Penn stood before him with his hat on. The King took off his. "Friend Charles," said Penn, "why dost thou not keep on thy hat?" "'Tis the custom of this place," the King replied, in his usual strain of pleasantry, "that never above one person should be covered at a time." Like all bright, witty men. King Charles did not mind occasionally having the joke against him. And he harbored no resentment, provided there was wit in the joke. On one occasion he called Lord Chancellor Shaftsbury in his own hearing, "the greatest rogue in England"; to which the Chancellor replied, "Of a subject, sir, perhaps I am." At another time the Earl of Dorset had come to the Court on Queen Elizabeth's birthday, long kept in London as a holiday. The King, forgetting the day, asked, "What are the bells rung for?" The answer given, the King asked further: "How came it to pass that her birthday is still kept, while those of my father and grandfather are no more thought of than William the Conqueror's." "Because," the candid and witty peer replied, " She, being a woman, chose men for her counsellors, and men, when they reign, usually choose women." On another occasion the Duke of Buckingham made an eloquent speech in which he eulogized the King, and among other things referred to him as "the father of his people." Someone about the Court—perhaps Rochester, for it sounds like him—hearing this, remarked, "Yes, or a good many of them." King Charles was very fond of dogs; one beautiful breed still bearing his name. Upon the King's
