The tracts and plays of succeeding years found purchasers or spectators because they reproduced Sommers in his jests, gait, dress, and manners. Rowland has him in his ‘Good and Bad News;’ Rowley, in his chronicle play, ‘When you see me you know me;’ and Nash, in his ‘Summers’ Last Will and Testament.’ From these sources, no indifferent idea may be gained of the once famous Will. The incidents of Rowland’s poem are to be found in Rowley’s play. The latter, printed in 1605, is a chronicle play, including the years 1537–1546, the last year being the one before Henry’s death. It abounds with anachronisms, but also with illustrations of the manner in which Sommers lived at court, how he joked with the King, capped rhymes with their Majesties, and was sometimes anything but decent in his jokes. At his first appearance, Will enters the presence “at Whitehall,” booted and spurred, upon which the following dialogue takes place:-- “_K._ Why, where hast thou been? _W._ Marry, I rise early, and ride post to London, to know what news was here at Court. _K._ Was that your nearest way, William? _W._ Oh, ay, the very foot-path, but yet I rid the horse-way to hear it. I warrant there is ne’er a Cundid-head keeper in London, but knows what is done in all the courts in Christendom. _Wols._ And what is the best news there, William? _W._ Good news for you, my Lord Cardinal, for one of the old women water-bearers told me for certain, that last Friday, all the bells in Rome rang backward; there was a thousand dirges sung; six hundred Ave-Marias said; every man washed his face in holy water; the people crossing and blessing themselves to send them a new Pope, for the old is gone to purgatory.... The news,” adds Will, “after leaving Rome last Friday, was at Billingsgate by Saturday morning; ’twas a full moon, and came up in a spring-tide.” Queen Jane is represented as looking “bigger” upon the jester; “But I care not,” says Will to the King, “an she bring thee a young prince, Will Sommers mayhaps be his fool when you two are both dead and rotten.” “Do you hear, wenches?” he subsequently says to the maids of honour, likely to be anxious to announce the issue of the event alluded to. “She that brings the first tidings, however it fall out, let her be sure to say that the child’s like the father, or else she shall have no reward.”