I’m new to the Tudor fandom and have never heard of Jane Foole and William Sommers. Can you tell more about them?
Will Sommers was the King’s fool and Jane was the Queen’s fool (she actually doesn’t have a known surname so she’s often just given the surname “Foole”).
Will served Henry VIII and Jane originally served Anne Boleyn and then moved into the household of Princess Mary (future Mary I) and then eventually came to serve Kathryn Parr before disappearing from the records.
Basically, there were two types of “fools” in the Tudor period—natural fools and artificial fools (which would eventually be called jesters). Artificial fools were actors basically or the equivalent of modern-day comedians. They would put on a show to entertain and act funny. Natural fools were people with disabilities (usually a mental or learning disability but they could also be physically disabled). A lot of people sort of have this idea that royalty would have natural fools to, sort of, make fun of them or laugh at them for their disability, but—at least in the case of the Tudor period—that’s not really true. In fact, natural fools were often revered because of their (seeming) inability to lie. People thought that having a disability like that meant that you were closer to God. So Will and Jane were actually very well taken care of and they were treated with kindness and compassion.
Will Sommers was apparently the only one who could lift Henry’s spirits after Jane Seymour’s death. Famously, after her death he holed himself up in his chambers with only Will for company and refused to see anyone else.
Jane was also treated well. Kathryn Parr gifted her some grease and apparently she (Jane) loved to heard them around like a shepherd. One of my favorite stories of Jane (that might not be true, but I like to believe that it is) is that, at Anne Boleyn’s coronation, she shouted at the crowds to show Anne more respect. And I think that shows that, clearly Anne took care of Jane and treated her well and Jane was fond of Anne otherwise she wouldn’t have shouted at people to pay their respects.
Unfortunately, there’s not really much more known about them. But Henry clearly cared enough about both of them to include them in the portrait of his family (Jane is on the far left and Will is on the far right):
