Episode 128 of the Renaissance English History Podcast is on Tudor Fools. The people who made the court laugh, and spoke truth to power.
Book Recommendations
Fools Are Everywhere: The Court Jester Around the World
by Beatrice K. Otto
Journal Article
Natural fools and the historiography of Renaissance folly
Paromita Chakravarti Renaissance Studies Vol. 25, No. 2 (APRIL 2011),
pp. 208-227
Published by: Wiley
The History of Court Fools
By John Doran
All the King’s Fools
By Suzannah Lipscomb
The King’s Fools: Disability in the Tudor Court
Playing the Fool: Tudor Jesters
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Transcript of Tudor Fools
“Chroniclers of folly, both traditional and iconoclastic, agree on the momentousness of the fool’s appearance in Europe, on the cusp between collapsing medieval values, and an emergent Renaissance Ethos, as a spokesperson and an icon of the new age, identified with its defining philosophical movement, humanism.”
– Natural Fools and the Historiography of Renaissance Folly
Hello and welcome to the Renaissance English History Podcast, a part of the Agora Podcast Network. I’m your host, Heather Teysko, and I’m a storyteller who makes history accessible because I believe it’s a pathway to understanding who we are, our place in the universe, and being more deeply in touch with our own humanity.
This is Episode 128, and it’s about court fools during the Tudor and early Stuart period.
Before we get started, I want to remind you about Tudorcon and specifically the Tudorcon Digital Ticket. We’re about two months away from the world’s first-ever Tudorcon. I can’t wait to hang out with you, and 100 of our new best Tudor friends in Lancaster PA on a gorgeous weekend in October to learn from Tudor experts, see a musical, hang out, and dance to period music, and more. Englandcast.com/tudorcon2019 for more info.
But if you can’t come in person, we have a Digital Ticket available. For those of you who listen to this show right when it comes out, lucky you – because if you order your Digital Ticket by the end of August 15, you’ll receive the same swagbag as the in-person ticket holders. Again, englandacst.com/tudorcon2019.
This is kind of my last note, I’ve been sending all kinds of emails about it, Facebook posts, and Twitter and all that kind of stuff. Again if you order by say early August 16th, you’ll get the same swagbag as the in-person ticket holders – the Tudorcon swagbags with all the stuff in it. It’ll be like being there in person but not. So again, englandcast.com/tudorcon2019.
Now I want to talk about fools. Specifically, Tudor fools. Most people who have at least a cursory knowledge of Tudor history have heard of Will Sommers, who was Henry VIII’s fool, or even Mary Tudor’s fool Jane. They were both in a very famous portrait of Henry VIII with Jane Seymour and his children. You can see Will Sommers and Jane in the background. I’ll link that to actually. If you go to Englandcast.com/fools we have that on the show notes.
Will Somers (right), Jane Foole (left)
So most people have heard of Jane or Will Sommers, but what role did fools play in court life? Let’s discuss.
Two Types of Fools
Since the medieval period, courts had jesters, whose job it was to amuse the King and then could claim a certain amount of freedom to speak with the King as an equal. Erasmus wrote, “I speak (says he) as a fool, knowing it to be the peculiar privilege of fools to speak the truth, without giving offence.”
Henry VII had several people who were called “naturals” or “innocents” – people who we would call intellectually challenged, who went with him on progresses. The King paid for them to be clothed and fed, and they were cared for by a keeper, the Fool Master.
It sounds horrible inhumane to us right now, even saying it is hard for me to say. But we have to remember the values were different and for a lot of people they would have seen this as an opportunity for their child who was a little bit more challenged to still have the ability to have a role to play and not be put in bedlam. So we have to keep that in mind.
There were actually two kinds of fools. There were the “naturals” or “innocents”, people who I said were maybe a little more challenged. Then there were the “unnatural” ones, they were the jesters, the kind of comedians that we think of. There were these types of fools and the distinction was made whether they were natural or not.
Patch
Cardinal Wolsey had a fool called Patch, a natural fool, who became involved in Wolsey’s disagreement with Henry VIII over Catherine of Aragon’s marriage. When Wolsey was on his way to Westminster from Putney in 1529, they ran into Sir Henry Norris, Groom of the Stool. Norris wanted to reassure the Cardinal that the King still supported him.
Of course, this was not to last very long, but for the moment Wolsey was so relieved that he was looking around for a gift that he could give in return and so he saw his fool, Patch. He said that Patch was worth at least a hundred pounds and he said he would give Patch to Henry as a gift of gratitude for still being on Henry’s good side.
But Patch didn’t want to go. It’s really a tragic portrait in your head, it actually took six men to tie him up so they could take him to Henry’s house.
Patch was the first fool to have been listed as being “of the privy chamber.” Patch received a royal livery coat with the king’s monogram embroidered on it. In October 1532, he went along to the meeting with the French king in France where Anne Boleyn went along and sort of held a pseudo court as a stand-in Queen. This is also the time when Henry and Anne likely consummated their relationship. Fools could even go along foreign policy trips.
Patch stayed with Henry until the summer of 1535. There was actually a lot of drama around what happened and why he had to leave. When he made the mistake of saying something nice about Catherine of Aragon, and called Anne Boleyn a trollop, and Elizabeth was called a bastard. Eustace Chapuys, the imperial ambassador wrote in a letter:
“He [Henry] the other day nearly murdered his own fool, a simple and innocent man, because he happened to speak well in his presence of the Queen [Katherine of Aragon] and called the Concubine [Anne Boleyn] ribaude and her daughter [Elizabeth] bastard. He has now been banished from Court.”
That illustrates the strange position that fools had at court. They were seen as property, and could be bought and sold. Since they were property, you could also hit a fool. Patch once said that Henry could kill him only with his countenance. Henry also kicked him after something Patch had written had disagreed with Henry.
Henry had hit his fool, Will Sommers more than once. Will actually is recorded as saying:
“He gave me such a box on the ear, that strake me clear through three chambers, down four pairs of stairs. I fell over five barrels in the bottom of the cellar, and if I had not well liquored myself there, I had never lived after it.”
Will Sommers
Patch was at court at the same time as Will Sommers who is likely the most famous fool in history. He even appears in the portraits of Henry and his family, as well as in the frontispiece of Henry’s personal psalter. Again, check out englandcast.com/fools for examples.
Will was not a natural or innocent – but he was an artificial fool. Born in Shropshire, he was noticed by Richard Fermor who brought him to court to present him to Henry VIII in 1525. The King immediately liked Will and gave him the post of court jester, which he held for the rest of Henry’s reign.
Sometimes he was a court jester, but he was mostly Henry’s personal entertainer. Someone that Henry could talk with openly, and could help Henry get out of his moods and depression. It was said later that when Henry was suffering from the almost constant pain from his jousting accident, Will Sommers was the only person who could cheer him up.
His relationship was so close that “he could have admittance unto his majesty’s chamber and have his ear, when a great noble man, nay, a privy counsellor could not be suffered to speak with him”.
Will Sommers would speak truth to power. He actually made a joke about Henry’s habit of for acquiring wives. He said:
“His Majesty after some discourse growing into some good liking of him, said; fellow, wilt thou be my fool? who answered him again, that he had rather be his own father’s still, then the king asking him why? he told him again, that his father had got him a fool for himself, (having but one wife) and no body could justly claim him from him: now you have had so many wives, and still living in hope to have more, why, of some one of them, cannot you get a fool as he did? and so you shall be sure to have a fool of your own.”
Will and Patch may have had a bit of rivalry going on too. At one point Will said that the Cardinal’s Fool must give way to the King’s Fool. Will also was able to use his influence to help his family. He had an uncle who had suffered from land enclosures of common land. This is something we talk about a lot when we talk about the economy in Tudor England. Also the Kett’s Rebellion was related to land enclosures.
So he has an uncle who had become impoverished after the land enclosures of this common land place and he was able to use his influence to help him. These fools were really powerful people, Will Sommers was a really powerful man.
Will Sommers survived Henry VIII and continued his career during the reign of Mary I and partly Elizabeth I. He continued as court jester to Mary I, where he was mainly used for ceremonial events but is reported to be the only man who could make Mary laugh. His very last public performance was at the coronation of Elizabeth I after which he retired. He is most likely the “William Sommers” whose death is recorded on June 5, 1560.
How did monarchs find their fools?
Noblemen might keep an eye out for funny people or naturals or innocents similar to Richard Fermor who brought Will Sommers to court. There’s a letter dated 26 January 1535/36 from Thomas Bedyll to Thomas Cromwell (ca. 1485-1540) recommends a possible replacement for the king’s old jester:
“Ye know the Kinges grace hath one old fole: Sexten as good as myght be whiche because of aige is not like to cotinew. I haue spied one yong fole at Croland whiche in myne opinion shalbe muche mor pleasaunt than euer Sexten was . . . and he is not past xv yere old.”
That was a recommendation that somebody has put forward that they have spied this fool. That may be one way that fool was brought into court.
Another fool for Elizabeth I that we’ll talk about it a little bit is Richard Tarlton. He was the jester to Elizabeth.
Thomas Fuller‘s History of the Worthies of England (1662) gives an account of the recruiting of Richard Tarlton, jester to Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603), that further illustrates this informality:
“Here he was in the field, keeping his Father’s Swine, when a Servant of Robert Earl of Leicester . . . was so highly pleased with his happy unhappy answers, that he brought him to Court, where he became the most famous Jester to Queen Elizabeth.”
So basically he was just discovered.
Anne Boleyn also kept a fool, an unnamed woman. She bought her a new gown and a green satin cap in 1536. So there were multiple fools in court. Sometimes I imagine, a big hallway, or a big feast with one fool. That’s not what it was. There were multiple fools.
Jane Foole
Mary Tudor also had a fool, Jane. Jane was a natural fool, and her head was kept shaved. She arrived at court during Anne Boleyn’s time, but wound up serving Mary by 1537, and becoming known as her fool. Most people assumed was mentally challenged or disabled, and part of that because it seems her head is potentially kept shaved. If you look at that portrait of her from the family of Henry VIII, it looks like she doesn’t have any hair. That is often what they do to “innocents” but there’s really not a lot of proof other than that portrait.
Some people also say that maybe she’s married to Will Sommers. The only evidence of that is the painting where they’re both in it. Again, they were both fools so that made sense. Also in that painting, she looks a little bit lost. Like she doesn’t really know where she’s going. So people take that she was a natural fool.
Either way, Mary took very good care of her. She paid for eye exams for her for an eye condition she had. They also gave her lots of clothing, beautiful gowns, horses, and shoes. Of course, some of these were part of the act. One time she was given clothes to match a woman called Lucretia the Tumbler who was also at court. Probably would have been part of an act to have those clothes. But still, she was being taken care of materially.
Again, it’s hard for us to listen to that but that’s a lot for an average person could expect at that time. Most families would have been very happy for their child to have that opportunity. Jane was also hired by Katherine Parr too in the 1540’s. So fools can travel around from person to person.
Dwarves, Magicians, Jugglers
They also would keep dwarves as curiosities. Again, this sounds horrible to us now, I even have a hard time saying it. But remember this is also the time when anything different was seen as foreign, and was put on display, and people want to look at it and understand it and work out why it was different. This is the era of bringing Native Americans to court for people to gawk at as well.
Elizabeth I kept one woman, Thomasina, and bought her a great many gifts, including gowns, gloves, ivory combs, and gilt rings. So it doesn’t seem like there was much in a way of malice with this. It was just a genuine curiosity and trying to understand it. Certainly, they would make fun of these people, I’m not trying to sugarcoat that. But it seems it comes more from a place of curiosity than of trying to just be downright mean.
In addition to these natural fools, and dwarves, the Tudors also had magicians and jesters at their court. Men, or sometimes women, would play being a fool just to entertain the King or Queen.
In the 1520’s and 1530’s, Henry VIII’s account books list the King’s Juggler, Thomas Brandon. He was what we would consider a magician over a juggler. One of his best tricks was to paint a picture of a dove on the wall, and then point to a real pigeon who was sitting on the roof. He would flick the picture of the dove with his knife, and the pigeon would fall from the roof totally dead. I have no idea how he would have done that but that’s a pretty amazing trick.
Richard Tarlton
So I talked before about Richard Tarlton how he was discovered, taking care of his father’s swine, he was actually the most significant of these jester people. He was the first of the jesters not to be permanently resident at court but also to have a career on stage as one of the Queen’s players. We actually just did a Tudor Minute about him a couple of weeks ago. it was his birthday and I talked a little bit about him in that Tudor Minute.
Tarlton remained high in royal favour and had regular access to Elizabeth throughout his whole life. They say when the Queen was “serious… and out of good humour, he could go undumpish to her at his pleasure. Her highest favourites would in some cases go to Tarleton before going to the queen and he was their usher to prepare their advantageous access to her”. (Source: Thomas Fuller’s History of the Worthies of England.)
He told the queen “more of her faults, than most of her chaplains and cured her melancholy better than all her physicians”. One of the things he would do to cure his melancholy is he would pretend to do battle with her dog and he would wave around his staff so much that one time she actually ordered him out because he made her laugh too hard. So that was Elizabeth.
James I was known for being puritanical – when it came to women. Consider his witch hunts and obsession with women behaving properly. But in so many cases like this, it only applied to women and not to men. There’s an example of Goerge Goring, a gentleman of the Privy Chamber who was known as having a “peculiar jocularity of humor.”
It seems that he, and his friend John Finnet, the Master of Ceremonies in the 1620’s, were often involved in antics at court, and considered the King’s Fools. According to the Court and Character of James I, 1650, Finnet, Goring, and the courtier Sir Edward Zouhe, were the king’s chief and master fools.
Zouche’s job was to sing inappropriate songs and tell stories. Finnet composed the songs. A group of musicians came to court specifically for this Foolery, and Goring was the master of them. They organized dances, and also rode on each other’s backs, imitating the joust. There was a lot of buffoonery going on it seems.
Archibald Armstrong
James I did have another official jester, Archibald Armstrong, who also played with Finnit and Goring, and the others. He had an interesting story. He had been condemned to death for sheep-stealing, apparently, and pleaded for his life with the King. He knew how to get the King, he said that he wanted to read the Bible, which he recently came across, because he wanted his soul to be in good care before he died. So would James please put the hanging off until he had finished the Bible?
The king agreed. To that, Archibald responds: “Then devil take me if I ever read a word of it as long as my eyes are open.” This made James laugh so hard that he hired him right there, and brought him to England in 1603 when he inherited the throne of England.
Archibald became known for telling the truth to power in a way only Fools could. James once complained that his mount was on the lean side, and Archibald responded that the best way to fatten him up was to make him a bishop. Archibald played the fool, but he knew how to make influential friends, and to make money even in unscrupulous ways.
His friend John Taylor, a poet, dedicated a 1621 book to “the bright-eyed dazzling mirror of mirth and regent of ridiculous confabulations.” Wishing him “a nimble tongue, to make other men’s money run into your purse, and quick heels to outrun the hue and cry.”
Archibald stayed on as court jester even under Charles I. So he had a very long career. He even was part of the small party that went along with Prince Charles on a secret mission to Spain to negotiate marriage with the Infanta, Maria Anna in 1623. Apparently Archibald had exclusive access. He gained entry to the private world of the Infanta far more readily than the infatuated royal suitor, greatly pleasing the Spanish king with his saucy and subversive wit.
As one report described, “Our cousin Archy hath more privilege than any, for he often goes with his fool’s coat where the Infanta is with her meninas and ladies of honour, and keeps a-blowing and blustering among them, and blurts out what he list”.
On 28 April 1623 he dictated a letter to James where he described his favour with the Spanish king: “To let your Majesty know, I am sent for by this King when none of your own nor your son’s men can come near him”.
It was that confidence of being able to speak truth to power actually eventually brought him down.
In 1638, there were tensions leading up to Civil War, he met the Archbishop of Canterbury at Whitehall, William Laud, on his way to the King’s Council meeting. There were protests in Scotland at that time. Laud was trying to make the worship services uniform between in England and Scotland. The people in Scotland didn’t like that. So Armstrong mentioned this, saying, “who’s the fool now? haha”
Laud complained to the King, and Charles immediately ordered his fool to be fired and banished. Armstrong’s career had come to an end. He was the second to last royal fool, followed by his replacement Muckle John, of whom very little is known.
So there we go walking with the famous “fools” of Tudor and early Stuart England. That’s it for this week. There are so many book recommendations including Thomas Fuller‘s History of the Worthies of England 1662. There’s lots of academic books. You can see the list of all the different sources I used at Englandcast.com/fools. That’s where all the paintings are, the show notes, and the rough transcript for this episode.
Remember to get your Tudorcon tickets or your digital tickets in the 24hours or so. Englandcast.com/2019 for that. You can get in touch with me through the listener support line at 801 6TEYSKO or through Twitter @teysko or Facebook.com/englandcast.
I’m super excited to talk with you next week, I have another interview with one of the Tudorcon speakers and she’s gonna talk about the relationships of Elizabeth I. So we’re gonna talk a little bit about that. It’s really interesting and I can’t wait to share that with you. So again, Englandcast.com/2019 for Tudorcon tickets. Englandcast.com/fools for the show notes for this episode. I hope you’re having a wonderful August. I’ll be back with you in another two weeks. Bye, bye!
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Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, one of the longest running indie history podcasts, going since 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. She writes books, created the original Tudor Planner (a yearly diary filled with Tudor history) and in 2019 created the world's first Tudorcon (you can "attend" online this year!). She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 20 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history.