“For a pair of silk and silver garters, and roses and gloves suitable for Muckle John, 110s.
“For a hat covered with scarlet, and a band suitable; and for two rich feathers, one red, the other white, for Muckle John, 50s.
“Stags’-leather gloves, fringed with gold and silver.
“A hat-band for Muckle John.
“One pair of perfumed gloves, lined with sables, 5s.”
At the court at which Armstrong and Muckle John practised their vocation, there were other personages of some notoriety, who exercised their talents for the mirth or admiration of their royal patron. While the above-named jesters, for instance, were more particularly attached to the King, little Jeffrey Hudson, the dwarf, exercised a calling somewhat similar in the household of Henrietta Maria. Jeffrey did this both in England and in France. This little fellow, who, when he entered his teens, was scarcely more than a foot and a half in height, and who did not ultimately grow much over three feet, was in his boyhood protected by the Duke of Buckingham. At a banquet given by the Duke in honour of the Queen, a pie was placed upon the table, the crust of which being raised, the dwarf stepped forth and bowed to Henrietta Maria, to whom he was presented by Buckingham. This mode of presentation was not at all original. It was a common court jest, when a dwarf was in question. Sometimes the hapless little wretch was presented in a gilt cage, as a Milan dwarf was to Francis I. Zeiller, in one of his letters, mentions a dwarf in the household of Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, in the year 1568. At a grand festival in honour of Duke William of Bavaria and the Princess Renata of Lorraine, this dwarf was served up at table, in a pie. When the crust was raised, he leaped out, attired in panoply of gilt, and grasping a banner in his hand, which he waved as he marched round the table, and made merry compliments to the august and delighted guests. Weber, in his ‘Verändertes Russland,’ notices a similar custom as prevailing at the Court of Russia, and continuing as late as the beginning of the last century. No more acceptable joke could be got up for the amusement of the Czars by their favourite nobles. A couple of pies, from which a male and female dwarf issued to dance a minuet, procured for the giver of the entertainment the utmost applause from the sovereign.
The custom, then, was known on the Continent both before and after the period of Jeffrey Hudson. That the position of the latter in the household of his royal mistress was not unlike that of a jester, may be gathered from various sources. Davenant says that he was made to fight with a turkey-cock, and Walter Scott notices how he was compelled to endure the teazing of the domestics and courtiers, and the many squabbles he had with the King’s gigantic porter.
But where Jeffrey Hudson is best seen in his character of jester to Henrietta Maria, is in the despatches written in 1636, by Panzani and Corneo, agents of the Romish Church, in London, and addressed to Cardinal Mazarin. These despatches are quoted by Mrs. Everett Green, in her ‘Letters of Henrietta Maria,’ and it is there I find a notice of our little friend, Jeffrey. In the despatch in which mention is made of Hudson, the writer, Corneo, describes an interview he had with the Queen at Holmby Palace, near Northampton. He narrates the compliments exchanged by the principal personages, and proceeds to tell in much detail, how he presented to Henrietta Maria, as a Papal gift, a shrine for relics, and how gratefully it was received. Corneo then says, “that he exhibited to her Majesty a portrait of St. Catherine, with an intimation that as soon as he had procured a frame for it, he would offer it for the Queen’s acceptance.” The Queen was too impatient to wait, and therefore took the picture as it was, and had it fastened to the curtains of her bed. Nor was this all. On the following day there were more gifts for presentation, and at this ceremony we find Jeffrey in waiting, and exercising his licensed vocation. “I presented to her Majesty,” says the agent, “your Eminence’s rosary of olive wood, with another of agate, and one of buffalo horn, curiously worked with cameo medallions. I also took others to the Catholic ladies and maidens, which were distributed by Father Philip, in her Majesty’s presence; and the Queen’s dwarf, who is less and better made than that of Criqui, being present, when all was nearly finished, began to call out, “Madam, show the father that I also am a Catholic,” with a manner and gesture that made all laugh. This was evidently the manner and gesture of a court buffoon; and what would have been resented from a noble as an impertinence, was laughed at, in the Queen’s dwarf, as a good joke.
Eight years subsequently to the above scene, when Jeffrey (after cleverly aiding the Queen’s escape from Exeter) was with Henrietta Maria, in France, occurred his remarkable duel with Will Croft, brother of the Queen’s favourite, and master of the horse. Will Croft had bantered the valiant little man, who held a commission as a cavalry captain; and Jeffrey not only challenged him, but fought Will on horseback, in the park at Nevers. Croft had brought with him only a squirt, which he discharged at the enraged dwarf; but Hudson, “running his horse in full career, shot his antagonist in the head, and left him dead on the spot.” This affair caused some sensation in the French court, and it produced from Henrietta Maria a very characteristic note to Mazarin, whom she honours with a complimentary title. “Cousin,” she writes from Nevers, in October, 1644, “I wrote to the Queen, my sister, about a misfortune which has happened to my house, of Geoffrey, who has killed Croft’s brother. I have written the whole affair to the commander, in order that you may hear of it. What I wish is, that as they are both English, and my servants, the Queen, my sister, will give me authority to dispose of them as I please, in dispensing either justice or favour, which I was unwilling to do without writing to you, and asking you to assist me therein, as I shall always do in all that concerns me, since I profess to be, as I am, Cousin, your very affectionate cousin, Henrietta Maria, R.”
The Queen’s letter, as given by Mrs. Green, differs from that given by Miss Strickland in this lady’s life of Henrietta Maria. With regard to the consequences of the affair noticed in it, there only remains to be said, that poor Jeffrey lost his post in the Queen’s household. He recovered some favour at the court of Charles II.; but he fell under suspicion of treason, and the dwarf, who had been the faithful messenger of his patroness, had served her well in serious affairs of business, and made her and her court laugh by his small jests, ultimately died, a prisoner, in the Gate House, at Westminster.