Item, for furring of a gown of red fustian of Naples for Jane oure fole, with a here collored furre....
Item for William Somer our fole, seven ounce and a haulf of silke, one gross of buttons with stawlkes, eyght tassels of grene and yellow silke, two elles of Holland clothe, tenne peyre of Lennen hoose, fyve peire of Buckram hoose, haulfe a dossen of Handkerchievers, and thre dossen of round buttons.
Item for the said Jane our foole, thirteen ounce and a haulfe of silk freenge to frenge a gowne and two cappes, for making of the saide two cappes, and for thre ounce of grene silke for another gowne of grene damaske, one pece of crimson ribande and twelve pair of woollen hose....
Item, for making of twelve peire of lether shewes for the said Jane our foole....
Item to Richard Tysdale Taylor, for making of two grene coates for William Somer our foole thone garded with Vellat, and thother plaine, both lined with cotton, for making of two canvas doublets for him lyned with Bockram, and for making of a gowne of grene damaske garded with yellow vellat, and for making of a jerkin of same damaske lykewise garded with yellow Vellat.
And then the end came. Doubtless Mary’s two fools, after the way of their kind, knew more of the heart of their liberal mistress than many of her retainers. They do not seem to have offered their services to her successor, or to have been invited to her Court, though William Sommers had some payments made to him early in her reign. He apparently gravitated eastward from the Court, to the neighbourhood afterwards so famous for players and jesters, and he was buried in St. Leonard’s parish church in the Liberty of Shoreditch on 15th June 1560.
But there is no further word of Jane—she disappeared on the death of her royal mistress. I did not know of the name of “Beden” when I went through the registers of many London parishes; and though I have gone through the printed registers of others, I have as yet seen no record of the burial of any “Jane Beden,” or even of “Jane, a woman,” as was sometimes a clerk’s way of expressing the identity of the defunct. It is possible that through the suggestion of the patronymic some future worker may find some more details of the life of Jane, Queen Mary Tudor’s female Fool.
“Athenæum,” 12th August 1905.
FOOTNOTES:
[95] This phrase is repeated every time.