April Fool's Day thus developed into an international funfest, so to speak, with different nationalities specializing in their own brand of humor at the expense of their friends and families.
Donne's father died suddenly in 1576, and left the three children to be raised by their mother, Elizabeth, the daughter of John Heywood, epigrammatist, and a relative of Sir Thomas More.
Both emperors pronounced panegyrics for their father from the Rostra, and they appointed a flamen for him chosen from their own kinsmen and a college of Aurelian priests55 from their closest friends.