From the young King Edward V., no jester had opportunity to draw a smile, except at the banquet at Hornsey Park, the only festival which young Edward held between his accession and his death. His uncle Richard lacked leisure to be “i’ the vein” for these follies; but his wife, Lady Anne, and the young Princess Elizabeth (afterwards Queen of Henry VII.) kept, for a brief season, such joyous court at Greenwich, such minstreling, and dancing, and witnessing or playing jests, that the oppressed and impoverished people looked on grimly, and murmured rather above their breath. Henry VII., again, was too mean or too wise to lavish money on any mere court gauds, though he was not ungenerous in other respects. He was, at all events, the first English King who lived within his income; and he was better pleased by lending money to fit out the first European expedition that ever reached the American continent than he could have been by any jest, good, bad, or indifferent, that he might have to pay for. Nevertheless, in the days of the Tudors, court fools abounded, and indeed, till the fall of the monarchy under the Stuarts, the nest of ninnies was filled with a chirruping brood. Among these was Patch, who is said to have been jester to Henry VIII. By some, this name is supposed to stand for “fool” generally. Others, with better reason, believe that Patch was the cant-name of Williams and Saxton, fools of Cardinal Wolsey. However this may be, we may be sure that a jester alone could have dared to make such a King as Henry VIII. look ridiculous, as a fool called by this name, “Patch,” is said to have done when he besought the King to grant him a warrant authorizing him to exact an egg from every husband who had serious reasons to be dissatisfied with the conduct of his wife. The King thought it a fair joke, and the warrant being drawn up in sportiveness, he signed the document in full gaiety of spirit. The ink was scarcely dry when the jester, bowing with mock gravity, demanded the first egg from the King. “Your Grace,” said he, “belongs to the class of husbands on whom I am entitled to make levy.” The joke was not very well relished, and the warrant was cancelled. John Heywood, himself a “King’s Jester” and a poet, has made Cardinal Wolsey’s fool the subject of an epigram, which serves, with its title, to show both the real and the nick-name of the merry retainer. The former, according to Heywood, was Sexton and not _Saxton_. The epigram is entitled, ‘A Saying of Patch, my Lord Cardinal’s Fool,’ and runs thus:-- Master Sexton, a person of unknowen wit, As he at my Lord Cardinal’s board did sit, Greedily caught at a goblet of wine. “Drink none!” said my lord, “for that sore leg of thine.” “I warrant, your Grace,” quoth Sexton, “I provide For my leg; for I drinke on the tother side.”