The half-year included in the table of the above entries was one in which Tom Derry must have had to draw largely on his wits, to amuse the Queen; for it was then she was most savagely possessed by implacable hatred of “that fellow,” as she called him, poor Sir Thomas Overbury; and Prince Henry was sickening. But both their Majesties were as fond of indulging their taste for dissipation as they were of yielding to their strong prejudices. I find the Merry Wives of Windsor played on a Sunday night at Whitehall; and Tom Derry was probably present in October, 1611, when “The Sunday following, att Grinwidg,” before the Queen and the Prince was played ‘The Silver Aiedg,’ and the next night following, ‘Lucrecia.’ With jester, sports, and plays on Sunday as well as other nights, the Queen was not much the happier; and this may be accounted for,—she was the most amiable person possible when she was not put out; she never uttered an angry word except upon some provocation, yet often with little; she was seldom obstinate except in resolutely maintaining her own will, and, like Croaker in the Comedy, was very easily led whenever she had her own way. Tom Derry himself must have hardly earned all he obtained, from so gracious a mistress as Anne of Denmark. A subsequent page will show that one at least of her old and faithful servants could envy the condition of Derry the Jester.
James I. of England only continued a fashion which his grandfather, James V. of Scotland, adopted during the few years of his majority. We learn this incident from Dr. Irving, who informs us that it was the duty of the Scottish court fools, like those in other royal households, to amuse their patrons by their wit and humour, by bold and startling remarks on passing occurrences of importance, and by ludicrous representations of incidents and characters. In Scotland, too, as elsewhere, the jesters were compelled to take as rough jokes as they gave, and these were sometimes of the very rudest sort. They were of the same quality in England, where the King set the example of coarse jesting. An assertion which no one will require me to prove who remembers what James added to his laugh when he took leave of his hospitable entertainer, Fortescue, in the porch at Cornbury. Those who are curious to know, will find the gracious pleasantry detailed in Osborn.
One sample of the Scottish court fool, as narrated by Dr. Irving,—will perhaps suffice to give some notion of the wit,—or the want of it,—patronized in the North. The name of the jester was John Low, and this John was once rebuked by a courtier for not having unbonneted and bowed to a number of lords and fine gentlemen who had passed him. “I did not know they were lords,” said John; “by what token do you know a lord?” “Well,” said the courtier, “outwardly, at all events, by their dress; you see them decked in velvet, and with gold about their necks.” “Very good,” said John; “I’ll not forget to be civil to the first I meet,” And thereupon, a short time after, Low was seen bowing and scraping obsequiously to the mules in the court-yard, to the amazement of the King and his courtiers, “Why are you crying ‘good day,’ and making your leg to those beasts?” asked a Chamberlain. “Beasts!” exclaimed Low, in feigned surprise; “I thought they were lords! Look at their velvet coverings, and the gold trimmings about their necks. I was told these were outward tokens of noble lords and gallant gentlemen. What could a courteous fool do but bid them good day! Sure, I shall never learn the difference between a lord and a beast.”
Our James I. may have heard of, but he probably never saw, his grandfather’s fool, Jemmy Camber, “who, being but young, was for the King caught up.” He barely exceeded three feet in height; but at the age of forty years he measured above sis feet in girth, and “would never be but a St. Vincent’s turnip, thick and round.” He was smooth of face, fair of speech, but malicious in his acts. For his further portraiture, here it is limned by Armin:—
“His head was small, his hair long on the same;
One ear was bigger than the other, far;
His forehead full, his eyes shone like a flame,
His nose flat, and his beard small, yet grew square.
His lips but little, and his wit was less.
But wide of mouth, for truth, I must confess.
His middle thick. as I have said before;
Indifferent thighs and knees, but very short,
His legs be square, a foot long and no more;
Whose very presence made the King much sport.
And a pearl spoon he still wore in his cap,
To eat his meat he loved and got by hap.
A pretty little foot; but a big hand,
On which he ever wore rings rich and good.
Backward, well made as any in that land,
Though thick; and he did come of gentle blood.”
Of as gentle blood as Jamie was, he was “caught up” for the King’s sport. This fool Camber, with no wit of his own, yet gave rise to the well-known proverb, “Hit or miss.” King James, to cure the fool’s obesity, sent him to sea, under the illustrious guardianship of the Earl of Huntley, “at whose departure,” says Armin, “they discharged ordinance, as one that departed from the land with the King’s favour. Jamie, hearing the ordinance go off, would ask, ‘What do they now?’ ‘Marry!’ says the Earl, ‘they shoot at our enemies.’ ‘Oh!’ says Camber; ‘hit, I pray God!’ Again they discharge. ‘What do they now?’ quoth he. ‘Marry, now the enemy shoot at us.’ ‘Oh, miss, I pray God!’ says Jemmy Camber. So ever after it was a jest in the Scottish court, ‘Hit or miss, quoth Jemmy Camber.’... And long time after, this jest was in memory; yea I heard it myself, and some will talk of it at this day,” says Armin, whose book was published in 1608.
Camber was a natural fool who was cheated out of his French crowns, and sometimes of other things, by sharp-witted lasses. He prattled of the sun blowing cold and the wind shining hot; ran mock races with gigantic footmen, the King laying a thousand marks on the fool, and Lady Carmichael backing the flunkey; and he had extremely dirty tricks played upon him, which highly amused those august personages, but the telling of which would not tend to either profit or pleasure. There is something better worth narrating in the account of Camber’s death; which I borrow from Armin. “The King’s chamberlain bid him arise and come to the King, ‘I will not,’ quoth he, ‘I will go make my grave.’ See how things chanced. He spake truer than he was aware. Jemmy arose, made him ready, takes his horse, and rides to the churchyard in the high town, where he found the sexton, as the custom is there, making nine graves, three for men, three for women, and three for children; and whoso dies next, first come, first served.
“‘Lend me thy spade,’ says Jemmy; and with that digs a hole, which hole he bids the sexton make for his grave, and doth give him a French crown. The man, willing to please him (more for his gold than his pleasure), did so; and the fool gets on his horse, and rides to a gentleman of the town, and, on the sudden, within two hours after, he died; of whom the sexton telling, Jemmy was buried there indeed. Thus you see,” adds Robin Armin, moralizing, “fools have a guess at wit sometimes; and the wisest could have done no more, not so much. But this fat fool fills a lean, grave with his carcase; upon which grave the King caused a stone of marble to be put, on which the poet writ these lines in remembrance of him:—
“He that gar’d all men till jeare,
Jemy a Camber, he ligges here:
Pray for his soll, for he is geane,
And here a ligges beneath this steane.”
And now let us follow Motley to the English court of the Stuarts, observing by the way, that, in the words of Mr. Thoms, in a note to Mr. Collier’s edition of Armin’s ‘Nest of Ninnies,’ “the custom of keeping a fool appears to have prevailed in the Scotch as generally as in any other of the European courts, and, it may be presumed, was retained for a long time among the nobility; since among the curiosities shown at Glammis Castle, was, within these few years, the dress worn by the domestic fool belonging to the family.”