ABOUT FOOLS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 24 January 1914, Page 12

ABOUT FOOLS.

In Marryatt's time, the, fool of the family was sent to sea. In older days he might have been treasured for possible preferment at Court with the chance' of becoming enriched, and feared, and famous. It was a curious testimony i,o -State ennui that' kings so recognised the ,worth of foolery/ Sometimes a fool's answer turned away kingly wrath. A joke in the 'right place saved a whole town from the vengeance of Timour and Tartar. In James the First's reign JArchy*'Armstrong,, ar halfwitted man, was tried and condemned' for sheep-stealing. With his eye on the_ "Authorised Version/ Archy pleaded that, being an ignorant man,, he had only just^heard of the Bible, arid begged for,life until he had ,read -that Holy Book The pleased- monarch .At" once granted the l0^?- \ v! Th<Hl>'l said Armstrong, "the *?3 tak>m«f if fl J.-erer read! word o't as long, as mv een are open!" On which James added to the gift of life the position ,J* Court Fool," which Armstrong held, with honor and credit until he risked' too* many jokes about, the, Archbishop", of Canterbury. The jester's\ gVace, said in the presence of that -dignitary,, was: "Great praise be to God, and little Laud to the Devil!", Other insulting, though harmless', gibes, gave the' Archbishop such offence that the; fool's luck came to an end. He 'was banished from Court, and had to take to pamphletwrit ing, if not to sheep-stealing again. But serious people more "often get on very/well with fools. John Hey wood, who jested for Henry the Eighth and the first Mary, is said to have enlivened Mary s last hours by his I music and wit —it seems an" odd death-bed interest for that rather saturnine queen. And now and again a genius even doubled the parts of jester and priest. The" great St. Adjielm sang and made jokes by the 1 cross-roads until he drew a congregation together; then he doffed his cloak of motley, and sudI demy stood disclosed as a saint. We still have clergy who think fit to spice a sermon wtih, more or less'humorous anecdotes. But Rahere, the famous jester of Henry 1., abjured, his merri-1 nient before he became the pious man who founded St. Bartholomew's Church and Hospital at Smithfield. The Windsor, in an article on "Famous Fools," records that Tarlton, Elizabeth's Court jester, was roused one night at a lonely inn by-an* escaped madman, who flourished a' sword and 'Villain, were it not valiantly done to cut off thy-knave's head at one Wow?" "Tut, sir," replied Tarlton, that's nothing -with your worship to do. You can as easily strike off two heads at a blow as one; wherefore I'll go down and call up another, and so you may deal with both our heads at once." And the guileless madman let him go quietly away.