about him
in a scarce tract, entitled "A pleasant History of the Life and Death
of Will Somers," &c. (which was first published in 1676, and a great
part of which is said to have been taken from Andrew Borde's
collection of "The Merry Jests and Witty Shifts of Scoggin"). "And now
who but Will Sommers, the King's Fool? who had got such an interest in
him by his quick and facetious jests, that he could have admittance to
his Majesty's Chamber, and have his ear, when a great nobleman, nay, a
privy counsellor, could not be suffered to speak with him: and
farther, if the King were angry or displeased with anything, if no man
else durst demand the cause of his discontent, then was Will Sommers
provided with one pleasant conceit or another, to take off the edge of
his displeasure. Being of an easy and tractable disposition he soon
found the fashions of the court, and obtained a general love and
notice of the nobility; for he was no carry-tale, nor flattering
insinuator to breed discord and dissension, but an honest, plain,
downright [man], that would speak home without halting, and tell the
truth of purpose to shame the devil--so that his plainness, mixed with
a kind of facetiousness, and tartness with pleasantry, made him
acceptable into the company of all men." There cannot, perhaps, be a
greater proof of the estimation in which Somers was held by King
Henry, than the circumstance of his portrait having been twice
introduced into the same piece with that of the King; once in the fine
picture by Holbein of Henry VIII. and his family, and again, in an
illuminated Psalter which was expressly written for the King, by John
Mallard, his chaplain and secretary ("_Regis Orator et Calamo_"), and
is now preserved in the British Museum. According to an ancient
custom, there is prefixed to Psalm lii., "_dixit incipens_" in the
Psalter, a miniature illumination of King David and a Fool, whose
figures, in this instance, are portraits of Henry VIII. and his
favourite Will Somers. The King is seated at a kind of altar table,
and playing on the harp, whilst Somers who is standing near him, with
his hands clasped over his breast, appears to listen with admiration.
The King wears a round flat cap, furred, and a vest of imperial purple
striped with gold, and fluted at bottom; his doublet is red, padded
with white; his hose crimson; on his right leg is a blue garter.
Somers is in a vest, with a hood thrown over the back; his stockings
are blue;