It is difficult to conclude that the official fool was altogether absent from court in these days, when we remember an incident connected with Henry’s widow, Katherine of Valois. There is some reason to believe that Owen Tudor, when he danced awkwardly before Katherine, and ended by falling into her lap, only played one of those tricks which, by exciting laughter, acquired favour for the performer. The widow of Henry V. resolved to marry the handsome clown; but a deputation was sent to Anglesea to report on the condition of the lady-mother of Owen, and the style of her living. This was a deputation of lords; but they appear to have had the court fool with them, if we may judge from the report they rendered on their return. Such an official was not an uncommon appendage to legations of any sort, and I think he could not have been lacking here. The English envoys found the mother of Owen sitting on a bank in a field, surrounded by her perpendicularly-horned goats, and eating a fried herring, with her knees for a table. What report could be made to a Queen-Dowager resolved upon marrying this same lady’s son? The court wit hit upon one which exactly met the contingency; and when the deputation returned to London, their report was, “that they had found the lady seated in state, surrounded by her javelin men, in a spacious palace, and eating her repast from a table of such great value, that she would not take hundreds of pounds for it!”
In the next reign, that of Henry VI., we find that monarch opening a commission, in 1454, for procuring minstrels for his service, by force. A press-gang, as it were, went forth and carried off any likely fellow that suited them, with a good voice, just as the gentleman in the Trench Opera carries off the “Postillon de Longjumeau.” The levy was made de ministraliis propter solatium Regis providendis,—for procuring minstrels, even by force, for the solace or entertainment of the King. The commission enjoins that these shall not only be skilled in their art, as minstrels, but also handsome and elegantly shaped. A reference to the matter will be found in the fourth volume of Warton’s ‘History of English Poetry;’ the author of which, perplexed with the different meanings attached to the word minstrel, would have been inclined to have taken the persons here designated, as singers only, or singers for the Royal Chapel exclusively, but for the directions as to their good looks and comely shapes. These directions seem to him to point to jesters, “tumblers or posture-masters.” It is certain that about a century later, in the reign of Edward VI., it was lawful, when the Chapel Royal lacked young choristers, to carry off duly qualified children from their homes, wherever they might be found.
There is proof that the household jester, as well as minstrel—the two characters often under one hood—was a very common and a liberally-patronized professor of his respective arts, in the days of Henry VI. Warton, in his first volume, cites the Prior’s accounts of Maxtoke, in Warwickshire (to which I have before alluded), under one of its general heads, “De Joculatoribus et Mimis.” Under this head, and having reference only to various years in the reign of Henry VI., we find several sums expended by the brotherhood for itinerant entertainers who have different names, but whose shades of professional difference it is not so easy to determine. Thus we find, “To a joculator, in the Michaelmas week, the sum of fourpence.” Again, “At Christmas, to a cithariste and other joculators, 4d.” The following entries are further illustrations:—“To the mimes of Solihull, 6d.” “To the mimes of Coventry, 20d.” “To Lord Ferrers’ mimes, 6d.” “To the lusores from Eton, 8d.” “Ditto, from Coventry, 8d.” “To those from Daventry, 12d.” “To the mimes from Coventry, 12d.” “To Lord Astley’s mimes, 12d.” “To four of Lord Warwick’s mimes, 10d.” “To a blind mime, 2d.” “To six mimes of the household of Lord Clinton.” ... “To two mimes from Rugby, 10d.” “To a certain cithariste, 6d.” “To another from Coventry, 6d.” “To two others from Coventry, 8d.” “To the mimes of Rugby, 8d.” “To Lord Buckridge’s mimes, 20d.” “To the mimes of Lord Stafford, 2s.” “To the lusores from Coleshill, 8d.” “It is here to be observed,” says Warton, “that the minstrels,” or jesters, “of the nobility, in whose families they were constantly retained, travelled about the country to the neighbouring monasteries; and that they generally received better gratuities for these occasional performances, than the others.”
After the death of Henry VI., there appears on the stage a court jester who is said to have made half England merry with his jests. I allude to the famous Scogan (or Scoggin, or Scogin), who was attached to the household of Edward IV., and whose name is not forgotten in these later days.
Oriel College, Oxford, counted about a century and a half from the time of its foundation, in the reign of Edward II. (1326), when, if credit may be attached to the story told by merry Andrew Borde, of Pevensey, Scogan became a student in that college. The young student is said to have been of a good family; and tradition, to be more or less trusted as the reader pleaseth, has preserved a few incidents of his life there, and in other localities. We have a hint of his roystering career in the little incident of Falstaff in his salad days, who “broke Scogan’s head at the court gate.” Ben Jonson alludes to him, in the Masque of ‘The Fortunate Isles,’ as—
“A fine gentleman, and a Master of Arts,
Of Henry the Fourth’s time, who made disguises
For the King’s sons, and writ in ballad royal
Daintily well....
In rhyme, fine tinkling rhyme, and flowing verse,
With now and then some sense; and he was paid for ’t,
Regarded and rewarded, which few poets
Are, nowadays.”
The specimens we have of Scogan’s poetry do not warrant the praise above given; and we know, from some of his rhymes, that he held the University graduates in very absolute contempt. What he said of the M.A.’s, is not to be repeated. The substance was, that they were mere dolts, beyond the schools; and Scogan did not rank the B.A.’s much higher, as may be seen in the succeeding couplet, which says,—
“A B.A. is not worth a straw,
Except he be among fools.”
The joyous Suffolk student—for Scogan, it is believed, came from Bury—became, in time, a very merry and not very scrupulous tutor. Every sage has his maxim, and Scogan’s was, that “A merry heart doeth good, like a medicine.” With such a lecturer, the pupils must have conferred on Oriel a reputation something resembling that which Merton once derived from its students; of which college an old warden used to say, that there could be little doubt of the learning it possessed, seeing that every pupil brought a little with him, and took none away. But even Oriel, in Scogan’s time, had its solemn seasons; and when the plague of 1471 broke out at Oxford, which ultimately caused more devastation in England than the fifteen years of war through which the country had recently passed, Scogan followed the University fugitives who took refuge, and found safety, in the rural hospital of St. Bartholomew.
If the season of trial rendered other men serious, it had no such effect upon Scogan. His irregularities were numerous, and not the least offensive of them was the irreligious spirit, combined with avarice, which induced him to help an unworthy candidate into the priesthood, for the bribe of a horse, presented to him by the candidate’s father. Even Oxford grew at last weary of Scogan’s want of decorum; and under compulsion, or following his inclination, the merry Suffolk Punch withdrew from the University, but did not long lack employment. He presented himself to Sir William Neville, a country gentleman, and requested to be engaged by him as his household fool. This negotiation was happily carried out; and some time after, Sir William introduced Scogan to Edward IV. The knight took his jester to court, probably out of vanity; for it was not every household fool that had the wit, talent, and education of this gentleman-joculator. The King was so pleased with his gossip that there was nothing left for the loyal knight, but to offer to make over his joyous retainer to a royal patron. Henceforward, Scogan became the court buffoon of Edward; but, as far as I can judge from the sorry or dirty five dozen of “jests” of which Andrew Borde makes him the hero, he assumed the office of buffoon and dropped that of wit. The choicest story told of him, is that wherein he is described as standing, for a long period, beneath a water-spout, under heavy rain, for a reward, (or for a wager, by which he may not have profited in the same degree,) of twenty pounds,—a large sum in those days, but not too large for the fool who thus risked his life.