In Rawlinson's Manuscripts in the Bodleian (c. 258.), which I take to
have been written either in, or very soon after, the reign of Henry
VIII., there is a poem thus entitled:--
"THE EPITAPHE OF LOVE, THE KYNGE'S FOOLE."
Can any of your readers furnish me with information regarding him? He
was clearly a man worthy of notice, but although I have looked through
as many volumes of that period, and afterwards, as I could procure, I do
not recollect meeting with any other mention of him. Skelton, who must
have been his contemporary, is silent regarding him; and John Heywood,
who was also living at the same time, makes no allusion to him that I
have been able to discover. Heywood wrote the "Play of Love," but it has
nothing to do with the "King's fool."
The epitaph in question is much in Heywood's humorous and satirical
style: it is written in the English ballad-metre, and consists of seven
seven-line stanzas, each stanza, as was not unusual with Heywood, ending
with the same, or nearly the same, line. It commences thus:
"O Love, Love! on thy sowle God have mercye;
For as Peter is _princeps Apostolorum_,
So to the[e] may be sayd clerlye,
Of all foolys that ever was _stultus stultorum_.
Sure thy sowle is in _regna polorum_,
By reason of reason thou haddest none;
Yet all foolys be nott dead, though thou be gone."
In the next stanza we are told, that Love often made the King and Queen
merry with "many good pastimes;" and in the third, that he was "shaped
and borne of very nature" for a fool. The fourth stanza, which mentions
Erasmus and Luther, is the following:--
"Thou wast nother Erasmus nor Luter;
Thou dyds medle no forther than thy potte;
Agaynst hye matters thou wast no disputer,
Amonge the Innocentes electe was thy lotte:
Glad mayst thou be thou haddyst that knotte,
For many foolys by the[e] thynke them selfe none,
Yet all be nott dead, though thou be gone."
The next stanza speaks of "Dye Apguylamys," who is told to prepare the
obsequy for Love, and of "Lady Apylton," who had offered a "mass-penny,"
and the epitaph ends with these stanzas:
"Now, Love, Love! God have mercy on thy mery nowle;
And Love! God have mercye on thy foolysche face,
And Love! God have mercye on thy innocent sowle,
Which amonges innocentes, I am sure, hath a place,
Or ellys thy sowle ys yn a hevy case;
Ye, ye, and moo foolys many [a] one,
For foolys be alyve, Love, though thou be gone.
"Now, God have mercye on us all,
For wyse and folysche all dyethe,
Lett us truly to our myndes call;
And to say we be wyse owr dedes denyethe,
Wherefore the ende my reason thys aplyethe:
God amend all foolys that thynke them selfe none,
For many be alyve, thoughe Love be gone."
It is very possible that I have overlooked some common source of
information to which I may be referred; and it is very possible also,
that this epitaph has been reprinted in comparatively modern times, and
I may not know of it. This is one of the points I wish to ascertain.