players, and, never studying
before upon the matter, make often a part of his own in-
vention which was so witty, and so full of jests, that he
alone made more sport than all the players besides ; for
which, his towardliness, the Cardinal much delighted in him,
and would often say of him to divers of the nobility who at
sundry times dined with him, ' This child here, waiting at
the table, whosoever shall live to see it, will prove a mar-
vellous rare man.' " As More, in his youth, gratified Cardinal
Morton by his wit, so, in his manhood, by his wit as well as
his wisdom, he afforded amusement to his capricious Sove-
reign. When Henry had had enough of the outpouring of
knowledge from More (who was yet but Under-Sheriff of
ENGLISH COTJET FOOLS. 147
London and Master of the Requests) on astronomy, geo-
metry, and divinity; then, "because," says his biographer,
" he was of a very pleasant disposition, it pleased His Ma-
jesty and the Queen, after the Council had supped, com-
monly to call for him to hear his pleasant jests." These
latter must have been of a very different quality from those
which the King had been wont to make merry with from
the lips of "Will Sommers, and we cannot be surprised at
their exciting such admiration in the Sovereign that he de-
tained the illustrious jester whole weeks at Court, away
from his home and domestic enjoyments. Sir Thomas be-
held himself in great peril of descending to the vocation of
joker in ordinary, and he devised a witty remedy in order
to escape the uncoveted distinction. " When Sir Thomas
perceived his pleasant conceits so much to delight them
that he could scarce once in a month get leave to go home
to his wife and children, and that he could not be two days
absent from the Court, but he must be sent for again ; he,
much misliking this restraint of his liberty, began therefore
to dissemble his mirth, and so, little by little, to disuse him-
self, that he from henceforth, in such seasons, was no more
so ordinarily sent for." In short, he feigned heaviness of
humour, that he might escape the honours paid to, and the
services expected from, a court jester. Had any friend ex-
pressed astonishment at the change in his bearing, More
might have excused himself nearly in the words of the
essayist, who said : " If my readers should at any time
remark that I am particularly dull, they may be assured
there is a design under it."
So More contrived for awhile to be more at home, where
he had a wife who missed all the points of his puns, and a
household fool who had about as much wit as his mistress.
The latter was one Patteson, an ex-mummer, half crazed by
a fall from a church-steeple, who had lost his old itinerant
vocation, and whom More took into his family, poor, shabby,
L 2
148 HISTOBY OF COURT FOOLS.
droll fellow as he was, and amused himself, after application
to high subjects, by listening to his small wit, even as a
man may take now and then to small-beer after too hot and
long an acquaintance with ruddy Vin de Beaune.
Patteson founded his desire to be a household fool, on
the very sufficient ground that, as he was already laughed at
for one, he thought he might as well be hired in a great
family, where he should be paid, fed, and lodged for being
thus the object of risibility. Sir Thomas answered, that he
had had little thought of employing such a retainer, being
rather inclined to do all the fooling in his family, himself.
The great negotiation, however, was brought to a conclu-
sion by a compromise ; the business was to be divided, Sir
Thomas continuing unlicensed joker, and Patteson being
paid full salary for inoffensive small wit, cleanliness of life,
and restraint of his tongue before ladies.
Patteson was not an educated jester, like Scogan and
other great wearers of the cap and bells under the roofs of
kings. He could not read. " But what of that ?" he is said
to have asked ; " there never was but one that I ever heard
of, that never having learned, knew his letters, and well Tie
might, for he made them that made them." The witty
remark deserved to procure for Pattesoii his desired en-
gagement ; and this he had no sooner procured, than he
affected to take precedence of his master, in his ov;n house ;
"for," said he, "you, brother, are but jester to King Harry,
whereas / am jester to Sir Thomas More ; and I leave you
to determine which is the greater man of the two."
Patteson occasionally went abroad with his master, pro-
bably attending him as his servant, which was often one of
the offices of fools. The license of the latter also went
abroad with the service of the former, and we are told that
once, after he had been many years in More's service, he
attended his master, or at all events was present, at a dinner
given in Gruildhall, when the conversation fell upon More's
ENGLISH COUET TOOLS. 149
refusal to take the oath of supremacy. The conversation of
the guests was interrupted by a query of the fool : " Why,
what aileth him," cried Patteson, " that he will not swear ?
Wherefore should he stick to swear ? I have sworn the oath
myself."
Lord Campbell quotes another illustration of the license
of this jester, from ' II Moro,' an Italian account of Sir
Thomas More, printed at Florence, and dedicated to Car-
dinal Pole. The incident is supposed to be narrated by the
Chancellor himself, and Lord Campbell is of opinion that it
does not give us " a very exalted notion of the merriment
caused by these simpletons." Perhaps we might more cor-
rectly say, that the incident fails to convey a very elevated
idea of the wit that raised the merriment. However this
may be, here is the trait in question :
" Yesterday, while we were dining, Pattison" (so is the
name here spelt) " seeing a guest with a very large nose,
said, there was one at table who had been trading to the
Promontory of Noses. All eyes were turned to the great
nose, though we discreetly preserved silence, that the good
man might not be abashed. Pattison, perceiving the mistake
he had made, tried to set himself right, and said, ' He lies
who says the gentleman's nose is large, for, on the faith of a
true knight, it is rather a small one.' At this, all being in-
clined to laugh, I made signs for the fool to be turned out of
the room ; but Pattison, who boasted that he brought every
affair that he commenced to a happy conclusion, resisted,
and, placing himself in my seat at the head of the table,
said aloud, with my tone and gesture, ' There is one thing
I would have you to know, that gentleman there has not
the least bit of nose on his face.' "
This sort of sparring between patron and jester was com-
monly indulged in with considerable satisfaction by both
parties. It was safer for More to do so, by way of relaxation,
with Patteson, than with the King ; whose humour might
150 HISTOET OF COUET FOOLS.
take a deadly turn against an unwelcome joke, and par-
ticularly against an unlicensed joker. The authoress of
' The Household of Sir Thomas More,' following the tra-
dition, describes the banter of Sir Thomas and Sir Wit-
less, as never exceeding the bounds of good-humoured plea-
santry ; "but Patteson," it is added, " is never without an
answer, and although, it may be, each amuses himself now
and then with thinking, I'll put him up with such a ques-
tion ; yet, once begun, the skein runs off the reel without
a knot, and shows the excellent nature of both, so free are
they alike from malice and over-license." It is true that
the sayings put in the mouth of More's "Mono" by the
authoress whose words I have just quoted, are for the most
part as apocryphal as Borde's compiled jests to which he has
prefixed the name of " Scoggin," to make them sell. The cha-
racter of the fool is, however, described according to tradi-
tion, in the pleasant addition to the Eomance of History, in
the work last named. There we see Patteson, with a pea-
cock's feather in his hand, sitting astride on a balustrade,
and exchanging sharp question and answer, and lively com-
ment and reflection, on peacocks themselves and their vanity ;
and on the advantages of not having as many eyes in their
heads as they have in their tails, as they are in consequence
less vain-glorious, and see not what passes behind their backs.
Patteson, according to this authoress, chopped logic with the
young daughters of More ; touched a little on sentimental
matters ; could speak feelingly of religion, death, and the
equality of the grave ; spoke prophetically on political sub-
jects ; and jested with them, or rather at them, on their
several lovers.
Lord Campbell naturally suggests, that More's fool ought
to have been a great proficient at jesting, since he practised
under so great a master. However this may be, when the
Lord Chancellor had commenced to decline from power and
dignity, he provided for the future well-being of his fool- as
ENGLISH COTTBT FOOLS. 151
carefully as he did for that of any greater officer of his
household. Wolsey, at Tiis fall, sent Patch as an acceptable
gift to the King. More made over Patteson to a less ex-
alted sovereign, the Lord Mayor of the City of London,
" with a stipulation," says Lord Campbell, " that he should
continue to serve the office of fool to the Lord Mayor for
the time being." This rather loosely- worded phrase proba-
bly points at the origin of the office of " Lord Mayor's Fool,"
a title which was, however, given to the clubmen in provincial
mayoral processions from the year 1444. Whether Patteson
was, or was not, the original Lord Mayor's Fool, by right of
nomination to the office, he had as little respect for the dig-
nity of chief magistrate of the city, as any modern merchant
prince who, being too lazy or too unpatriotic to perform the
onerous duty of the office, affects to despise the dignity
which accompanies, and the titles which often follow, a dis-
tinguished fulfilment of that duty. So this first official cor-
poration jester flouted his sublime chief. His humour in
this respect is well hinted at by the authoress of ' The
Household of Sir Thomas More,' who depicts Patteson as
saying, on one first of April, " I told my Lord Mayor over-
night, that if he looked for a fool this morning, he must look
in the glass. ... I should by rights wear the gold chain, and
he the motley ; and a proper fool he is, and I shall be glad
when his year's service to me is out. The worst of these
Lord Mayors is, that we can't part with them till their time 's
up. Why, now, this present one hath not so much under-
standing as would foot an old stocking ; 't was but yester-
day when, in quality of my Taster, he civilly enough makes
over to me a half-eaten plate of gurnet, which I wave aside
thus, saying, I eat no fish of which I cannot affirm, ' rar i
sunt loni,' few are the bones, . . . and I protest to you,
he knew it not for fool's Latin." Patteson himself had a
veneration for his old master which he could not entertain
for the new, from whose chattering propensity at table, the
152 HISTORY OP COUET FOOLS.
jester picked out views of politics that foreboded evil to his
former and now disgraced patron. " Tor the love of safety,
then, Mistress Meg," says Patteson, in a passage founded
on this stray scrap of history, " bid thy good father e'en
take a fool's advice, and eat humble-pie betimes ; for doubt
not this proud madame (Anne Boleyn) to be as vindictive as
Herodias, and one that, unless he appease her full early, will
have his head set before her in a charger. I've said my say."
"We may take Patteson at his last word, and, leaving him,
proceed to greater names than his on the register of Motley
in the service of kings.
"We now come to a personage of some celebrity, who
seems to have been a court jester, without being exactly
a court fool. I allude to John Heywood, of North Minims,
in Hertfordshire, whom Sir Thomas More introduced to
the King as Sir William Neville did Scogan , and whose
introduction was followed by similar circumstances, his
appointment as "jester " to the sovereign.
More had known Heywood early. The latter was a
student at what was then called Broadgate, Oxford, now
Pembroke. Hey wood's spirit of fun, his humour, and his
readiness at repartee made him a favourite with More, who
was fond of spending leisure hours with him, a man of
whom it was said that " he had wit at will, and art was
all he missed." Heywood, moreover, was a good vocalist,
and no mean instrumental player. Previous to his intro-
duction to the King, More presented him to the lady
(afterwards Queen) Mary, who found his merriment so irre-
sistible "that it moved even her rigid muscles," says "War-
ton; "and her sullen solemnity was not proof against his
songs, his rhymes, and his jests." Mary, however, was
more easily moved to mirth than "Warton and those whose
opinions were followed by him, suspected. Even in her
ENGLISH COTTBT FOOLS. 153
womanhood, when we are accustomed to think of her as
one solemnly severe, she could (albeit moody and melan-
choly at times) laugh heartily at a mountebank. In 1556,
Strype speaks of her as holding a grand military re-
view in Greenwich Park, at which " came a tumbler, and
played many pretty feats, the Queen and Cardinal (Pole)
looking on ; whereat she was observed to laugh heartily."
Long ere she had ascended the throne, she had learned to
laugh at, with, or through John Hey wood. Of the latter,
Warton says that " he was beloved and rewarded by Henry
VIII. for his buffooneries ; " and, indeed, that monarch was
so satisfied with the quips of his daughter's favourite, that,
as previously stated, he named John " King's Jester." He
seems to have been a favourite also in the mansions and at
the tables of the nobility ; and a specimen of his wit there is
offered us by Puttenham.
" The following happened," he says, " on a time, at the
Duke of Northumberland's board, where merry John Hey-
wood was allowed to sit at the board's end. The Duke
had a very noble and honourable mind to pay his debts well,
and when he lacked money, would not stick to sell the
greatest part of his plate. So had he done some few days
before.
" Heywood being loath to call for his drink as often as
he was dry, turned his eyes towards the cupboard, and said,
' I find a great miss of your Grace's standing-cups.' The
Duke, thinking that he had spoken it of some knowledge
that his plate was lately sold, said somewhat sharply,
' Why, Sir, will not these cups serve so good a man as your-
self?' Heywood readily replied, ' Yes, if it please your
Grace, but I would have one of them stand still at my
elbow, fall of drink, that I might not be driven to trouble
your man so often to call for it.'
" This pleasant and speedy reverse of the former words,
helped all the matter again, whereby the Duke became
154 HISTORY OF COUET FOOLS.
very pleasant, and drank a bottle of wine to Heywood, and
bade a cup should always be standing by him."
His boldness with the Queen was quite that of the pri-
vileged jester, and he was recompensed for his puns and con-
ceits when men more meritorious were neglected. The follow-
ing contains good proof of his license. When the Queen once
remarked to him that the priests must forego their wives,
John exclaimed (and he was a very strict Catholic too),
" Then your Grace must allow them lemmans [sweethearts],
for the clergy cannot live without sauce." This epigram-
matic turn was very strong upon him ; and indeed many of
his epigrams, of which he was the author of hundreds, are
said to have been versifications of his own jokes. I have
already noticed the audacity of his jests with the sovereign,
a further instance of which we have in an incident con-
nected with one of his visits to the palace.
"Now, Master Heywood," said Mary on the occasion in
question, "what wind blew you to court?" "There were
two," answered audacious John ; " one, that I might see your
Majesty, and the other, that your Majesty might see me."
"When he was told that a certain Master of Arts had assumed
the ordinary attire of the court fool, " There is no great
harm in that," remarked Heywood, "he is merely a wise man
in a fool's coat ; the evil is, when the fool puts over his mot-
ley the wise man's gown." "How do you like my beer?"
asked a host of him, " is it not well hopped ?" "So well,"
said Heywood, " that had it hopped a little further, it would
have hopped into water." This reminds me of a far wittier
saying by a brighter English wit than Heywood the late
Douglas Jerrold ; and which is better worth recording. At
an hotel at Hastings, Jerrold was dining with two friends,
one of whom, after dinner, ordered among other pleasant
things, " a bottle of old port." " Waiter," said Douglas, with
that twinkle of the eye which was always a promise of wit,
" Mind, now ; a bottle of your old port, not your elder port."
ENGLISH COUET FOOLS. 155
Heywood never equalled that, though, he gave utterance to
as many witty thoughts as the wittiest man of his time.
Among them was his remark, to a person complaining that
the great number of lawyers would spoil the profession.
" Not so," exclaimed John ; " for the more spaniels, the more
game !"
His familiarity with Mary, was doubtless founded on his
long service. When she was a mere little girl at Greenwich,
Heywood officiated as manager of the troop of child actors
who performed in her presence. On one occasion he appears
to have received six and eightpence for his pains. Later, he
wrote ballads for her, sometimes making herself the subject
of them. When her coronation procession passed St. Paul's,
there was mirthful John, seated beneath a vine ; and, as the
Queen approached, he arose and delivered an oration. When
Mary was ill, he went to her chamber and recited verses or
read plays to her ; and when she was dying, says Elogel, he
stood by her death-bed, and solaced her with music; " Er war
auch ein beriihmter Musikus, und musste der Konigin
Maria von England, auf ihrem Todbette, mit seiner Musik
aufwarten." This could not have been, however, when her
death was very near. Liugard simply says, that " on the
morning of her death, Mass was celebrated in her chamber ;
she was perfectly sensible, and expired a few minutes before
the conclusion."
With the reputation of having been " King's Jester,"
Heywood is also known to us as a poet, a dramatist, and a
writer of epigrams. In the first capacity, his most laboured
piece is the least successful. I have tried in vain to read
through his ninety-eight chapters, in octave stanzas, devoted
to the subject of " The Spider and the Ely," in the gaily-
bound copy in the British Museum. I quite agree with
Harrison's description of it (quoted by Warton), that
"neither he himself that made it, neither any one that
readeth it, can read unto the meaning thereof." It is far
156 HISTOBT OF COrBT FOOLS.
less amusing than the comic song, with the same title, by
the old free-and-easy poet. Tom Hudson.
As a dramatist. Heywood was among the earliest of En-
glish writers of comedy. He was not among the best for
delicacy, humour, or decency. All these are of the roughest
and dirtiest, such as might have been expected from "Will
Sommers. I must however differ in some degree from
TVarton, unassailable as his judgments generally are. when
he describes Heywood's plays as " altogether void of plot,
humour, and character." Yet, I confess, detestable as I
hold idleness to be. a man were better occupied in doing
nothing than in reading these productions. They hardly
repay the curiosity of the student of literature, and even
he must rise from the perusal sorely in need of civet where-
with to sweeten his imagination.
It is as an epigrammatist that this honorary jester was
most celebrated, and continues to be best known to the few
who care to cultivate acquaintance with him. Of the epi-
grams I will select a few specimens. Bearing in mind that
they are often the versification of his jests, and that the
latter must frequently have had allusion to passing subjects,
the following probably points at a then living prince. It is
entitled : -
OF AN ILL GOVERNOR CALLED JTTDE.
A ruler there was in a country afar,
And of the people a great executioner,
Who by name, I understand, was called Jude.
One gave him an ass, which gift when he had view'd,
He asked the giver, for what intent
He brought him that ass. " For a present
I bring, Master Jude," quoth he, " this ass hither ;
To join Master Jude and this ass together,
Which two joined in one, this is brought to pass,
I may bid you good even, Master Jude a~-.'
" Maccabee or Iscariot, thou knave ? " quoth he ;
" Whom it pleaseth your mastership, him let it be ! "
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 157
The following, too, is very much after the fashion of the
French "fous a titre d' office" when they repelled the un-
welcome familiarity of certain courtiers.
TWO, ARM-IN-AEM.
One said to another, on taking his arm,
" By license, friend, and take this for no harm."
"No, Sir," (quoth the other,) " I give you fuR leave
" To hang on my arm, Sir, but not on my sleeve."
Here is a jester's definition of
WIT, WILL, AND WISDOM.
Where will is good, and wit is ill,
There wisdom can no manner skill.
Where wit is good, and will is ill,
There wisdom sitteth silent still.
Where wit and will are both too ill,
There wisdom no way meddle will.
Where wit and will well-ordered be,
There wisdom maketh a trinity.
And the following is not a bad specimen of the ordinary
fool's mock sermon put into rhyme, with the title of
CEETAIN FOLLIES.
To cast fair white salt into wise man's meat,
To make them count salt, sugar, when they eat,
A folly.
To bear a man in hand he itcheth in each part,
When the man feeleth an universal smart,
A folly.
To speak always well and do always ill,
And tell men those deeds are done of good will,
A folly.
Thy lusty-limbed horse to lead in thy hand,
When on thy lame limbs thou canst scanty stand,
A folly.
Of sticks for cage-work to build thy house high,
And cover it with lead, to keep thy house dry,
A folly!
158 HISTOllY OF COURT FOOLS.
From a sermon, to those who needed the instruction that
ought to be afforded by one, is not going wide apart.
Such a person Heywood seems to have met, and to have
reproved by a Latin pun which was unintelligible to this
MERRY WOMAN.
There came by chance to a good company,
A lady, a wanton, and eke a merry.
And though ev'ry word of her own show'd her light,
Yet no man's words that to her might recite.
She had all the words, which she babbled so fast,
That they being weary, one said, at last,
" Madam, you make my heart light as a ' kix,'
To see you thus full of your meretrix."
This trick thus well trick'd out in good Latin phrase,
Brought to this trick er neither muse nor mase..
She nought perceiving was no whit offended,
Nor her light behaviour no whit amended ;
But still her tongue was clapping like a patten.
" Well," said the said man, in language of Latin,
" I never told woman any fault before,
Nor never, in Latin, will tell them fault more."
It would be hard to say whether Queen Mary laughed or
not, when" John, the King's Jester," either read to her the
following epigram, or recounted the story, by way of joke ;
but it is worth quoting here, though not so much as a
specimen of the royal favourite's wit, as another proof that
in the old pronunciation of the word aclie, the latter had
the ch soft.
OF THE LETTER H.
H is worst among letters in all the cross row,
For if thou find him either in thine elbow,
In thine arm or leg, in any degree,
In thy head or teeth, in thy toe or knee ;
Into what place soever H may pyke him,
Wherever thou find ache thou shalt not like him.
Heywood has a few epigrams touching fools. The follow-
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 159
ing will show that what Selden said of evil-speaking, in
reference to James's court fool, Stone, in courtly prose, had
been uttered before him by Mary's court wit in shambling
verse.
A FOOL'S TONGUE.
Upon a fool's provocation,
A wise will not talk,
But ev'ry light instigation,
Will make a fool's tongue walk.
And again, on a fool whose foolish wit was called wisdom,
Heywood said and sang :
Wisdom and folly in thee (as men scan)
Is, as it were, a thing by itself ; fool,
Among fools, thou art taken a wise man ;
And among wise men thou art known a fool.
In the same strain is this quatrain :
OF EARS AND WITS.
Thin ears and thin wits be dainty ;
Thick ears and thick wits be plenty.
Thick ears and thick wits be scant ;
Thin ears and thin wits none want.
The following belongs to the satirist :
OF THE WIFE'S AND HER HUSBAND'S WAIST.
" Where am I least, husband ? " Quoth he, " In the waist ;
Which cometh of this, thou art vengeable strait-laced."
" Where am /biggest, wife ? " "In the waist too," quoth she,
" For all is waste in you, as far as I can see."
Finally, here is a fling at farthingales, for which any
modern epigrammatist might do what Pope effected for
Donne, smooth the versification, and, in addition, turn the
point against crinoline.
160 HISTORY OF COUBT FOOLS.
" Alas ! poor verdingalcs must lie in the street ;
To house them no door in the City's made meet.
Since at our doors they in cannot win,
Send them to Oxford, at Broadgate to get in."
Soon after the death of Queen Mary, in 1558, her ortho-
dox jester, who hated and ridiculed Protestantism as vigo-
rously as any French court fool launched his little quips
against the faith of the Huguenots, withdrew from Eng-
land, and took refuge in the fair Flemish city of Mechlin.
It was a likely place of refuge for a lively and " ortho-
dox " voluntary exile. Mechlin, like Troyes in Cham-
pagne, was worthy of supplying any Court with fools,
for it was the wise men of that city who once tried to put
out the moon ! It was a jovial place also. Near the gate
of St. Catherine, on the Antwerp side, stood the church
and monastery of St. Alexis. This monastery contained
fifteen hundred nuns, and full as many lady boarders. The
good sisters enjoyed the very merriest of privileges. They
were not only permitted to receive all sorts of visitors
within the monastery, but to return the visit when and
wheresoever they pleased. They might, if they chose,
live unrestrained in the city ; and might either marry or
leave it alone, just as their humour prompted. The old and
anonymous author of ' Les Pais Bas' ("Bruxelles, 1692,
p. 123), assures his readers that the old-established custom
had never been followed by ill effect ; and that the pious
and pretty sisters had even employed themselves in respec-
table and praiseworthy matters, to the edification of the
population which had before them so excellent an example.
One would have liked to have had a dozen of epigrams
from merry John Heywood, on these lively ladies, who, to
quote a proverb of his own, were " As nice as nuns' hens ;"
but he may have been saddened by the aspect of the city
itself, which had not yet recovered from the calamity which
had fallen upon it in 1546. In the month of August of that
ENGLISH COURT TOOLS. 161
year (near midnight of the 17th), a flash of lightning pierced
the powder magazine, and the explosion levelled a fourth of
the city, and blew hundreds of its inhabitants intothe air. The
ruins long encumbered the place ; and it was among the re-
maining wrecks caused by this catastrophe, and the cheerful
nuns of St. Alexis, ever busy and mirthful, that orthodox
John Heywood passed the closing years of his life. The
Papal favour, which had selected Mechlin as the scene of the
jubilee of 1452, had gained for the city the title of " Mechlin
the Happy." Heywood could not go to Some, as King
Edmund's joculator did, and as one at least of his own sons
did subsequently; but, for religion's sake, he pitched his
tabernacle in a city that had been blessed by a Pope, blasted
by lightning, and was kept merry by the most vivacious nuns
that had ever been heard of, except at Parmoutier. Antony
Wood (in his ' Athenss Oxon.' vol. i. p. 150) sneers at the
idea of a member of the ordinarily unprincipled profession
of poets, going into voluntary banishment for the sake of re-
ligion. Perhaps, as far as regards Heywood's case, Antony
was not very much mistaken, if it be true that, when Key-
wood's last hour arrived, in 1589, he spent it in laughter,
jokes, gibes, and fearful jesting with that King Death who
was summoning him to his court. Further towards that
court we will not follow him ; but will rather take leave of
him with a glance at the portraiture of the living jester at
the courts of Henry VIII. and Queen Mary.
The portrait of Heywood, prefixed to his poem of ' The
Spider and the Ply ' (edition 1556), has nothing in it of the
appearance of the court fool. It represents, at full length, a
very respectable, middle-aged, and not particularly good-hu-
moured gentleman, with smooth shaven cheeks and chin. He
is attired in a close-fitting coat, reaching to the middle of the
thigh, surmounted by a long loose-sleeved cloak ; the ends of
what appears to be trunk-hose appear just below the kirtle
portion of the coat ; and up to the hose reach long, tight
M
162 HISTOBY Of COURT FOOLS.
stockings, gartered both above and below knee. A flat cap
with a protecting fall to keep the back of the head warm, is
fixed tight upon that head, which seems as closely shaven as
the cheeks and chin ; at all events, there is no appearance
of hair from beneath it. A dagger, suspended from a girdle,
hangs across the thighs in front, and in this girdle John the
Jester has passed the thumb of either hand ; and he stands
resting chiefly on the right leg, the left being slightly bent,
and the owner of them having altogether something of the
look of a man who would be "jolly " if he could, but who
is disgusted at his ill success.
As there is no doubt of Hey wood having been named by
Mary's father, " King's Jester," we may fairly conclude, as-
suming this portrait to be a true effigy, that the jester was
now a higher personage than the fool. This was not the
case in the time of Scogan, who, though a member of the Uni-
versity (as Hey wood also was), hired himself out, according
to Andrew Borde, as a household fool. We shall also find,
in the reign of Elizabeth, that a difference was made between
jester and fool ; that is, between a clever individual retained
or invited to make good jests, without being always obliged
to wear motley, and the ordinary fool who had his wages, his
privilege of speech, his whipping occasionally, his cumber-
some jokes, his freedom of the pantry, and his bed with the
spaniels. Tarleton, for instance, was court jester to Eliza-
beth ; but he was not always a wearer of cap and bells. He
was not of such good condition by birth as either Scogan
or Heywood ; he was, what may often be found now in the
same person, a tavern-keeper and a low comedian. But he
was also " Gentleman of the Chamber " to the Queen ; and
by that title, he stood near Elizabeth's chair and wagged
his tongue boldly, though not always without rebuke.
It will have been noticed that it was not every King of
England who cared to be moved to laughter by the exhibi-
tions of comic minstrels or joculators. Some princes have in-
ENGLISH COTJET FOOLS. 163
deed accounted laughter thus raised, as beneath the dignity
of men of their rank. Thus Philip, son of the Christian Em-
peror Philip the Arabian, rebuked his own sire openly, for
laughing at the jokes and sports of hired jesters who were
doing their best to amuse the sovereign and an august body of
spectators. The younger Philip read the elder Philip a se-
vere lecture on his unseemly conduct, which seems to me to
have been a greater offence against propriety, than his father's
merriment. The son's contemporaries gave him the name
of Philip Agelastos ; and he has come down to us as Philip
the Laughless. Old Puttenham, who wrote when court fools
were flourishing, praises this impertinent and overstarched
young prince. For, says he (in his 'Arte of English Poesie,
p. 244, edit. 1589), "though at all absurdities we may de-
cently laugh, and when they be no absurdities, not decently ;
yet in laughing is there an undecency in other respects,
sometime, than of the matter itself." The old man had in
his memory, probably, some incidents of uncomely laughter
at unseemly court jests of the days of the Tudors.
The dynasily of jesters was not yet overthrown ; but I may
observe that there were three things which helped to over-
throw that dynasty, and to render the vocation a matter of
history. When intense gravity of deportment ceased to be
considered as warrant for aristocratic breeding, fashionable
"people, if I may so speak, did not require mirth to be pro-
vided for them ; they manufactured a better article for them-
selves. Again, when reading and writing began to be com-
mon and yet dearly-prized luxuries, the readers found a
richer enjoyment in eld authors than in young jesters ; and
they who held the pen, discovered that occasionally they could
be as witty as if they had been bred to the calling. Lastly,
came freedom of thought and freedom of expression, the lat-
ter sometimes exercised only with considerable daring ; but
against these, which symbolize an extending of civilization,
the poor fool, his cap, bells, official stick, his quips, and his
M 2
164 HISTOBT OF COUBT FOOLS.
quirps, his whole freight of fun, made utter and irretrievable
shipwreck. I find authority for some portion at least of what
is advanced above, in a passage from Puttenham, the author,
among other things, of the ' Parthenaide.' In that work he
compliments Queen Elizabeth on her maidenly qualities,
the subjoined paragraphs he commends her behaviour at
court, while he treats of a court deportment generally.
And he pays Elizabeth this compliment at the expense of
the Emperor Ferdinand, whom he roundly scolds for " run-
ning up and down stairs with so swift and nimble a pace as
almost had not become a very mean man who had not gone
on some hasty business." In mean men and fools, hurry is
not very censurable. " But," says Puttenham, " in a prince,
it is decent to go slow, and to march with leisure and with
a certain grandity rather than gravity, as our sovereign lady
and mistress, the very image of majesty and magnificence, is
accustomed to go generally ; unless it be when she walketh
apace for her pleasure, or to catch her a heat in the cold
mornings. Nevertheless, it is not so decent in a meaner
person, as I have discerned in some counterfeit ladies in the
country, which use it much to their own derision. This
comeliness was wanting in Queen Mary, otherwise a very
good and honourable princess." It was a "comeliness"
which, when enforced, weighed heavily; and when it vanished,
the heart enjoyed its own impulses, and was no longer at- *
tracted by the fool and his " marottes."
It is certain, that with all Elizabeth's refinement and
taste, she had coarser men about her, as jesters, than her
sister Mary. The uses to which some of them were put,
is sufficiently remarkable. If Catholic Mary had her ortho-
dox jester, the Reformed cqurt of Elizabeth was not without
its ultra-Protestant fool.
As we shall find a French jester employed to laugh down
the Reformed religion and its professors in France, so in
England, Paee, " the bitter fool," is said to have been en-
ENGLISH COUBT FOOLS. 165
gaged in a particular way to support it, in England, by
destroying certain outward and visible signs supposed to
savour too strongly of Popery. According to this story,
Pace was employed by Sir Francis Knollys, to break down
a crucifix and remove the lighted tapers which Queen Eli-
zabeth persisted in having in her private chapel, in spite
even of the friendly and urgent remonstrance of Archbishop
Parker, offered repeatedly, but without success. I do not
know that there is any reliable authority for this story.
Certainly, a jester might dare to do what a Lord Primate
would only respectfully insinuate ; and, perhaps, Parker-
remembers the improvement effected in the Queen's chapel
by the court fool, Pace, when, in his letter to Sir William
Cecil (October, 1560), after recommending certain person-
ages for church preferment, he says : " Now, if either of
them, or any of us all, should be feared to hurt the state of
our churches, by exercising any extraordinary patesing, for
packing and purchasing, this fear might sure be prevented.
"We have old precedents in law, practised in times past for
such parties suspected, to be bound at their entry, to have
the churches in no worse case, by their defaults, than they
found them ; and then what would you have more of us ?"
Now Pace, if he destroyed the cross and tapers in the
Queen's chapel, may be said to have left the edifice in a
worse condition than it was in when he entered it. It is
quite certain that Sir Francis Knollys was violently eager
for the destruction of these ornaments. Just a year pre-
vious to Parker alluding to " patesing " in churches, Knollys
writes to that prelate : " Wishing you prosperity in all
godliness, namely in your good enterprise against the enor-
mities yet in the Queen's closet retained (although without
the Queen's express commandment these toys were laid
aside, till now a-late), I shall, with my hearty commenda-
tions, commit you and us all to the mighty protection of the
living God." A gentleman who could so boldly write of the
166 HISTOHT OF COURT FOOLS.
" enormities in the Queen's closet," may well have ventured
to employ a licensed jester to remove them. The editors of
the Parker correspondence, John Bruce. Esq., and the Bev.
T. Perowne, suggest that the word " patesing " refers to the
Pates, Bishop of AVorcester. in Mary's time. This indeed
is probable enough : but if it be true that, in 1559. Knollys
employed Pace to disfigure the Queen's closet, the term
may have reference to the act committed by her Majesty's
fool.
Pass we on now from Pace, and the question connected with
him, to one of those fools who were rather hangers-on about
court, than actually, exclusively and officially, engaged in the
Eoyal service. Such a one seems to have been that Charles
Chester, who resembled those official French jesters who
found more delight in annoying the courtiers by his sarcasms,
than amusing them, or his Sovereign, by his wit. Chester
was especially severe in addressing coarse strictures on
Baleigh and Lord Knollys, in their own hearing. Sir AValter
resolved to be revenged ; and to accomplish it, they invited
Chester to supper. The buffoon accepted the invitation
without any suspicion, and the two noble gentlemen made
him exceedingly drunk at a repast at which he had eaten like
Gargantua. Taking him in this condition, with the help of
several servants, they fastened him up in a corner of a
court-yard, and then some masons, engaged for the occasion,
built a brick wall close round his person, and right up to
his chin. They kept him there many hours, under a threat
of building him in altogether. The jester was sobered by
his terror, and begged piteously to be liberated. When
ready to die with fear, indigestion, and other fatal influences,
the frolicsome gentlemen exacted from him a solemn oath,
that he would never again cut a joke or make a sarcasm at
their expense ; and the fool kept his word, if not out of a
sense of honour, certainly out of a sense of terror.
Chester survived to be known to Ben Jonson, who has
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 167
immortalized him as Carlo Buffone, in ' Every Man Out of
His Humour.' In the character of the persons prefixed to
that piece, this buffoon is described as scurrilous and pro-
fane ; rich in absurd similes and audacious lies ; a " good
feast-hound or banquet-beagle;" a thorough parasite and
glutton, and a stupendous swiller of sack. " His religion
is railing, and his discourse ribaldry;" and it is added of
this perverse fellow, that he loaded those with the heaviest
reproaches whom he had the greatest reason to respect.
Such a character accords well with the noisy, evil-tempered
fellow depicted by Aubrey (Lives, ii. p. 14), who tells us
that the fool so offended a knight at a tavern by his im-
pertinence, that the angry gentleman beat him, and stopped
his mouth by sealing his beard and moustachios together
with wax !
It is, however, to be noted, that Carlo in the play is
superior to Carlo as described in the persons of the drama.
If Jonson's picture be a veritable portrait, how exquisitely
could this buffoon prattle of the advantage of being in debt
advantage so dear to fools of all classes in this present
time ! How admirably could he hit off an old over-scented
lover, " who has his skin tanned in civet, to make his com-
plexion strong, and the sweetness of his youth lasting in
the smell of his sweet lady." How dashingly he hits off a
city gentleman ; how frolicsomely he exposes the city wives !
He alludes to " standing by the fire in the presence," as if
the ways of Court were familiar to him ; and to taking
tobacco with nobles, " over the stage in the lords' room," as
if he had right of entry there. Some of his similes are
drawn from his profession, for he describes a man's shield of
arms as being " of as many colours as ever you saw any
fool's coat in your life." What a vade mecum for asses is
his instruction to dolts to show how they may pass for
sensible fellows in society ! How happily, yet briefly, does
he paint a student learning to smoke! "With what true
168 HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS.
fool's satire does he exclaim, " Friend! is there any such
foolish thing in the world ?" and what fool's philosophy is
there in the assertion that " Swaggering is a good argument
of resolution !" "We probably have something of the look of
Chester afforded us in the remark of Macilente, " Pork ! I
think thou dost varnish thy face with the fat on't, it looks so
like a glue-pot." And what a sharp touch of the jester's fence
is the reply, "True, my raw-boned rogue, and if thou wouldst
farce thy lean ribs with it, too, they would not, like ragged
laths, rub out so many doublets as they do." When Pun-
tarvolo seals up his mouth, as Aubrey's knight did that of
the real Chester, we feel that it could not be for the same
reason ; and when the vain-glorious cavalier tells us that
" Carlo comes not at Court," we are apt to think, that if
Chester was of the times and not also of the household of
Queen Elizabeth, she lacked a jester fit to rank with Clod.
This fool, who was an official court fool, must have been
a fellow of as much humour as Yoric himself, if we may
judge from one sample of his wit, which is no bad sample
of his license also, and which is good warrant for his acute-
ness and discrimination, to boot.
At the court of Elizabeth there was many a cleric of the
Vicar of Bray school, and among them Dean Perne, who
had oscillated from one faith to another three or four times
in about a dozen years, and who never felt in a state of
finality anywhere. Perne, with Archbishop Whitgift, was
in attendance on the Queen one wet day, when her Majesty
was desirous of going out for a walk. The desire was an
unwise one, for Elizabeth was in ill health ; but the divines
were not bold enough to dissuade her. But Clod, the
Queen's fool, was also present, and lie had the courage
which the others lacked. " Madam," said he, " Heaven
dissuades you, for it is cold and wet ; and earth dissuades
you, for it is damp and dirty. Heaven dissuades you, too,
by this heavenly man, Archbishop Whitgift ; and earth dis-
ENGLISH COTJBT FOOLS. 169
suades you, by me, your fool, Clod, lump of clay as I am.
But if neither can prevail you, here is the Dean Perne, who
is neither of heaven nor of earth, but hangs between the
two, and he too dissuades you."
The above was witty license at the expense of a courtier ;
but Clod could exercise wit and audacity at the expense of
the Queen. Elizabeth once reproached him with not alto-
gether fulfilling the duties of his office. " How so ?" asked
Clod; "in what have I failed?" "In this," answered the
Queen, " you are ready enough to point your sharp satire
at the faults of other people, but you never say a word of
mine." "Ah!" exclaimed the jester, "that is because I
am saved the trouble by so many deputies. "Why should
I remind your Majesty of your faults, seeing that these are
in everybody's mouth, and you may hear of them hourly ?"
After all, this was not near so bold as the answers which
(years after) Whiston used to fling at Queen Caroline, con-
sort of George II. Whiston, if not kept at Court like the
jester of earlier times, was so frequent a sojourner there,
that George II. got weary of this heterodox divine, who
did not hesitate to tell him, when the King was inveighing
against freedom of inquiry in religious matters, that if
Luther had been of that opinion, his Majesty would never
have been King of England ! But where I find Queen Ca-
roline and Whiston nearly resembling Queen Elizabeth and
Clod, is on that well-known occasion at Hampton Court,
when Caroline said to. the eccentric divine, that, bold
speaker as he was, he was, perhaps, not bold enough to tell
her of her -faults. Whiston proved that her Majesty was
mistaken, by denouncing her very unseemly behaviour at
divine service. Caroline laid part of the blame on the King,
acknowledged her fault, promised amendment, and asked
what was her next offence. " Nay, Madam," said Whiston,
" it will be time enough to go to the second fault when you
have fairly amended the first!" The eccentric character of
170 HISTOEY OF COTJET TOOLS.
Whiston procured for him from Caroline just that impunity
which Clod and Chester and others found at the hands of
Elizabeth.
Having had occasion to mention these two Queens in the
same paragraph, I will take the opportunity of adding, that
if the time had passed by when official fools had place at
court, it was not because Caroline was more refined than
Elizabeth. The contrary was the fact, if we may believe
the following passage, in the ' Reliquiae Hearnianse : ' " The
present Duchess of Brunswick, commonly called Queen
Caroline, is a very proud woman, and pretends to great sub-
tlety and cunning. She drinks so hard, that her spirits are
continually inflamed, and she is often drunk. The last sum-
mer, she went away from Orkney House, near Maidenhead
(at which she had dined), so drunk, that she was sick in
the coach all her journey, as she went along ; a thing much
noted" In spite of the words in italics, the story must be
taken with some allowance, for old Hearne was a furious
Jacobite, and was likely to " embroider " a story to make it
tell against a Hanoverian princess. One fact, however, is
undisputed, namely, that no jester and king of the very
coarsest times ever sat together and exchanged more licen-
tious stories than Caroline and Sir Robert Walpole. The
published life of the latter will support this assertion, though
I need not make, in such a case, an especial reference.
A study of the two reigns will, at least, serve to show that
Elizabeth and her court fools were quite as refined as Caro-
line and her fine gentlemen.
The refinement of Elizabeth seems to have been justly
appreciated by those who had to cater for her amusements.
For instance, in the " Extracts from the Accounts of the
Revels at Court," edited for the Shakespeare Society, by
Mr. P. Cunningham, there is an entry, in October 1573, to
the following effecb, made by the Master of the Revels :
" Item : sundry times for calling together of sundry players,
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 171
and for perusing, fitting, and reforming their matters other-
wise not convenient to be showen before her Majesty."
And again, in 1574, an entry of 40s. occurs, as the sum
paid to a court official " for his pains in perusing and re-
forming of plays sundry times, as need required for her
Majesty."
We have seen Will Sommers sleeping among the spaniels,
and there are not wanting instances to show how sharp was
the toil and poor the rest of many of those who laboured to
amuse the leisure hours of Elizabeth. The following are
examples. An entertainment is about to be given in the
metropolitan palace, and the properties have to be brought
from Eichmond or Hampton Court ; the passage by water
seems to have been slow and uncertain, as is shown in an
entry : " To the porters that watched all night at the
Blackfriars Bridge, for the coming of the stuff from court,
2s." This " bridge " was doubtless a landing stage, To
this same Blackfriars " bridge " are brought a number of
children, who had been down to Hampton Court to perform
in a masque before her Majesty. The little Cupids had
looked warm and plump and rosy enough in the presence
of the Queen ; but they were all sent back (nine of them)
in an open boat, in the winter of 1573, and in consequence,
there is an entry which has little of the spirit of " Revels "
in it, to this effect: "To Thomas Totnall, for fire, and
victuals for the children, when they landed, some of them
being cold and sick and hungry, 6s. 6^."
Not to digress further from the taste of the Queen, as
exhibited by her in connection with her court pleasures, I
may further state that we have good evidence that Eliza-
beth was neither unrefined herself nor admired lack of
refinement in those who were about her, whether friends,
attendants, or jesters, in the frequently-printed account
given by Bohun, in his ' Character of Queen Elizabeth.'
" At supper she would divert herself with her friends and
172 HISTOEY OF COURT FOOLS.
attendants ; and if they made her no answer, she would put
them upon mirth and pleasant discourse, with great civility.
She would then also admit Tarleton, a famous comedian
and a pleasant talker, and other such-like men, to divert
her with the stories of the town and the common jests or
accidents, but so that they kept within the bounds of mo-
desty and chastity. In the winter-time, after supper, she
would sometimes hear a song or a lesson or two played
upon the lute ; but she would be much offended if there was
any rudeness to any person, any reproach, or licentious
reflection used. Tarleton, who was then the best comedian
in England, had made a pleasant play, and when it was
acting before the Queen, he pointed at Sir Walter Ealeigh,
and said, ' See, the Knave commands the Queen ! ' for
which he was corrected by a frown from the Queen ; yet
he had the confidence to add that he (Ealeigh) was of too
much and too intolerable a power. And going on with
the same liberty, he reflected on the over-great power and
riches of the Earl of Leicester ; which was so universally
applauded by all that were present, that she thought fit, for
the present, to bear these reflections with a seeming uncon-
cernedness. But yet she was so offended that she forbade
Tarleton and all her jesters from coming near her table,
being inwardly displeased with this impudent and unrea-
sonable liberty."
The maids of honour and the ladies in waiting seem to have
been more inclined to foDow the example set by their royal
mistress than the male courtiers. There was one of these
fine gentlemen who would address himself to Mistress Mary
Eatcliffe, one of Elizabeth's maidens of honour, in such a
tone that she relished neither his conversation nor discourse.
At length, she told him " that his wit was like a custard,
nothing good in it but the sop, and when that was eaten
you may throw away the rest."
The maids of honour were not at all disinclined to be
ENGLISH COTJET FOOLS. 173
frolicsome ; but this was with no ill purpose. Observe,
however, how this humour was indecently corrected by that
same Knollys who was offended with the cross in the
Queen's chapel, and employed Pace, the court fool, to pull
it down. Knollys " had his lodgings at court, where some
of the ladies and maids of honour used to frisk and hey
about, in the next room, to his extreme disquiet o' nights,
though he had often warned them of it ; at last, he gets
one to bolt their own back door, when they were all in, one
night, at their revels, strips off [to] his shirt, and so, with
a pair of spectacles on his nose, and Aretino in his hand,
comes marching in at a postern door of his own chamber,
reading very gravely, full upon the faces of them. Now
let the reader judge what a sad spectacle and pitiful fright
these poor creatures endured, for he faced them, and often
traversed the room, in this posture, above an hour."
I cite the above illustration of a court jest from the
L'Estrange manuscripts, edited by Mr. Thorns. My es-
teemed and modest friend has supplied a word in brackets,
for which, I fear, there is no warrant. I have no doubt that
the MS. as it stands is correct, and Knollys was not the
last courtier who thought it an excellent court jest to ap-
pear in the condition described. One of the greatest wits
at the court of Vienna, the Prince de Ligne, is thus de-
scribed by the Countess de Bohm in ' Les Prisons de 1793 :'
" Je 1'ai trouve le matin entierement nu, recevant des vi-
sites, parlant a, des fournisseurs. II me presenta meme a
sa belle-fille logee pres de lui." If the court wit of Vienna
could do this, and a lady not be startled thereby, in the last
century, what may not a courtier have dared a century ear-
lier? However this may be, we have seen that Elizabeth
would not tolerate forwardness even in Richard Tarleton,
who was, perhaps, the most celebrated of the court jesters
to that Queen, and one of the most perfect low comedians
that ever trod the stage. To the Leicester above-named
174 HISTOBY OF COURT FOOLS.
he is said to have owed his introduction to Elizabeth. Tarle-
ton was a Shropshire boy, and was keeping his father's
swine, near Condover, when an officer of the Earl's house-
hold, on his way to the Earl's estates in Denbigh, entered
into conversation with the young swineherd, and was so
struck by his " happy unhappy answers," that he took the
merry lout, nothing loath, with him," and Tarleton seems
to have passed thence to a higher court.
But, not immediately. It is, indeed, somewhat difficult
to trace the early part of the career of this jester before he
took office under the Queen. It is not, however, altogether
impossible, since Mr. Halliwell edited a purified edition of
Tarleton's jests, prefaced it by abiographical sketch, and added
elucidatory notes and confirmatory extracts from contem-
porary and other authors. From all these sources we make
out that Tarleton served some sort of apprenticeship in Lon-
don, and must have had a very fair education for one of his
class, seeing that he is described as being " superficially seen
in learning," and having so much as " a bare insight into
the Latin tongue." Xot so bad for a young swineherd,
whose wit stood him in good stead for what he lacked in
book-learning. To what calling he was bound apprentice
is not known : he is said to have been for some time a water
carrier ; and it was, perhaps, disgust at the drudgery, added
to inclination for other liquids, that made of him a tavern-
keeper. His grosser sense led him to tippling ; but he had
intellect enough to qualify him for writing ballads and com-
posing historical pantomimes. Like many modern actors,
he united the parts of player and vintner ; starred on many
stages, sometimes played more than one part in the same
piece, and he shifted from inn to inn, as landlord, as he did
from stage to stage, as an actor. He was Boniface respec-
tively of three taverns, at least; at Colchester, and in
London, in Gracechurch-street and Paternoster-row.
He had probably been for some years a player, slowly
ENGLISH COTJBT FOOLS. 175
rising, by dint of his wit, his squint, and his flat nose, to
pre-eminence, when in 1583 he was appointed one of the
Queen's players, and one of the grooms of her chamber. Stowe
remarks, that till the year just mentioned, Elizabeth had no
company of actors of her own, but that at the date named,
and at the request of Sir Francis Walsingham, twelve of the
best players were chosen from among the companies in the
service of divers great lords ; and that these were " sworn
the Queen's servants, and were allowed wages and liveries
as grooms of the chamber." Stowe notices " two rare men"
among this selected troop, " viz. Thomas Wilson, for a quick,
delicate, refined, extemporal wit ; and Richard Tarleton, for
a wondrous, plentiful, pleasant, extemporal wit, he was the
wonder of his time."
As court jester, Tarleton became as famous and as in-
fluential as any official who ever wore clown's suit. Fuller
calls him a master of his faculty, who, " when Queen Eliza-
beth was serious, I dare not say sullen, "and out of good
humour, he could undumpish her at his pleasure." As in
other courts, suitors to the Sovereign not unfrequently first
presented themselves to the jester. " He was their usher
to prepare their advantageous access to her." He doubt-
less lined his pockets with pistoles thereby ; and for his
royal pay he also gave good measure of wholesome severities.
" He told the Queen," says Fuller, " more of her faults than
most of her chaplains ; and cured her melancholy better than
all of her physicians."
If the Queen admired Dick, the latter had a great mea-
sure of reverence for his mistress. He could compare her,
he said, to nothing more fitly than a sculler ; for, he added,
" neither the Queen nor the sculler hath a fellow." He
nevertheless, and as a matter of course, could take great
liberties with her. The very first of the ' court witty jests,'
tells us of his attempting to draw the Queen out of a fit of
discontent by " a quaint jest," in which he pretended to be
176 HISTOBT OF COUBT FOOLS.
a thirsty drunkard, and called aloud for beer. The liquor
was duly supplied to him, and that so liberally, that Eliza-
beth gave orders that he should have no more, lest he should
turn beast, and shame himself. " Fear you not," said Tarle-
ton, " for your beer is small enough." So, perhaps, was
the jester's wit, but the Queen thought well of it, for " her
Majesty laughed heartily, and commanded that he should
have enough."
Elizabeth probably enjoyed fully as much the jests which
her chartered buffoon made at the expense of her courtiers.
Some of these were sorry enough ; and he would be no less
savage on the personal defects and deformities of ladies as
well as lords, than the most unscrupulous of the " Fous du
Eoi" at the court of France. To a lady, suffering from an
eruption on the face, and who consequently declined to
drink wine with the rest, he exclaimed, " A murrain of that
face which makes all the body fare the worse for it." This
rudeness, which drove the poor lady from table, was only
rewarded by a shout of laughter.
Tarleton wore his fool's attire when the Queen dined ;
and even attended her thus attired when she dined abroad,
" in his clown's apparel ; being all dinner- while in the pre-
sence with her, to make her merry." There seems to have
been a distrust of the power of the host and the guests to
make themselves agreeable, and so the Queen took her fool
with her, even when she dined at the Lord Treasurer's, at
Burleigh House, in the Strand. It was to the gate of that
house that Tarleton gave the name of " his Lordship's alms-
gate," because, he said, it was for ever closed.
On one occasion, the noble owner of this mansion having
thus entertained the Queen, besought her Majesty to re-
main all night; a request to which she would not for a
moment listen. The lords present applied to Tarletcn, of-
fering him any reward if he could succeed in inducing the
Queen to sleep at Burleigh House. The rest of the story
ENGLISH COUET FOOLS. 177
is so strange, that I prefer leaving it to my readers as it is
given in the Shakespeare Society's reprint of the old jest-
book. " Quoth he, ' Procure me the parsonage of Sherd.'
They caused the patent to be drawn presently. He got on
a parson's gown and a corner cap, and standing upon the
stairs where the Queen should descend, he repeated these
words : ' A parson or no parson ? A parson or no parson ?*
but after she knew his meaning, she not only stayed all
night, but the next day willed that he should have posses-
sion of the benefice. A madder parson was never ; for he
threatened to turn the bell-metal into lining for his purse,
which he did, the parsonage and all, into ready money."
Among his best similes, perhaps, was the one he made when
asked by a lord what soldiers were like in time of peace.
" They are like chimneys in summer," said Tarleton, whose
neat jest on this occasion seems to have passed off without
laiighter. But perhaps this was not said by him. Not
all the jests set down to him were uttered by him. That
which describes him as replying to a courtier who saluted
him with a " Good morrow, fool and knave," " I can't bear
both ; I '11 take the first, you are welcome to the other,"
is attributed to an Italian jester.
At this period the court jester was not bound to reside
within the precincts of the court, and to wear no suit but
his clown's apparel, without permission to the contrary.
This custom had even fallen into disuse in France, where
it had prevailed for a very lengthened period. Tarleton.' s
official duties, however, kept him late at court. We find
him on one occasion wending homeward at one in the
morning, when it was unlawful for the lieges to be abroad
after ten o'clock at night. He accordingly fell into the
hands of the watch, to whom, on being challenged, he had
announced himself as " a woman ;" for what is the use, he
asked, of my telling you what you know? The watch
declared he must be committed for being out-of-doors
178 HISTORY OF COUBT FOOLS.
after ten o'clock. "It is now past one!" cried the watch,
emphasizing the enormity. "Good!" said Tarleton ; "if it
be past one o'clock, it will not be ten these eight hours.
"Watchmen had wont to have more wit ; but for want of sleep
they have turned fools." The guardians of the night re-
cognized the Queen's jester, and they let him pass, rejoiced
at being entertained for a moment by an official whose duty
it was to entertain her Majesty's sacred self.
On another occasion, when challenged in company with
two others, he announced his companions as being makers
of eyes and light. The pious custodes solemnly laid hold
of him for flat blasphemy ; but when he explained that one
of his companions made spectacles and the other candles,
of course the watch fell into uncontrollable laughter, as
watchmen will do, even at smaller jests than this.
He was not always in such seemly society as the above ;
for we meet with him angering a certain huffing Kate, at a
tavern ; running up a score fo. 1 sixteen dozen pots of ale at
a country ale-house; bandying wit, at his own inn-door,
with beggars, whom he sometimes found a match for him ;
and, after living for days at other hostelries, getting himself
arrested as a Jesuit in disguise, and then refusing to
discharge his account, because of the false arrest. At
ordinaries he would expose the first he could find to his
rascally purpose, to the ridicule of the company ; and a
finely-dressed gentleman passing down Fleet-street, was
sure to have an unpleasant time of it, if he happened to be
espied by Tarleton. His wife was as often the victim of his
wit as any one else ; but she was often as sharp as he, and
the smart things said were, like Lady Mary Montague at a
" Twitnam Assembly," more smart than clean. When he
was keeping an ordiuaryin Paternoster-row, he and Mistress
Eichard were invited out to supper, " and because he was a
man noted, she would not go out with him into the street,
but entreats him to keep on one side, and she another ; which
ENGLISH COUBT FOOLS. 179
he consented to. But as he went, he would cry out to her
and say, ' Turn this way, wife ;' and anon, ' On this side, wife,'
so the people nocked the more to laugh at them. But
his wife, more than mad angry, goes back again, and almost
forswore his company." They kept together, nevertheless,
at the ordinary, where his customers not only found wit in
the royal jester, but wit in his mustard, as he proved, to his
own satisfaction at least, when he said that mustard and the
person dining, resembled " a witty scold meeting another
scold ; and knowing this scold will scold, begins to scold
first : so the mustard, being licked up, and knowing that
you will bite it, begins to bite you first!" It must surely
have been brighter jokes than this that procured for him
invitations to dinner at the houses of aldermen and
justices, who thought it well to treat a Queen's jester, and
laugh at jokes that might have been dished up for their
liege lady.
As a stage-player, Tarleton was the favourite clown of the
people at large. They roared at the coarse extemporary
songs which he rattled forth for their amusement and his
profit. They shouted at his admirable " gagging," his im-
provised speeches, his interlarded jokes with the audience,
and his allusions even to religious controversies then raging.
Learned physicians praised the voice which uttered, the
comical face which heightened, the wit, and the head which
was the very temple and head-quarters of facetiousness. It
mattered little whether he was in or out of the vein, he was
comic in spite of himself; in spite of themselves, people
would laugh, and all essayers in his line were frightened
out of their specialty, out of sheer despair of being able to
be tolerated while he lived or was remembered. No wonder
the Queen liked to see him act, as well as listen to his jests
at court. The very rudest as well as the highest, could
appreciate him as an actor all but the county justice
immortalized, although not named, by Nash, and in whose
180 HISTORY OF COTJET FOOLS.
presence, as also that of the whole township over which this
justice presided, Tarleton and his fellow-comedians were
playing. The jester had scarcely made his head visible on
the stage when the country auditory burst into fits of
laugher. "Whereat," says Nash, "the justice, not a little
moved, and seeing, with his becks and nods, he could not
make them cease, he went with his staif and beat them
round about unmercifully on the bare pates, in that they,
being but farmers and poor country hinds, could presume to
laugh at the Queen's man, and make no more account of
her cloth in his presence."
Metropolitan magistrates gave more license, and London
audiences were not charged with disrespect of her Majesty,
because they laughed immoderately at her jester. Tarleton
was one night playing at the Bull, in Bishopsgate-street.
The play was an old one, touching Henry V. ; he, of course,
played the clown, but the actor of Judge Gascoyne being
absent, Tarleton good-naturedly undertook to play the Judge
also. The actor who performed the part of the Prince, dealt
the Judge such a box of the ear, when that pseudo-historical
incident came on, that Gascoyne shook again, but he did
not forget his dignity. He re-appeared as Clown, to whom
is told the unseemly scene in court. " Strike a judge !"
cried Tarleton. " It could not be but terrible to him, when the
report so terrifies me that methinks the blow remains still
on my cheek; that it burns again!" "The people," adds
the narrator, "laughed at this mightily;" and we may well
fancy a clever and a favourite low comedian turning such an
incident to capital account.
It was not exactly a time for jests when
" In the year 1588," cried Philip, " the English 1 '11 humble.
I've taken it into my Majesty's pate, and their lion, oh down he
shall tumble!"
We do not suppose, however, that the Queen's jester fell sick
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 181
at his lodgings in Haliwel- street, Shoreditch, because of the
Spanish Armada. He is supposed to have been seized by
the plague. On the 3rd of September, in the year just
named, he, at all events, fell mortally ill ; and he at once
made his will : in this document he is described as " one of the
Gromesof the Quene'sMajestie's chamber." He leaves all his
goods and " cattells," etc. etc., to his son Philip ; but there
is nothing to show that they exist anywhere. Nevertheless,
he appoints guardians to his son, delivers to them " one
penny of the good and lawful money of England," " to the
use of the said Philipp Tarleton, by waye of possession and
seisin of all my said goodes and cattells," and having duly
executed this deed, which is of some length, the Queen's
jester turned his face to the wall and died, on the evening
of the day on which he had fallen ill. Before night had
come on, he was lying in a grave of the parish churchyard ;
where many of the Elizabethan actors lie around him.
People reckoned from his time as from an era. " The
year of Tarleton' s death " was as common a saying as " the
year of the Armada." His portrait was to be seen in every
house ; and in some residences, above the altar of Cloacina
was suspended the effigies of joyous Dick Tarleton.
At this period, the household fool was still, and he con-
tinued to be so for many subsequent years, to be found
on most establishments of any consequence. Some of the
best specimens of this class are to be found in Armin's
"Nest of Ninnies." Before turning to the pages of the
old literary actor, it may be as well to state that the ordi-
nary dress of the jester of this period, is depicted by Mr.
Douce, as consisting of a motley coat, with a girdle, bells
at the skirt and, sometimes, at the elbows. The breeches
and hose fitted close to the body, the colour on each leg
being different. The hood covered not only the head, but
the shoulders, and was crowned by the usual cock's-comb.
Some jesters carried a staff with a fool's head at the end
182 HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS.
of it ; others a staff suspended from which was a blown
bladder with a few peas in it. This was the costume of
the artificial fool. The natural fool was mostly attired in
a long gown-like dress, occasionally of costly velvet, and
adorned with yellow fringe, yellow being then commonly
known as the "fool's colour," as dark blue was that of the
serving man.
The first of the household fools named by Armin, " Jack
Gates," carried a small black-jack quart at his girdle, for
Jack's delight was in beer. He was tall, imwieldly, mis-
shapen. He was given to sport, was quite as much given
to swear, was conceited, gamesome, gleesome, " apt to joys,"
but "nastie." He was the servant, or jester, of .Sir
William Hollis, whom he called " "Willy." and otherwise
used with great familiarity. "When strange servants came
to the house, he was addicted to setting them at logger-
heads ; and once, when an earl, arriving on a visit, greeted
Lady Hollis, at her husband's side, by a kiss, Jack Gates
gave him a box of the ear, for which Sir AVilliam gave
the jester a whipping. He deserved as much, for his
sorry excuse for giving a cuff to the Earl. " He asked the
Earl where his hand was. ' Here,' quoth he. "With that
Jack shakes him by it, and says : ' I mistook it before,
not knowing your ear from your hand ; being so like one
another.' " The compliment was so ill-turned that Gates
was scourged for this also.
This fool could not bear to be in the hall, like him in
Mr. Thornbury's ballad. " He was a little proud-minded,
and was therefore altogether in the great chamber, at my
lady's or Sir William's elbow. Sir William could arouse
him to wrath, if not to wit, by threatening to hire a new
jester, and yet " he loved the fool above all, and that the
household knew." But the threat would sometimes cause
Gates to run a muck through the hall, beating all in his
way, and crying " Hang Sir Willy ! Hang Sir Willy ! "
ENGLISH COURT TOOLS. 183
It is difficult to fancy bow such nuisances could be tole-
rated, much less loved ; and indeed even Sir William Hollis,
who loved his fool above all, seems, or pretended, to have got
weary of him. There was at least a feigned hiring of a new
jester, and the noble company at dinner, on hearing it,
" ting'd with a knife at the bottom of a glass, as tolling
the bell for the fool," whose colour, we are told, came and
went, "like a wise man ready to make a good end." Jack,
however, had more of the brute than the sage, and he so
fell upon his rival that he 7iearly killed him, and did actually
put out one of the poor fellow's eyes. We can credit what
follows, that " ever after Jack Gates would not endure to
hear any talk of any other fool, to be there," but one can
hardly credit what is added, viz. " that the Knight durst
not make such a motion." The influence of these fellows
must have been great, if they were all like Gates, and the
subserviency of their masters must have been on a par
with their egregious folly.
As the fool ruled in the hall, so also would he try to es-
tablish a despotism in the kitchen ; but the sovereign cook
there could successfully banish him the territory by
flinging over him a ladle of scalding soup. Such feuds
were there in the Lincolnshire household of Sir William
Hollis, who, on one occasion, had invited a number of friends
to a repast, the chief feature of which was a magnificent
quince-pie made of fruit " ready preserved at pothecaries," in
the county town. The cook expected to derive great honour
from the dish, and Gates determined to foil his expecta-
tions. Jack feigned to be ill, and Sir William kindly led
him by the hand to the kitchen fire-side, where the Knight
left him seated, with charge to the cook to look to his
comforts. Cook and fool, of course, speedily fell out, and
Gates, to avenge himself, watched his opportunity, seized
on the quince-pie as it was about to be taken out of the
oven, and, hiding it beneath his long gown, ran off with it.
184 HISTOET OF COL'BT FOOLS.
The pie burnt him so terribly that he could think of no
better place to eat it in, than the moat. Into this he
plunged up to the shoulders, and, cooling the dish in the
water, greedily devoured the whole of the contents. The cook,
meanwhile, rushed to the dining-hall to make complaint
to the host and his expectant guests. " They laught and
ran to the windows to see the jest. Jack fed, and feeding
greedily, ever as he burnt his mouth, with haste, dipt the
pie into the water to cool it. ' Oh ! ' says the cook, ' it is
Sir WiDiam's own pie, sirrah ! ' ' Oh ! ' says Jack, ' hang
thee and Sir "Willie too.' . . . ' Save Sir William some,'
says one. ' Save my lady some ! ' says another. ' By
James 1 not a bit,' says Jack, and ate up all, to the wonder
of the beholders." Such was the amusement of nobles
and gentles, in the days when fools were nourishing, a long
time ago !
Amain gives other instances, in the case of " lean Leonard,"
fool " to a kind gentleman who dwells in the merry forest
of Sherwood," and whose name Armin omits, "fearing I too
much offend by meddling with his fool." Leonard was a
flaxen, curly-haired fellow, who
*' Plays on thoughts, as girls with beads,
When their mass they stamber."
He seems, moreover, to have been slightly deaf, long-necked,
hook-nosed, thickly bearded, and sullen of visage. He was
remarkable for a very expensive sort of boisterousness. He
would play games of chance with imaginary adversaries,
with whom he would fall out, and in fighting with which
shadowy antagonists, he would injure or destroy the furni-
ture of a whole room. When his appetite prompted, he
would break open the dairy, swallow the new cheese-curds,
destroy those he could not devour, overthrow the cream-
bowls, and then abscond for awhile to Mansfield in Sher-
wood, till the short-lived anger of his master had passed
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 185
away. On hearing his patron praise a hawk which he pos-
sessed, lean Leonard, taking the praise in a gastronomic
sense, went and wrung the hawk's neck, and nearly choked
himself by trying to devour it, feathers and all. He seems
to have been, at other times, employed in carrying manure
from the stables to the garden, in a barrow in which he
made his bed by night. One winter time, he showed his
professional wit by lighting a fire in his barrow, to warm
himself by. The fire seized on the barrow, and this, all in
flames, he trundled into the hall, among the men and maids,
severely burning several of the latter, and thence into the
barn, which was filled with hay and straw, and which was
with difficulty saved from destruction. " The world laughed
a good deal at these jests," says Hobin, which shows how
mischief could tickle it. The only anecdote I can find of
Leonard which may be fairly smiled at, is the one which
tells us of a " country plow-jogger who, coming behind Leo-
nard with a lump of shoemaker's wax in his hand, clapt
him on the head, and asked him how he did." The fool felt
the pitch ball, and enraged at not being able to get rid of
it, fell to furious fight with the " plow-jogger," who " bela-
boured the fool cunningly, and got the fool's head under his
arm, and bobbed his nose. The fool, remembering how his
head was, strikes it up, and hits the fellow's mouth with the
pitched place, so that the hair of his beard and the hair of
the clown's head were glued together. The fellow cried,
the fool exclaimed, and could not suddenly part. In the
end, the people, after much laughing at the jest, let them
part fair."
Arrnin also notices a contemporary fool named Jack Mil-
ler, " one that was more beloved among ladies than thought
can hatch or opinion produce." His principal merit seems
to have been in imitating players who dressed in the kitchens
and played in the halls of gentlemen's houses, and who led
him into various mishaps, by practising on his simplicity.
186 HISTOEY OF COURT FOOLS.
He was famous also for singing a song called Deryes Fair,
and for speaking sentences full of the letters b andjp, which
he could not pronounce without a world of stammering and
stuttering, which was a wonderful provocative of mirth to
noble lords and ladies who hired him on purpose. Arm in
saw and heard Miller once exhibit at " a gentleman's not far
from Upton upon Seuerne in Gloxestershire." At the table
were "many gallants and gentlewomen, almost the state of
the country." Well, this state company roared lustily at
the fool ; one elderly gentlewoman even fainted with exhaus-
tion from immoderate hilarity, and " one proper young gen-
tlewoman among the rest, because she would not seem too
immodest with laughter," confined herself to making a re-
mark which caused ten times more mirth than the fool's
stammering, and which was received with an indulgence
which a Roman Emperor especially extended to such com-
ments, by imperial decree.
The last fool in Armin's ' Nest,' is "Blue John." There
is nothing of him however worth narrating. He was an idiot,
protected, lodged, and boarded at Christ's Hospital. He
joined in the processions of the boys, imitated the preachers
who held forth before them, ran on many messages and made
more mistakes, was void of wit, and yet was sufficiently es-
teemed to induce his patrons to have his portrait taken.
They who are curious to see the counterfeit presentment of
this species of fool, may gratify their desire by a visit to the
" Hospital," where the boys still wear the colour that was
worn by " Blue John."
I may perhaps fittingly notice here, that, during the reign
of the Tudor and Stuart dynasties especially, there was a
species of "fool" to be found in great households, who was
there for the profit rather than the amusement of the master
of the house. " It is very strange," said Charles II. to some
of his courtiers, " that every one of my friends keeps a tame
knave." The tame knaves thus spoken of (in the ' Lives of the
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 187
Norths,' ch.ii. p, 2-l7),were persons who had been pronounced
each Fatuus purus et idiota, by a jury ; and it was a common
practice to beg such a man for a fool, that is to apply to the
crown, for the applicant to have custody of the lands and
person of the so-called "fool." In illustration of this prac-
tice there are several anecdotes cited by Mr. W. J. Thorns
in his ' Anecdotes and Traditions derived from MS. Sources,'
and edited by him for the Camden Society. The following
illustration is from the manuscript papers of Sir Nicholas
L'Estrange, and has reference to the reign of which I am
now treating.
" Lord North held old Bladwell in his custody as a lunatic,
and carried the poor fellow about with him. His lordship
was desirous of having and holding Bladwell as his fool, but
the obstacle was, not that Bladwell wanted wit, but that he
could not be proved to be a fool at all. He had some spirit
of mischief in him, of the fool's quality ; as, for instance, when
Lord North, taking Bladwell with him to a gentleman's
house, left his lunatic companion in the dining-room, while
lord and gentleman conferred together in another room.
Bladwell, left alone, amused himself with looking at the
figures on the tapestry, and happening to espy that of a
jester among them, he quickly cut the figure from the costly
arras, and laid it flat on the ground, "When the gentlemen
returned to the dining room, the owner of the house, observ-
ing the damage done to his tapestry, was very indignant ;
but Bladwell sought to appease his wrath by remarking,
" Pray be content, Sir, I have saved your property, and not
injured it ; for if my lord there had seen the fool, he would
have wanted to have and hold him in his own household ;
and you would have lost that which you may now keep. I
have done you a service, Sir."
During the reign of James I., Sir Christopher Paston was
pronounced by a jury, to be in the same condition as " old
Bladwell" (who was a wealthy Norfolk gentleman). The
188 HISTOET OF COUET TOOLS.
knight's family seem to have had charge of their kinsman,
whose infirmity was made the ground for a retort, as will be
seen by the following incident, recorded also by Sir Nicholas
L'Estrange. " Jack Paston began one time to jest upon
Capon (who sat very silent and replied nothing), and told
him merrily, that he never met with such a dull, clay-pated
fool, that could not answer a word, and bade him remember
lie out-fooled him once. ' No, faith,' says Capon, ' I were
a fool indeed, to deal with you at that weapon. I know the
strain of the Pastons too well, and you must needs be right
bred for it ; for 1 am sure your race has not been without a
good fool these fifty years and upwards.' "
It would seem, too, that ambassadors carried in their
train individuals who represented the jesters at the court
from which the envoys were despatched, even as the latter
represented the sovereigns by whom they were commis-
sioned. Thus, when the Earl of Carlisle repaired to the
court of France, in 1616, deputed by James I., he went
thither at the head of an extraordinary retinue. "The Lady
Haddington," says Mr. John Chamberlain, in a contempo-
rary letter, quoted in Nichols's ' Progresses of James I.,'
" hath bestowed a favour upon him that will not easily fall
to the ground, for she says, the flower and beauty of his
embassy consists in three mignards, three dancers, and three
fools or buffoons. The mignards are himself, Sir Harry
Kich, and Sir George Goring. The dancers, Sir Gilbert
Hoghton, Auchmuty, and Abercromby. The fools, or buf-
foons, are Sir Thomas Jermyn,* Sir Ralph Sheldon, and
Thomas Badger."
These knights were not the only individuals of the court
of James I. who might aspire to fill the office of fool, either
in foreign palaces or at home. Sir George Eitz-JefFrey
might have ranked with any of the above. L'Estrange
(quoted by Mr. Thorns) says, he might have been " begged
* Father of Harry Jermyn, first Earl of St. Alban's.
ENGLISH COTTB1 1 TOOLS. 189
for a fool ;" and in proof of the good ground he has for the
assertion, tells the following incident, which occurred at
Eoyston in 1607. " Fitz- Jeffrey being brought up a back-
stair to the King, to be knighted, was turned out another
way, to pass through the presence chamber, which he en-
tered, with his cap on his head, and many of the nobility
of the court being there bare, and he, like the Egyptian
Apis, thinking they did ' Sir reverence ' to the new knight,
he came to them very courteously, and desired them to be
covered, for truly it was more than he expected at their
hands, though his Majesty had conferred a great honour
upon him. They thanked him very kindly, and desired to
be excused, for they knew their duties, and so long as he
was in the room they would not be covered. Upon that,
away goes the fool, so puffed and swollen with his new
honour, as when he comes home, he stuffs the clothes he was
knighted in, and hangs them up in his hall for ensigns
and monuments of an incomparable coxcomb, worthy to
be begged by his respective gentleman of the presence-
chamber."
When such " tame knaves " might be had for nothing, it
is almost a matter of surprise that the Sovereign cared for
other buffoons about him. But, at the court of James I.
both King and Queen found pleasure in maintaining of-
ficial fools upon their household. Of the fool of Anne of
Denmark, that sovereign lady who purchased precious stones
so liberally of the father of Herrick the poet old Herrick,
the jeweller we know little but the name. In the accounts
of John Lord Harrington, of Exton, as Treasurer of the
Chambers to the wife of James I., Horace "Walpole found
an item " Paid to T. Mawe, for the diet and lodging of Tom
Derry, her Majesty's jester, thirteen weeks, 10Z. 18s. 6d."
At between sixteen and seventeen shillings per week, Tom
Derry cannot be said to have been a very expensive toy to
her Majesty. He was of importance enough to have his
190 HISTOEY OF COTJBT FOOLS.
name given to a gallery at Somerset House, in Avhicli lie
used to loiter and exchange jokes with lords and ladies.
An entry in the weekly accounts of the time of Charles I.
proves this, inasmuch as mention is there made of an order
"for colouring Tom Derry's gallery at Somerset House."
Tom is also incidentally mentioned in the extracts from the
accounts of revels at court, edited for the Shakespeare
Society by Mr. P. Cunningham ; and to this extract my at-
tention was kindly directed by Mr. Cunningham himself:
" To Thomas Derry, her Majesty's jester, upon a warrant
signed by the Lord Chamberlain, dated at Whitehall, 16th
July, 1612, for the diet of the said Thomas Derry, and John
Mawe his man, from the 25th day of December, 1611, to
the 24th of June following, being 26 weeks, at 7*. the week,
91. 2s." It is curious that the sum put down for the weekly
diet of two persons is less than half of that named in the
former entry for the diet and lodging of one. The first
entry may have applied to two persons ; and in calculating
cost, it is necessary to multiply the sum by five, to obtain
an idea of its real value as represented in modern currency.
Before Anne possessed Tom Derry to find her in mirth,
she used to tax her own ladies in waiting, with whom, when
at Winchester palace, she would wile away long winter
evenings by playing with them at ' Eise, pig, and go,' ' Come,
penny, follow me,' ' Fire !' and, ' I pray, my lord, give me
a course in your park.' 1 only regret that Nichols, who tells
us thus much in the Appendix to his Progresses of James I.,
does not add instructions for the playing these games.
The half-year included in the table of the above entries
was one in which Tom Derry must have had to draw largely
on his wits, to amuse the Queen ; for it was then she was most
savagely possessed by implacable hatred of " that fellow,"
as she called him, poor Sir Thomas Overbury ; and Prince
Henry was sickening. But both their Majesties were as
fond of indulging their taste for dissipation as they were of
ENGLISH COUET POOLS. 191
yielding to their strong prejudices. I find the Merry Wives
of Windsor played on a Sunday night at "Whitehall ; and
Tom Derry was probably present in October, 1611, when
"The Sunday following, att Grinwidg," before the Queen
and the Prince was played ' The Silver Aiedg,' and the
next night following, ' Lucrecia.' "With jester, sports,
and plays on Sunday as well as other nights, the Queen
was not much the happier ; and this may be accounted
for, she was the most amiable person possible when she
was not put out ; she never uttered an angry word except
upon some provocation, yet often with little ; she was seldom
obstinate except in resolutely maintaining her own will,
and, like Croaker in the Comedy, was very easily led when-
ever she had her own way. Tom Derry himself must have
hardly earned all he obtained, from so gracious a mistress as
Anne of Denmark. A subsequent page will show that one
at least of her old and faithful servants could envy the con-
dition of Derry the Jester.
James I. of England only continued a fashion which his
grandfather, James V. of Scotland, adopted during the few
years of his majority. "We learn this incident from Dr.
Irving, who informs us that it was the duty of the Scottish
court fools, like those in other royal households, to amuse
their patrons by their wit and humour, by bold and startling
remarks on passing occurrences of importance, and by
ludicrous representations of incidents and characters. In
Scotland, too, as elsewhere, the jesters were compelled to
take as rough jokes as they gave, and these were some-
times of the very rudest sort. They were of the same
quality in England, where the King set the example of
coarse jesting. An assertion which no one will require me to
prove who remembers what James added to his laugh when
he took leave of his hospitable entertainer, Fortescue, in
the porch at Cornbury. Those who are curious to know,
will find the gracious pleasantry detailed in Osborn.
192 HISTOET OF COURT TOOLS.
One sample of the Scottish court fool, as narrated by
Dr. Irving, will perhaps suffice to give some notion of the
wit, or the want of it, patronized in the North. The name
of the jester was John Low, and this John was once
rebuked by a courtier for not having unbonneted and
bowed to a number of lords and fine gentlemen who had
passed him. " I did not know they were lords," said John ;
" by what token do you know a lord?" "Well," said the
courtier, " outwardly, at all events, by their dress ; you see
them decked in velvet, and with gold about their necks."
" Very good," said John ; " I'll not forget to be civil to the
first I meet." And thereupon, a short time after, Low was
seen bowing and scraping obsequiously to the mules in the
court-yard, to the amazement of the King and his courtiers.
" "Why are you crying ' good day,' and making your leg to
those beasts ?" asked a Chamberlain. " Beasts !" exclaimed
Low, in feigned surprise ; " I thought they were lords !
Look at their velvet coverings, and the gold trimmings
about their necks. I was told these were outward tokens
of noble lords and gallant gentlemen. What could a cour-
teous fool do but bid them good day ! Sure, I shall never
learn the difference between a lord and a beast."
Our James I. may have heard of, but he probably never
saw, his grandfather's fool, Jemmy Camber, " who, being
but young, was for the King cauglit up." He barely
exceeded three feet in height ; but at the age of forty years
he measured above six feet in girth, and " would never be
but a St. Vincent's turnip, thick and round." He was
smooth of face, fair of speech, but malicious in his
acts. For his further portraiture, here it is limned by
Armin :
" His head was small, his hair long on the same ;
One ear was bigger than the other, far ;
His forehead full, his eyes shone like a flame,
His nose flat, and his beard small, yet grew square.
ENGLISH COUET FOOLS. 193
His lips but little, and his wit was less.
But wide of mouth, for truth, I must confess.
His middle thick, as I have said before ;
Indifferent thighs and knees, but very short,
His legs be square, a foot long and no more ;
Whose very presence made the King much sport.
And a pearl spoon he still wore in his cap,
To eat his meat he loved and got by hap.
A pretty little foot ; but a big hand,
On which he ever wore rings rich and good.
Backward, well made as any in that land,
Though thick ; and lie did come of gentle Hood."
Of as gentle blood as Jamie was, he was " caught up" for
the King's sport. This fool Camber, with no wit of his
own, yet gave rise to the well-known proverb, "Hit or miss."
King James, to cure the fool's obesity, sent him to sea,
under the illustrious guardianship of the Earl of Huntley,
" at whose departure," says Armiu, " they discharged ordi-
nance, as one that departed from the land with the King's
favour. Jamie, hearing the ordinance go off, would ask,
' "What do they now ? ' ' Marry ! ' says the Earl, ' they
shoot at our enemies.' ' Oh !' says Camber ; ' hit, I pray
God !' Again they discharge. ' What do they now ?'
quoth he. ' Marry, now the enemy shoot at us.' Oh,
miss, I pray God !' says Jemmy Camber. So ever after it
was a jest in the Scottish court, ' Hit or miss, quoth Jemmy
Camber.' . . . And long time after, this jest was in me-
mory; yea I heard it myself, and some will talk of it at this
day," says Armin, whose book was published in 1608.
Camber was a natural fool who was cheated out of his
French crowns, and sometimes of other things, by sharp-
witted lasses. He prattled of the sun blowing cold and the
wind shining hot ; ran mock races with gigantic footmen,
the King laying a thousand marks on the fool, and Lady
Carmichael backing the flunkey; and he had extremely dirty
tricks played upon him,whichhighlyamused those august per-
194 HISTOBY OF COTJET FOOLS.
sonages, but the telling of which would not tend to either
profit or pleasure. There is something better worth nar-
rating in the account of Camber's death ; which I borrow
from Armin. " The King's chamberlain bid him arise and
come to the King. ' I will not,' quoth he, ' I will go make
my grave.' See how things chanced. He spake truer than
he was aware. Jemmy arose, made him ready, takes his
horse, and rides to the churchyard in the high town, where
he found the sexton, as the custom is there, making nine graves,
three for men, three for women, and three for children; and
tchoso dies next, first come, first served.
" ' Lend me thy spade,' says Jemmy ; and with that digs
a hole, which hole he bids the sexton make for his grave, and
doth give him a French crown. The man, willing to please
him (more for his gold than his pleasure), did so ; and the
fool gets on his horse, and rides to a gentleman of the town,
and, on the sudden, within two hours after, he died; of whom
the sexton telling, Jemmy was buried there indeed. Thus
you see," adds Robin Armin, moralizing, "fools have a guess
at wit sometimes ; and the wisest could have done no more,
not so much. But this fat fool fills a lean grave with his
carcase ; upon which grave the King caused a stone of
marble to be put, on which the poet writ these lines in re-
membrance of him -.
" He that gar'd all men till jeare,
Jemy a Camber, he ligges here :
Pray for his soil, for he is geane,
And here a ligges beneath this steane."
And now let us follow Motley to the English court of the
Stuarts, observing by the way, that, in the words of Mr.
Thorns, in a note to Mr. Collier's edition of Armin' s 'Xest of
Ninnies,' " the custom of keeping a fool appears to have pre-
vailed in the Scotch as generally as in any other of the Eu-
ropean courts, and, it may be presumed, was retained for a
long time among the nobility ; since among the curiosities
ENGLISH COUKT FOOLS. 195
shown at Grlammis Castle, was, within these few years, the
dress worn by the domestic fool belonging to the family."
Eeturning to the court of James the Unwise, I will
venture upon the remark, that that British Solomon played
the fool, or was played to, more frequently than most mon-
archs. Not only did the professional jester exercise his
vocation to please the King, but astute ambassadors acted
folly in order to obtain certain ends, and courtiers turned
amateur fools to win his favour.
Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, used to say of James
that " his most intrinsic desires were legible on his counte-
nance." Gondomar acted with him accordingly. The Spa-
niard's manner, we are told by Osborn, was first to disturb
the King's passions, " and after, to appease them by some
facetious drollery, before he embarked himself in what he
intended to make the employment of the present audience."
The same author narrates a scene which took place at
New Barnet, and which is illustrative at least of the courtier-
fool. James was the guest there of a Mr. John West, in whose
garden he was one day walking, after dinner, when he stum-
bled over a mole-hill, and fell heels above head, in so ridiculous
a position that all the courtiers present burst into a fit of
laughter. They hastened, however, to assist him ; but his
Majesty repulsed them, with sundry savoury epithets, in the
use and application of which, James was wonderfully expert.
The royal rage waxed fiercely ; but it was softened down by
a touch of humour on the part of the host, which was cha-
racteristic of the court fool of an older period. " Ah," so
ran the wittily conceited apology of Mr. West, "it is not pos-
sible for any good subject to refrain from rejoicing at your
Majesty's activity in tumbling over and over at a mole-hill."
And with this fool's compliment, the monarch was satisfied.
James undoubtedly enjoyed wit in others besides his
professional court jesters, from whom, to tell the truth, he
obtained it of a very inferior quality. There was Dean
o 2
196 HISTOBY OF COUET FOOLS.
Field, who was one of the first fellows nominated by the
King for the projected Chelsea College ; he owed much of
his promotion to his wit, and the same may be said of Dr.
Collins. L'Estrange narrates an incident exhibiting the
punning inclination of their wits in a disputation held by
them in the delighted King's presence. They had " pro-
mised one another," says Sir Nicholas, "to lay aside all
extravagance of wit, and to buckle to a serious argumenta-
tion ; but they soon violated their own law, for Field began
thus ' Sic disputas, Colendissime Collins,' and Collins
again to him, afterwards ' Sic disputas, Ager Colende.'
At the court, at which learned men thus trifled, the pro-
fessional fool often gave offence that was not worth taking,
and which indeed the wiser spirits of the court passed by
with contempt. ^\~e have an instance of this in the case
of Stone, whose name has come down to us, through Selden,
as a court fool of this reign. The incident shows, too, that
the fool's privilege of speech did not always avail him ; and
that it was the thin-skinned and thick-headed who were the
first to take oifence, and to call for punishment on the
offender. Selden exemplifies this in his ' Table Talk,' with
reference to this court fool, Stone. " A gallant man is above
ill words, an example we have in the old Lord of Salisbury,
who was a great, wise man. Stone had called some Lord
about court, ' Fool.' The Lord complains, and has Stone
whipt. Stone cries, ' I might have called my Lord of Salis-
bury, Fool, often enough, before he would have had me
whipt.' " This shows, that if Stone had small wit, he at least
possessed some discernment, and could distinguish between
a grave, wise Lord, and one who had more sensitiveness than
sense. And this is all we know of Stone, whose reputation
has been obscured by the brighter and more lasting renown
of the celebrated jester, Archie Armstrong.
Archibald Armstrong was a native of Arthuret, in Cum-
berland, and is supposed to have been " caught up" at an
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 197
early age, and attached to the household of King James.
Our British King Arthur has left many a memorial of
himself in the vicinity of our northern lakes ; and the name
of the birth-place of the court fool, is one that carries the
thoughts back to the most brilliant of legendary sovereigns.
When first we encounter Archy Armstrong at the En-
glish court of James, it is rather in the character of buffoon
amid fools of nobility, than of witty court jester. Taken
altogether, it may be said of him as old Puttenham said of
Thersites, that he was "a glorious noddie ;" and he was,
commonly, in very glorious company.
I have noticed in a previous page that Sir Thomas Jer-
myn, Sir Ralph Sheldon, and Thomas Badger were spoken
of as "fools or buffoons" at the court of James. But Sir
Anthony Weldon names three others, Sir Edward Zouch,
Sir George Goring, and Sir John Finett, as " the chief and
master fools ; and surely," adds Sir Anthony, " this fooling
got them more than any other's wisdom, far above them in
desert. There were a set of fiddlers brought up on purpose
for this fooling ; and Goring was master of the game for
fooleries, sometimes presenting David Droman and Archie
Armstrong on the backs of the other fools, to tilt one at
the other, till they fell together by the ears. But Sir John
Millisent, who was never known before, was commended
for notable fooling ; and he was indeed the best extemporary
fool of them all."
Archie was often ill-treated, favourite as he was with
James himself. At one time, the friends of Prince Charles,
whenever they could catch him, used to toss him, " like a
dog," as Armstrong himself said, in a blanket. Osborn
asserts that the reason for this treatment was told him by
Archie himself. The King and his son, with a gallant
company, had been witnessing the sports at Newmarket.
When these were concluded, they bade each other farewell,
and rode off different ways. The company, almost univer-
198 HISTOET OF COURT FOOLS.
sally, turned and accompanied the Prince. Archie remained
by his master, to whom he pointed out a circumstance
which disagreeably, but conclusively, proved that the popu-
larity of the heir-apparent exceeded that of the reigning
Sovereign. The knowledge of this bitter truth, as irrefutable
as any told to Lear by his fool, moved James to tears.
Archie joked at it, but the King wept. The latter was
probably also moved to an extensive demonstration of ill-
humour, to the great discomfort of the Prince and his
friends, otherwise they would not have so repeatedly satisfied
their wrath by tossing the court jester in a blanket.
This jester was himself a good-tempered fellow, by no
means lacking sense, especially the sense to grow rich by
the exercise of his vocation, however contemptible it may
have been. His recorded jests, like Scogan's, are poor,
unauthenticated, and, except on one or two solitary occa-
sions, do not exhibit him in his character of court fool at
all. There is, however, one incident which has been highly
praised for its wit, is vouched for by Coke, and repeated by
Neale, and which may be told, if it be only to show that it
is very apocrvphal. It refers to the circumstance of the
secret expedition of Charles into Spain. Conversing on
this matter with the King, Archie said, " I must change
caps with your Majesty." "Why?" asked the King.
"Why, who sent the Prince into Spain?" asked Arm-
strong, in his turn. James, comprehending the fool, said,
" But suppose the Prince should come safely back again ?"
" In that case," replied the jester, " I will take my cap from
my head, and send it to the King of Spain."
Now there are several objections to the truth of this in-
cident. One is, that similar stories are told of fools of much
earlier times ; but objections of far greater weight exist in
the fact, that Armstrong himself accompanied the Prince
and Buckingham, and Endymion Porter, on their celebrated
mad-cap expedition. We have double proof of this in a letter
ENGLISH COURT TOOLS. 199
from Howell, who saw him there, and in one from Archie
himself, or written under his dictation, dated from Madrid,
and which will be found below, for the first time in print.
" Our cousin Archie," thus writes Howell, " hath more
privilege than any ; for he often goes with his fool's coat
when the Infanta is with her meninas and ladies of honour,
and keeps a blowing and a blustering among them, and flirts
out what he lists." The jester was wonderfully bold, it
must be confessed, as may be seen by his comment, when
the Spanish Dons and Donas were discussing the gallantry
of the Duke of Bavaria, who, with a small force, had routed
the much larger army of James's son-in-law, Frederick the
Pfalzgraf. " Oh !" cried the patriotic fool, " I will tell you
a stranger circumstance. Is it not more singular that one
hundred and forty ships should have sailed from Spain to
attack England, and that not ten of them should have re-
turned to tell what became of the rest ?"
This is very good ; but, as I have previously noticed, there
is a much more interesting letter from Spain than Howell's,
one from Archie himself. The original (which was kindly
pointed out to me by Mr. Hepworth Dixon,) will be found
at the British Museum (Additional Manuscripts, 19,402,
fol. 79) ; it is addressed to James I., and is to this ef-
fect : " Most great and gracious King. To let your Ma-
jesty know, never was fool better accepted on by the King
of Spain, except his own fool; and to tell your Majesty
secretly, I am better accepted on than he is. To let your
Majesty know, I am sent for by this King when none of your
own nor your son's men can come near him, to the glory
of God and praise of you. I shall think myself better and
more fool than all the fools here, for aught I see ; yet I
thank God and Christ my Saviour, and you, for it. Who-
ever could think that your Majesty kept a gull and an ass
in me, he is a gull and an ass himself. To let your Ma-
jesty know, that I cannot tell you the thoughts of kings'
200 HISTOET OF COUET TOOLS.
hearts ; but this King is of the bravest colour I ever saw,
yourself except. And this Kiug will not let me have a
truncTiman. I desire your Majesty's help in all need, for
I cannot understand him ; but I think myself as wise as he
or any in 1 is Court, as grave as you think the Spaniard is.
You will write to your son and Buckingham, and charge
them to provide me a trunchman,* and then you shall know
from your fool, by God's help and Christ's help, and the
Virgin Mary's, more secret business than from all your wise
men here. My Lord Aston, your Majesty shall give him
thanks, writes to you and to your son ; do give him thanks,
for never kinder friend I found in this world ; his house
is at my command, and besides he gave me white boots
when my own trunk was not come up. I think every day
of yourself, and of your Majesty's gracious favour ; for
you will never be missed till you are gone, and the child
that is unborn will say a praise for you. But I hope in
God, for my own part, never to see it. The further I go,
the more I see, for all that I see here are foolery to you.
For toys and such noise as I see, with God's grace, my
Saviour's, and your leave, I will let you know more when-
ever I come to you ; and no more, with grief in my eyes
and tears in my heart, and praying for your Majesty's
happy and gracious continuance among us. Your Majesty's
Servant, Archibald Armstrong, your X best fool of state,
both here and there. Court of Spain, 28th April, 1623."
The above letter, with its mixture of blustering familiarity,
small wit, and profanity, was probably taken down from the
* "Trunchman." In 'Revels at Court,' p. 126, in an account of a
" Haske of Amasones " (A.D. 1577), appears a " Troocheman " among
the characters represented. At p. 140 we read of a payment made
" To Patrochius Ubaldinus, by the Commandment of the Lord Cham-
berlain, for the translating of certain speeches into Italian, to be used
in the mask." I therefore take the "trunchman" of Archie, to mean
Dragoman, or Interpreter. In Pepys's time the word was written
" Druggerman."
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 201
dictation of Archie. The fool, it will be observed, appends
his mark ; and the original is entirely in the handwriting of
Buckingham. There is in it good illustration of the position
occupied by Armstrong ; and the letter will, I hope, be con-
sidered not superfluous here, for this and other social traits
which it contains.
Armstrong returned to England with Prince Charles, into
whose regular service he passed, after the death of James.
I have said in a previous page, that there were faithful ser-
vants of Anne of Denmark who lived to envy her fool ; and
I may here add that there was one especially who envied
him, and who was still more angry when he compared the
well-cared-for condition of Archie with his own neglected,
despised, and unmerited situation.
The individual to whom I allude is William Belou. Ac-
cording to unpublished documents in the State Paper office
relating to the domestic affairs of Charles I., under the
dates 1625 and 1626, Belou was a Dane, who, at the age
of ten years, was placed in the household of Anne of Den-
mark by the King of that country, and he accompanied that
princess to Scotland. Belou remained in her service till, as
he says, it pleased Almighty God to translate her to a better
kingdom." He subsequently was an attendant on the per-
son of James I., who granted him an annuity of 150 for
life ; which, of course, was not paid. " This pension," says
Belou, in a memorial to Charles, " being the only mark or
testimony of my good behaviour in the late Queen's ser-
vice, I would not have sold it for 1000 in times past."
But the poor pensionary had entered the service of the
Duke of Holstein, afterwards of the King of Denmark. He
must have been ill requited, for he adds, " I have not only
spent my readiest means, but run myself a thousand pounds
in debt." Belou then offers to surrender the patent for his
annuity, if Charles will " cause my Lord Treasurer give to
Charles de Bowsie and Abraham Decks that they shall re-
202 HISTOET or corET FOOLS.
ceive the moneys above specified that I owe them, at a cer-
tain day."
The old servant could get no attention paid to his inter-
cessions ; and he came to England, to endeavour to procure
by his personal address what he could not obtain by missive.
"What he did and how he sped, is shown in the subjoined
honest, hearty, graphic letter to Mr. Secretary Conway. It
is the outpouring of an indignant, but not a disrespectful,
discarded servant, ' : broken in body and mind, and totally
ruined in estate." The picture is admirably drawn, and we
find in it our old friends Tom Derry and Archie Armstrong,
in such conditions of comfort and well-being, as to show
that old fools had more substantial respect at the hands of
Charles, than old servants, defrauded of their income.
" May it please your Lordship, according to your direc-
tion, I have essayed to you a petition, but find neither
matter nor reason for it. I have been worse treated than a
natural fool, witness Tom Duri,* who, for aught I know>
is better used, according to his estate and quality, than any
servant the late Queen left behind her; at least a great deal
better than I. I have been worse used than a counterfeit,
witness Archie Armstrong, who shows me that the King has
given so special direction for payment of his entertainment,
that he is better than he was in the late King's time ; when
I, having a pension for which I served, toiled, and travelled
the space of thirty-seven years, cannot receive one penny,
till I have spent three in seeking of it. I have been worse
used than a Turk, witness a Turkish ambassador, whom I
have seen get audience of the late King ; who had his despatch
in three weeks, when I, in three winters' attendance, cannot
obtain means or leave to return to my native country, but am
constrained to forget and expose my wife and only daughter
to rapt and desolation ; that bloody inquisition army of
* There can be no doubt, I think, that the Danish writer alludes to
our old friend, Tom Derry.
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 203
Wallenstein being within three or four days' march of a
country-house where I left them. All this I have endured
patiently, or at least with a forced and seeming senseless-
ness. But now, my honourable Lord, I am worse used than
a dog ; for having moved a poor humble petition to the King,
verbally, at Hampton Court, that if his Majesty will give me
110 money, he would let me have a pass or a warrant, that
I might go out to put my wife and daughter in a surer
place, he went away silently, without one word speaking;
and I am sure he will speak to his dogs. Since, then,
my Lord, I have fallen beneath the degree of a dog, I
can petition no more, for fear I fall a-howling when I
would complain. Wherefore, I have enclosed within this
letter the copy of two petitions given to his Majesty
heretofore. I beseech your Lordship to peruse them again,
and consider what I can offer more or demand less than
I have done in the said two petitions ; and, only by pro-
curing me his Majesty's pass, save me from this last of
evils, that it be not saddled on my back as a hedshef of
my other wrongs endured, that I have slipped away, like a
knotless thread, without his Majesty's knowledge. If I
can obtain this, I rest
" Yours, to serve your Lordship with the best thoughts
of my heart and the best report my hard fortune can
bring forth,
" WILLIAM BELOTJ.
" To my very honourable Lord, my Lord Connoway,
Secretary of Estate to the King his Majesty of
Great Britain, give these."
I feel confident that I need not offer any apology for ci-
ting the whole of a letter which contains such a graphic
sketching of the author's wrongs, of his attempts to redress
them, his feelings at his own condition, and his own anx-
iety for the safety of his wife and only daughter. Charles
wil 1 " speak to his dogs," but will not vouchsafe a word to
204 HTSTOST OF COUBT FOOLS.
the old servant of his mother, and of his uncle, Ulric of
Holstein. The King provides liberally for his mother s
jester, Tom Derry, and more than liberally, it would seem,
for his father's jester and his own, Archibald Armstrong.
"NThen poor Belou is about to open the touching Jeremiad
of his afflictions, it is the contrast between the happy po-
sitions of the two court fools and his own desolate and
destitute situation, which first strikes him. The fools are
better off than ever they were, whereas the old attendant
of nearly forty years' standing cannot obtain a penny of
his due, though he spend three in the seeking of it.
But the day for the fall of Archie Armstrong came too.
The fool had not always jested with impunity when he had
princes for his subject ; and he now fared worse by ven-
turing to tilt against an archbishop. That Archie hated
Laud, is sufficiently apparent. It is even said that he once
volunteered a grace at a dinner where the prelate was pre-
sent, and that the court fool, trusting in his privilege of
speech, gave it forth in the shape of " Great praise be to
God, and little laud to the Devil!" The Archbishop had
good ground for offence ; but Archie thrusted at him more
sharply than this. "What he had told Mr. Belou was no
exaggeration; he grew rich at court, but his arrogance
brought him low.
" Archie, by kings and princes graced of late,
Jested himself into a fair estate ; "
and joked himself out of his enviable position. The
attempt to force the English Liturgy upon the Scottish
congregations was food for his saucy wit : and when he
heard of the orthodox Lizzie, who had flung a stool at the
head of the liturgical Dean, in St. Giles's, Edinburgh, he
called it " the stool of repentance " The dissensions in
the North began to assume a very serious aspect ; and
much uneasiness, with a corresponding amount of obsti-
nacy, was experienced at court. Laud was, right or wrong
ENGLISH COTTET FOOLS. 205
in intention, the cause of all, and as Archie one day met
the Archbishop, on his way to the Council Chamber, he
could not forbear wagging his rude tongue with the query,
" Wha's foolnoo?"
For this offence the jester was immediately taken before
the King in Council, where the prelate named his grounds
of offence, and the fool pleaded the privilege of his coat.
He pleaded in vain, as the following order, dated White-
hall, llth March, 1637, will show :
" It is this day ordered by his Majesty, with the advice of
the board, that Archibald Armstrong, the King's fool, for
certain scandalous words of a high nature, spoken by him
against the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, his Grace, and
proved to be uttered by him, by two witnesses, shall have
his coat pulled over his head, and be discharged of the
King's service, and banished the court, for which the Lord
Chamberlain of the King's household is prayed and re-
quired to give order to be executed. And immediately the
same was put in execution."
The provocation had been long, and had often driven
Laud into fits of unseemly passion, which, indeed, drove
the prelate to an attempt to bring the wretched jester
before that dreaded tribunal, the Star Chamber. On this
quarrel and Laud's vmdictiveness, Osborn has a striking
passage.
" I shall instance as a blot in the greatest rochet that did
in my time appear in the court of England, or indeed any
I ever heard of since the Reformation, who managed a quar-
rel with Archy the King's fool, and by endeavouring to ex-
plode him the court, rendered him, at last, so considerable,
by calling the Prelate's enemies (which were not a few) to
his rescue, as the fellow was not only able to continue the
dispute for divers years, but received such encouragement
from standers-by as he hath oft, in my hearing, belched in
his face such miscarriages as he was really guilty of, and
might, but for this foul-mouthed Scot, have been forgotten ;
206 HISTOBT OF COTJET FOOLS.
adding such other reproaches of his own as the dignity of
his calling and greatness of his parts could not in reason or
manners admit ; though so far hoodwinked with passion as
not to discern that all the fool did was but a symptom, of
the strong and inveterate distemper raised long before in
the hearts of his countrymen against the calling of bishops,
out of whose former ruins, the major part of the Scottish
nobility had feathered, if not built, their nests. Nor did
this too low-placed anger lead him into a less absurdity than
an endeavour to bring him into the Star Chamber, till
the Lord Coventry had, by acquainting him with the privi-
lege of a fool, shown the ridiculousness of the attempt ;
yet, not satisfied, he, through the mediation of the Queen,
got him at last discharged the court."*
There were present, on this occasion, when the Council
met to strip a coat from a fool, " the King's most excellent
Majesty," in person ; the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
Duke of Lennox, the Marquis of Hamilton, the Earl Mar-
shal, and the Earls of Northumberland and Dorset, Salis-
bury and Holland, the Lord-Keeper (Finch), the Lord Trea-
surer, the Lord Privy Seal, and the Lord Chamberlain ;
Baron Newburgh, and Mr. Treasurer, Mr. Comptroller, Mr.
Vice-Chamberlain, Mr. Secretary Cook, and Mr. Secretary
"Wincebanke." What an august tribunal for the deposition
of a fool !
Archy survived long enough to see himself avenged (if he
were sufficiently of evil nature to consider himself to require
to be avenged) of many of these his noble enemies. Mean-
while, his crime seems to have sat lightly on his consci-
ence, however heavy the retribution with which it was
visited. The discarded jester did not attempt to deny his
offence. How he was punished and how he spoke openly
of it, is shown in the paragraph here subjoined.
* In the ' Scout's Discovery ' it is said that Archie himself pleaded
before the Star Chamber his privileges of coat. " For," said he, " if
neither fool iior wise man. may escape this court, I will be neither."
ENGLISH COUET FOOLS. 207
" Archye," writes Mr. Garrard to Lord Straff ord (Strafford
Papers, vol. ii.), " is fallen into a great misfortune ; a fool he
would be, but a foul-mouthed knave he hath proved himself;
being at a tavern in Westminster, drunk, as he saith him-
self, he was speaking of the Scottish business, he fell a rail-
ing of my Lord of Canterbury, said he was a' monk, a rogue,
and a traitor. Of this, his Grace complained at Council, and
the King being present, it was ordered he should be carried
to the porter's lodge, his coat pulled over his ears, and kicked
out of the Court, never to enter within the gates, and to be
called into the Star Chamber. The first part is done, but
my Lord of Canterbury hath interceded for the King that
there it should end."
Laud would have had more vengeance, if he could, but,
says the author of the ' Scout's Discovery,' " albeit Ar-
chie found favour in his lash, he lost both his coat and his
place." Laud ruined the jester; but he could not subdue
his spirit, nor curb his tongue. Archie assumed a suit of
sables, and hung about the dead Kings in "Westminster
Abbey, since he no longer held office in the palace of a
living sovereign. "I met Archie," says a writer in Mor-
gan's 'Phoenix Britannicus,' referring to a week or two
after the dismissal, "I met Archie at the Abbey, all in
black. Alas ! poor fool, thought I, he mourns for his
country. I asked him about his (fool's) coat. ' Oh,' quoth
he, ' my Lord of Canterbury hath taken it from me, be-
cause either he or some of the Scots bishops may have
the use of it themselves. But he hath given me a black
coat for it ; and now I may speak what I please, so ib
be not against the prelates, for this coat hath a greater
privilege than the other had.' " The hint that he could ex-
ercise the privilege of a jester's liberty under the clerical
black more freely than he could beneath his motley jerkin,
Avas a Parthian dart thrown by a practised though a retreat-
ing soldier. It is certainly not the worst saying ever
uttered by Archibald Armstrong.
208 HISTOBT OP COURT TOOLS.
It will be seen, too, that Archie, whether in or out of office,
had the wit to thrive. Dr. Octavius Gilchrist, in the ' Lon-
don Magazine ' for August and September, 1824. at the con-
clusion of a review of the old jest book which bore Arm-
strong's name on the title-page : but with which the "fool"
had no other connection, states that Archie derived consider-
able wealth from the new year's gifts presented him by the
courtiers. It even seems that the ex-jester became a landed
proprietor. "To prove," says Dr. Gilchrist. "that he saved
money and laid it out in the purchase of landed property, we
have met with a contemporary authority, in an uncommonly
rare tract. printed in 12mo, 1636, and entitled 'The Fatal Xup-
tials, or Mournful Marriage/ This is a metrical account of a
lamentable accident that occurred in the preceding year, on
"Winderrnere AVater, when forty-seven persons (among them
a young married couple, with their friends and relations going
to keep their wedding) were drowned. The anonymous poet
(a very bad one, by the way), meaning to enforce the un-
certainty of life, and the liability of all ranks to a similar
disaster, introduces Archie, who was probably well known
in the neighbourhood of the accident.
" Is 't so, that we in hourly danger stand,
"Whether we sail by sea, or go by land ?
That we to this world but one entrance have,
But thousand means of passage to the grave ?
And that the wise shall no more fruit receive
Of all his labours than the fool shall have.
For the politick Hum must yield to swelling Humber,
As well as the least of his inferior number,
And Archie, that rich fool, vchen Tie least dreams,
For purchased lands must be possessed of streams."
It is tolerably clear, from this, that Armstrong, like Osric,
that combination of fool and lord in Hamlet, was of those
enviable and respectable people who may be described, as
Osric is, in the same tragedy, as being " spacious in the
possession of dirt ;" or, as the Latin author said it long be-
fore, " multa dives tellure."
ENGLISH COTJKT TOOLS. 209
In short, Archie, saving his disgrace, did not fare so ill.
He was in the happy financial condition of the gentleman in
Horace, who, let the world rail at him as it might, could
point to his money-box, and hug himself complacently on
his destiny. He had noble companionship, too, in his re-
tirement. Armstrong repaired to Arthuret, his native place,
in Cumberland, and thither also retired, after the cause of
Archie's royal ex-master had become desperate, that Dick
Graham who had been master of the horse to Buckingham,
and who had accompanied his patron in that expedition to
the Spanish Court where the Jester had played as prominent
a part as any of his betters. Had the ex-jester been of
the quality of mind of illogical persons who see in every
disaster that befalls those with whom they are in antagonism,
a divine justice descending on the head of their enemy,
Archie might have solemnly declared that the monarchy fell
because it had ceased to respect the privileges of fools.
But it was not Armstrong's disposition to be solemn.
"While institutions decayed, he survived. The Monarchy
went down, and the Commonwealth went over it, and went
down too, and Archie still found himself upon his legs.
The church-register of Arthuret, as quoted by Lysons, in his
Magna Britannia, shows that the jester could find damsels
too ready to be fooled by him. But let us hope that the
joculator of old turned honest man at last. One thing is
certain, that in 1646 he made an honest woman, as the old
phrase goes, of confiding Sibella Bell. The church-register
makes record of the marriage of this pair ; but neither in
that nor any other register is record made of the lives led
by this wedded couple. The only further, and that an im-
portant, entry, containing a notice of our once lively friend
of the cap and bells, is the duly-registered circumstance of
his death. The date of his burial alone is given, and that
ceremony took place, characteristically enough, (in the year
above-mentioned) on April 1, All-fools' day !
p
210 HISTOET OF COUET FOOLS.
To Archie Armstrong succeeded Muckle John, the last,
perhaps, of the official court fools in England. In the Straf-
ford Papers (vol. ii. p. 154) there is a letter from Mr. Gar-
rard to Lord Strafford, in which the latter is informed,
" There is now a fool in his (Archie's) place, Muckle John,
but he will never be so rich, for he cannot abide money."
Love of the precious metals was, indeed, a passion with
Armstrong, whose avarice, however, was sometimes disap-
pointed. It was especially so on an occasion when a noble-
man placed in Archie's hand some pieces of money which
the jester thought too little for his merits ; he expressed
his discontent, and the donor, seeming willing to change
the silver coin for gold, received it from Archie, but put
it into his own pocket. Instead of giving a gold Carolus or
two in return, the courtier only bestowed on Armstrong
the remark, that whatever wit he might possess as fool, he
certainly had not the wit to know how to keep money when
it was given to him. Muckle John was of a different quality,
inasmuch that he cared nothing at all for money ; of which,
nevertheless, considerable sums were spent upon him, to
make him look like a fool of quality. For the following
items of expenses in this respect, extracted from an account-
book of the period, I am indebted to Mr. Peter Cunningham,
whose ready kindness enables me to show Muckle John
equipped from head to foot.
" A long coat and suit of scarlet-colour serge for Muckle
John, 107. 10*. 6d.
" One pair of crimson silk hose, and one pair of gaiters
and roses for Muckle John, 61*.
"For a pair of silk and silver garters, and roses and
gloves suitable for Muckle John, 110*.
" For a hat covered with scarlet, and a band suitable ; and
for two rich feathers, one red, the other white, for Muckle
John, 50*.
" Stags'-leather gloves, fringed with gold and silver.
ENGLISH COURT TOOLS. 211
" A hat-band for Muckle John.
" One pair of perfumed gloves, lined with sables, 5*."
At the court at which Armstrong and Muckle John
practised their vocation, there were other personages of
some notoriety, who exercised their talents for the mirth
or admiration of their royal patron. While the above-
named jesters, for instance, were more particularly attached
to the King, little Jeffrey Hudson, the dwarf, exercised a
calling somewhat similar in the household of Henrietta
Maria: Jeffrey did this both in England and in Prance.
This little fellow, who, when he entered his teens, was
scarcely more than a foot and a half in height, and who
did not ultimately grow much over three feet, was in his
boyhood protected by the Duke of Buckingham. At a
banquet given by the Duke in honour of the Queen, a pie
was placed upon the table, the crust of which being raised,
the dwarf stepped forth and bowed to Henrietta Maria, to
whom he was presented by Buckingham. This mode of
presentation was not at all original. It was a common
court jest, when a dwarf was in question. Sometimes the
hapless little wretch was presented in a gilt cage, as a Milan
dwarf was to Francis I. Zeiller, in one of his letters, men-
tions a dwarf in the household of Ferdinand, Archduke of
Austria, in the year 1568. At a grand festival in honour
of Duke William of Bavaria and the Princess Renata of
Lorraine, this dwarf was served up at table, in a pie. When
the crust was raised, he leaped out, attired in panoply of
gilt, and grasping a banner in his hand, which he waved as
he marched round the table, and made merry compliments
to the august and delighted guests. Weber, in his ' Veran-
dertes Russland,' notices a similar custom as prevailing at
the Court of Russia, and continuing as late as the beginning
of the last century. No more acceptable joke could be got
up for the amusement of the Czars by their favourite nobles.
A couple of pies, from which a male and female dwarf
p 2
212 HISTOBY OF COURT FOOLS.
issued to dance a minuet, procured for the giver of the
entertainment the utmost applause from the sovereign.
The custom, then, was known on the Continent both
before and after the period of Jeffrey Hudson. That the
position of the latter in the household of his royal mistress
was not unlike that of a jester, may be gathered from various
sources. Davenant says that he was made to fight with a
turkey-cock, and AValter Scott notices how he was compelled
to endure the teazing of the domestics and courtiers, and
the many squabbles he had with the King's gigantic porter.
But where Jeffrey Hudson is best seen in his character
of jester to Henrietta Maria, is in the despatches written
in 1636, by Panzani and Corneo, agents of the Eomish
Church, in London, and addressed to Cardinal Mazarin,
These despatches are quoted by Mrs. Everett Green, in
her ' Letters of Henrietta Maria,' and it is there I find a
notice of our little friend, Jeffrey. In the despatch in
which mention is made of Hudson, the writer, Corueo,
describes an interview he had with the Queen at Holmby
Palace, near Northampton. He narrates the compliments ex-
changed by the principal personages, and proceeds to tell
in much detail, how he presented to Henrietta Maria, as a
Papal gift, a shrine for relics, and how gratefully it was re-
ceived. Corneo then says, " that he exhibited to her Ma-
jesty a portrait of St. Catherine, with an intimation that
as soon as he had procured a frame for it, he would offer it
for the Queen's acceptance." The Queen was too impatient
to wait, and therefore took the picture as it was, and had
it fastened to the curtains of her bed. Nor was this all.
On the following day there were more gifts for presentation,
and at this ceremony we find Jeffrey in waiting, and exer-
cising his licensed vocation. " I presented to her Majesty,"
says the agent, "your Eminence's rosary of olive wood,
with another of agate, and one of buffalo horn, curiously
worked with cameo medallions. I also took others to the
ENGLISH COUKT FOOLS. 213
Catholic ladies and maidens, which were distributed by-
Father Philip, in her Majesty's presence ; and the Queen's
dwarf, who is less and better made than that of Criqui,
being present, when all was nearly finished, began to call
out, " Madam, show the father that I also am a Catholic,"
with a manner and gesture that made all laugh. This was
evidently the manner and gesture of a court buftbon ; and
what would have been resented from a noble as an imperti-
nence, was laughed at, in the Queen's dwarf, as a good joke.
Eight years subsequently to the above scene, when Jeffrey
(after cleverly aiding the Queen's escape from Exeter) was
with Henrietta Maria, in France, occurred his remarkable
duel with Will Croft, brother of the Queen's favourite, and
master of the horse. Will Croft had bantered the valiant
little man, who held a commission as a cavalry captain ; and
Jeffrey not only challenged him, but fought Will on horse-
back, in the park at Nevers. Croft had brought with him
only a squirt, which he discharged at the enraged dwarf ;
but Hudson, " running his horse in full career, shot his
antagonist in the head, and left him dead on the spot."
This affair caused some sensation in the French court,
and it produced from Henrietta Maria a very character-
istic note to Mazarin, whom she honours with a compli-
mentary title. " Cousin," she writes from Nevers, in Octo-
ber, 1644, " I wrote to the Queen, my sister, about a mis-
fortune which has happened to my house, of Geoffrey, who
has killed Croft's brother. I have written the whole affair
to the commander, in order that you may hear of it. What
I wish is, that as they are both English, and my servants,
the Queen, my sister, will give me authority to dispose of
them as I please, in dispensing either justice or favour,
which 1 was unwilling to do without writing to you, and
asking you to assist me therein, as I shall always do in all
that concerns me, since I profess to be, as I am, Cousin,
your very affectionate cousin, Henrietta Maria, B."
214 HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS.
The Queen's letter, as given by Mrs. Green, differs from
that given by Miss Strickland in this lady's life of Hen-
rietta Maria. With regard to the consequences of the
affair noticed in it, there only remains to be said, that poor
Jeffrey lost his post in the Queen's household. He reco-
vered some favour at the court of Charles II. ; but he fell
under suspicion of treason, and the dwarf, who had been
the faithful messenger of his patroness, had served her well
in serious affairs of business, and made her and her court
laugh by his small jests, ultimately died, a prisoner, in the
Gate House, at Westminster.
Poor Jeffrey was less fortunate than two other dwarfs,
patronized by Henrietta previous to her flight to France.
They were a male and female. The former, Richard
Gibson, had been in the service of a lady at Mortlake. She
had observed in him a talent for drawing, and she kindly
placed him with De Cleyn, director of the Mortlake tapes-
try works. Gibson acquired great reputation as a copier
of Sir Peter Lely's portraits, whose collection his nephew,
William Gibson, was rich enough to purchase at Lely's
death. The dwarf artist was ever welcome at court; and
when he espoused the dwarf young lady there, the nup-
tials of the little couple were honoured by the presence of
Charles I. and Henrietta Maria. Xo less a bard than Ed-
mund Waller sang their Epithalamium, or at least verses
in commemoration of an event which made the court hila-
rious, and from which verses the following lines are taken :
" Design or chance makes others wive,
But nature did this match contrive. . . .
Thrice happy is that humble pair,
Beneath the level of all care !
Over whose heads those arrows fly,
Of sad distrust and jealousy ;
Secured in as high extreme
As if the world had none but them.
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 215
To him, the fairest nymphs do show
Like moving mountains topp'd with snow ;
And every man a Polypheme
Does to his Galatea seem. ..."
Thus, although this couple did not belong to the frater-
nity of official jesters, the sovereigns and their court con-
trived to extract amusement from the neat little wedded pair,
each of whom measured exactly three feet two. Richard
Gibson was the King's page, and his wife served the Queen.
When King and Queen had passed away, the dwarf artist
found in his pencil a better property than Charles had
found, or lost, in his sceptre. He had painted his Royal
master's portrait ; and when Oliver Cromwell was in power,
he painted the Protector. He was the drawing-master of
the Princesses Mary and Anne, and it may be remarked
that, about the same 'period, the Muscovite court fool and
dwarf, Sotof, was holding the additional office of writing-
master to Peter the Great. The old page of Charles I. was
however a superior man. He died at the age of seventy-
five, A.D. 1690. His little wife lived till 1709, when she
died, in her ninetieth year, at which time the four of their
nine children who had attained to the ordinary stature of
mankind survived, the issue of a marriage which had been
honoured by the presence of royalty and commemorated
as a court jest by the banter of Waller.
It is not to be expected that the grave system of the
Commonwealth admitted of such an official as a jester. The
house or town fool, however, did not go out with his bro-
ther at court. A portrait of one of those worthies may be
seen at Muncaster Castle, Cumberland. His name was
Thomas Skeltou ; he appears to have resided at the castle
during the period of the civil wars, as house fool. Jefferson,
in his ' History of Allerdale Ward, above Derwent,' says,
that " of Skelton's sayings there are many traditional sto-
ries ;" but unfortunately he cites none. From his descrip-
216 HISTOEY OF COUET FOOLS.
tion of the portrait on the staircase at the castle, we ob-
tain a good idea of the fool of this period. Skelton is there
represented " in a check gown, blue, yellow, and white ;
under his arm is an earthen dish, with ears ; in his right
hand a white wand ; in his left, a white hat, bound with pink
ribbon, and with blue bows ; in front, a paper, on which is
written, 'Mrs. Dorothy Copelaud.' ' The picture contains
an inscription, headed " Thomas Skelton, late fool of Mun-
caster's last will and testament." I cite it, not for its
poetical merit, but because it shows that these house and
town fools were sometimes invested with mock offices of a
certain dignity.
" Be it known to ye, O grave and wise men all,
That I, Tom Fool, am sheriff of the Hall.
I mean the Hall of Haigh, where I command
What neither I nor you do understand.
My under- sheriff is Ralph Wayte, you know ;
As wise as I am, and as witty too.
Of Egremond I have borough-serjeant been ;
Of Wiggan, bailiff too, as may be seen
By my white staff of office in my hand,
Being carried straight as the badge of my command.
A low high- con stable, too, was once my calling,
Which I enjoy'd under King Henry Bawling.
And when the Fates a new sheriff send,
I'm under-sheriff prick'd, world without end.
He who doth question my authority
May see the seal and patent here lie by.
The dish with lugs [ears] which I do carry here
Shows all my living is in good strong beer.
If scurvy lads to me abuses do,
I'll call 'em scurvy rogues, and rascals too.
Fair Dolly Copeland in my cap is placed ;
Monstrous fair is she, and as good as all the rest.
Honest Nick Pennington, honest Tom Turner, both
Will bury me when I this world go forth.
But let me not be carried o'er the brigg,
Lest, falling, I in Duggas river ligg.
ENGLISH COUET FOOLS. 217
Nor let my body by old Charnorth lie,
But by Will Caddy, for he'll lie quietly.
And when I'm buried, then my friends may drink ;
But each man pay for himself, that's best I think.
This is my will ; and this I know will be
Perform'd by them, as they have promised me."
This rhapsodic testament has "Thomas Skelton X his
mark " affixed to it, serving to show (as Armstrong's letter
from Madrid does) that this class of jester, if possessed of
wit, was not possessed of learning. The lines also intimate
that the " fool of Muncaster Castle " was, like most of his
profession, fond of drinking. The subscription of his mark
is attested by three witnesses; and the rhymed joke had all
the forms of a serious document.
After the gravity enforced by the Commonwealth, the
silencing of the stage, the suppression of joking, and the
introduction of long sermons and loud psalms, there was a
sudden reaction, even before the graceless King had got
what was facetiously called " his own again." Monk, who
was in some doubt, even as he marched through Gray's Inn
La'ne into London, whether he should join hands with the
solemn precisians or the gay cavaliers, no sooner felt the
direction of the popular wind, than he gave license to jol-
lity. The nearest approach that could be made to the old
professional fool, started on to the stage as " The Citizen
and Soldier," " Country Tom and City Dick," and other
"pretty antics," played in April 1660, before " His Excel-
lency," when, with the Council of State, he dined at one of
the city halls. He dined at nine of them ; and after dinner
on each occasion, besides satirical plays, were " dancing and
singing, many shapes and ghosts, and the like ; and all to
please his Excellency, the Lord General."
If it be true that the official fool was not restored with
Monarchy, at the accession of Charles II., because the
Puritan voice and the religious sentiment of the country
218 HISTOET OF COURT FOOLS.
generally, were against such officials and their foolery,
foolery itself did not go out. See what solemn Evelyn says
to it, under the date of January 1, 1661-2 : " 1st January.
I went to London, invited to the solemn foolery of the
Prince de la Grange, at Lincoln's Inn, where came the
King, Duke, etc. It began with a grand masque, and a
formal pleading before the mock princes, grandees, nobles,
and knights of the Sun. He had his Lord Chancellor,
Chamberlain, Treasurer, and other royal officers, gloriously
clad and attended. It ended in a magnificent banquet.
One Mr. Lort was the young spark who maintained the
pageantry."
A little more then six years later, we meet with an entry
in ' Pepys' Diary' which seems to introduce us to an official
fool, and which is to this effect : " 1667-8. Feb. 13. Mr.
Erisband tells me, in discourse, that Tom Killigrew hath
a fee out of the Wardrobe for cap and bells, under the
title of the King's Foole or Jester, and may revile or
jeere anybody, the greatest person, without offence, by the
privilege of his place." Pepys, vol. iv. p. 353.
Oldys is quite as explicit. In one of his MS. notes
to ' Langbain's Memoirs of Dramatic Authors,' he says,
under the head of Killigrew : " He was Master of the Eevels,
and the King's jester, while Groom of the Bedchamber."
Various writers, when commenting on these passages, have
suggested that Killigrew never held a patent of official fool,
and that his actual appointment was to the office of Master
of the Eevels. According, however, to Chalmers, Torn Kil-
ligrew succeeded Herbert as Master of the Eevels in 1673,
and was followed therein, on his death, in 1682-3, by his
brother Charles. The office in question was first instituted
in 1546, the last year of Henry VIII. (with a salary of 10
per annum), and continued till 1725, when the Lord Cham-
berlain was empowered to have rule and dominion over the
court and public entertainments ; and the Master of the
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 219
Revels being entirely ignored in a new Act of Parliament,
was snuffed out, and never heard of again.
Supposing Pepys's informant to have stated the actual
truth, Tom Killigrew had, not a patent, but a warrant
under the King's sign manual, addressed to the officers of
the Wardrobe, directing them to pay to Killigrew, " our
fool or jester," a certain amount per annum to enable him
to provide the customary official indication of a cap and
bells. Such warrants had nothing in them of the character
of Letters Patent. An entry of the warrant should have
been made in some book kept in the "Wardrobe ; the war-
rant or sign manual may have been preserved, and pro-
bably also a docket, or short minute of it, may have been
made and kept by some Master of Requests or other officer
who laid the warrant before the King for his signature. If
such a warrant did actually exist, it ought to be found in
some wardrobe book, or collection of signed bills or war-
rants, or dockets.
The most careful research has failed to be rewarded by
the discovery of any document confirmatory of the report
conveyed to Pepys. All that I could find in conjunction
with Mr. Bruce, or, I should rather say, all that his anti-
quarian zeal, patience, curiosity, and unwearied good-nature
could find for me, consisted of several entries which show
that Killigrew was in the receipt of various payments made
by the Crown ; but none of these show him to have been an
official court jester. The only approach to a proof is, that
he is styled "one of the Grooms of the Chamber," a style
by which Tarleton was designated when he was jester to
Elizabeth.
On the Issue Roll, 1 March, 1665-6, there is notice of a
payment of 100, being a quarter's annuity granted to Kil-
ligrew and Cecilie, his wife. In 1666, the same Roll con-
tains notices of payments on account of two annuities, one
of 400 per annum, which he held jointly with his wife ;
220 HISTOHY OF COUET FOOLS.
and one of the annual value of 500. These annuities are
duly ordered to be paid, at later dates, and from various
sources. Sometimes there were no effects in the treasury,
and then the Queen's purse seems to have been tapped for
the payment. In the Pells Enrolments, 1675, Killigrew
receives 200, to be expended by him in support of his office
as Master of the Revels ; and, later, we come upon an entry
of 1050, to be paid to him for getting up certain plays
during the preceding nine years. I may add, that in a suc-
ceeding year, the 18th of August, 1678, there was another
appointment of greater interest than the above, and which
shows how different, now at least, was the court poet from
the court fool. I allude to the appointment of Dryden as
poet laureate. The letters patent making this appointment
are entered on the Pells Book of Enrolments of the date
above mentioned. In this document, Dryden's predecessors,
Gower and Chaucer, are spoken of as knights ; the salary is
fixed at 200 per annum ; and directions are given that the
butt of canary, or sack, shall be taken out of the King's
cellars at Whitehall, "yearly, and once a year." At the
above date, Killigrew was Master of the Bevels ; and if lie
were jester also, it may be said that the court of England
had never seen so accomplished a "fool," nor so eminent a
laureate, as now figured on the household roll of Charles II.
The position of Tom Killigrew at Court was, however, so
closely allied to that of the official jester, as to forbid its
being passed over without some brief notice. Killigrew
was the son of a baronet ; and his earliest vocation and
amusement, was that of lingering about the doors of the
theatre till he was invited in to play some imp, or any other
character that a boy could enact. In this way he com-
menced a career which ended in his .being, with Bucking-
ham and others, one of the "merry villains" in the house-
hold of Charles II.
Killigrew 's first appearance at Court was in the character
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 221
of page of honour to Charles I., a part which he seema to
have filled creditably. When the Commonwealth was esta-
blished, Tom went into the service of Charles II., then on
the Continent ; and he is very strongly suspected of having
betrayed his master's secrets to the republican Government.
This suspicion rests upon a passage in a letter (dated
October 1658) from Downing, Cromwell s Resident at the
Hague, to Thurloe, referring to a secret visit paid by Charles
to the Dutch court. " As for Charles Stuart," says the
writer, " I had an account from one Killigrew, of his bed-
chamber, of every place where he was, and the time, with his
stay and company, of which also I. gave you an account in
mine of the last post. He vowed that it was a journey of
pleasure, and that none of the States General, nor any per-
son of note of Amsterdam, came to him." These commu-
nications, however, may have been made by Killigrew in
good faith, as explanations, in order to screen his royal
master from molestation.
Of that royal master he was the not unfitting representa-
tive at Venice, whither Killigrew repaired to borrow money,
and where he remained long enough to write some half-dozen
verbose and witless plays. He remained too long for the
patience of the Venetians, who, dissolute as they were them-
selves, were more disgusted at the profligacy, than charmed
by the accomplishments, of the English envoy ; and the
Doge, Francis Erizzo, very unceremoniously ejected him
from the Venetian territory. In the fourth volume of ' Eve-
lyn's Diary and Correspondence' will be found a letter from
Hyde, mildly complaining that Charles was not permitted
to withdraw his ambassador.
Killigrew, at the Restoration, brought back with him an
improved taste in theatrical matters generally ; and he in-
troduced the first Italian opera singers ever heard in this
country. He was for a time the most conspicuous man
at court, where he certainly exercised with impunity all the
222 HTSTOET OF COUET TOOLS.
license of the court fool, which office Oldys and Pepys as-
cribe to him. The samples of this license are well known,
but some will bear being reproduced.
On one occasion, this "merry villain" was seated at a
window of the King's dressing-room, reading one of his
licentious plays, while Charles was engaged at his toilette.
The monarch must have been under the influence of some
decency of spirit that morning, for he asked Killigrew what
he would be able to say in the next world, in defence of the
" idle words " of his comedies. Tom replied, that he would
be able to make a better defence for his "idle words " than
the King could do for his idle promises, which were made
only to be broken, and which had caused more ruin than
any of the aforesaid idle words in any of his own comedies.
Of similar boldness, and with more of truth in it, was his
satirical hint to Charles, conveyed publicly to the King, at
a moment of great national distress. Killigrew remarked
that the affairs of the kingdom were in a very ill state ; but
that nevertheless they were not without remedy. " There
is a good, honest, able man that I could name," said he,
" that if your Majesty would employ, and command to see
all things well executed, all things would be soon mended ;
and this is one Charles Stuart, who now spends his time
in employing his lips about the court, and hath no other
employment ; but if you would give him this employment,
he were the fittest man in the world to perform it."
The jester, turned Mentor, was ever more ready with pre-
cept than example ; and his own practice of selling places that
did not exist, and taking money from honest and ambitious
citizens for creating them " King's physic-tasters," or " royal
curtain-drawers," was thought an excellent court jest, and
was laughed at accordingly.
Sometimes, like Will Sommers before Henry VIII., Kil-
ligrew would appear in the presence of Charles, in disguise.
Once he came before the King in pilgrim's attire, "cockled hat
ENGLISH COURT TOOLS. 223
and shoon." " Whither away ? " asked Charles. " I am going
to hell," boldly replied the jester, " to ask the devil to send
back Oliver Cromwell to take charge of the affairs of Eng-
land ; for as to his successor, he is always employed in other
business." It will be seen from this, that if Killigrew did
not wear the cap and bells, he was in all essentials the
bold, witty, and privileged jester of the court of Charles II.
Tom could bring the latter to attend to his affairs when
no one else had hope of succeeding. We have an instance
of this when a Council had assembled on some highly im-
portant matter, but could do nothing for want of the King's
much-desired presence. "When Lauderdale had failed to
induce the King to leave his pleasures for the public busi-
ness, Killigrew wagered a hundred pounds with the Duke,
that he would bring Charles to the Council in half-an-hour.
Tom succeeded too. He simply suggested to the King,
that as his Majesty hated Lauderdale, he might now get
rid of him for ever. " If I win my wager, the Duke will
rather hang himself than pay the money." " Well then,"
said Charles, "if that be the case, I positively will go."
And so merry villain and merry monarch proceeded straight
to the Council Chamber.
Pepys calls Killigrew " a merry droll, but a gentleman
of great esteem with the King." When the immortal
diarist was in the Admiralty yacht, off the coast of Holland,
in 1660, among the "persons of honour" also there,
Killigrew is named. " He told us many merry stories,"
says Pepys ; " one, how he wrote a letter three or four
days ago to the Princess Royal, about a Queen Dowager
of Judea and Palestine, that was at the Hague incognita,
that made love to the King, which was Mr. Cary (a
courtier's) wife, that had been a nun, who are all married
to Jesus." Two years later, when the clerk met the
courtier at the Tower, the former designates the wit of the
jester as consisting of "poor and frothy discourse."
224 HISTOKT OF COURT FOOLS.
In February, 1666-7, Killigrew narrated to Pepys what
he had done, since he was a manager, for the improve-
ment of the stage ; rendering it " a thousand times better
and more glorious than ever heretofore. Now, wax-candles,
and many of them ; then, not above 3lbs. of tallow. Now,
all things civil, no rudeness anywhere ; then, as a bear-
garden. Then, two or three fiddlers ; now, nine or ten of
the best : then, nothing but rushes on the ground, and
everything else mean ; now, all otherwise." It was in the
following year that Killigrew is said to have received his
fee for the purchase of his cap and bells. "What is more
certain is, that in the last year named, he and gentlemen
of similar mirthful quality relieved the depression of their
spirits at Sir Thomas Teddiman's funeral, by reading aloud,
or listening to, a variety of comic ballads ! The respect
which Killigrew received at the hands of Rochester, appears
to have been exactly that which an over-bold fool might
win from a courtier equally proud and dissolute. It was
for some fool's offence given at a banquet at the Dutch
Ambassador's, at which the King himself was present, that
Rochester dealt the saucy wit a stinging smack on the
face. Tom took it as Tom Derry might have taken a cuff
from a Lord ; and Rochester lost no favour with the King
for having thus assaulted one of his Majesty's "merry
villains." Killigrew died in March 1682. Evelyn records
in his Diary, the execution of Vrats, the murderer, who
believed that " God would deal with him like a gentleman;" -
but he leaves Tom's departure from the festive scene un-
honoured by a word of remark.
Shadwell writes, in his ' Woman Captain,' anno 1680 :
"It is out of fashion now, for great men to keep fools;"
but though princes and nobles began to prefer the society of
witty and intellectual gentlemen to the paid-for. nonsense
of hirelings who were said, by periphrasis, to have been
born at Little "Witham, the old taste did not entirely ex-
ENGLISH COUBT FOOLS. 225
pire either at court or in private households. Anthony a
Wood mentions Dr. John Donne, son of the celebrated
Donne, as " an atheistical buffoon, a banterer, and a person
of over-free thought; yet valued by Charles the Second."
The court of this monarch assuredly little resembled that of
his contemporary sovereign, the King of Siam, touching
which, Captain Erwin told Pepys (17th August, 1666),
" how the King of Syam seldom goes out without thirty or
forty thousand people with him, and not a word spoke, nor a
hum or a cough in the whole company to be heard." In other
respects, the difference does not seem to have been remark-
able, for the Captain was assured by a native interpreter,
that " our (the Siamese) King do not live by meat or drink,
but by having great lies told him." The reign of James II.
is barren, as far as it is in connection with the subject 1
pursue ; and it is tolerably certain that throughout the reign
of William III., the only official court fool in England was
the one who came over in the suite of the Czar Peter. His
presence marked the distinction then existing between a
civilized and intellectual, and an uncivilized and ignorant
court.
I must not omit, however, to relate an incident of this
reign in connection with the subject of the license of the
fool. If the latter official was not to be found at court,
his representatives still lingered in the fairs, and exer-
cised a privilege which the Royal authority, nevertheless,
was not slow to oppose. In 1693, the magnificent Smyrna
fleet set sail from our shores, under convoy of a squadron
of English and Dutch men-of-war, at the head of which
were Killigrew, Delaval, and Rooke. The first two aban-
doned the last admiral ; and Rooke, left to encounter the
whole maritime force of Prance in the Bay of Lagos,
suffered severe loss, and the rich Smyrna fleet (with some
exceptions) was scattered, sunk, burnt, or otherwise de-
stroyed. This catastrophe, the return of the first two
Q
226 HISTORY OF COURT POOLS.
admirals to Torbay, and the disaster to " the Turkey fleet,"
excited mingled indignation and grief. As the fool of the
Trench King Philip made use of the defeat of the Trench
fleet by the navy of Edward, whereon to exercise his wit
and rouse the patriotic anger of his master, so now the
fools and merry-andrews congregated at Bartholomew
fair, in the vicinity of the edifice where Eahere the jester
had founded a Priory in honour of the Apostle, made use
of the public dishonour and loss, in order to keep alive the
popular execration against those wretched and incapable
ministers, to whose incapacity and indifference might be
traced the fearful loss of life, property, and good name in-
curred by England on the fatal day in question. On
Saturday, September 2, 1693, Narcissus Luttrell writes,
in his Diary : " A merry-andrew in Bartholomew fair is
committed for telling the mobb news that our fleet was
come into Torbay, being forced in by some French priva-
teers ; and other words reflecting on the conduct of great
Ministers of State." Lord Macaulay founds, on a paragraph
in L' Hermitage of the same date, a very graphic descrip-
tion of this attempt of the fool at fairs, to wag his tongue
as boldly as his predecessors used to do at court. Of all
the shows at this period, says the historian, " none proved
so attractive as a dramatic performance which, in concep-
tion, though doubtless not in execution, seems to have
borne much resemblance to those immortal master-pieces
of humour, in which Aristophanes held up Cleon and
Lamachus to derision. Two strollers personated Killigrew
and Delaval. The admirals were represented as flying with
their whole fleet before a few French privateers, and taking
shelter under the guns of the Tower. The office of Chorus was
performed by a Jack Pudding, who expressed very freely his
opinion of the naval administration. Immense crowds flocked
to see this strange farce. The applauses were loud ; the re-
ceipts were great ; and the mountebanks, who had at first
ENGLISH COTTBT TOOLS. 227
ventured to attack only the unlucky arid unpopular Board
of Admiralty, now emboldened by impunity and success,
and probably prompted and rewarded by persons of much
higher station than their own, began to cast reflections on
other departments of the Government. This attempt to
revive the license of the Attic stage was soon brought to
a close by the appearance of a strong body of constables,
who carried off the actors to prison."
Thus was suppressed an attempt, less to revive than
to continue the license of the jester. Government had
become less tolerant in this respect than Kings had
been to their own fools. A dozen years before, an essay
to joke down the administrative foibles of the day, by a
pamphleteering jester, " Heraclitus Bidens," was very sum-
marily and stringently punished. Bartholomew fair, how-
ever, struggled hard to maintain its supposed privileges. It
is very possible that if persons of high station employed the
merry-andrews of 1693, to spout their fun against elevated
Ministers of State, that they were also present to hear how
their agents acquitted themselves of the office. Nothing
was more common than the presence of the nobility at
the Saturnalia in Smithfield, except the presence of the
" mobile," with whom the former frequently came in san-
guinary contact. In September, 1690, Luttrell writes :
" The first instant was a great disorder at Bartholomew
fair, where the mobile got ahead, and quarrelled with some
gentlemen, upon which, swords were drawn, where some
were wounded, and one or two killed." Even as late as
the reign of George II., the fair was patronized by an
august presence. Frederick, Prince of "Wales, used to go
there by night, attended by a merry suit of courtiers of
either sex. The theatres were then closed, and " their
Majesties' servants " played in booths. Princes now went
to see the "drolls;" whereas, in former times the clowns
waited on the princes.
Q 2
228 HISTOBT OF COTJET FOOLS.
Before this last period, Queen Anne may be said to have
had some of the old leaven in her; for she made a Knight of
William Eead, a mountebank. Her Majesty, also, offered
to knight Beau Nash, a buffoon too, according to the
fashion of the times ; but the Beau had declined the honour
at the hands of the great Nassau, and he would not take
it from Anne. His reply was in the bad court-jester
style: "I will have none of it, most gracious Madam,"
said Nash, as if he were refusing to grant a favour ; "but
there is Sir William Eead, the mountebank, whom your
Majesty has knighted, I shall be very happy to call him
Brother." At which fool's sally, " the solemn Anna smiled."
But if the official fool had gone out, foolish officers
still exercised a silly vocation at court. Perhaps the most
silly of these was the King's cock-crower, who was still
loud and lusty, at the opening of the Georgian era. This
personage crowed at each hour of the night. On the first
Ash- Wednesday which occurred after the accession of the
Hanoverian family, the Prince of Wales (subsequently
George II.) supped at court. Just as ten o'clock struck,
his Majesty's cock-crower, who happened to be behind the
Prince, set up such a chanticleering, that the Prince started
up in indignation at what he deemed a fool's insult. The
courtiers had some difficulty in assuring him that the crowing
and crower formed part of the ordinary court etiquette.
The Prince would not tolerate such a nuisance, and another
fool's office was annihilated when he came to the throne.
There were still some wits, however, in whom the popu-
lar voice hailed an arch-jester. I may notice one, whose very
grave is likely soon to be forgotten. In the old cemetery
(belonging to St. Clement's Danes), in Portugal-street,
Lincoln's Inn Fields, in a grave, the head-stone of which
was during many summers, until recently, regularly em-
bowered and concealed by sun-flowers, lie the remains of
the witty jester, Joe Miller. There they have been since
ENGLISH COURT TOOLS. 229
1738. The year following, John Mottley, the author of
' Peter the Great,' published a collection of jests as honest
Joe's, but they were really a collection of witty things
which in his time he had either heard or read, and to
which Mottley appended Miller's name. The latter died
at the age of fifty-four, the exact age at which departed
so recently from among us, he who held the " consulship
of wit," in England, Douglas Jerrold. That Miller was
"facetious," we learn from the inscription above his grave ;
that he was witty also, his jest not merely turning on a pun,
but on a chain of ideas, the following will testify. He
was once sitting in the parlour of the Sun Tavern, in Clare-
street, or the Black Jack, in Portsmouth-street, his favourite
houses, when a fishwoinan passed by, crying "Buy my
soles ! buy niy maids ! " " Ah, you wicked old creature ! "
said Joe to her, " are you not contented to sell your own
soul, but you must sell your maid's too ? "
In the reigns of George II. and his successor, among
the men who seem to have united with other offices, some-
thing like the vocation of court fool, was the son of a
Carlisle apothecary, named Bubb, who succeeded to the
estates and adopted the name of his uncle, Doddington ;
and who is better known by their conjoined names, than
by his subsequent title of Lord Melcombe. A disap-
pointment in obtaining a peerage, took him from the ranks
of Sir Robert Walpole and George II., to those of Fre-
derick, Prince of Wales. In the household of the Prince,
Bubb, who lacked neither good qualities nor ability, de-
scended to play the fool. Horace Walpole tells us that
"he submitted to the Prince's childish horse-play, being
once rolled up in a blanket and trundled down stairs."
He changed sides more than once ; lent and lost money to
the Prince ; was laughed at, to his very face, by the King ;
slept in a bed canopied with peacocks' feathers ; and kept
fools, " a tame booby or two," of his own. These were
HISTOET OF COURT FOOLS.
Wyndham, his heir ; Sir William Bruton, keeper of George
II. 's privy purse ; and Dr. Thompson " a misanthrope,
a courtier, and a quack," as Cumberland names them.
Thompson appears to have been the most ignoble of the
"monks " who sojourned at " La Trappe," so Doddington
called his company and mansion at Hammersmith. Thomp-
son was ostensibly his medical adviser ; but he practised
his profession like a fool, and was treated by his patron as
patrons were wont to treat fools of more audacity than
wit. On one occasion, the Doctor observed Doddiugton,
at breakfast, about to help himself to muffins. He de-
nounced them as indigestible, and loudly bade the servant,
" Take away those muffins ! " " No, no ! " said Doddington,
pointing to the Doctor, " take away that ragamuffin ! " In
this way were "tame boobies" treated by their patrons,
who, themselves, were princes' fools.
At an earlier period, that, namely, of Louis XIV., we find
instances of noble persons assembling in their houses people
of a very inferior rank, for the purpose of drawing from
them something more than amusement. The Duchess de
la Ferte was one of these. This exalted personage was in
the habit of inviting all her tradespeople to her house.
She entertained herself with their peculiarities at table, and
then set them down to play with her at lansquenet, or some
similar game. Madame de Stael, who tells the story in
her Memoirs, adds, " The Duchess would sometimes whisper
to me, ' I am cheating the fellows, but Lord ! serve them
right ! Don't I know how they rob me daily ? ' ' So that
the Duchess made her fools pay their expenses, and her own.
In the reign of George III., although the fool did not exist
as a professional man, we have an instance of a professional
man enacting the fool, with good intent and profitable pur-
pose. The person alluded to is the learned and laughter-
loving Dr. William Battie, who was a well-reputed London
physician in portions of the reigns of George II. and his
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 231
successor. He was celebrated for his treatment of the
insane ; and is thus described in the 'Battiad,' a poem of
which he was the hero.
"First Battas came, deep read in worldly art,
Whose tongue ne'er knew the secrets of his heart.
In mischief mighty, though but mean of size,
And, like the Tempter, ever in disguise.
See him with aspect grave and gentle tread,
By slow degrees approach the sickly bed ;
Then, at his club, behold him alter'd soon,
The solemn doctor turns a low buffoon."
But Battie could play the fool, even to better purpose by
the sick bed, than the buffoon at his club. It is told of him
that he had a young male patient whom obstinate quinsy
threatened with almost instant suffocation. Battie had tried
every remedy but his foolery, and at last he had recourse to
that. Setting his wig wrong side before, twisting his face
into a compound comic expression, and darting his head
suddenly within the curtains, he cut such antics, poured
forth such delicious folly, and was altogether so irresistible,
that his patient, after gazing at him for a moment in stupe-
faction, burst into a fit of laughter which broke the impos-
thume, and rescued the sufferer from impending death.
The above, however, is only a sample of how a profes-
sional man could apply folly to a wise end. We have some-
thing more resembling the professional fool or dwarf, in the
case of a retainer of the Duke of Ancaster who died in 1779.
Walpole mentions him in a letter to Lady Ossory. "I hear
the Duke of Ancaster has left a legacy to a very small man
that was always his companion, and whom, when he was
drunk, he used to fling at the heads of the company, as others
fling a bottle."
Although, professionally, the vocation had gone, it is still
worth observing, that other patent places which had origi-
nated in feudal times, had not gone with that of the jester.
" If my memory does not deceive me," says Burke in his
232 HTSTOET OF COURT FOOLS.
speech on the royal household, in 1780, " a person of no
slight consideration held the office of patent hereditary cook
to an Earl of "Warwick." The orator rightly conjectured
that the Earl's soups "were not the better for the dignity of
his kitchen;" and he adds his belief that "an Earl of Glou-
cester officiated as steward of the household to the Arch-
bishops of Canterbury." The orator found a curious relic
of those old times when these practices were common, in
the household of George III. He did not meet with any
witty fellow there patented as fool, but he discovered some-
thing akin to it; namely, that the turnspit in the King's
kitchen was a Member of Parliament !
The annals of succeeding reigns bear the names of several
courtiers whose office it was to amuse and gratify their Eoyal
patron. How George III. himself could play the court
jester with effect, I will tell in a chapter devoted to sove-
reigns who occasionally were their own fools. How Colonel
Haager and others of more recent periods have played first
cousins to the more ancient jokers, it is unnecessary here to
enumerate. I will rather conclude my long, and I fear im-
perfect, chapter, by showing also the conclusion of the ac-
tual line of hired fools in noble English households. It is
not so very long since the last of this class died and left no
successor. Mr. Douce, in his pleasant Essay on clowns and
fools, gives the names of the last of them who practised pro-
fessionally in this country. The household fool survived the
court fool ; and after Muckle John closed the line of the
latter, there was was still bread to be earned by the profes-
sion of the former. According to Mr. Douce, the favourite
Lord Chancellor of George I., the eminent Lord Talbot, kept
a fool, probably at his country-house, if at all. Mr. Douce
tells us that his name was Rees Pengelding, and that he was
a shrewd fellow who rented a farm under his patron. It
happened that Eees was a little backward with his rent, and
he was harshly menaced by the steward, who wound up his
ENGLISH COTJET FOOLS. 233
objurgations by exclaiming, " I'll fit you ! I'll fit you !" Now
it happened that the steward, in his earlier days, had been a
tailor, the remembrance of which caused Rees to call out in
return, " Pit me ! will you ? Well, it will be the first time
in your life you ever did such a thing !"
I feel bound to add, that Lord Campbell, in his life of
Chancellor Talbot, makes no mention of this fool, Pengelding.
May not the latter have been simply favoured, because of
the sharpness of his wit ? It is difficult to conceive that
the profound scholar in Roman civil law ; the friend and
equal of Philip Yorke, the enlightened statesman ; the only
Chancellor who had ever sat on the Woolsack without making
an accuser, a detractor, or an enemy ; a man, in short, in
whom was " joined the utmost freedom of dispute with the
highest good breeding, and the vivacity of mirth with primi-
tive simplicity of manners," it would be difficult to con-
ceive that such a man, the friend of Butler the divine, and
patron of Thompson, could take delight in a mere household
fool, were we not reminded that even more intellectual Chan-
cellors than he, in earlier, but not in less refined days, could
find relaxation in listening to the professional joker. In
connection with my subject, I shall be excused if I notice
that when Talbot was appointed Chancellor, a grand "Revel"
was given in his honour by the Inner Temple (1734), and
that this was the last festivity of the sort at which royalty
attended at an Inn of Court. There has been a royal enter-
tainment in our own days, at Lincoln's Inn, but Talbot' s
" Revel" was the last of its class.
Mr. Douce also names a certain Robin Rush as being fool,
in the last century, to Lord Bussy Mansel ; and Mr. Douce
adds, that in 1807 there were people living who remembered
him. Sir Edward Stradling, of St. Dorret's Castle, Gla-
morganshire, was another of the lords of land who kept a
fool in his house at the same period ; a fool of sharp and
ready wit. We have still more satisfactory proof of the
234 HISTOBY OF COTTBT FOOLS.
existence of a household fool in the last century, in the per-
son of Dicky Pearce, " fool to Lord Suffolk," for which fool,
being dead, Dean. Swift did what Ronsard failed to do for
a more witty jester at the court of France, namely, write
his epitaph. Dicky Pearce lies in Berkeley churchyard,
Gloucestershire, and these are the lines the Dean has placed
above his grave :
" Here lies the Earl of Suffolk's fool,
Men called him Dicky Pearce ;
His folly served to make folks laugh,
When wit and mirth were scarce.
" Poor Dick, alas ! is dead and gone ;
What signifies to cry ?
Dickeys enough are still behind
To laugh at by and by."
The last recorded instance of a domestic fool being kept
in an English family, is that of the jester retained at Hilton
Castle, Durham, by John Hilton, the descendant of the old
barons of that name, who died 1746. Surtees, in his ' History
of Durham,' notices this fact, and adds one touch of the wit
of this anonymous fool, who seems to have borrowed a tra-
ditionary joke of his great predecessor, Archie Armstrong.
His master, we are told, on one occasion of his returning to
his northern seat from London, left his carriage at the ferry
near the castle, and proceeded towards that building over a
foot-bridge, at the end of which the fool was awaiting his
patron. The latter was attired in a gaily gold-embroidered
dress, according to the fashion of the times, and made in
the south, by a fashionable tailor. The fool gazed on his
master with mingled astonishment and vexation, and, in place
of greeting his return with a welcome, boldly looked him in
the face, and inquired, " Who 's the fool now ? " This is the
last recorded joke of the last recorded jester ; and the long
line could not have gone out with a milder, though it might
have done so with a less impertinent, jest. Hilton's fool
ENGLISH COURT FOOLS. 235
may, I think, fairly rank as the ultimus stultorum (he was
remembered by aged Cumberland people, as late as 1812),
though in point of fact the honour may be disputed by the
nameless individual who figured, though it was only for the
nonce, at the Eglinton tournament, in 1839, where knights
tilted in spectacles, and the spectators looked on at the
solemn fun, under rain and from beneath umbrellas.
Thus the fool went out in a rather gorgeous fashion.
There was a grand tableau as the curtain descended which
had been up in England for so many centuries. I am bound
to add that the Eglinton fool may find a rival as to the
honour of closing the merry line, in Shemus Anderson, the
fool of Murthley Castle, Perthshire, who died in the year
1833. He had grown tolerably rich in his vocation ; had
suffered losses, like Dogberry ; but left behind him some
comfortable hundreds of pounds to his heirs. Shemus, how-
ever, never wore the cap and bells, or nursed the bauble, or
whirled the bladder and peas, or shook the clappers, or car-
ried motley. He was a fool in undress ; but in respect of
fulness of character and costume, of circus jokes, and all the
accessories of the part, excepting its indecencies, the Eg-
linton fool was the last of the race. He flickered up for a
moment, as did the padded knights and the Queen of Beauty,
to afford some idea to the times present of the aspect of the
times past, as far as the latter could be exhibited in one of
its gorgeous follies. The blaze of splendour was great, and
the fool's fire of conundrums burnt bravely, but the rain
extinguished it all ; the umbrellas gave an air of ridicule
to the scene ; the thing was felt to be, after all, only a
splendid sham ; and accordingly the fool and the pseudo-
feudal lords and ladies disappeared for ever. All that re-
mains of the old reality are rags and shreds and frag-
ments in the mansions of our nobles and gentles. At
G-lamis Castle a motley jacket still hangs, or did recently
hang, on a peg in the wall, and at Stourhead is still pre-
236 HISTOHT OF COURT FOOLS.
served a jester's baldric, which may be devoutly kissed as a
relic by the worshippers of Folly.
Some resemblance may be certainly traced between the
conditions of the English court fool and the ancient para-
site, and between the English household fool and the old
Roman slave. "With all, there was laughter excited by liberty
of speech, which must have occasionally fallen like refresh-
ing dew upon the ear of despot or noble, unaccustomed to
listen to aught from others save his own exceeding glorifi-
cation. The despot still retained the power of punishing
the fool ; and in this particular, the household jester, who
was often a menial servant, the drudge of the family, very
closely resembled the Eoman slave, with whom his master
would graciously exchange jokes one day, and whom he
would scourge the next, The two, capricious master and
servile yet audacious wit, agreed very well with despotism,
and coarse times and manners ; but with liberty and refine-
ment, both expired, or underwent such modifications, or took
such new forms, as to be no longer recognizable. The fool
was for a season, but eccentricity of character, which was his
great merit, naturally survived him.
It has been objected to many of the ancient traits of court
jesters, that they were inventions of writers of fiction, and
that they only illustrated a rude state of society. Thus, the
incident of Scogan chalking the path to be taken by his wife
to church, has been pronounced too farcical to be true. But
the degree of humour Avhich moved King Edward's jester
to this act, has influenced many persons of later and more
refined times than those in which Scogan uttered very ques-
tionable jokes for the amusement of his royal and princely
patrons. We all know how Lord Hardwicke, when he was
an attorney's clerk, and was ordered by his mistress to pur-
chase a cauliflower, executed this commission, but sent the
vegetable home in a sedan-chair at the lady's cost. An in-
stance more striking, and closer to the point, is given us in
ENGLISH COTTBT FOOLS. 237
the person of the wealthy Margaret Wharton, whom Foote
introduced in one of his pieces, as "Peg Pennyworth," a
name which the lady had acquired when a visitor at Scarbo-
rough, by sending every night for a pennyworth of straw-
berries and cream, for her supper. In this dramatic piece,
Mrs. Wharton aftbrded mirth to princes, courtiers, and citi-
zens, with whom the farce was a great favourite. Ord, in
his ' History of Cleveland,' narrates several anecdotes of her
humour, of which I select one that may contrast with that
of Scogan. " In one of her visits to Scarborough," we are
told, " she, with her usual economy, had a family pie for din-
ner, which she directed the footman to convey to the bake-
house. This he declined, as not belonging to his place, or
rather derogatory to his consequence. She then moved the
question to the coachman, but found a still stronger objec-
tion. To save the pride of both, she resolved to take it her-
self, and ordered one to harness, and bring out the carriage,
and the other to mount behind, and they took the pie, with
all honour and ceremony, to the bakehouse. When baked,
coachee was ordered to put to a second time, and the foot-
maii to mount behind ; and the pie returned in the same
dignified state. ' Now,' says she to the coachman, ' you
have kept your place, which is to drive ; and yours,' to the
footman, ' which is to wait ; and I mine, which was to have
my pie for dinner.' " It was just this sort of eccentricity
of character which gave value to the old counterfeit fools,
as we shall see further in subsequent pages.
Meanwhile I take leave of the English portion of my sub-
ject with the comment of Stillingfleet, who says :
" Leave to low buffoons by custom bred,
And form'd by nature to be kicked and fed,
The vulgar and unenvied task to hit
All persons, right or wrong, with random wit.
Our wise forefathers, born in sober days,
Resigned to fools the tart and witty phrase ;
238 HISTOBY or COURT roots.
The motley coat gave warning for the jest,
Excused the wound and sanctified the pest.
Bnt we from high to low all strive to sneer,
Will all be wits, and not the livery wear."
If my readers have but patience to go forward, they will
soon find themselves in company with the Foils du Roi, at
the Court of France, where, for a long period, it was not
possible for a fool to appear without his livery ; but to which
now the following lines are not less applicable than they are
to other localities :
" Why, pray, of late do Europe's kings
If o jester in their courts admit ?
They 've grown such stately solemn things ;
To bear a joke, they think not fit.
But though each court a jester lacks,
To laugh at monarchs to their face,
All mankind do behind their backs,
Supply the honest jester's place."
239
THE COURT FOOLS OF FRANCE.
UKDEB the word Ministrelli, a term said to belong to
" Monk's Latin," were anciently comprehended in France,
not merely Minstrels, but Buffoons, Mimes, and Jesters
generally. They are called in common parlance, says Du
Fresne, in his Glossary, " Menestreux or Menestriers," be-
cause they belong to the lower order of officers at court
"quod minoribus aulae ministris accenserentur." The same
author shows the early identity of the minstrel with the
jester, by quoting an ordinance regulating the arrangement
of a fishermen's religious festival held in early times at
Toulouse ; and which is to this effect. " Also, the fisher-
men shall be assembled, who ought to be present in the pro-
cession on that day with the ministri or joculatores ; because
the aforesaid fishermen are bound to have, on this special
occasion, ministri or joculatores, in honour of the cross. . .
And they should lead the procession, with the ministri or
joculatores beating the drum, as far as the church of St.
Stephen." From joculator, the French obtain their word
jongleur, and through the latter we have our own term jug-
gler. The monks made little distinction between different
orders of minstrels, who were usually described by them as
minstrels, or jesters ; signifying that the officials designated
under those names were one and the same. There is little
doubt, at all events, of the French jester having ultimately
sprung from the profession of the minstrel, when the latter
was in its decline. It is perplexing, however, to find that
although the minstrel or joculator is continually repre-
240 HISTOEY OF COUET FOOLS.
sented as being something of a musician, yet that Du Fresne,
who frequently so describes him, also quotes a law of 1381,
wherein we read that this worthy was altogether forbidden
from playing on either a stringed or wind instrument :
" Nullus ministreys seu jogulator audeat pinsare vel souare
instrumentum cujuscunque generis." The law was evi-
dently not of universal application, as may be gathered from
Aimonius, who, when treating of the miracles of St. Bene-
dict, shows us a buffoon, both singing and playing, in his
vocation of bard. His words are : " Tanta vero illis secu-
ritas, ut scurram se praecedere facerent, qui musico instru-
mento res fortiter gestas et priorum bella prsecineret, qua-
tenus his acrius incitarentur."
Enough, however, has been previously said on this sub-
ject ; I will therefore turn from it, to that of the costume
of the French " fou." Most of the French writers on the
subject of court jesters, maintain that the colours of the
native fool were, almost invariably, yellow and green, striped.
Many scores of pages have been written to show that these
colours were selected, because they were in little estimation
by modish people ; yellow being generally worn by execu-
tioners, or by criminals, and green signifying jealousy and
various other bad qualities. All this may be ingenious, but
it is purely imaginary ; for we find French court buffoons
glittering in scarlet and gold, as well as green and yellow,
and sometimes dressed in suits in which were to be counted
the seven hues of Iris herself.
One especial circumstance is remarkable in our neigh-
bours' fools ; namely, their consumption or waste of shoe-
leather. In 1404, I meet, in the Collection de la Chambre
des Comptes, with an entry of forty-seven pairs of shoes to
Hancelin Coc, fool of Charles VI., and of seven pairs for
the fool's " varlet," showing that Sir "Witless was sometimes
thought sufficiently noble or gentle to be worthy of a man
to attend upon him ; and yet Haiicelin was dressed in a suit
THE COURT FOOLS OF FRANCE. 241
of iraigne, a material of which I can find no explanation in
any French author, but which is described as of a reddish
brown, and which was also used " pour garnir la chaiere
necessaire pour servir au retrait du dit seigneur, le roy
Charles VI."
Thus the French fools were not always attired in green
and yellow, and an additional proof is to be found in the
fact, that on the occasion of the marriage, at Abbeville, of
Louis XII., with Mary, the sister of Henry VIII. (subse-
quently wife of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk), among
the personages, allegorical or otherwise, that were made to
take part in the rejoicings, was to be seen the figure of Tri-
boulet, the King's fool, in a serge dress of red and yellow
stripes. In a succeeding page referring to this jester, another
proof will be found that green and yellow were not the ex-
clusively official colours worn by the jesters at the court of
France.
It is not easy, I should rather say, it is impossible, to de-
fine with any certainty the period at which the " Plaisans,"
as our merry friends are sometimes called, first held official
rank, and were entitled to assume the appellation of Fou by
right of legal appointment to the office. Flogel simply
states, " the custom was so general, that historians expressed
some surprise when they had to speak of a French court
without an official fool in it." Two such examples we have
in Philip Augustus and Charles VII., neither of whom had
any relish for the antics and humour of the green-aiid-yellow-
striped mirth makers.
The earliest example of a French court fool, given by Dr.
Higollet, is in the reign of Hugh Capet ; but Flogel goes
back a full century, and about the year 894 finds one,
named Jean, at the court of Charles the Simple. This
good fellow's influence was so great, that Charles once re-
marked to him, he thought they had better change places.
As Jean did not look well pleased at the proposal, Charles
242 HISTOBY OF COrET FOOLS.
asked him if he were not content at the idea of being a
king. "Oh, content enough," was the reply; "but I
should be exceedingly ashamed at having such a fool." It
was this fool who once tried his master's nerves, by rushing
into his room one morning, with the exclamation, " Oh, Sire,
such news ! four thousand men have risen in the city."
" What !" cried the startled King ; " with what intention
have they risen ? " " Well," said Jean, placing his finger
on his nose, " probably with the intention of lying down
again at bedtime."
It is possible that this fool, like his master, was rather
German than French ; and we commence quite early enough
with the latter, when we begin from the period of the
father of Hugh Capet, whose fool comes before us in a very
solemn and melodramatic way. The celebrated Duke, in
943, went on an expedition against the Normans, and
among his followers, says the ever lively Ordericus Yitalis,
was his buffoon, mimus, or joculator, as he is called by the
chronicler. One day, at the Duke's table, the conversation
fell on some holy personages who had died in the odour of
sanctity. The joculator, being a fool, was a freethinker ;
and he dealt so rudely and sarcastically with these dead and
sanctified individuals, in his ribald remarks, that the aveng-
ing justice of Heaven was aroused, and, says the smart
Norman historian, a violent storm bursting forth from the
skies, the lightnings flashed, and a thunderbolt, tearing
down from the clouds, dashed through the roof, and at one
stroke annihilated the jester and all who had moved him to
asperse the Saints, or who had joined in the laugh he had
raised against them.
Taking the Mimus to be a species of court fool who sang
to the accompaniment of some instrument, when required,
then Louis Till, had such an official at court, though whe-
ther this mimus held his post by patent or not, is not men-
tioned by Nicholas de Braia, who notices the fact itself.
THE COURT FOOLS OF FKAKCE. 243
This chronicler describes a grand banquet given by the
King, shortly after his coronation, and which must have
been a very jovial^ affair. "While they warm their hearts
with the genial gift of Bacchus," says the poet historian,
" and care is swept away from the brow of the Prince by
draughts of various wines, a mime celebrated for his skill
on the harp, rises, and smiting his instrument, sings the
praises of the King." These praises were very highly
strung indeed; and we only need to be told that censure, if
necessary, or sarcasm, if opportunity allowed, was scattered
amid the laudation, to be assured that the mimus here
spoken of was really something of the official fool also.
Although examples constantly present themselves of the
unlicensed liberty which the French plaisants took with
their masters, instances are not wanting of their delicacy
or timidity. For instance, when the fleet of Philip was
captured or destroyed by that of Edward III., there was no
one at court bold enough to communicate tidings of the
disaster to the King, except a court fool, whose name has
not, however, been mentioned by any historian. Going
into the royal chamber, the fou began muttering, " Those
cowardly Englishmen! The chicken-hearted Britons!"
" How so, Cousin?" asked Philip. "How so? Why, be-
cause they have not courage enough to jump into the sea,
like your French sailors, who went headlong over from their
ships, leaving those to the enemy who did not care to follow
them !" And thus the King learned,, by a most unpleasant
method, the humiliation that had come upon him as. well as
defeat. The sarcasm must have fallen as painfully on the
King's ear as the assertion of the Journal des Debats on the
ear of all England, with respect to those Indian calamities
which included the massacre of our women and children,
namely, that France looked upon it all, " with curiosity and
satisfaction!"
Saintfoix, in his History of Paris, and indeed many other
E 2
244 HISTORY OF COrBT FOOLS.
authors conclude, because Charles V. of France announced
to the authorities at Troves in Champagne, that his fool
was dead, and requested them to provide him with another,
that the town in question monopolized the provision of this
article for the court ; but Dr. Rigollet, author of ' Les
Mounaies des veques.' etc., quotes an autograph letter of
the same King, dated February 1364, in which Charles
orders the cashier of his treasury to disburse 200 francs,
" to fetch hither a fool for us who is now in the Bour-
bonnois." If this be not conclusive, the fact that the royal
jesters came from parts of France where the municipality
of Troyes could have had neither authority nor influence,
would seem to be more so. Though, after all, the Cham-
pagne magistrates may have procured the jesters where
they knew a superior specimen was to be found, without
regard to locality.
Once engaged, the poor slave for he was little else could
not sleep out of the palace, unpermitted, without danger of
a whipping when he returned. Xeither could he lay aside
his dress, without sanction of his master ; and even then,
were he to clap a sword on his thigh, and so try to pass
abroad for a gentleman, and this offence came to the ears
of the " King of the Ribalds," the provost-marshal of the
King's household, the fool might reckon on being scourged
till the blood ran down to his heels. Further, it does not
appear that the fool could at will divest himself of his
office. He was bound to serve, and it was only the royal
word that could set him free from hig bonds.
In one or two instances the monarch exhibited some
attachment to his/bw, by honouring his memory after death.
The King Charles V. buried two of his jesters beneath
sumptuous monuments. This King. too. was called " the
Wise." One plaisant thus honoured was interred in the
church of St. Germain 1'Auxerrois, but I can find no ac-
count of his tomb in any description of the church to which
THE COUBT FOOLS OF FRANCE. 245
I have had access. The second was afou of some condition
apparently, for he bore a noble name, and that is not the
case with any fou & titre d* office that I have yet heard of.
The one in question was Thevenin de St. Ligier, whose
body was deposited in the church of St. Maurice de
Senlis. The tomb is described as being of stone, ten
feet by five, on which lies a figure of a man in a long
robe, whose head and feet are of alabaster. He wears the
fool's hood, and other insignia of his office, among which is
the long wand, which he grasps in his hand. The scroll
of the tomb is composed of very small figures elaborately
carved, and the inscription tells the reader that " Here
lies Thevenin de Saint-Ligier, fou of the King our Lord,
who deceased on the llth of July, in the year of Grace
1374. Pray God for his soul."
We see the fou hardly less honoured when, instead of
being spendidly interred by his master, he follows the body
of his patron to the tomb, amid the esteemed friends and
followers especially selected to fittingly grace the solemn
occasion. This was the case in 1416, at the obsequies of
John, Duke de Berri. The funeral of that prince was a
very stately affair ; and not the least sincere mourner who
was near the coffin, was the Duke's favourite plaisant, who
was attired in a full suit of sables, and bore himself with
as much dignity as any noble there present. If my readers
choose to accompany me any further, they will find Ger-
man narrs making a mockery of woe, but no samples of
their honouring departed worth, as may be found among
thefous of France.
It was not every fou who was a plaisant to his master.
Louis XI. must have discovered as much after taking into
his service the jester of his deceased brother, Charles, Duke
de Guyenne. The Duke and his mistress, " the lady of
Monsoreau," in the month of May ]472, being at dessert,
divided between them a peach, presented to them by the
246 HISTOEY OF COURT TOOLS.
kind Abbot of Saint- Jean d'Angeli. The lady and her
lord par amour, speedily died, and their fou passed into
the service of the King. Some time after, Louis XI., then
praying in his oratory, his fool standing by, held a little
discourse and bargaining, as was his wont, with Our Lady
of Clery. The staple of the royal discourse with the Virgin,
was to this effect, that he and she being on the most
friendly terms, mutually patronizing each other, she of
course would arrange with Heaven that the King should
not suffer for the murder of his brother ; but that the
Divine vengeance might very appropriately fall on the Abbot
of Saint-Jean d'Angeli, whom Louis had employed to com-
mit the deed, and who, as the monarch assured the Virgin,
was a very sorry rascal indeed, fit for nothing better than
everlasting perdition. " Just arrange this little matter for
me, as I would have it," said the King, " and I have in
my eye some very pretty presents that I will offer at your
altar." According to Brantome, this pleasant confession
and proposed arrangement were overheard by the fou, whom
Louis looked upon as an amusing imbecile without dis-
cretion. But ihepfaisant loved his old master ; and lie must
have as bitterly hated as he little feared his new patron,
if it be true that he accused him of the crime before an
august company at a grand banquet. The fool was probably
soon disposed of, but when the great Duke of Burgundy
laid fratricide to the charge of Louis, the latter met the
charge manfully. He shut up the Abbot of Saint-Jean
d'Angeli in a dungeon, and appointed two commissioners
to examine into the accusation. Shortly after, the Abbot
was found strangled in prison,some said, by himself ; others
declared, by the devil; while some thought of the King,
and said nothing, which was what Louis himself did.
The examination having proceeded thus far, the King re-
warded the two commissioners. He made Louis d'Amboise,
Bishop of Albi ; and to Pierre de Sacierges he gave a sine-
THE COURT FOOLS OF FRANCE. 247
cure post of great value. Therewith the examination was
at an end, and Louis, at his next tete-a-tete with the Holy
Virgin of Clery, probably talked like a man who had been
wronged by false suspicion, and had come cleverly, if not
triumphantly, out of a trying ordeal.
Having mentioned the great Duke of Burgundy, I may
here appropriately add a word or two of the famous " Le
Glorieux," the French jester to Charles the Bold. Le
Glorieux was a facetious fellow, and as fearless as face-
tious. His master, Duke Charles, used to compare himself
with Hannibal. After the overthrow at Granson, Duke and
fool were galloping in search of safety, with many others.
The Duke was in gloomy wrath, Le Glorieux was full of
wicked gaiety. " Uncle," cried he to Charles, " this is the
prettiest way of being like Hannibal that I ever saw."
So again, subsequently to the defeat sustained by the
Duke before Beauvais, Charles was conducting some ambas-
sadors over his arsenal. In one of the rooms the host re-
marked, " This chamber contains the keys of all the cities
in France." At these words, Le Glorieux began fumbling
in his pockets, and looking about the room with an air
of anxiety. " Now, ass," cried the Duke, " what are you
searching for so anxiously?" "I am looking," answered
Le Glorieux, with a significant smile, " I am looking for
the keys of Beauvais." .
A lost battle would seem, indeed, to have always height-
ened the spirits of the licensed fool. "We have another in-
stance in the case of the jester of the Marquis del Guasto,
a general in the service of Charles V. While his captors
were hauling over his baggage, after the day of Cerizoles,
his fool exclaimed, " Ay, ay, you will find all sorts of
valuable things there, except spurs, of which truly my
master has plenty, but he keeps them all to enable him to
get quicker out of the fray."
" Poeta regius" to quote the very words of Menage (in.
248 HISTORY OF COURT TOOLS.
the third volume, p. 183, of the ' Ana,') " en bon Fran-
9ois signifie 'Le Fou du Roi." Otherwise, King's poet, as
royal poet laureate, signifies in good English, as I may here
put it, ' King's Fool.' For this reason Menage is inclined
to reckon Andrelini, who was the " crowned poet" of Louis
XII. and Anne of Brittany, among the " fous du Roi;" and
he refers us to Bayle upon that subject. The latter, however,
does not bring Andreliui (who styled himself poeta regius
et regineus) nearer to the cap and bells than by showing that
he poured forth verses in astonishing abundance, and was
paid for them by the hundred. He appears also to have
enjoyed somewhat of the license and privilege of the jester,
for he uttered bitter satires against the theologians at a
time when to attack them was to run the risk of death.
And yet Andrelini shot his bolts with impunity, partly be-
cause he reflected lustre on the University of Paris. He
was a jester, probably, only as John Heywood was with us.
He lived as loosely as any titled jester of them all, and his
lax rule of life is sufficiently indicated by Erasmus, in
the words (see the twentieth Letter in the 4th book of the
Collected Letters of Erasmus) addressed to Peter Barbirius,
and which imply that the writer could tell more if he would ;
that Peter knew a good deal ajbout the matter himself ; that
Andrelini was a loose fellow ; and that his rule of life was
tolerably notorious. " Quam non casta erat illius professio !
Neque cuiquam obscurum erat qiialis esset vita!"
We now come to some renowned names in the register of
the plaisants. The first of these is Triboulet. The indi-
vidual known by this nickname does not appear to have
been in the service of Louis XII., as is sometimes stated.
Indeed, Du Tillot professes to be ignorant of the names of
any official fool in the court of that King or of his prede-
cessor, Charles VIII. But he has no doubt whatever of
the official presence of jesters at both courts. Such pre-
sence was a matter of strict etiquette, and Du Tillot sup-
THE COUltT FOOLS OF FBANCE. 249
poses that Anne of Brittany, the wife of both the above-men-
tioned sovereigns, having introduced a very serious tone at
court, the wearers of motley only played a subordinate
part.
With Francis I., two of the most famous of French
" plaisans" appear on the stage, Caillette and Triboulet.
These names were fictitious, but they are the only appel-
lations by which this merry pair, who hated each other
heartily, were known in their own time, or are known in
ours. History, too, has dealt confusedly with both jesters,
confusing their biographies, jokes, and adventures, and oc-
casionally forgetting that there were two Caillettes, father
and son, of whom the latter was appointed fool against his
own inclination.
According to popular tradition, Caillette was to Triboulet,
what the simpleton in the Aubcrge des Adrets was to Robert
Macaire, the scapegoat for the other's offences. He was,
we are told, idiotic, or pretended to be so ; and when witty,
it was more after the fashion of a clown in a pantomime,
than that of a happy low comedian, to which Triboulet may
sometimes be compared; though the latter occasionally inter-
fered with politics and spoke little brilliant things like a
fine gentleman in a comedy. Jean Marot, however, says of
him, that he had as much wit when he was thirty as when
he was three years old. The court pages, say the bio-
graphers, could do as they pleased with Caillette, and on
one occasion they nailed him by the ear to a beam. The
poor fool thought he was condemned to remain there for
life. On being discovered by some police authority, he was
questioned ; but he only replied that he did not know who
had fixed him there. The pages were confronted with him,
but each declared in turn, " I had nothing to do with it,"
and each time, Caillette added, " And I had nothing to do
with it either." The alleged offence was, that the fool had
cut off a page's aiguillettes and attached them to his person
250 HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS.
in the guise of a tail. A similar story is told of Triboulet
by the :t Bibliophile Jacob " (Paul Lacroix) in his 'Deux
Fous,' to which volume I am indebted for many antiquarian
details touching the discipline of jesters at French courts,
as well as for various incidents in the lives both of Triboulet
and his rival Caillette.
Tradition, without bringing down to us any samples of
the quality of Caillette, was long inconsistent with itself, by
diversely representing this jester, now as a sorry, and at
other times as a very brilliant, practitioner of his craft. There
can be little doubt of the existence of a father and son of
this name and office; and Paul Lacroix has followed out
this idea in his work, noticed above.
According to this writer, who, it is necessary to remember,
mingles a good deal of fiction with his antiquarian facts,
the elder Caillette was a very inferior wit to Triboulet, and
hung himself out of vexation at having been defeated by
him at a match of cudgelling of brains. I do not know how
much of reality or how much of merely fanciful is included
in the following details ; some portions may be less vrai
than vraisemblable, and with this warning, I place before
my readers an outline of the younger Caillette, whose
elaborate full-length has been superbly painted by a master
in the romance of history.
While the father was exercising his vocation at the court
of France, the son was sojourning in the chateau of the
Count de St. Yallier, as a friend rather than a dependant.
As a youth, he had attracted the attention of the famous
Constable de Bourbon by his beauty and inteDect. The
Constable could not believe him to be of the low origin
commonly assigned to him, and it was at Bourbon's insti-
gation that the Count de St. Vallier took the boy into his
household, and educated him in company with the Count's
renowned daughter, Diane de Poictiers. In such society
the younger Caillette remained, happy, loved, and light-
THE COUKT FOOLS OF FRANCE. 251
hearted, till the period of the marriage of Diane with M. de
Breze, Grand Seneschal of Normandy. From this time, his
character became changed. He lost his gaiety and his happy
carelessness ; studied more, in order to forget his sorrows,
among which the circumstance of his father holding the
office of fool to the King, was by no means the least.
Francis I. was at Moulins, where he had held the son of
the Constable at the baptismal font, when he heard of the
death of the elder Caillette. This high festival, celebrated
at Moulins, had attracted a noble company, and among
them was the Count de Saint- Vallier, with the younger Cail-
lette, then about nineteen, in attendance on him. The
death of the father, the fool, had more touched Francis than,
the demise of any of his ministers could have done ; and
when he heard and saw who was in attendance upon the
Count de Saint- Vallier, he resolved to perpetuate the name
of the deceased by appointing his son to the vacant office.
The appointment was resisted by the noble patrons of the
son, and by the latter himself with the energy of despair.
But all in vain. The youth, who had looked forward to
wield a sword, was compelled to carry the fool's bauble.
He would have committed suicide, but for the intervention
of his confessor.
This jester against his will, is described as being of noble
mien, perfect in figure, graceful in manner, attractive and
spiritual in physiognomy, and singularly elegant in his ex-
pression. He charmed the King by his admirable reading
of poetry, by his happy facility of improvising rhymes, and
by his readiness to compose verses, which Francis did not
disdain sometimes to pass off as his own. This learned,
philosophical, classical, and noble fool, who possessed more
natural qualities than the King himself, was of course loved
by many a great lady at court ; but his homage was for one
alone, and that one was Diane de Poictiers.
But here we assuredly get into romance ; which con-
tinues to run in this wise. The Count de Saint- Vallier
252 HISTORY OF COUBT POOLS.
was sentenced to death for alleged complicity in the treason
of the Constable against his country. Caillette exerted him-
self with unexampled vigour to procure the release of his
old patron, for he had obtained from Diane a promise that
she would reward him for succeeding in the rescue of her
father from a terrible death, by kissing him in the presence
of the whole court of France. It was into that presence
that he proudly brought, at last, the pardon which his prayers,
and still more his ingenuity, had wrested from the King ;
but at that moment poison was slaying him, and it was only
as the dying fool drew his last breath that Diane stooped
to kiss him, and thereby gave sweetness to bitter death.
He died in a condition of ecstasy.
" Holy St. Bagpipe !" exclaimed Triboulet, " pray for the
defunct ! I am now first titled fool in the court of France."
We may dismiss, as unfounded, the legends, and, as unsaid,
the wit touching Triboulet and his remarks on the folly of
the Emperor Charles V. trusting to the honour of Francis I.
by passing through France, and the greater folly of Francis
in not taking advantage of the circumstance to seize upon
the Emperor. Triboulet was in his grave before the last
delicate affair was even negotiated (1538), and all the smart
sayings had been uttered previously, under similar circum-
stances, by other jesters. Indeed, the best things attri-
buted to Triboulet are of questionable authority. Thus, we
hear of his complaining to Francis of a nobleman who had
threatened to beat him to death for some impertinent joke.
" If he does," said the King, " I will hang him a quarter
of an hour afterwards." " Ah, Sire !" exclaimed the fou,
" could n't you contrive to hang him a quarter of an hour
previously ?" Something like this story is told of at least
half-a-dozen wearers of motley.
There is another story told which certainly refers to Tri-
boulet. He was passing over a bridge in company with a
courtier, who observed that the bridge had no " garde-fou" or
" parafool," as the common term ran for a parapet. " Surely,"
THE COURT FOOLS OF FRANCE. 253
remarked Triboulet to the observation, " the people here did
not expect that we two should cross it together."
There is something more of a joke in this fou's reply
to another courtier who saw Triboulet galloping or caracol-
ing on a magnificent horse when Francis made his public
entry into Eouen. " You had better go more quietly, Cou- .
sin," said the courtier, " or you will suffer for it." " Alas,
Sir," replied the plaisant, " what can I do ? I stick my spurs
into my horse's flanks to keep him quiet ; and the more 1
prick, the more unruly I find the obstinate beast !" Such
sayings as these were only tricks of vocation. Triboulet
did not lack common sense, nor omit to use it for the
benefit of those who appeared to have lacked their own.
This was the case when Francis gave a courier two thousand
crowns,-as he mounted his horse, and proceeded on a mis-
sion to Koine ; which place he undertook to reach within a
space of time in which no human being could have ac-
complished the journey. " I will put you down in my regis-
ter, Sire, as a fool, for believing a man can do what is im-
possible, and for paying him four times what were his due,
even if he could achieve what he undertakes to do." " But,
if he fails," said Francis, " he will restore me my money."
" Will he, by my bagpipes !" exclaimed Triboulet ; " then he
will be a greater fool than yourself, and so I shall have two
to register instead of one."
There is another trait illustrative of Triboulet, which has,
nevertheless, been attributed, if I remember rightly, to the
jester of Leopold of Austria, when planning his invasion of
Switzerland. Francis I. summoned a council in 1525, to
deliberate on the necessary measures for the celebrated cam-
paign which ended in the capture of the monarch at Pavia.
The counsellors did not spare their brains ; and, at length
having duly and unanimously decided on the most feasible
means for successfully entering Italy, they broke up, and rose
to separate.
254 HISTOKY OF COTJHT FOOLS.
" A moment, wise Sirs," said Triboulet, as he lay, sup-
ported on his elbow, at the feet of the King. " I pray your
stupendous wisdoms to tarry an instant, while I intimate
that, although you may fancy you have delivered yourself of
the best possible advice to my cousin Francis, you have
really forgotten the most important point of all."
"Ay! ay! merry cousin," exclaimed the King, "will
your sage worship inform iis how that may be ? "
" Just this," answered Triboulet, with his merry chuckle.
" They have told you how best to get into Italy. Now, you
do not intend, I suppose, to stay there for ever ; and your
fool thinks they would have done well if they had coun-
selled your Majesty, not merely how to get into Italy, but
how to get out of it again."
"Tush! joyous companion," said Francis; "it is not
needful. We shall return tambour battant."
"Very fine," rejoined the fool. "Vos tambours seront
battus ;" and at this equivoque, the council dispersed,
laughing.
The " Bibliophile Jacob" says of Triboulet, that he was
as truly an historical personage as any " grand pannetier,"
or " bouteiller de la couronne." Triboulet was a native of
Blois, where he led a wild life in his youth, but entered
early in the service of the Count d'Angouleme, afterwards
Francis I., in the quality of jester. He may have been
called the town jester, for he was for ever in the streets,
playing on the bagpipes, basking in the sun, saying sharp
things to all who passed near him, and impudently impor-
tuning everybody for money. It was in Blois that Triboulet
cut the " pourpoint de livree" of one of the pages of the
Count d'Augouleme, as the young gentleman was hurrying
through the streets on a mission connected with the coming
visit of Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany. The page, un-
conscious of the trick played him, whereby he looked like a
monkey without his tail, was hailed by his young fellows at
THE COURT FOOLS Of FRANCE. 255
court with shouts of laughter. But when their laughter was
at an end, they resolved to avenge the insult. They carried
Triboulet off beyond the ramparts of the city, and, near
the permanent gallows which was then no uncommon orna-
ment in the vicinity of great cities, they began tormenting
him, by pricking his feet with their daggers, dragging him
by the hair, and burning his moustaches. This done, one
merry and merciful young gentleman, looking at the fool's
long ears (for which he was remarkable), proposed that he
should be hung by them to the gibbet ; and accordingly,
they nailed him by the right ear in such a position that he
was only supported by his toes, and his pitiful beseechings
only raised the mirth of the tender-hearted young pages.
If we may believe the Bibliophile, who is, indeed, as fre-
quently a romancer as an antiquary, it was as some com-
pensation for this outrage, that Francis of Angouleme created
Triboulet his fool by patent. The same writer adds, that
the pages found the jester's tongue even longer than his
ears ; and, " remarkable fact, from this period, Triboulet,
who was then about four-and-twenty years of age, suddenly
ceased to be idiotic and imbecile, and became a witty, di-
verting, and crafty buffoon, and, above all, a perfect
courtier."
In person, Triboulet was small and Jcrooked ; his head
and ears were enormously large ; his mouth proportionately
wide ; his nose must have been three times the size of
that of Francis, who had otherwise the largest nose of any
man in France : Rudolph of Hapsburg had not a larger.
The fool's eyes were protruding ; his forehead was low and
narrow. " His flat and hollow chest," says Jacob, " his
bowed back, his short and twisted legs, his long and hang-
ing arms, amused the ladies, who contemplated him as if
he had been a monkey or a paroquet."
We find one of the uses to which these official fools were
put at this court, in a remark touching the costume of
256 HISTORY OF COTTRT FOOLS.
Triboulet. " His dress was not less eccentric than his
person. In accordance with his secret occupation of pur-
veyor of pleasures to the King, he adopted the colours of
the reigning mistress, and dressed in something of the
fashion of his master. His justaucorps was of striped
blue and white silk, fitting so tightly as to render his bodily
deformity more conspicuous, and to excite more readily the
laughter of all who looked upon him for the first time.
On his back, thighs, and cap. were emblazoned the royal
arms, and from his girdle of gilt leather hung the symbols of
his office, a club, a wooden sword, and a bagpipe. Another
distinguishing mark of his office might be seen and heard
in the little silver bells attached to his conical cap, his wand
with a fool's head at the end of it, and his long-toed red
morocco slippers. He could not advance a step, nor turn
his body ever so slightly, without setting these bells in
motion, and thereby making a noise louder than that of
ten mules in full trot. Triboulet was proud of functions
which placed him near the King, and which he would not
have exchanged for a ducal coronet or an episcopal mitre.
He used to say of himself, that he was 'the most noble
in France, commencing from the lowest rank. . . . Keep
duchies, countships, baronies, and inarquisates to yourselves,
Triboulet is sovereign lord of all at whom he mocks.' "
The Triboulet of Paul Lacroix is probably more like the
original Triboulet than the half sentimental half savage hero
of Victor Hugo's play, ' Le Eoi s'amuse.' In this piece, the
" fou" is rendered malicious by a three-piled misery, he is
infirm, deformed, and an official court fool. He hates all
his superiors because they are his superiors, and detests
those beneath him, detests men generally, in fact, because
they are not hunchbacked, like himself. He excites rank
against rank, and all against the King, and the King against
all. He is the bad genius of Francis, whom he corrupts,
and the scourge of the nobility, the dishonour of whose
THE COUET TOOLS OF FBAKCE. 257
families he works through the King. He is Mephistophiles
without superhuman power, for the lack of which he makes
tip by the intensity of his devilishness. Victor Hugo him-
self compares the buffoon and the King to a man holding a
plaything and mortally wounding those among whom he
capers with his toy. The buffoon is altogether without
heart ; yet not quite altogether, for there is one point on
which he is as tender-hearted as ever father could be who
had an only daughter dearer to him far than his own life.
Yet he has no heart for other sires whose love for their
daughters is ardent, but who would rather see them coffined
at their feet than crowned and dishonoured. So, when the
Count de Saint- Vallier denounces Francis, in open court, for
having brought disgrace upon his child, Diane de Poictiers,
Triboulet the fool insults the outraged parent ; and the old
noble, robbed of his daughter, curses Triboulet the man.
On this curse the whole piece turns, and from the time it is
fulminated, there is little that ensues which is illustrative
of the office and pleasantry of the buffoon, though all is
highly dramatic, and Nemesis rules without restraint. The
curse of the old Count smites Triboulet through his child,
whom the King carries off, and whom the father slays by
mistake for the royal seducer. The moral of the piece is
defective, seeing that the buffoon, for a thoughtless trick of
his office, is the only person most terribly punished. The
King, who is the gay stage villain of the piece, escapes scot-
free. It is like sending Leporello ad inferos, instead of Don
Giovanni. If the Triboulet of Victor Hugo be full of
brilliant inconsistencies and glittering contradictions, he is
in many things what tradition represents him to have been.
He flings smart sayings at marriage, laughs at the King's
pretensions to write verses, pushes or draws him into vice,
and shoots a fool's bolt at woman, by styling her, " a highly
perfected devil." His malice is illustrated by his delight at
the opportunity offered him to cruelly rally the husbands
s
258 HISTOET OF COUBT FOOLS.
whom his highly perfected devils outrage and betray. His
humour is to comment and criticize, while others, and espe-
cially the King, enjoy life after their fashion. Between his
own condition and that of the master whom he serves, he
draws a distinction of which he might reasonably have been
the author, saying to Francis
" Vous etes
Heureux comme un roi, et moi comme un bossu."
That Victor Hugo was careful of representing Triboulet in
his vocation of buffoon, according to the way in which the
contemporaries o 
