It was not exactly a time for jests when“In the year 1588,” cried Philip, “the English I’ll humble.I’ve taken it into my Majesty’s pate, and their lion, oh down he shall tumble!”
It was not exactly a time for jests when
“In the year 1588,” cried Philip, “the English I’ll humble.I’ve taken it into my Majesty’s pate, and their lion, oh down he shall tumble!”
“In the year 1588,” cried Philip, “the English I’ll humble.I’ve taken it into my Majesty’s pate, and their lion, oh down he shall tumble!”
“In the year 1588,” cried Philip, “the English I’ll 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 sickat 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 Gromes of the Quene’s Majestie’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 theeffigiesof joyous Dick Tarleton.
At this period, the household fool was still, and he continued 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 ordinary 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 endof 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,—yellowbeing 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 Oates,” carried a small black-jack quart at his girdle, for Jack’s delight was in beer. He was tall, unwieldly, misshapen. 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 loggerheads; and once, when an earl, arriving on a visit, greeted Lady Hollis, at her husband’s side, by a kiss, Jack Oates gave him a box of the ear, for which Sir William 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 Oates 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 Oates to run a muck through the hall, beating all in his way, and crying “Hang Sir Willy! Hang Sir Willy!”
It is difficult to fancy how such nuisances could be tolerated, 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 nearly killed him, and did actually put out one of the poor fellow’s eyes. We can credit what follows, that “ever after Jack Oates 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 Oates, 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 establish 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 Oates determined to foil his expectations. 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 Oates, 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.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 William’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! 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 flourishing, a long time ago!
Armin 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.”
“Plays on thoughts, as girls with beads,When their mass they stamber.”
“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 furniture 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 Sherwood, till the short-lived anger of his master had passedaway. On hearing his patron praise a hawk which he possessed, 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 Robin,—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 Leonard 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 “belaboured 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.”
Armin also notices a contemporary fool named Jack Miller, “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.He was famous also for singing a song called Deryes Fair, and for speaking sentences full of the lettersbandp, 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. Armin 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 exhaustion from immoderate hilarity, and “one proper young gentlewoman among the rest, because she would not seem too immodest with laughter,” confined herself to making a remark 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 comments, 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 esteemed 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.” Thetame knavesthus spoken of (in the ‘Lives of theNorths,’ ch. ii. p. 247), were persons who had been pronounced eachFatuus 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 practice there are several anecdotes cited by Mr. W. J. Thoms 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, observing 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). Theknight’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 he 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 I 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 commissioned. 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 contemporary 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 Rich, and Sir George Goring. The dancers, Sir Gilbert Hoghton, Auchmuty, and Abercromby. The fools, or buffoons, are Sir Thomas Jermyn,ESir 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 Fitz-Jeffrey might have ranked with any of the above. L’Estrange (quoted by Mr. Thoms) says, he might have been “beggedfor a fool;” and in proof of the good ground he has for the assertion, tells the following incident, which occurred at Royston in 1607. “Fitz-Jeffrey being brought up a backstair to the King, to be knighted, was turned out another way, to pass through the presence chamber, which he entered, 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 official 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, 10l.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 hisname given to a gallery at Somerset House, in which he 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 attention 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 7s.the week, 9l.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 ofone. 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 ‘Rise, pig, and go,’ ‘Come, penny, follow me,’ ‘Fire!’ and, ‘I pray, my lord, give me a course in your park.’ I 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 ofyielding to their strong prejudices. I find theMerry Wives of Windsorplayed 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 whenever 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 condition 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 sometimes 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.
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 courteous fool do but bid themgood 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 Kingcaught up.” He barely exceeded three feet in height; but at the age of forty years he measured above sis 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 byArmin:—
“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.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 he did come of gentle blood.”
“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.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 he did come of gentle blood.”
“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.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 he did come of gentle blood.”
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 Armin, “they discharged ordinance, 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 memory; 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, which highly amused those august personages,but the telling of which would not tend to either profit or pleasure. There is something better worth narrating 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 whoso 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 remembrance ofhim:—
“He that gar’d all men till jeare,Jemy a Camber, he ligges here:Pray for his soll, for he is geane,And here a ligges beneath this steane.”
“He that gar’d all men till jeare,Jemy a Camber, he ligges here:Pray for his soll, for he is geane,And here a ligges beneath this steane.”
“He that gar’d all men till jeare,Jemy a Camber, he ligges here:Pray for his soll, 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. Thoms, in a note to Mr. Collier’s edition of Armin’s ‘Nest of Ninnies,’ “the custom of keeping a fool appears to have prevailed in the Scotch as generally as in any other of the European courts, and, it may be presumed, was retained for a long time among the nobility; since among the curiositiesshown at Glammis Castle, was, within these few years, the dress worn by the domestic fool belonging to the family.”
Returning 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 monarchs. 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 countenance.” Gondomar acted with him accordingly. The Spaniard’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 stumbled 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 characteristic of the court fool of an older period. “Ah,” so ran the wittily conceited apology of Mr. West, “it is not possible 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 DeanField, 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 “promised one another,” says Sir Nicholas, “to lay aside all extravagance of wit, and to buckle to a serious argumentation; 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 professional fool often gave offence that was not worth taking, and which indeed the wiser spirits of the court passed by with contempt. We 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 offence, 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 Salisbury,Fool, often enough, beforehewould 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 Cumberland, and is supposed to have been “caught up” at anearly 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 English 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 Jermyn, 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 universally,turned and accompanied the Prince. Archie remained by his master, to whom he pointed out a circumstance which disagreeably, but conclusively, proved that the popularity of the heir-apparent exceeded that of the reigning Sovereign. The knowledge of this bitter truth, as irrefutable as any told to Lear byhisfool, 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 occasions, 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 apocryphal. 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 Armstrong, 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 incident. 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 letterfrom 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 hermeninasand 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 Doñas 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 returned 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 effect:—“Most great and gracious King. To let your Majesty 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. Whoever could think that your Majesty kept a gull and an ass in me,—he is a gull and an ass himself. To let your Majesty know, that I cannot tell you the thoughts of kings’hearts; but this King is of the bravest colour I ever saw, yourself except. And this King will not let me have atrunchman. 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 his Court, as grave as you think the Spaniard is. You will write to your son and Buckingham, and charge them to provide me atrunchmanFand 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 whenever 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, yourXbest 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 thedictation of Archie. The fool, it will be observed, appends hismark; 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 considered 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 servants 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. According 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 Denmark 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 person 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 service, 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 receivethe moneys above specified that I owe them, at a certain day.”
The old servant could get no attention paid to his intercessions; 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 direction, 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,Gwho, 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 ofWallenstein 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 senselessness. 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 no 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 procuring 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 Belou.
“To my very honourable Lord, my Lord Connoway,Secretary of Estate to the King his Majesty ofGreat Britain, give these.”
I feel confident that I need not offer any apology for citing 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 anxiety for the safety of his wife and only daughter. Charles will “speak to his dogs,” but will not vouchsafe a word tothe 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. When poor Belou is about to open the touching Jeremiad of his afflictions, it is the contrast between the happy positions 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 venturing to tilt against an archbishop. That Archie hated Laud, is sufficiently apparent. It is even said that he once volunteered agraceat a dinner where the prelate was present, and that the court fool, trusting in his privilege of speech, gave it forth in the shape of “Great praise be to God, and littlelaudto 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.