CELEBRATED FOOLS.

Western Star, 10 September 1935, Page 3

CELEBRATED FOOLS.

ANCIENT INSTITUTIONS. JESTERS OF THE STEWARDS. MEMORABLE QUIPS. The custom of keeping fools for the purpose of producing amusement dates back to the classical ages. In they were retained at Court *i'l * lie veign of Charles 'II., and in noblemen' families till, perhaps, a later date. Even the dignataries of the Chruch in the Middle Ages kept fools t 0 make them laugh—or to laugh at them. Even the grave David I. of Scotland who built so many churches and monaseries>.had a jester. The Lard Mayor of Loudon also had his fool, one of whose regular jokes it was, at the great annual feast, to leap clothes and all, into a huge custard! Characters who figured so mucih in private and public life and who were the occasion everywhere of ao much mirth, could not fail to be introduced on the stage. The laborious Douce reckoned up seven different kinds of theatrical fools, one of which, the ordinary domestic fool is the kind of which Shakespeare presents so many examples.

Shakespeare has given a humour and a tenderness to the retained fool Touchstone is the merriest and most satirical of varlets, .albeit to "deep contemplative"; and)' Lear's fool of censpicious among the few officers of the discrowned monarch who continued faithful to him in his evil days. Scott gives the same view of the affections of the fool. Davie Gallatly he described as moaning in the bitterness r.if regret .amid: the rains of the baron's mansion and as the guardian of the hiding-place where the Unfortunate gentleman had taken refuge for his life. It is Wamba who, of all Cedric's domestics, is readiest to lay down*lris'life for his master, "like a faithful fool," and whoso devoted attachment retorts tears from the stern old man, though ho has none to shed over his own disflsters, or the dead body of his friend. Jlob Gib, the fool of James V., when lie told his master that he had serhed him "for stark love and kindness," all the other courtiers having interested motives, probably spoke as much under ire influence of sincere attachment on his own part, ns from a wish to> satirise the hollow-heartedness of his neighbours •*.

Of eminent Court fouls, no one seems to have had more humour thui the. celebrated Arehy Armstrong, jester to James I, and Charles I. in succession. Arohy was a descendant of the equally famous Johnny Armstrong, who was hanged for thievery by James V. Born in the parish of Langholm, the place of Johnny's ohief residence, Archy began life in the same manner as his ancestor, but the' country soon became too hot for him, and he fled to Edinburgh, where he secured shelter at Coin-), jn consideration of his waggery. He removed v'ith James to England, and remained in favour as long as Court affairs were in sudh a sweet and easy state as to hear a jest without soreness. When the policy of .Charles and Archbishop Laud for the reduction of Scotland to episcopacy met with s uch evil fortune, it was no longer possible to put up w'ith jibes. On the arrival of the pews, March, 1638, that the Scots were banding themselves under a covenant to' resist the measures of the Court, Archy, seeing Laud passing, slyly asked him', "Who i.i fool now.'" This was altogether intolerable. At a privv council it was solemnly ordered "that Archibald Armstrong the king's fool, fo r certain -candalous words of a high nature, spoken by him against the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. . . shal] have his coat pulled over his head, an d be discharged of the King's .service- and | banished the Court.'' The AttorneyGeneral was ilt the same time ordered to proceed against him in, the Star Chamber, but this part of the proceedings was quashed by the intercession of the archbishop- Two months later a sister of Archy and her husband complained to t he Privy Council that he had for 14 years possessed himself of estate «'f « brother, »M>d denied them the sums he was t<> pay to them ou t of its rents -winch was certainly no joke—and thn + . ho had prom.sed them, i n lj eu of these •sums, a hundred acres of land out of a thousand which the King had "ranted him in Ireland, but had never fulfilled Ins promise. How Archy contrived to c-Yincate himself from the charge is not known; bu t . he is understood to have retired to the village of Artlmret, i n Cumberland, where h e was buried,'verv appropriately for his'profession, on the Ist of April,

English history furnishes another notable instance of the power of -, jester's tongue. The nation had grown tired of making vain applications to Charles 11. to have the aggressions of the Hollanders repressed when Killegi'cw, tho King's foo], entered flic presence one day, booted a nd spurred as if for a journey. "Where are you going to-day, KiMegrew?" inquired the "To h c ll, sir," answered the lostcr "t„ i M . nil , ~.,,,. o)h . er fVoHi _ well to chastise the insolence, of the Dutch." Charles took the joke well and is said to have b C( ». more move,) I'.v it than by many grave petitions