If it be true that the official fool was not restored with Monarchy, at the accession of Charles II., because the Puritan voice and the religious sentiment of the country generally, were against such officials and their foolery, foolery itself did not go out. See what solemn Evelyn says to it, under the date of January 1, 1661–2:--“1st January. I went to London, invited to the solemn foolery of the Prince de la Grange, at Lincoln’s Inn, where came the King, Duke, etc. It began with a grand masque, and a formal pleading before the mock princes, grandees, nobles, and knights of the Sun. He had his Lord Chancellor, Chamberlain, Treasurer, and other royal officers, gloriously clad and attended. It ended in a magnificent banquet. One Mr. Lort was the young spark who maintained the pageantry.” A little more than six years later, we meet with an entry in ‘Pepys’ Diary’ which seems to introduce us to an official fool, and which is to this effect:--“1667–8. Feb. 13. Mr. Brisband tells me, in discourse, that Tom Killigrew hath a fee out of the Wardrobe for cap and bells, under the title of the King’s Foole or Jester, and may revile or jeere anybody, the greatest person, without offence, by the privilege of his place.”--Pepys, vol. iv. p. 353. Oldys is quite as explicit. In one of his MS. notes to ‘Langbain’s Memoirs of Dramatic Authors,’ he says, under the head of Killigrew: “He was Master of the Revels, and the King’s jester, while Groom of the Bedchamber.” Various writers, when commenting on these passages, have suggested that Killigrew never held a patent of official fool, and that his actual appointment was to the office of Master of the Revels. According, however, to Chalmers, Tom Killigrew succeeded Herbert as Master of the Revels in 1673, and was followed therein, on his death, in 1682–3, by his brother Charles. The office in question was first instituted in 1546, the last year of Henry VIII. (with a salary of £10 per annum), and continued till 1725, when the Lord Chamberlain was empowered to have rule and dominion over the court and public entertainments; and the Master of the Revels being entirely ignored in a new Act of Parliament, was snuffed out, and never heard of again.