“Be it known to ye, O grave and wise men all, That I, Tom Fool, am sheriff of the Hall. I mean the Hall of Haigh, where I command What neither I nor you do understand. My under-sheriff is Ralph Wayte, you know; As wise as I am, and as witty too. Of Egremond I have borough-serjeant been; Of Wiggan, bailiff too, as may be seen By my white staff of office in my hand, Being carried straight as the badge of my command. A low high-constable, too, was once my calling, Which I enjoy’d under King Henry Rawling. And when the Fates a new sheriff send, I’m under-sheriff prick’d, world without end. He who doth question my authority May see the seal and patent here lie by. The dish with lugs [_ears_] which I do carry here Shows all my living is in good strong beer. If scurvy lads to me abuses do, I’ll call ’em scurvy rogues, and rascals too. Fair Dolly Copeland in my cap is placed; Monstrous fair is she, and as good as all the rest. Honest Nick Pennington, honest Tom Turner, both Will bury me when I this world go forth. But let me not be carried o’er the brigg, Lest, falling, I in Duggas river ligg. Nor let my body by old Charnorth lie, But by Will Caddy,--for he’ll lie quietly. And when I’m buried, then my friends may drink; But each man pay for himself,--that’s best I think. This is my will; and this I know will be Perform’d by them, as they have promised me.” This rhapsodic testament has “Thomas Skelton X his mark” affixed to it, serving to show (as Armstrong’s letter from Madrid does) that this class of jester, if possessed of wit, was not possessed of learning. The lines also intimate that the “fool of Muncaster Castle” was, like most of his profession, fond of drinking. The subscription of his mark is attested by three witnesses; and the rhymed joke had all the forms of a serious document. After the gravity enforced by the Commonwealth, the silencing of the stage, the suppression of joking, and the introduction of long sermons and loud psalms, there was a sudden reaction, even before the graceless King had got what was facetiously called “his own again.” Monk, who was in some doubt, even as he marched through Gray’s Inn Lane into London, whether he should join hands with the solemn precisians or the gay cavaliers, no sooner felt the direction of the popular wind, than he gave license to jollity. The nearest approach that could be made to the old professional fool, started on to the stage as “The Citizen and Soldier,” “Country Tom and City Dick,” and other “pretty antics,” played in April 1660, before “His Excellency,” when, with the Council of State, he dined at one of the city halls. He dined at nine of them; and after dinner on each occasion, besides satirical plays, were “dancing and singing, many shapes and ghosts, and the like; and all to please his Excellency, the Lord General.”