Guitar-playing became a perfect mania among the fine ladies and gentlemen at Court, ‘the King’s relish for that instrument,’ says De Grammont, ‘helping to bring it into vogue, and the guitar (whether for show or use) was now as necessary an appendage to a lady’s toilet-table as her rouge or patch-box. In fact, there was a universal strumming of the whole guitarrery at Court.’ Lord Arran, a younger son of the Duke of Ormonde, and his sister were amongst the greatest proficients; indeed, Lady Chesterfield was as much admired for her musical talent as for her undoubted beauty, and it was whispered her lord was very jealous of the Duke of York’s evident appreciation of both these attractions. Tom Killigrew’s popularity with the King increased daily, and there was a report that his Majesty intended to revive the disused office of Court Jester in the person of his favourite. We believe such an officer had been attached to his father’s household, but the post could only have been nominal. An old writer thus describes the duties of a Court Jester, ‘A witty and jocose person kept by princes, to inform them of their faults, and those of other people.’ We scarcely give Charles the Second credit for such a motive in his election. Pepys alludes to the circumstance in these words, ‘Tom Killigrew has a fee out of the Wardrobe for Cap and Bells as King’s Jester, and may tease and rule anybody, the greatest person, without offence, in privilege of his place.’ Of this privilege Tom took advantage, sometimes in a good cause, for with all their faults and failings, both he and his kindred spirit, Nell Gwynne, regretted the bad odour into which Charles had fallen through his neglect of public affairs, and Nell often admonished her royal lover on the subject. One day the two friends hatched a small plot. Says Nelly, ‘I have been just listening to the complaints of one of the Court Lords, of Charles’s neglect of all duty, and how that he has quite forgotten the existence of such a thing as a Cabinet Council, upon which I bet his Lordship £100 that the King should attend the very next. He sneered, but accepted the wager.’ Now we do not know if Nelly promised her accomplice to go halves, but we do know that that evening, when the King was in Madam Gwynne’s apartments, the door flew open, and in burst Tom, disguised as a pilgrim. The King swore at him, and asked if he had not heard the royal command that he should not be disturbed. ‘Oh yes, sire,’ was the reply, ‘but I was obliged to come and take leave of your Majesty before my departure.’
‘Why, where the —— are you going, and what does this absurd masquerading mean?’
‘I am starting this very moment for hell.’
‘Already,’ sneered the King, ‘and on what errand?’
‘To beg and pray of the devil to lend me Oliver Cromwell, if for ever so short a time, to attend to the affairs of the country, as his successor spends all his time in pleasure.’
The Jester was forgiven, and Nelly won her wager.
Another time Charles taxed his fool with telling everybody that the King was suffering from torturing pains in the nose, and asked the meaning of such a senseless report. ‘I crave your Majesty’s pardon,’ says Tom, ‘I knew you had been led by the nose for so many years, that I felt sure it must have become tender and painful.’
But the Jester occasionally carried the jest too far; there was a play called ‘The Silent Woman,’ given in London about this time, wherein appeared the character of Tom Otter, a henpecked husband, a reputation which the Duke of York enjoyed at Court. One night Charles said, ‘I will go no more abroad with Tom Otter and his wife.’ Now the courtiers well knew that when the King made any slighting allusion to his brother, they were expected to be tickled, so there was a general roar. The Jester alone looked solemn. ‘I wonder,’ said he, ‘which is best, to play Tom Otter to your wife or to your mistress?’—a sally which made Charles very angry, for he felt the reference was made to Lady Castlemaine, of whom the whole world knew he stood greatly in awe.
Another evening Tom made a comic onslaught on Lord Rochester, and that nobleman, actuated perhaps by jalousie de métier, was so enraged that he dealt the Jester a swinging box on the ear, unmindful of the royal presence, and threw the whole Court circle into confusion.
Death alone could put an end to poor Tom’s fooling. He died at his post at Whitehall in 1682-3, and then ‘where were his gibes, his gambols, his flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table in a roar? Alas! poor Yorick.’