Peter K Andersson

Historian Peter K Andersson tells the story of the celebrated wit who sometimes appears next to Henry VIII on portraits and who was said to be able to raise the king’s spirits and often spent many hours alone with him.

William or Will Somer often appeared as a morose-looking man with a shaven head and was the king’s fool. Was he a clever comic who could speak freely in front of the king or was he someone with intellectual disabilities like many ‘fools’ of the era. Andersson draws the fullest picture yet of an enigmatic man with a very strange job and casts new light on how fools lived, what they did for a living and how monarchs and courtiers related to people with disabilities.

Andersson is senior lecturer in history at Örebro University in Sweden. His previous books include Streetlife in Late Victorian London; Silent History; and The History of the Comedian.