And, as Dr. Doran tells us, the qualifications for a Court fool were extraordinary, as may be gathered from the following incident. A cowherd, Conrad Pocher, was once sent afield with a sickly boy to attend him, when, out of compassion, he hung him to the branch of a tree. He was tried for murder, but defended himself with such humour--arguing that he had greatly helped the little cow-boy--that Philip the Upright, Elector Palatine, made him official jester. Another cowherd who gained a similar distinction was Clause Hintze, Court fool to Duke John Frederick of Stettin, who so gained his patron’s favour as to be made by him lord of the village of Butterdorf. One of his successors was Hans Miesko, a wretched imbecile, but who was specially honoured at his death by a funeral sermon being preached over him. And among those who were fools in a non-professional capacity may be mentioned the celebrated Baron von Gundling at the Court of Frederick William I., and also David Fassman, who, for losing a key entrusted to him by Frederick, was condemned to carry a heavy wooden one an ell long round his neck for several days. Incidents of this kind, as Dr. Doran observes, makes it difficult to decide which was the greater fool, it being “inconceivable that reasonable creatures should be guilty of the absurd follies attributed to them.” One day Frederick II. commissioned Baron von Poelnitz to procure a pair of turkeys. These he sent with the message, “Here are the turkeys, sire.” Annoyed at the style of note, Frederick ordered the leanest ox that could be found to be decked ridiculously with flowers, and the horns to be gilded, after which the animal was tied up in front of the Baron’s house, with this inscription: “Here is the ox, Poelnitz.” Many of the French kings had their fools, and in the Court accounts for 1404 we find an entry of forty-seven pairs of shoes for Hancelin Coc, fool of Charles VI. And when the fleet of Philip was destroyed by that of Edward III., no one except a Court fool had the courage to tell the King. Going into the royal chamber, he kept muttering “Those cowardly Englishmen! The chicken-hearted Britons!” “How so, cousin?” asked Philip, “how so?” “Why, because they have not courage enough to jump into the sea like your French sailors, who went headlong over from their ships, leaving those to the enemy, who did not care to follow them!”--by which artful means the King learnt his defeat. Louis XI. took into his service the fool of his deceased brother Charles, Duke de Guyenne; and amongst the many amusing anecdotes told of the famous “Le Glorieux,” fool to Charles the Bold, who used to compare himself with Hannibal, it is related how, after the overthrow at Granson, as the two were riding in search of safety, Le Glorieux exclaimed to Charles, “This is the prettiest way of being like Hannibal that I ever saw.”