ENGLISH COURT FOOLS, 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 corporate 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 originally the pious gift of the first English jester on record.C 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 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 Rome, 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 conferred 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 without 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:

This good turn merited great recompense; but we know not what Gollet 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 together, that he died a sort of Crœsus, 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 uproarious 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 Rufus was also his joculator. He certainly fooled his master. Witness the occasion when Rufus burst into a fit of fury at the chamberlain bringing him a pair of boots that had cost but three shillings. “Son 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 Rufus 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 something of the jester in him;—namely, that well-known priest Ralph, whose wit raised him to an eminence that cost England rather dear. When he was in power, and the King ordered a tribute to be levied, Ralph ordered one of double the amount, and exacted it with stringent severity. At this process Rufus would laugh heartily; and he had little cause to pay a fool, when he possessed a witty follower like Ralph, 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 “singing 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 Rahere, 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 Rahere 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 description, but it is, in a very great measure, supported by the author of a paper in the Cottonian Manuscripts.D

According to this valuable record, the writer of which relies on the authority of men who “saw Rahere, 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 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.” Rahere was constantly, we are told, in attendance on the King, or in the suite of noblemen; “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, Rahere 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 Rome, 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 Rahere 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 ‘Smythfeld,’ where in my name,” said he to the ex-jester, “thou 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.” Rahere 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 consideration, resolved to devote his fool’s gains to pious ends; and he founded, not without some little opposition on the part of those who

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. Rahere 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 towards 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 Holden, who now demonstrates anatomy on the spot where the ex-court-jester changed his mirth and motley for prayers, cassock, and good works.

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 jurisdiction, 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 mauling 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 recommendation 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 variously coloured liquids,—the elixir, and not the aqua vitæ, 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 prematurely ready for the inevitable grave.

In speaking of St. Bartholomew’s, it would be ungrateful to pass over the name of Dr. Radcliffe, 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 adjacent 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 workmanship. It was probably erected by his admirers of much later times than that which immediately followed his decease, 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 presence 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 God may have mercy on the soul of the King’s minstrel, Rahere!

The reign of Stephen does not furnish us with the names of any fool of distinguished quality; though Stephen himself, and particularly previous to his accession to the throne, 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 patronage 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, carriages overturning carriages, players, gamesters, cooks, confectioners, 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. Richard 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 principle, 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 grumbling, and that was succeeded by wrath. But, says the author of ‘The Lives of the Chancellors,’ (apparently translating a passage from Roger Hoveden in Ricardo I., 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 Chancellor 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 master, 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 entered 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 Provençal critics eulogized for its wit and good sense, “poésie à bons mots et de bon sens.” A third minstrel, Fouquet de Marseilles, is also celebrated for his ready wit, which made him the “delight of the court.” There probably 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, abandoned minstrelsy, turned monk, and became Bishop of Toulouse.

Of the above quality were the most favoured plaisants at the Court of Richard. 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 nobleman’s fool in the days of King Richard 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; bearing the inscription, ‘Wamba, the son of Witless, is the Thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood.’ This personage had sandals, 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 remained 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 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, resembling that with which Harlequin operates his wonders upon the modern stage.”

Of what quality was the wit of Wamba, 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 exceedingly liberal to him. Of the King’s deadly practical joking we have an instance in his conduct to Geoffrey, Archdeacon 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 William 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, providing 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 annually with a pair of gilt spurs. A copy of the original deed is to be found in the ‘Monnaies Inconnues des Évêques, 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. Thoms, 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 presenti chartâ confirmasse Will. Picol, Follo 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 Folli quoad vixerit; et post ejus decessum heredes sui eam de nobis tenebunt, et per servitium unius paris calcarium deauratorum nobis annuatim reddendo. Quare volumus et firmiter precipimus quod predict. Piculphus et heredes sui habeant et teneant in perpetuum, bene et in pace, libere et quiete, predictam terram.”

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 profession, 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 bumbulus. At no time, indeed, do our Kings seem to have 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 Woolmer, 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 successor 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 itinerants 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 gesticulatoriis 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, honour the King loyally, and to put away from themselves all naughtiness. The Benedictines 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 supposed jesters were monks, they themselves had been deceived by them, they set upon the poor fellows, thrashed them soundly, and turned them out-of-doors.

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 Rolls,” says Miss Strickland, “dated, Woodstock, April 30, in the thirty-second year of Henry III.’s reign, that monarch directs his treasurer and chamberlain to pay Master Henry, the poet, whom he affectionately styles, ‘Our beloved 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 Ménage, 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 shillings 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 attendance 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 account by Ritson, which says that the citharœda, 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 undoubted court fool, but we learn his name, and are introduced 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 noblemen’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 roystering 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 itineribus 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 ‘Archæologia’ (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, 10s.” “Wit-has-staff,” or “Witty-staff,” or “With-a-staff,” sounds very like a sobriquet for Robert himself; and perhaps Dame Dulcian derived 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 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 persons, while he neglected his faithful knights and trusty servants. 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 regiæ 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 table in the King’s presence, caused him to laugh immoderately.

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 Angliâ 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 unacquainted 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 overwhelming calamity. In the mere official jester he took no delight; but there was a peculiar court amusement of his own devising, which pleased others as highly as it pleased himself,—namely, the tournaments, at which he would tilt in disguise, revealing himself to the delighted 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 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, Richard 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 Richard could maintain such an establishment. The very idea of the outlay 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 indifferent 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 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 dissipated 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 Rapin, 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 roysterers 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 dissipation, 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 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 vulgar 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 derogatory 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 delivered 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 bearing testimony to his virtues; namely, the records of Parliament, which bear witness to his rectitude, modesty, and steadiness; the despatches of Hotspur; the people of Wales; the gentlemen of various counties; and contemporary chroniclers, generally. Of the extravagant expenditure of his 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 thingmen, 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 minstrels were of a better character than those alluded to above, and that buffoonery was not encouraged at his court. Warton, in his ‘History of English Poetry,’ supports this assertion by saying, that the number of harpers in Westminster 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 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 practice, of borrowing books and not returning them to their owners; he had better learned wisdom from fools, than committed this miserable sort of petty larceny.

It is difficult to conclude that the official fool was altogether 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 English 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 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 Trench Opera carries off the “Postillon de Longjumeau.” The levy was made de ministraliis propter solatium Regis providendis,—for procuring minstrels, even by force, for the solace or entertainment of the King. The commission enjoins that these shall not only be skilled in their art, as minstrels, but also handsome 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 Royal 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 posture-masters.” It is certain that about a century later, in the reign of Edward VI., it was lawful, when the Chapel Royal 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 determine. Thus we find, “To a joculator, in the Michaelmas week, the sum of fourpence.” Again, “At Christmas, to a cithariste and other joculators, 4d.” The following entries are further illustrations:—“To the mimes of Solihull, 6d.” “To the mimes of Coventry, 20d.” “To Lord Ferrers’ mimes, 6d.” “To the lusores from Eton, 8d.” “Ditto, from Coventry, 8d.” “To those from Daventry, 12d.” “To the mimes from Coventry, 12d.” “To Lord Astley’s mimes, 12d.” “To four of Lord Warwick’s mimes, 10d.” “To a blind mime, 2d.” “To six mimes of the household of Lord Clinton.” ... “To two mimes from Rugby, 10d.” “To a certain cithariste, 6d.” “To another from Coventry, 6d.” “To two others from Coventry, 8d.” “To the mimes of Rugby, 8d.” “To Lord Buckridge’s mimes, 20d.” “To the mimes of Lord Stafford, 2s.” “To the lusores from Coleshill, 8d.” “It is here to be observed,” says Warton, “that the minstrels,” 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 occasional 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 roystering 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—

The specimens we have of Scogan’s poetry do not warrant the praise above given; and we know, from some of his rhymes, that he held the University graduates in very absolute 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,—

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 devastation in England than the fifteen years of war through which the country had recently passed, Scogan followed the University 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 numerous, and not the least offensive of them was the irreligious 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 gentleman-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:—

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.” Accordingly, 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. When the extremely 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 recognize 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 Flögel 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 the debt. After ranch 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 trappings 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 indebted to him. The buffoon, who had expected this act of release, immediately jumped up, thanked his illustrious creditor, and prudently called all present to bear witness to the Royal 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 became 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 Latinized 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 afterwards 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. With 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; 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 characteristic 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 Rivarol. “Those good fellows,” remarks Balzac, “put a whole volume into one of their witty sayings; but now-a-days, it is difficult to find one witty saying in a whole volume.” 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 authentic, they would not be worth citing. They offend in every possible way, and it is impossible to read them and believe them to be genuine, without feeling surprise at an Oxford 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 tradesman in Cheapside, merely for saying that he would make his son heir to the Crown,—meaning his house of business, distinguished 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. Fuller 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, “Will nothing please thee to wash thy hands in, but the font? or to drink healths in, but the church chalice?” With earthly monarchs, fools may have their privilege; but then Fuller remembers the poor mercer’s joke which so angered Edward 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 he wrote, while fools were yet in remembrance, if not in favour at court, he knew had been daily transgressed. “If,” he 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 defects of any which are not in their power to mend. Oh! ’tis 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 opportunity 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 Richard 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 impoverished 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 continent than he could have been by any jest, good, bad, or indifferent, that he might have to pay for. Nevertheless, in the days of the Tudors, court fools abounded, and indeed, 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 VIII. 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 dissatisfied 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 mock gravity, demanded the first egg from the King. “Your 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 entitled, ‘A Saying of Patch, my Lord Cardinal’s Fool,’ and runs thus:—

That Patch was the name of a fool retained by the Cardinal, we have further evidence in the touching biography of 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 possessed 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 prosperity, I would not have parted with for a thousand pounds.” Norris having been thus rewarded, the downfallen but hopeful dignitary looked around for a fitting messenger to convey 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.”

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 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 alleged portrait at Hampton Court is familiar to all who have resorted to that most pleasant locality. Armin, in his ‘Nest of Ninnies,’ 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 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 Archæologia, to the following 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 sufficiently 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 Shropshire, that his old uncle trudged up to town to visit him at court. The uncle 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 “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 taking an afternoon 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 greeting, Will took his uncle by the hand: “Come,” says he, “thou shalt see Harry, Cockle,—the only Harry in England;” so he led him to the chamber of presence, and ever and anon cries out, “Awere! room for me and 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 affair, for when the King encouraged them to talk, the uncle bade Will tell him all about Tirrell’s 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 interested 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 returned to his native county, “he, while he lived, for that 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 moments, we have specimens in certain questions put, and indeed 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,” at which the King “smiled.” At more foolish riddles, the King “laught;” 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 creditors 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 Sommers served him after, for indeed he (the Cardinal) could never abide him.”

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 his 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 offence.

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 Richard Farmor 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 eightpence. This small but acceptable and praiseworthy charity entirely ruined the donor. It laid him open to a charge of præmunire; and for giving a change of linen and the price of a meal to a captive Papist, the King confiscated this Fermor’s estates, and reduced him to beggary and starvation. Will found opportunity to serve his old master, but not till 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. Thoms, 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 ‘Good 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 illustrations 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.

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 Rome 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 Rome last Friday, was at Billingsgate by Saturday 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?” he subsequently says to the maids of honour, likely to be anxious to announce the issue of the event alluded 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 latter 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 attempts to make the King merry are sometimes roughly recompensed. “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 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 Augustus was always well pleased with those persons who, in addressing 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 ungodlike fashion.

The Czar Nicholas had a similar weakness, and he used his eyes to frighten or fascinate people. Playing them mildly, he subdued Lieutenant Royer 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 Imperial 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 compensation. Patch gets an angel, to buy him points; but Will, who contrived that his cousin fool should incur the punishment, 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, 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 unpopular tax levied by the priest, and turned, as Will implies, to the Cardinal’s especial profit. The jester proposes 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 personally in this piece, may be accepted, I think, as having some foundation in fact. The incidents spoken of connected with his life at court, may also rest upon a basis 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, however, are only mistimed, and both dramatists agree, in the main, in the character of Will, “who,” says Mr. Thoms, 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 Rowley, 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, “Remember 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 philosophy, and talks 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 fili, mi fili 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 beat 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 against the divisions of grammar, and parts of speech generally, 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 ‘Archæologia,’ 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 skilful 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 Woodstock, with the King and court, when the Franciscan monk 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 Folly.’” “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 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.