A highly promising bit of subject matter done in by rather turgid academic prose, a not particularly appealing system of organization, and a paucity of hard facts, leading to a lot of yawn-inducing speculation. Don't bother with this. ( )

Was there anything, aside from consanguinity, that united the Tudor dynasty as it lurched back and forth from Catholicism to Protestantism across the middle decades of the 16th century? One answer to that question, surprisingly, was a man named William Somer, Henry VIII’s last and best-loved fool. It is not simply because surviving court accounts reveal the cares taken on Somer’s behalf by succeeding monarchs. It is also because, remarkably, he appears in five portraits with them – all but one family groupings – across four reigns. One portrait might be an anomaly; five over 50 years surely represents a statement.

As Peter K. Andersson writes in Fool: In Search of Henry VIII’s Closest Man, the first full length study of Somer’s life and posthumous mythos, Somer appears to have been ‘a good luck charm for the Tudor dynasty’. But his presence in the paintings still raises more questions than it answers.

Somer first appears on the record on 28 June 1535 in an entry in the royal wardrobe accounts for two doublets, two coats and a cap. Andersson is sceptical of later stories of Somer amusing Henry VIII for hours with improvised verse, but the two must nevertheless have spent considerable time at close quarters. Any reader expecting insight into the dynamic between fool and king is likely to be disappointed, however. ‘Henry VIII’s closest man on a purely geographic level, perhaps, but apparently seldom regarded’, is Andersson’s summary of their relationship.

Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com.

Mathew Lyons writes the ‘Months Past’ column for History Today.