William Sommers
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William Sommers (d. June 15, 1560), court fool of Henry VIII, is said to have been brought to the king at Greenwich by Richard Fermor, about 1525.
He was soon in high favour with Henry, whose liberality to Sommers is attested by the accounts of the royal household. The jester possessed a shrewd wit, which he exercised even on Cardinal Wolsey. He is said to have warned his master of the wasteful methods of the exchequer and to have made himself the advocate of the poor.
This comes from the story that while walking around Greenwich Palace disccussing matters of State with King Henry, Will Sommers came up to Cardinal Wolseley and told him that people to whom he owned money were at the Palace gate. Wolsey did not want to appear flustered by this in front of the King nor rebuttle his company, hurriedly handed the jester £10 (the equivalent of £4000) from his belt and turned his attention back to the King. Upon Will Sommer's gleeful return, Wolseley pensively enquired if the tax collectors were satisfied. Sommers then told Wolsely how he had taken his money to the poor, the people whom Wolseley truly owned money to, who usually congregated at the Palace gates in the hope to see the King and gave them his money.
His portrait is shown in a painting of Henry VIII and his family at Hampton Court, and he again appears with Henry VIII in a psalter which belonged to the king and is now in the British Museum. He was probably the William Sommers whose death is recorded in the parish of St Leonards, Shoreditch, on the 15th of June 1560.
For his position in 16th- and 17th-century literature see T Nash, Pleesant Comedic called Summers last Will and Testament (pr. 1600); Samuel Rowlands, Good Newes and Bad Newes (1622); and a popular account, A Pleasant Historie of the Life and Death of William Sommers (reprinted 1794). See also John Doran, History of Court Fools (1858).
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
