It is difficult to conclude that the official fool was altogether absent from court in these days, when we remember an incident connected with Henry’s widow, Katherine of Valois. There is some reason to believe that Owen Tudor, when he danced awkwardly before Katherine, and ended by falling into her lap, only played one of those tricks which, by exciting laughter, acquired favour for the performer. The widow of Henry V. resolved to marry the handsome clown; but a deputation was sent to Anglesea to report on the condition of the lady-mother of Owen, and the style of her living. This was a deputation of lords; but they appear to have had the court fool with them, if we may judge from the report they rendered on their return. Such an official was not an uncommon appendage to legations of any sort, and I think he could not have been lacking here. The English envoys found the mother of Owen sitting on a bank in a field, surrounded by her perpendicularly-horned goats, and eating a fried herring, with her knees for a table. What report could be made to a Queen-Dowager resolved upon marrying this same lady’s son? The court wit hit upon one which exactly met the contingency; and when the deputation returned to London, their report was, “that they had found the lady seated in state, surrounded by her javelin men, in a spacious palace, and eating her repast from a table of such great value, that she would not take hundreds of pounds for it!” In the next reign, that of Henry VI., we find that monarch opening a commission, in 1454, for procuring minstrels for his service, by _force_. A press-gang, as it were, went forth and carried off any likely fellow that suited them, with a good voice, just as the gentleman in the Trench Opera carries off the “Postillon de Longjumeau.” The levy was made _de ministraliis propter solatium Regis providendis_,--for procuring minstrels, even by force, for the solace or entertainment of the King. The commission enjoins that these shall not only be skilled in their art, as minstrels, but also handsome and elegantly shaped. A reference to the matter will be found in the fourth volume of Warton’s ‘History of English Poetry;’ the author of which, perplexed with the different meanings attached to the word _minstrel_, would have been inclined to have taken the persons here designated, as singers only, or singers for the Royal Chapel exclusively, but for the directions as to their good looks and comely shapes. These directions seem to him to point to jesters, “tumblers or posture-masters.” It is certain that about a century later, in the reign of Edward VI., it was lawful, when the Chapel Royal lacked young choristers, to carry off duly qualified children from their homes, wherever they might be found.