Chapter VIII: Part 8

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.” The _tame knaves_ thus spoken of (in the ‘Lives of the Norths,’ ch. ii. p. 247), were persons who had been pronounced each _Fatuus purus et idiota_, by a jury; and it was a common practice to beg such a man for a fool, that is to apply to the crown, for the applicant to have custody of the lands and person of the so-called “fool.” In illustration of this 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). The knight’s family seem to have had charge of their kinsman, whose infirmity was made the ground for a retort, as will be seen by the following incident, recorded also by Sir Nicholas L’Estrange. “Jack Paston began one time to jest upon Capon (who sat very silent and replied nothing), and told him merrily, that he never met with such a dull, clay-pated fool, that could not answer a word, and bade him remember 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,[E] Sir Ralph Sheldon, and Thomas Badger.”

These knights were not the only individuals of the court of James I, who might aspire to fill the office of fool, either in foreign palaces or at home. Sir George Fitz-Jeffrey might have ranked with any of the above. L’Estrange (quoted by Mr. Thoms) says, he might have been “begged for 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, 10_l._ 18_s._ 6_d._” At between sixteen and seventeen shillings per week, Tom Derry cannot be said to have been a very expensive toy to her Majesty. He was of importance enough to have his name 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 7_s._ the week, 9_l._ 2_s._” It is curious that the sum put down for the weekly diet of two persons is less than half of that named in the former entry for the diet and lodging of _one_. The first entry may have applied to two persons; and in calculating cost, it is necessary to multiply the sum by five, to obtain an idea of its real value as represented in modern currency.

Before Anne possessed Tom Derry to find her in mirth, she used to tax her own ladies in waiting, with whom, when at Winchester palace, she would wile away long winter evenings by playing with them at ‘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 of yielding to their strong prejudices. I find the _Merry Wives of Windsor_ played on a Sunday night at Whitehall; and Tom Derry was probably present in October, 1611, when “The Sunday following, att Grinwidg,” before the Queen and the Prince was played ‘The Silver Aiedg,’ and the next night following, ‘Lucrecia.’ With jester, sports, and plays on Sunday as well as other nights, the Queen was not much the happier; and this may be accounted for,--she was the most amiable person possible when she was not put out; she never uttered an angry word except upon some provocation, yet often with little; she was seldom obstinate except in resolutely maintaining her own will, and, like Croaker in the Comedy, was very easily led 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 them _good day_! Sure, I shall never learn the difference between a lord and a beast.”

Our James I. may have heard of, but he probably never saw, his grandfather’s fool, Jemmy Camber, “who, being but young, was for the King _caught 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 by Armin:--

“His head was small, his hair long on the same;
One ear was bigger than the other, far;
His forehead full, his eyes shone like a flame,
His nose flat, and his beard small, yet grew square.
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 of him:--

“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 curiosities shown 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 Dean Field, who was one of the first fellows nominated by the King for the projected Chelsea College; he owed much of his promotion to his wit, and the same may be said of Dr. Collins. L’Estrange narrates an incident exhibiting the punning inclination of their wits in a disputation held by them in the delighted King’s presence. They had “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, before _he_ would have had me whipt.’” This shows, that if Stone had small wit, he at least possessed some discernment, and could distinguish between a grave, wise Lord, and one who had more sensitiveness than sense. And this is all we know of Stone, whose reputation has been obscured by the brighter and more lasting renown of the celebrated jester, Archie Armstrong.

Archibald Armstrong was a native of Arthuret, in Cumberland, and is supposed to have been “caught up” at an early age, and attached to the household of King James. Our British King Arthur has left many a memorial of himself in the vicinity of our northern lakes; and the name of the birth-place of the Court fool, is one that carries the thoughts back to the most brilliant of legendary sovereigns.

When first we encounter Archy Armstrong at the 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 by _his_ fool, moved James to tears. Archie joked at it, but the King wept. The latter was probably also moved to an extensive demonstration of ill-humour, to the great discomfort of the Prince and his friends, otherwise they would not have so repeatedly satisfied their wrath by tossing the court jester in a blanket.

This jester was himself a good-tempered fellow, by no means lacking sense, especially the sense to grow rich by the exercise of his vocation, however contemptible it may have been. His recorded jests, like Scogan’s, are poor, unauthenticated, and, except on one or two solitary 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 letter from Howell, who saw him there, and in one from Archie himself, or written under his dictation, dated from Madrid, and which will be found below, for the first time in print. “Our cousin Archie,” thus writes Howell, “hath more privilege than any; for he often goes with his fool’s coat when the Infanta is with her _meninas_ and ladies of honour, and keeps a blowing and a blustering among them, and flirts out what he lists.” The jester was wonderfully bold, it must be confessed, as may be seen by his comment, when the Spanish Dons and 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 a _trunchman_. 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 a _trunchman_[F] and then you shall know from your fool, by God’s help and Christ’s help, and the Virgin Mary’s, more secret business than from all your wise men here. My Lord Aston,--your Majesty shall give him thanks,--writes to you and to your son; do give him thanks, for never kinder friend I found in this world; his house is at my command, and besides he gave me white boots when my own trunk was not come up. I think every day of yourself, and of your Majesty’s gracious favour; for you will never be missed till you are gone, and the child that is unborn will say a praise for you. But I hope in God, for my own part, never to see it. The further I go, the more I see, for all that I see here are foolery to you. For toys and such noise as I see, with God’s grace, my Saviour’s, and your leave, I will let you know more 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, your X best fool of state, both here and there. Court of Spain, 28th April, 1623.”

The above letter, with its mixture of blustering familiarity, small wit, and profanity, was probably taken down from the dictation of Archie. The fool, it will be observed, appends his _mark_; and the original is entirely in the handwriting of Buckingham. There is in it good illustration of the position occupied by Armstrong; and the letter will, I hope, be 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 receive the 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,[G] who, for aught I know, is better used, according to his estate and quality, than any servant the late Queen left behind her; at least a great deal better than I. I have been worse used than a counterfeit, witness Archie Armstrong, who shows me that the King has given so special direction for payment of his entertainment, that he is better than he was in the late King’s time; when I, having a pension for which I served, toiled, and travelled the space of thirty-seven years, cannot receive one penny, till I have spent three in seeking of it. I have been worse used than a Turk, witness a Turkish ambassador, whom I have seen get audience of the late King; who had his despatch in three weeks, when I, in three winters’ attendance, cannot obtain means or leave to return to my native country, but am constrained to forget and expose my wife and only daughter to rapt and desolation; that bloody inquisition army of Wallenstein being within three or four days’ march of a country-house where I left them. All this I have endured patiently, or at least with a forced and seeming 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 of
Great 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 to the old servant of his mother, and of his uncle, Ulric of Holstein. The King provides liberally for his mother’s jester, Tom Derry, and more than liberally, it would seem, for his father’s jester and his own, Archibald Armstrong. 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 a _grace_ at 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 little _laud_ to the Devil!” The Archbishop had good ground for offence; but Archie thrusted at him more sharply than this. What he had told Mr. Belou was no exaggeration; he grew rich at court, but his arrogance brought him low.

“Archie, by kings and princes graced of late,
Jested himself into a fair estate;”--

and joked himself out of his enviable position. The attempt to force the English Liturgy upon the Scottish congregations was food for his saucy wit; and when he heard of the orthodox Lizzie, who had flung a stool at the head of the liturgical Dean, in St. Giles’s, Edinburgh, he called it “the stool of repentance.” The dissensions in the North began to assume a very serious aspect; and much uneasiness, with a corresponding amount of obstinacy, was experienced at court. Laud was, right or wrong in intention, the cause of all, and as Archie one day met the Archbishop, on his way to the Council Chamber, he could not forbear wagging his rude tongue with the query, “Wha’s fool noo?”

For this offence the jester was immediately taken before the King in Council, where the prelate named his grounds of offence, and the fool pleaded the privilege of his coat. He pleaded in vain, as the following order, dated Whitehall, 11th March, 1637, will show:--

“It is this day ordered by his Majesty, with the advice of the board, that Archibald Armstrong, the King’s fool, for certain scandalous words of a high nature, spoken by him against the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, his Grace, and proved to be uttered by him, by two witnesses, shall have his coat pulled over his head, and be discharged of the King’s service, and banished the court, for which the Lord Chamberlain of the King’s household is prayed and required to give order to be executed. And immediately the same was put in execution.”

The provocation had been long, and had often driven Laud into fits of unseemly passion, which, indeed, drove the prelate to an attempt to bring the wretched jester before that dreaded tribunal, the Star Chamber. On this quarrel and Laud’s vindictiveness, Osborn has a striking passage.

“I shall instance as a blot in the greatest rochet that did in my time appear in the court of England, or indeed any I ever heard of since the Reformation, who managed a quarrel with Archy the King’s fool, and by endeavouring to explode him the court, rendered him, at last, so considerable, by calling the Prelate’s enemies (which were not a few) to his rescue, as the fellow was not only able to continue the dispute for divers years, but received such encouragement from standers-by as he hath oft, in my hearing, belched in his face such miscarriages as he was really guilty of, and might, but for this foul-mouthed Scot, have been forgotten; adding such other reproaches of his own as the dignity of his calling and greatness of his parts could not in reason or manners admit; though so far hoodwinked with passion as not to discern that all the fool did was but a symptom, of the strong and inveterate distemper raised long before in the hearts of his countrymen against the calling of bishops, out of whose former ruins, the major part of the Scottish nobility had feathered, if not built, their nests. Nor did this too low-placed anger lead him into a less absurdity than an endeavour to bring him into the Star Chamber, till the Lord Coventry had, by acquainting him with the privilege of a fool, shown the ridiculousness of the attempt; yet, not satisfied, he, through the mediation of the Queen, got him at last discharged the court.”[H]

There were present, on this occasion, when the Council met to strip a coat from a fool, “the King’s most excellent Majesty,” in person; the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Duke of Lennox, the Marquis of Hamilton, the Earl Marshal, and the Earls of Northumberland and Dorset, Salisbury and Holland, the Lord-Keeper (Finch), the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Privy Seal, and the Lord Chamberlain; Baron Newburgh, and Mr. Treasurer, Mr. Comptroller, Mr. Vice-Chamberlain, Mr. Secretary Cook, and Mr. Secretary Wincebanke.” What an august tribunal for the deposition of a fool!

Archy survived long enough to see himself avenged (if he were sufficiently of evil nature to consider himself to require to be avenged) of many of these his noble enemies. Meanwhile, his crime seems to have sat lightly on his conscience, however heavy the retribution with which it was visited. The discarded jester did not attempt to deny his offence. How he was punished and how he spoke openly of it, is shown in the paragraph here subjoined.

“Archye,” writes Mr. Garrard to Lord Strafford (Strafford Papers, vol. ii.), “is fallen into a great misfortune; a fool he would be, but a foul-mouthed knave he hath proved himself; being at a tavern in Westminster, drunk, as he saith himself, he was speaking of the Scottish business, he fell a railing of my Lord of Canterbury, said he was a monk, a rogue, and a traitor. Of this, his Grace complained at Council, and the King being present, it was ordered he should be carried to the porter’s lodge, his coat pulled over his ears, and kicked out of the Court, never to enter within the gates, and to be called into the Star Chamber. The first part is done, but my Lord of Canterbury hath interceded for the King that there it should end.”

Laud would have had more vengeance, if he could, but, says the author of the ‘Scout’s Discovery,’--“albeit Archie found favour in his lash, he lost both his coat and his place.” Laud ruined the jester; but he could not subdue his spirit, nor curb his tongue. Archie assumed a suit of sables, and hung about the dead Kings in Westminster Abbey, since he no longer held office in the palace of a living sovereign. “I met Archie,” says a writer in Morgan’s ‘Phœnix Britannicus,’ referring to a week or two after the dismissal,--“I met Archie at the Abbey, all in black. Alas! poor fool, thought I, he mourns for his country. I asked him about his (fool’s) coat. ‘Oh,’ quoth he, ‘my Lord of Canterbury hath taken it from me, because either he or some of the Scots bishops may have the use of it themselves. But he hath given me a black coat for it; and now I may speak what I please, so it be not against the prelates, for this coat hath a greater privilege than the other had.’” The hint that he could exercise the privilege of a jester’s liberty under the clerical black more freely than he could beneath his motley jerkin, was a Parthian dart thrown by a practised though a retreating soldier. It is certainly not the worst saying ever uttered by Archibald Armstrong.

It will be seen, too, that Archie, whether in or out of office, had the wit to thrive. Dr. Octavius Gilchrist, in the ‘London Magazine’ for August and September, 1824, at the conclusion of a review of the old jest book which bore Armstrong’s name on the title-page; but with which the “fool” had no other connection, states that Archie derived considerable wealth from the new year’s gifts presented him by the courtiers. It even seems that the ex-jester became a landed proprietor. “To prove,” says Dr. Gilchrist, “that he saved money and laid it out in the purchase of landed property, we have met with a contemporary authority, in an uncommonly rare tract, printed in 12mo, 1636, and entitled ‘The Fatal Nuptials, or Mournful Marriage.’ This is a metrical account of a lamentable accident that occurred in the preceding year, on Windermere Water, when forty-seven persons (among them a young married couple, with their friends and relations going to keep their wedding) were drowned. The anonymous poet (a very bad one, by the way), meaning to enforce the uncertainty of life, and the liability of all ranks to a similar disaster, introduces Archie, who was probably well known in the neighbourhood of the accident.

“Is’t so, that we in hourly danger stand,
Whether we sail by sea, or go by land?
That we to this world but one entrance have,
But thousand means of passage to the grave?
And that the wise shall no more fruit receive
Of all his labours than the fool shall have.
For the politick Hum must yield to swelling Humber,
As well as the least of his inferior number,
_And Archie, that rich fool, when he least dreams.
For purchased lands must be possessed of streams._”

It is tolerably clear, from this, that Armstrong, like Osric, that combination of fool and lord in Hamlet, was of those enviable and respectable people who may be described, as Osric is, in the same tragedy, as being “spacious in the possession of dirt;” or, as the Latin author said it long before, “multâ dives tellure.”

In short, Archie, saving his disgrace, did not fare so ill. He was in the happy financial condition of the gentleman in Horace, who, let the world rail at him as it might, could point to his money-box, and hug himself complacently on his destiny. He had noble companionship, too, in his retirement. Armstrong repaired to Arthuret, his native place, in Cumberland, and thither also retired, after the cause of Archie’s royal ex-master had become desperate, that Dick Graham who had been master of the horse to Buckingham, and who had accompanied his patron in that expedition to the Spanish Court where the Jester had played as prominent a part as any of his betters. Had the ex-jester been of the quality of mind of illogical persons who see in every disaster that befalls those with whom they are in antagonism, a divine justice descending on the head of their enemy, Archie might have solemnly declared that the monarchy fell because it had ceased to respect the privileges of fools.

But it was not Armstrong’s disposition to be solemn. While institutions decayed, he survived. The Monarchy went down, and the Commonwealth went over it, and went down too, and Archie still found himself upon his legs. The church-register of Arthuret, as quoted by Lysons, in his Magna Britannia, shows that the jester could find damsels too ready to be fooled by him. But let us hope that the joculator of old turned honest man at last. One thing is certain, that in 1646 he made an honest woman, as the old phrase goes, of confiding Sibella Bell. The church-register makes record of the marriage of this pair; but neither in that nor any other register is record made of the lives led by this wedded couple. The only further, and _that_ an important, entry, containing a notice of our once lively friend of the cap and bells, is the duly-registered circumstance of his death. The date of his burial alone is given, and that ceremony took place, characteristically enough, (in the year above-mentioned) on April 1, All-fools’ day!

To Archie Armstrong succeeded Muckle John, the last, perhaps, of the official court fools in England. In the Strafford Papers (vol. ii. p. 154) there is a letter from Mr. Garrard to Lord Strafford, in which the latter is informed, “There is now a fool in his (Archie’s) place, Muckle John, but he will never be so rich, for he cannot abide money.” Love of the precious metals was, indeed, a passion with Armstrong, whose avarice, however, was sometimes disappointed. It was especially so on an occasion when a nobleman placed in Archie’s hand some pieces of money which the jester thought too little for his merits; he expressed his discontent, and the donor, seeming willing to change the silver coin for gold, received it from Archie, but put it into his own pocket. Instead of giving a gold Carolus or two in return, the courtier only bestowed on Armstrong the remark, that whatever wit he might possess as fool, he certainly had not the wit to know how to keep money when it was given to him. Muckle John was of a different quality, inasmuch that he cared nothing at all for money; of which, nevertheless, considerable sums were spent upon him, to make him look like a fool of quality. For the following items of expenses in this respect, extracted from an account-book of the period, I am indebted to Mr. Peter Cunningham, whose ready kindness enables me to show Muckle John equipped from head to foot.

“A long coat and suit of scarlet-colour serge for Muckle John, 10_l._ 10_s._ 6_d._

“One pair of crimson silk hose, and one pair of gaiters and roses for Muckle John, 61_s._

“For a pair of silk and silver garters, and roses and gloves suitable for Muckle John, 110_s._

“For a hat covered with scarlet, and a band suitable; and for two rich feathers, one red, the other white, for Muckle John, 50_s._

“Stags’-leather gloves, fringed with gold and silver.

“A hat-band for Muckle John.

“One pair of perfumed gloves, lined with sables, 5_s._”

At the court at which Armstrong and Muckle John practised their vocation, there were other personages of some notoriety, who exercised their talents for the mirth or admiration of their royal patron. While the above-named jesters, for instance, were more particularly attached to the King, little Jeffrey Hudson, the dwarf, exercised a calling somewhat similar in the household of Henrietta Maria. Jeffrey did this both in England and in France. This little fellow, who, when he entered his teens, was scarcely more than a foot and a half in height, and who did not ultimately grow much over three feet, was in his boyhood protected by the Duke of Buckingham. At a banquet given by the Duke in honour of the Queen, a pie was placed upon the table, the crust of which being raised, the dwarf stepped forth and bowed to Henrietta Maria, to whom he was presented by Buckingham. This mode of presentation was not at all original. It was a common court jest, when a dwarf was in question. Sometimes the hapless little wretch was presented in a gilt cage, as a Milan dwarf was to Francis I. Zeiller, in one of his letters, mentions a dwarf in the household of Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, in the year 1568. At a grand festival in honour of Duke William of Bavaria and the Princess Renata of Lorraine, this dwarf was served up at table, in a pie. When the crust was raised, he leaped out, attired in panoply of gilt, and grasping a banner in his hand, which he waved as he marched round the table, and made merry compliments to the august and delighted guests. Weber, in his ‘Verändertes Russland,’ notices a similar custom as prevailing at the Court of Russia, and continuing as late as the beginning of the last century. No more acceptable joke could be got up for the amusement of the Czars by their favourite nobles. A couple of pies, from which a male and female dwarf issued to dance a minuet, procured for the giver of the entertainment the utmost applause from the sovereign.

The custom, then, was known on the Continent both before and after the period of Jeffrey Hudson. That the position of the latter in the household of his royal mistress was not unlike that of a jester, may be gathered from various sources. Davenant says that he was made to fight with a turkey-cock, and Walter Scott notices how he was compelled to endure the teazing of the domestics and courtiers, and the many squabbles he had with the King’s gigantic porter.