of those fools who were rather hangers-on about court, than actually,
exclusively and officially, engaged in the Royal service. Such a one
seems to have been that Charles Chester, who resembled those official
French jesters who found more delight in annoying the courtiers by his
sarcasms, than amusing them, or his Sovereign, by his wit. Chester was
especially severe in addressing coarse strictures on Raleigh and Lord
Knollys, in their own hearing. Sir Walter resolved to be revenged; and
to accomplish it, they invited Chester to supper. The buffoon accepted
the invitation without any suspicion, and the two noble gentlemen made
him exceedingly drunk at a repast at which he had eaten like Gargantua.
Taking him in this condition, with the help of several servants, they
fastened him up in a corner of a court-yard, and then some masons,
engaged for the occasion, built a brick wall close round his person,
and right up to his chin. They kept him there many hours, under a
threat of building him in altogether. The jester was sobered by his
terror, and begged piteously to be liberated. When ready to die with
fear, indigestion, and other fatal influences, the frolicsome gentlemen
exacted from him a solemn oath, that he would never again cut a joke or
make a sarcasm at their expense; and the fool kept his word, if not out
of a sense of honour, certainly out of a sense of terror.
Chester survived to be known to Ben Jonson, who has immortalized him
as Carlo Buffone, in ‘Every Man Out of His Humour.’ In the character
of the persons prefixed to that piece, this buffoon is described as
scurrilous and profane; rich in absurd similes and audacious lies; a
“good feast-hound or banquet-beagle;” a thorough parasite and glutton,
and a stupendous swiller of sack. “His religion is railing, and his
discourse ribaldry;” and it is added of this perverse fellow, that he
loaded those with the heaviest reproaches whom he had the greatest
reason to respect. Such a character accords well with the noisy,
evil-tempered fellow depicted by Aubrey (Lives, ii. p. 14), who tells
us that the fool so offended a knight at a tavern by his impertinence,
that the angry gentleman beat him, and stopped his mouth by sealing his
beard and moustachios together with wax!
It is, however, to be noted, that Carlo in the play is superior to
Carlo as described in the persons of the drama. If Jonson’s picture
be a veritable portrait, how exquisitely could this buffoon prattle
of the advantage of being in debt--advantage so dear to fools of all
classes in this present time! How admirably could he hit off an old
over-scented lover, “who has his skin tanned in civet, to make his
complexion strong, and the sweetness of his youth lasting in the smell
of his sweet lady.” How dashingly he hits off a city gentleman; how
frolicsomely he exposes the city wives! He alludes to “standing by the
fire in the presence,” as if the ways of Court were familiar to him;
and to taking tobacco with nobles, “over the stage in the lords’ room,”
as if he had right of entry there. Some of his similes are drawn from
his profession, for he describes a man’s shield of arms as being “of
as many colours as ever you saw any fool’s coat in your life.” What a
_vade mecum_ for asses is his instruction to dolts to show how they may
pass for sensible fellows in society! How happily, yet briefly, does he
paint a student learning to smoke! With what true fool’s satire does
he exclaim, “_Friend!_ is there any such foolish thing in the world?”
and what fool’s philosophy is there in the assertion that “Swaggering
is a good argument of resolution!” We probably have something of the
look of Chester afforded us in the remark of Macilente, “Pork! I think
thou dost varnish thy face with the fat on’t, it looks so like a
glue-pot.” And what a sharp touch of the jester’s fence is the reply,
“True, my raw-boned rogue, and if thou wouldst farce thy lean ribs with
it, too, they would not, like ragged laths, rub out so many doublets as
they do.” When Puntarvolo seals up his mouth, as Aubrey’s knight did
that of the real Chester, we feel that it could not be for the same
reason; and when the vain-glorious cavalier tells us that “Carlo comes
not at Court,” we are apt to think, that if Chester was of the times
and not also of the household of Queen Elizabeth, she lacked a jester
fit to rank with Clod.
This fool, who was an official court fool, must have been a fellow of
as much humour as Yoric himself, if we may judge from one sample of
his wit, which is no bad sample of his license also, and which is good
warrant for his acuteness and discrimination, to boot.
At the court of Elizabeth there was many a cleric of the Vicar of Bray
school, and among them Dean Perne, who had oscillated from one faith to
another three or four times in about a dozen years, and who never felt
in a state of finality anywhere. Perne, with Archbishop Whitgift, was
in attendance on the Queen one wet day, when her Majesty was desirous
of going out for a walk. The desire was an unwise one, for Elizabeth
was in ill health; but the divines were not bold enough to dissuade
her. But Clod, the Queen’s fool, was also present, and _he_ had the
courage which the others lacked. “Madam,” said he, “Heaven dissuades
you, for it is cold and wet; and earth dissuades you, for it is damp
and dirty. Heaven dissuades you, too, by this heavenly man, Archbishop
Whitgift; and earth dissuades you, by me, your fool, Clod, lump of
clay as I am. But if neither can prevail you, here is the Dean Perne,
who is neither of heaven nor of earth, but hangs between the two, and
he too dissuades you.”
The above was witty license at the expense of a courtier; but Clod
could exercise wit and audacity at the expense of the Queen. Elizabeth
once reproached him with not altogether fulfilling the duties of his
office. “How so?” asked Clod; “in what have I failed?” “In this,”
answered the Queen, “you are ready enough to point your sharp satire
at the faults of other people, but you never say a word of mine.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the jester, “that is because I am saved the trouble
by so many deputies. Why should I remind your Majesty of your faults,
seeing that these are in everybody’s mouth, and you may hear of them
hourly?” After all, this was not near so bold as the answers which
(years after) Whiston used to fling at Queen Caroline, consort of
George II. Whiston, if not kept at Court like the jester of earlier
times, was so frequent a sojourner there, that George II. got weary of
this heterodox divine, who did not hesitate to tell him, when the King
was inveighing against freedom of inquiry in religious matters, that
if Luther had been of that opinion, his Majesty would never have been
King of England! But where I find Queen Caroline and Whiston nearly
resembling Queen Elizabeth and Clod, is on that well-known occasion at
Hampton Court, when Caroline said to the eccentric divine, that, bold
speaker as he was, he was, perhaps, not bold enough to tell her of her
faults. Whiston proved that her Majesty was mistaken, by denouncing
her very unseemly behaviour at divine service. Caroline laid part of
the blame on the King, acknowledged her fault, promised amendment, and
asked what was her next offence. “Nay, Madam,” said Whiston, “it will
be time enough to go to the second fault when you have fairly amended
the first!” The eccentric character of Whiston procured for him from
Caroline just that impunity which Clod and Chester and others found at
the hands of Elizabeth.
Having had occasion to mention these two Queens in the same paragraph,
I will take the opportunity of adding, that if the time had passed by
when official fools had place at court, it was not because Caroline
was more refined than Elizabeth. The contrary was the fact, if we may
believe the following passage, in the ‘Reliquiæ Hearnianæ:’--“The
present Duchess of Brunswick, commonly called Queen Caroline, is a
very proud woman, and pretends to great subtlety and cunning. She
drinks so hard, that her spirits are continually inflamed, and she is
often drunk. The last summer, she went away from Orkney House, near
Maidenhead (at which she had dined), so drunk, that she was sick in
the coach all her journey, as she went along; _a thing much noted_.”
In spite of the words in italics, the story must be taken with some
allowance, for old Hearne was a furious Jacobite, and was likely to
“embroider” a story to make it tell against a Hanoverian princess. One
fact, however, is undisputed, namely, that no jester and king of the
very coarsest times ever sat together and exchanged more licentious
stories than Caroline and Sir Robert Walpole. The published life of the
latter will support this assertion, though I need not make, in such a
case, an especial reference. A study of the two reigns will, at least,
serve to show that Elizabeth and her court fools were quite as refined
as Caroline and her fine gentlemen.
The refinement of Elizabeth seems to have been justly appreciated
by those who had to cater for her amusements. For instance, in the
“Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court,” edited for the
Shakespeare Society, by Mr. P. Cunningham, there is an entry, in
October 1573, to the following effect, made by the Master of the
Revels:--“Item: sundry times for calling together of sundry players,
and for perusing, fitting, and reforming their matters otherwise not
convenient to be showen before her Majesty.” And again, in 1574, an
entry of 40_s._ occurs, as the sum paid to a court official “for his
pains in perusing and reforming of plays sundry times, as need required
for her Majesty.”
We have seen Will Sommers sleeping among the spaniels, and there are
not wanting instances to show how sharp was the toil and poor the rest
of many of those who laboured to amuse the leisure hours of Elizabeth.
The following are examples. An entertainment is about to be given in
the metropolitan palace, and the properties have to be brought from
Richmond or Hampton Court; the passage by water seems to have been slow
and uncertain, as is shown in an entry:--“To the porters that watched
all night at the Blackfriars Bridge, for the coming of the stuff from
court, 2_s._” This “bridge” was doubtless a landing stage. To this same
Blackfriars “bridge” are brought a number of children, who had been
down to Hampton Court to perform in a masque before her Majesty. The
little Cupids had looked warm and plump and rosy enough in the presence
of the Queen; but they were all sent back (nine of them) in an open
boat, in the winter of 1573, and in consequence, there is an entry
which has little of the spirit of “Revels” in it, to this effect:--“To
Thomas Totnall, for fire, and victuals for the children, when they
landed, some of them being cold and sick and hungry, 6_s._ 6_d._”
Not to digress further from the taste of the Queen, as exhibited by
her in connection with her court pleasures, I may further state that
we have good evidence that Elizabeth was neither unrefined herself
nor admired lack of refinement in those who were about her, whether
friends, attendants, or jesters, in the frequently-printed account
given by Bohun, in his ‘Character of Queen Elizabeth.’ “At supper she
would divert herself with her friends and attendants; and if they made
her no answer, she would put them upon mirth and pleasant discourse,
with great civility. She would then also admit Tarleton, a famous
comedian and a pleasant talker, and other such-like men, to divert
her with the stories of the town and the common jests or accidents,
but so that they kept within the bounds of modesty and chastity. In
the winter-time, after supper, she would sometimes hear a song or a
lesson or two played upon the lute; but she would be much offended
if there was any rudeness to any person, any reproach, or licentious
reflection used. Tarleton, who was then the best comedian in England,
had made a pleasant play, and when it was acting before the Queen,
he pointed at Sir Walter Raleigh, and said, ‘See, the Knave commands
the Queen!’--for which he was corrected by a frown from the Queen;
yet he had the confidence to add that he (Raleigh) was of too much
and too intolerable a power. And going on with the same liberty, he
reflected on the over-great power and riches of the Earl of Leicester;
which was so universally applauded by all that were present, that
she thought fit, for the present, to bear these reflections with a
seeming unconcernedness. But yet she was so offended that she forbade
Tarleton and all her jesters from coming near her table, being inwardly
displeased with this impudent and unreasonable liberty.”
The maids of honour and the ladies in waiting seem to have been more
inclined to follow the example set by their royal mistress than the
male courtiers. There was one of these fine gentlemen who _would_
address himself to Mistress Mary Ratcliffe, one of Elizabeth’s maidens
of honour, in such a tone that she relished neither his conversation
nor discourse. At length, she told him “that his wit was like a
custard, nothing good in it but the sop, and when that was eaten you
may throw away the rest.”
The maids of honour were not at all disinclined to be frolicsome; but
this was with no ill purpose. Observe, however, how this humour was
indecently corrected by that same Knollys who was offended with the
cross in the Queen’s chapel, and employed Pace, the court fool, to pull
it down. Knollys “had his lodgings at court, where some of the ladies
and maids of honour used to frisk and hey about, in the next room, to
his extreme disquiet o’ nights, though he had often warned them of it;
at last, he gets one to bolt their own back door, when they were all
in, one night, at their revels, strips off [to] his shirt, and so,
with a pair of spectacles on his nose, and Aretino in his hand, comes
marching in at a postern door of his own chamber, reading very gravely,
full upon the faces of them. Now let the reader judge what a sad
spectacle and pitiful fright these poor creatures endured, for he faced
them, and often traversed the room, in this posture, above an hour.”
I cite the above illustration of a court jest from the L’Estrange
manuscripts, edited by Mr. Thoms. My esteemed and modest friend has
supplied a word in brackets, for which, I fear, there is no warrant.
I have no doubt that the MS. as it stands is correct, and Knollys was
not the last courtier who thought it an excellent court jest to appear
in the condition described. One of the greatest wits at the court of
Vienna, the Prince de Ligne, is thus described by the Countess de Bohm
in ‘Les Prisons de 1793:’--“Je l’ai trouvé le matin _entièrement nu_,
recevant des visites, parlant à des fournisseurs. Il me présenta même
à sa belle-fille logée près de lui.” If the court wit of Vienna could
do this, and a lady not be startled thereby, in the last century, what
may not a courtier have dared a century earlier? However this may be,
we have seen that Elizabeth would not tolerate forwardness even in
Richard Tarleton, who was, perhaps, the most celebrated of the court
jesters to that Queen, and one of the most perfect low comedians that
ever trod the stage. To the Leicester above-named he is said to have
owed his introduction to Elizabeth. Tarleton was a Shropshire boy, and
was keeping his father’s swine, near Condover, when an officer of the
Earl’s household, on his way to the Earl’s estates in Denbigh, entered
into conversation with the young swineherd, and was so struck by his
“happy unhappy answers,” that he took the merry lout, nothing loath,
with him,” and Tarleton seems to have passed thence to a higher court.
But, not immediately. It is, indeed, somewhat difficult to trace the
early part of the career of this jester before he took office under
the Queen. It is not, however, altogether impossible, since Mr.
Halliwell edited a purified edition of Tarleton’s jests, prefaced it
by a biographical sketch, and added elucidatory notes and confirmatory
extracts from contemporary and other authors. From all these sources we
make out that Tarleton served some sort of apprenticeship in London,
and must have had a very fair education for one of his class, seeing
that he is described as being “superficially seen in learning,” and
having so much as “a bare insight into the Latin tongue.” Not so bad
for a young swineherd,--whose wit stood him in good stead for what he
lacked in book-learning. To what calling he was bound apprentice is not
known: he is said to have been for some time a water carrier; and it
was, perhaps, disgust at the drudgery, added to inclination for other
liquids, that made of him a tavern-keeper. His grosser sense led him
to tippling; but he had intellect enough to qualify him for writing
ballads and composing historical pantomimes. Like many modern actors,
he united the parts of player and vintner; starred on many stages,
sometimes played more than one part in the same piece, and he shifted
from inn to inn, as landlord, as he did from stage to stage, as an
actor. He was Boniface respectively of three taverns, at least; at
Colchester, and in London, in Gracechurch-street and Paternoster-row.
He had probably been for some years a player, slowly rising, by dint
of his wit, his squint, and his flat nose, to pre-eminence, when in
1583 he was appointed one of the Queen’s players, and one of the grooms
of her chamber. Stowe remarks, that till the year just mentioned,
Elizabeth had no company of actors of her own, but that at the date
named, and at the request of Sir Francis Walsingham, twelve of the best
players were chosen from among the companies in the service of divers
great lords; and that these were “sworn the Queen’s servants, and were
allowed wages and liveries as grooms of the chamber.” Stowe notices
“two rare men” among this selected troop, “viz. Thomas Wilson, for a
quick, delicate, refined, extemporal wit; and Richard Tarleton,--for a
wondrous, plentiful, pleasant, extemporal wit, he was the wonder of his
time.”
As court jester, Tarleton became as famous and as influential as any
official who ever wore clown’s suit. Fuller calls him a master of his
faculty, who, “when Queen Elizabeth was serious, I dare not say sullen,
and out of good humour, he could _undumpish_ her at his pleasure.”
As in other courts, suitors to the Sovereign not unfrequently first
presented themselves to the jester. “He was their usher to prepare
their advantageous access to her.” He doubtless lined his pockets with
pistoles thereby; and for his royal pay he also gave good measure of
wholesome severities. “He told the Queen,” says Fuller, “more of her
faults than most of her chaplains; and cured her melancholy better than
all of her physicians.”
If the Queen admired Dick, the latter had a great measure of reverence
for his mistress. He could compare her, he said, to nothing more fitly
than a sculler; for, he added, “neither the Queen nor the sculler hath
a fellow.” He nevertheless, and as a matter of course, could take great
liberties with her. The very first of the ‘court witty jests,’ tells
us of his attempting to draw the Queen out of a fit of discontent by
“a quaint jest,” in which he pretended to be a thirsty drunkard, and
called aloud for beer. The liquor was duly supplied to him, and that so
liberally, that Elizabeth gave orders that he should have no more, lest
he should turn beast, and shame himself. “Fear you not,” said Tarleton,
“for your beer is small enough.” So, perhaps, was the jester’s wit, but
the Queen thought well of it, for “her Majesty laughed heartily, and
commanded that he should have enough.”
Elizabeth probably enjoyed fully as much the jests which her chartered
buffoon made at the expense of her courtiers. Some of these were sorry
enough; and he would be no less savage on the personal defects and
deformities of ladies as well as lords, than the most unscrupulous of
the “Fous du Roi” at the court of France. To a lady, suffering from an
eruption on the face, and who consequently declined to drink wine with
the rest, he exclaimed, “A murrain of that face which makes all the
body fare the worse for it.” This rudeness, which drove the poor lady
from table, was only rewarded by a shout of laughter.
Tarleton wore his fool’s attire when the Queen dined; and even attended
her thus attired when she dined abroad, “in his clown’s apparel; being
all dinner-while in the presence with her, to make her merry.” There
seems to have been a distrust of the power of the host and the guests
to make themselves agreeable, and so the Queen took her fool with her,
even when she dined at the Lord Treasurer’s, at Burleigh House, in the
Strand. It was to the gate of that house that Tarleton gave the name of
“his Lordship’s alms-gate,” because, he said, it was for ever closed.
On one occasion, the noble owner of this mansion having thus
entertained the Queen, besought her Majesty to remain all night; a
request to which she would not for a moment listen. The lords present
applied to Tarleton, offering him any reward if he could succeed in
inducing the Queen to sleep at Burleigh House. The rest of the story
is so strange, that I prefer leaving it to my readers as it is given
in the Shakespeare Society’s reprint of the old jest-book.--“Quoth
he, ‘Procure me the parsonage of Sherd.’ They caused the patent to
be drawn presently. He got on a parson’s gown and a corner cap, and
standing upon the stairs where the Queen should descend, he repeated
these words:--‘A parson or no parson? A parson or no parson?’ but after
she knew his meaning, she not only stayed all night, but the next day
willed that he should have possession of the benefice. A madder parson
was never; for he threatened to turn the bell-metal into lining for his
purse, which he did, the parsonage and all, into ready money.”
Among his best similes, perhaps, was the one he made when asked by a
lord what soldiers were like in time of peace. “They are like chimneys
in summer,” said Tarleton, whose neat jest on this occasion seems to
have passed off without laughter. But perhaps this was not said by
him. Not all the jests set down to him were uttered by him. That which
describes him as replying to a courtier who saluted him with a “Good
morrow, fool and knave,”--“I can’t bear both; I’ll take the first, you
are welcome to the other,”--is attributed to an Italian jester.
At this period the court jester was not bound to reside within the
precincts of the court, and to wear no suit but his clown’s apparel,
without permission to the contrary. This custom had even fallen into
disuse in France, where it had prevailed for a very lengthened period.
Tarleton’s official duties, however, kept him late at court. We find
him on one occasion wending homeward at one in the morning, when it
was unlawful for the lieges to be abroad after ten o’clock at night.
He accordingly fell into the hands of the watch, to whom, on being
challenged, he had announced himself as “a woman;” for what is the
use, he asked, of my telling you what you know? The watch declared he
must be committed for being out-of-doors after ten o’clock. “It is
now past one!” cried the watch, emphasizing the enormity. “Good!” said
Tarleton; “if it be past one o’clock, it will not be ten these eight
hours. Watchmen had wont to have more wit; but for want of sleep they
have turned fools.” The guardians of the night recognized the Queen’s
jester, and they let him pass, rejoiced at being entertained for a
moment by an official whose duty it was to entertain her Majesty’s
sacred self.
On another occasion, when challenged in company with two others, he
announced his companions as being makers of eyes and light. The pious
custodes solemnly laid hold of him for flat blasphemy; but when he
explained that one of his companions made spectacles and the other
candles, of course the watch fell into uncontrollable laughter, as
watchmen will do, even at smaller jests than this.