“Will Sommers, born in Shropshire, as some say, Was brought to Greenwich, on a holiday,-- Presented to the King;--which fool disdain’d To shake him by the hand, or was ashamed. Howe’er it was; as ancient people say, With much ado was won to it that day. Lean he was, hollow-eyed, as all report, And stoop he did too; yet in all the court, Few men were more beloved than was this fool, Whose merry prate kept with the King much rule. When he was sad the King with him would rhyme; Thus Will exilëd sadness many a time. I could describe him, as I did the rest, But in my mind, I do not think it best; My reason this, howe’er I do descry him, So many knew him, that I may belie him; Therefore, to please all people, one by one, I hold it best to let that pains alone; Only this much:--He was a poor man’s friend, And help’d the widow often in her end. The King would ever grant what he did crave, For well he knew Will no exacting knave; But wish’d the King to do good deeds great store, Which caused the court to love him more and more.” Will seems to have been contemporary with Saxton, or Sexton, a fool of some notoriety at the Tudor’s Court, from the circumstance of his being the first jester who wore a wig. There is an entry from the accounts of the Treasurer of the Chambers, quoted in the Archæologia, to the following effect:--“Paid for Saxton, the King’s fool, for a wig, 20_s._” Is it not possible that this jester may have assumed this mode in order to ridicule the new fashion of the ladies, who had now, for the first time in England, adopted the wig--which English lords had begun to wear as early as the reign of Stephen? However this may be, the above is all we know of Saxton in his capacity of fool to Henry. How Sommers looked at Court, the following entry will sufficiently show:--“For making a doublet of worsted, lined with canvass and cotton, for William Som’ers, our fool. Item, for making of a coat and a cap of green cloth, fringed with red crape and lined with frieze, for our said fool. Item, for making of a doublet of fustian, lined with cotton and canvass, for our said fool. For making of a coat of green cloth, with hood to the same, fringed with white and lined with frieze and buckram, for our fool aforesaid.”