William Sommers

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19th century engraving of Will Sommers
19th century engraving of Will Sommers

William Sommers or Somers (d. June 15, 1560) was the most well-known court jester of Henry VIII of England[1].

Born in Shropshire, Sommers came to the attention of Richard Fermor, a merchant of the staple at Calais, who brought him to Greenwich in 1525 to present to the king. Impressed by Sommers' sense of humour, Henry promptly offered him a place at court. He was soon in high favour with the king, whose liberality to him is attested by the accounts of the royal household. Sommers remained in the king's service for the rest of Henry's life; in the king's later years, when he was troubled by a painful leg condition, it was said that only Sommers could lift his spirits.[2] The jester was also a man of integrity and discretion; Thomas Cromwell appreciated that he sometimes drew the king's attention to extravagance and waste within the royal household by means of a joke. After Henry's death, Sommers remained at court, eventually retiring in the reign of Elizabeth I. He was probably the William Sommers whose death is recorded in the parish of St Leonards, Shoreditch, on June 15, 1560.

Court jesters were permitted familiarities without regard for deference, and Sommers possessed a shrewd wit, which he exercised even on Cardinal Wolsey. However, he did occasionally overstep the mark. In 1535, the king threatened to kill Sommers with his own hand, after Sir Nicholas Carew dared him to call Queen Anne "a ribald" and the Princess Elizabeth "a bastard"[3].

Sommers is believed to be portrayed in a painting of Henry VIII and family at the Palace of Whitehall, completed around 1544-5 by an unknown artist[4]. He also appears with Henry VIII in a psalter which belonged to the king and is now in the British Museum. A new picture in which he appears was discovered in 2008 at Boughton House,Northamptonshire.[5].

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Weir, Henry VIII, p. 251.
  2. ^ Weir, Henry VIII, p. 401.
  3. ^ Weir, Henry VIII, p. 365.
  4. ^ Weir, Henry VIII, p. 482.
  5. ^ William Sommers made a number of appearances in 16th and 17th century drama and literature: for example, Thomas Nashe's Pleesant Comedie called Summers last Will and Testament (play first performed in 1592, published in 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's History of Court Fools (1858)<ref>''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Eleventh Edition entry on William Sommers.</li></ol></ref>

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