court scholars would be brought in to give expert advice on some topic, and a discussion would follow. Often, the excessive alcohol consumption meant that these debates ended in physical fights for the amusement of College members. At these sessions Gundling was particularly singled out for humiliation. In February 1714, he was required to deliver a lecture to assembled guests offering arguments for and against the existence of ghosts, while being made to drink heavily. After his lecture he was escorted by two Grenadier Guards back to his room, where he screamed with terror at the sight of a figure moving around covered in a sheet. On another occasion, while he was drunk, his official Chamberlain's key was cut off his coat, and, in punishment for 'losing' it, he was made to wear a large wooden Chamberlain's key a yard long around his neck; He was invited to dinner and conveyed in a sedan chair from which the bottom fell out while it was moving, forcing him to run to keep up with the bearers, who paid no heed to his cries. A monkey, dressed as Gundling, was introduced to him as his own son, and he was compelled to embrace and kiss it. One night, in the middle of winter, when he was making his way home over the castle drawbridge, he was seized by four burly Grenadier Guards and dropped repeatedly onto the frozen moat below until his weight broke the ice, and he was ridiculed from above as he struggled in agony. Then the king left two young bears in his bedroom to terrify him. He frequently returned home to find his doorway bricked up, and on occasion the quiet of his study was shattered with firecrackers. In 1716 Gundling sought to escape his misery by fleeing to his brother Nicholas Jerome Gundlingius, professor and scholar in Halle, but he was brought back. Unauthorized departure from court was considered to be desertion. Some three years after his attempted flight, Gundling underwent one of the cruellest jokes ever played on him. A man named David Fassman was his rival at court, and, after his death, was to take over many of his offices. Fassman had composed a vicious satire on Gundling, called 'The Learned Fool', which the king commanded him to present to the Tobacco Cabinet with Gundling present. Incensed by what he was hearing, Gundling seized a