What Pity it is therefore, so noble an Order should be lost, or at least neglected. We have had no Account of the real Knights of the Gridiron, since they appeared under the fictitious Name of the Kit-Kat Club: In their Possession was the very Gridiron of Gold worn by Sir John himself; which Identical Gridiron dignified the Breast
of the most ingenious Mr. Richard Estcourt that excellent Physician and Comedian, who was President of that Noble Society.
Quis talia fando temperet à Lachrymis?
What is become of the Gridiron, or of the Remains of that excellent Body of Men, Time will, I hope, discover. The World, I believe, must for such Discoveries be obliged to my very good Friend J—— T—— Esq; who had the Honour to be Door-keeper to that Honourable Assembly.
But to return to Sir John: The more his Wit engaged the King, the more his Grandeur alarm’d his Enemies, who encreas’d with his Honours. Not but the Courtiers caress’d him to a Man, as the first who had brought Dumpling-eating to Perfection. King John himself lov’d him entirely; being of Cesar’s Mind, that is, he had a natural Antipathy against Meagre, Herring-gutted Wretches; he lov’d only Fat-headed Men, and such who slept o’ Nights; and of such was his whole Court compos’d. Now it was Sir John’s Method, every Sunday Morning, to give the Courtiers a Breakfast, which Breakfast was every Man his Dumpling and Cup of Wine; for you must know, he
was Yeoman of the Wine-Cellar at the same time.
This was a great Eye-sore and Heart-burning to some Lubberly Abbots who loung’d about the Court; they took it in great Dudgeon they were not Invited, and stuck so close to his Skirts, that they never rested ’till they Outed him. They told the King, who was naturally very Hasty, that Sir John made-away with his Wine, and feasted his Paramours at his Expence; and not only so, but that they were forming a Design against his Life, which they in Conscience ought to discover: That Sir John was not only an Heretic, but an Heathen; nay worse, they fear’d he was a Witch, and that he had bewitcht His Majesty into that unaccountable Fondness for a Pudding-Maker. They assur’d the King, That on a Sunday Morning, instead of being at Mattins, he and his Trigrimates got together Hum-jum, all snug, and perform’d many Hellish and Diabolical Ceremonies. In short, they made the King believe that the Moon was made of Green-Cheese: And to shew how the Innocent may be Bely’d, and the best Intentions misrepresented, they told the King, That He and his Associates offer’d Sacrifices to Ceres: When, alas, it was only the Dumplings they eat.
The Butter which was melted and pour’d over them, these vile Miscreants call’d Libations: And the friendly Compotations of our Dumpling-eaters, were call’d Bacchanalian Rites. Two or three among ’em being sweet-tooth’d, wou’d strew a little Sugar over their Dumplings; this was represented as an Heathenish Offering. In short, not one Action of theirs, but what these Rascally Abbots made Criminal, and never let the King alone ’till poor Sir John was Discarded. Not but the King did it with the greatest Reluctance; but they had made it a Religious Concern, and he cou’d not get off on’t.
But mark the Consequence: The King never enjoy’d himself after, nor was it long before he was poison’d by a Monk at Swineshead Abbey. Then too late he saw his Error; then he lamented the Loss of Sir John; and in his latest Moments wou’d cry out, Oh! that I had never parted from my dear Jack Pudding! Wou’d I had never left off Pudding and Dumpling! I then had never been thus basely Poison’d! never thus treacherously sent out of the World!——Thus did this good King lament: But, alas, to no Purpose, the Priest had given him his Bane, and Complaints were ineffectual.
Sir John, in the mean time, had retir’d into Norfolk, where his diffusive Knowledge extended it self for the Good of the County in general; and from that very Cause Norfolk has ever since been so famous for Dumplings. He lamented the King’s Death to his very last; and was so cautious of being poison’d by the Priests, that he never touch’d a Wafer to the Day of his Death; And had it not been that some of the less-designing part of the Clergy were his intimate Friends, and eat daily of his Dumplings, he had doubtless been Made-away with; but they stood in the Gap for him, for the sake of his Dumplings, knowing that when Sir John was gone, they should never have the like again.