MeMoMu_PNS_006 WILL SOMMERS / AIVAR VENDELPOMM _ FRANCIS DELARAM / ENDEL LEPP

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Engraving of Will Sommers by Francis Delaram c. 1615–24
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This bit Harry I give to thee
and this next bit must serve for me,
Both which I'll eat apace.
This bit Madam unto you,
And this bit I my self eate now,
And the rest upon thy face.

- Robert Armin , 'Foole Upon Foole'

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Sommers

William Sommers (or Somers or Somer; died 15 June 1560) was the best-known court jester of Henry VIII of England.

Early life
He was said to have been born in Shropshire, and 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.[1] This comes from an 18th-century account; little is known for certain of his early life. He is first mentioned in the royal accounts on 28 June 1535.[2]

Career
Sommers remained in service to the King 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.[citation needed]

The jester or fool was also a man of integrity and discretion. Thomas Cromwell appreciated that Sommers sometimes drew the King's attention to extravagance and waste within the royal household by means of a joke.[citation needed]

Natural fools (sometimes referred to as jesters, but a jester is more properly an ‘artificial fool’) were often ‘kept’ at court and in aristocratic families. They were people believed to have intellectual disabilities. The term ‘natural fool’ is contemporaneous, and reflects Tudor society having a place for people with intellectual disabilities. Fools such as Sommers were given the support they needed and status within society.[3]

Such individuals were permitted familiarities without regard for deference, and Sommers possessed a shrewd wit, which he exercised even on Cardinal Wolsey. He did occasionally overstep the boundaries, however. 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".[4]

Robert Armin (writer of Foole upon Foole, 1600) tells how Sommers humiliated Thomas, the King's juggler. He interrupted one of Thomas's performances carrying milk and a bread roll. Will asked the King for a spoon; the King replied he had none. Thomas told him to use his hands. Will then sang:

This bit Harry I give to thee
and this next bit must serve for me,
Both which I'll eat apace.
This bit Madam unto you,
And this bit I my self eate now,
And the rest upon thy face.[5]

He then threw the milk in his face and ran out. Thomas was never at court again.

Sommers used his influence to compensate an uncle who had been ruined by an enclosure of common land, although it took a very subtle appeal by Sommers to Henry.

In Thomas Wilson's Arte of Rhetorique (1553–60), Will is quoted telling the financially hard-up King, "You have so many Frauditors [Auditors], so many Conveighers [Surveyors], and so many Deceivers [Receivers] that they get all to themselves."[6] 

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