WILLIAM

See also:

• WILLIAM SOMMERS (d. 156o)

SOMMERS (d. 156o)  , 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 . 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 Leonard's, Shoreditch, on the 15th of June 156o . For his position in 16th- and 17th-century literature see T . Nash, Pleasant Comedic called Summers' last Will and Testament (pr . 1600) ; S . 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) .