Note 146 — II THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD
Reading edition
Payments on account of Robert Grene, a court fool, appear in the Privy Purse Accounts for 1559-69 (Nichols, i. 264). Apparently the post was hereditary; a warrant of 1567 for the clothes of 'Jack Grene our foole' is in Addl. MS. 35328. C. C. Stopes, Elizabeth's Fools and Dwarfs (Shakespeare's Environment, 269), adds from a Wardrobe book of 1577-1600 (Lord Chamb. Books, v. 36) 'Thomasina', a dwarf or muliercula, and from another (Lord Chamb. Books, v. 34) 'The Foole', 'William Shenton our Foole', 'Ipolyta the Tartarian', 'an Italian named Monarcho', 'a lytle Blackamore'. References to Monarcho, including L. L. L. IV. i. 101, are collected in Var. iv. 345, and McKerrow, Nashe, iv. 339. Dee, 7, records a visit from the Queen's dwarf 'Mʳˢ Thomasin' on 7 June 1580.