Will Somers

Will Somers was the court fool of Henry VIII. He appears in household records and later cultural memory as a licensed entertainer who could use humour within the dangerous environment of the Tudor court.

Somers served Henry VIII for many years and also remained associated with the royal household under Edward VI and Mary I. Contemporary records and later portraits made him one of the best documented court fools of Tudor England, although many anecdotes about his freedom of speech are later embellishments.

Margaret George’s The Autobiography of Henry VIII gives Will Somers a distinctive role as the annotator who punctures Henry VIII’s self-justifying memoir with irreverent corrections. Jeri Westerson then makes the historical jester a detective: in Courting Dragons his access to Henry and court gossip helps him investigate murder and blackmail during the king’s Great Matter; Devil's Gambit draws him into another killing during the Anne of Cleves marriage crisis; and Rebellious Grace connects a murdered royal servant with the tensions surrounding the Pilgrimage of Grace. In The Twilight Queen, Anne Boleyn summons Will after a corpse is found in her chamber, turning the licensed fool’s freedom of movement through the palace into an investigative advantage as the queen’s position collapses.