court life
The strange theater of palaces, protocol, and people who ignored both.
The Man Who Built a Robot Band
He invented the crankshaft to water a garden, then spent the rest of his career building a programmable robot drummer for palace drinking parties.
The Man Who Shook the King's Hand
He kept pigs as hunting dogs, trained otters to fish, and when the King of England finally summoned him to court, he had a scheduling conflict.