Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 02.djvu/101

 Armstrong ARMSTRONG, ARCHIBALD (d. 1672), jester at the courts of James I and Charles I, commonly called, was born of Scotch parents either at Arthuret in Cumberland (, Magna Britannia, iv. 13) or at Langholm in Roxburghshire (, Biographia Scotica). After gaining a widespread reputation, according to a well-known tradition, as a dexterous sheep-stealer in the neighbourhood of Eskdale (Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, iii. 479), he was attached at an early age to the household of James VI of Scotland. On his accession to the English throne, Armstrong accompanied the king, and, during the first years of his reign in England, he took a regular part in the 'fooleries' which the master of the revels prepared each evening for James's amusement, but the performances recorded of him consisted mainly of the roughest horseplay (, Court of King James, p. 92). The king, however, evinced a strong attachment for Armstrong, who was characteristically Scotch, and, making him his official court jester, gave him a permanent place among his personal attendants.

Armstrong rapidly took advantage of the influence he acquired at the English court to treat his royal master and the noblemen in his service with the utmost freedom and familiarity, and he was repeatedly the cause of petty imbroglios. The story is told that on one occasion before 1612, when the king was staying with a large company at Newmarket, Armstrong raised a childish quarrel between James and his eldest son, Henry, by ascribing to the prince a greater popularity than his father commanded in the country, and the prince's friends revenged themselves upon the fool's impudent officiousness by tossing him 'every night they could meet him in a blanket like a dog.' Sir Henry Wotton describes an elaborate contest 'at tilt, torny, and on foot,' that took place in London in 1613 'before their Maiesties,' between 'Archy and a famous knight called Sir Thomas Persons,' whom the fool had insulted (Reliquiæ Wottonianæ, ed. 1685, p. 406). On another occasion (9 April 1616) Armstrong addressed a boldly familiar letter to the Earl of Cumberland, lord lieutenant of several northern counties, peremptorily demanding a vacant office for 'my cozen, John Woollsen' (Dartmouth MSS., Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ii. 19a). Similarly, in September 1619, when the king was being meanly entertained by the Earl of Northampton, who had recently been promoted in the peerage, Armstrong openly called James's attention to the small account the earl 'made of him' now that 'he had got what he wanted.' But in spite of his unruly speeches, the king treated Archie with increasing favour, and he not only gained great social distinction, but amassed a large fortune. On 16 May 1611 he was granted a pension of two shillings a day during pleasure, which a month later was re-granted for life, and almost every year James presented him with an elaborate uniform. On 20 Aug. 1618 a patent for making tobacco-pipes was secured to him, and rich presents were frequently made him by the king's friends and suitors. In May 1617, when James was hunting near Aberdeen, he was admitted, with other royal attendants, to the freedom of the city, and was given 'one Portugall ducat' (Keith-Murray MSS., Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iii. 409), and the boroughs of Coventry and Nottingham honoured him with gifts of apparel and money when he was visiting those towns in attendance on the king ( Progresses of James I, iii. 430-1, 711). The important place that Armstrong held in court society at the time is further attested by John Taylor, the water poet, who dedicated, in 1021, his 'Praise, Antiquity, and Commodity of Beggary,' to 'the bright eye-dazeling mirrour of mirth, adelantado of alacrity, the pump of pastime, spout of sport, and regent of ridiculous confabulations, Archibald Armestrong, alias the court Archy.' The dedicatory epistle speaks in no complimentary terms of Armstrong's avarice and of his nimbleness of tongue, which makes 'other men's money runne into your purse;' it is, therefore, significant that in the collected edition of Taylor's poems, published in 1630, the epistle was suppressed (, Prefaces, Dedications, Epistles, selected from Early English Books, 1874).

In 1623 Armstrong reached the zenith of his public career. Although he condemned the Spanish match with his customary directness of speech (, Hist, of Puritans, ii. 122), he was included at his own desire in the retinue of Prince Charles and Buckingham on their famous visit to Spain. An 'extraordinarie rich coate' for Archie holds an important place in the wardrobe accounts of the expedition (Denbigh MSS., Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. vii. 2246), and just before setting out he created much consternation among 'the privy-chamber gentlemen,' who complained bitterly of the favours bestowed on him, by asking permission to take a servant to wait upon him. While in Spain, Armstrong behaved with unprecedented arrogance. He soon ingratiated himself with the royal family at Madrid, and in a letter to James I, dated 28 April 1623, he wrote that the King of Spain received him in audience when neither 'men of your own nor your son's men can come