Fool
In Search of Henry VIII's Closest Man
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
The first biography of Henry VIII’s court fool William Somer, a legendary entertainer and one of the most intriguing figures of the Tudor age
In some portraits of Henry VIII there appears another, striking figure—a gaunt and morose-looking man with a shaved head and, in one case, a monkey on his shoulder. This is William or "Will" Somer, the king’s fool, a celebrated wit who reportedly could raise Henry’s spirits and spent many hours with him, often alone. Was Somer an “artificial fool,” a cunning comic who could speak freely in front of the king, or a “natural fool,” someone with intellectual disabilities, like many other members of the profession? And what role did he play in the tumultuous and violent Tudor era? Fool is the first biography of Somer—and perhaps the first of a Renaissance fool.
After his death, Somer disappeared behind his legend, and historians struggled to separate myth from reality. Unearthing as many facts as possible, Peter K. Andersson pieces together the fullest picture yet of an enigmatic and unusual man with a very strange job. Somer’s story provides new insights into how fools lived and what exactly they did for a living, how monarchs and courtiers related to commoners and people with disabilities, and whether aspects of the Renaissance fool live on in the modern comedian. But most of all, we learn how a commoner without property or education managed to become the court’s chief mascot and a continuous presence at the center of Tudor power from the 1530s to the reign of Elizabeth I.
Looking beyond stereotypes of the man in motley, Fool reveals a little-known world, surprising and disturbing, when comedy was something crueler and more unpleasant than we like to think.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Andersson (Silent History) profiles in this diligent study 16th-century court jester William Somer, Henry VIII's favored "fool." Prone to "sleepiness" and possessing a penchant for unexpected quips, Somer eventually became a "mascot" of the court. Analyzing court records, letters, and other contemporaneous sources, Andersson suggests that Somer's "physical" comedy filled a niche in "the baiting environment of the court at its most frivolous and rowdy." Unable to fend for himself in verbal sparring matches, Somer would make a show of "giving in to pointless hitting or shaking tantrums." In a thorough discussion of whether Somer was, in the parlance of the time, a "natural" fool (with a cognitive disability) or an "artificial" fool, Andersson contends that the truth lies somewhere in between, writing that Somer's "distinguishing characteristic is an inclination to make gaffes, to speak too quickly, the tongue that runs away while the wit comes halting after." Andersson uncovers details that reveal how intimate and elevated Somer's position was at court, including his appearance in multiple Tudor family portraits and the surprisingly large button orders listed in his wardrobe accounts (paid for by the crown), which may indicate he often lost them, collected them, or pulled them off his garments in his fits of rage. The result is an illuminating look into Somer's role as a source of broad humor and stress relief in a tumultuous court ruled by a mercurial king.
