Jane Foole

Jane's full name, birth year, and background are unknown. Beden the Fool also appears in related notes of the time, and it has been suggested that Beden was her surname.

Jane is believed to have had a learning disability.{{cite web |url=https://www.historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/disability-history/1485-1660/disability-in-the-tudor-court/ |title=The King's Fools - Disability in the Tudor Court |author= |website=Historic England |access-date=11 January 2015}}

In the accounts of Anne Boleyn, bills for caps supplied to her "female jester" are recorded in 1535–36.{{cite book |last=Fraser |first=Antonia |author-link=Antonia Fraser |translator-last1=Eklöf |translator-first1=Margareta |year=1995 |title=Henrik VIII:s sex hustrur |trans-title=The six wives of Henry VIII |language=Swedish |publication-place=Stockholm, SE |isbn=978-91-37-10713-4 |pages=255, 394}} The name of this female jester is not mentioned, but may have been Jane.{{cite book|title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|date=2004 |publisher=British Academy, Oxford University Press|isbn=9780198614128|edition=Online|location=Oxford|oclc=56568095}}

In 1537, she is noted to be in service of Princess Mary. As well as Jane, Mary also employed Lucretia the Tumbler.Maria Hayward, Dress at the Court of Henry VIII (Maney, 2007), p. 312. Mary's account book records that shoes were bought for Jane and Lucretia in December 1542 and new smocks were made in January.Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary, pp. 93, 108. Lucretia and Jane are known to have performed together, and Lucretia may have been Jane's minder.{{cite web|url=http://www.stgeorgebristol.org/history/fools.php|title=Fools|publisher=}} A barber was paid for shaving Jane's head in April, May, and June 1543. Jane was ill in July 1543.Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary, pp. 113, 116, 119, 123.

When Catherine Parr became queen in 1543, Jane may have been transferred to Catherine's household. Jane was a well-liked jester at the court of Catherine Parr, where she is mentioned by name as "Jane Foole" in 1543. Catherine Parr bought her a red petticoat, gowns, and kirtles.Maria Hayward, Dress at the Court of Henry VIII (Maney, 2007), 309. She may have been depicted in the painting of Henry the Eighth and His Family (1545), in which the man on the far right is identified as her colleague, court jester William Sommers. Jane is among several women suggested as the figure on the left, in the matching end panel to his. Catherine Parr died in 1548. Jane Fool apparently returned to Mary.

When Mary I came to the throne in 1553, Jane was in her employ. A warrant for clothes at the time of Mary's coronation includes gowns of purple gold tinsel and crimson satin rayed with thread of gold for Jane.Nadia T. van Pelt, Intercultural Explorations and the Court of Henry VIII (Oxford, 2024), pp. 144–45. She apparently had a favoured position with Mary and was given a valuable wardrobe and an unusually large number of shoes. The queen's silkwoman, Marie Wilkinson, supplied some of her clothes. Wardrobe warrants from 1555 surviving in the Bodleian Library mention a gown of green figured velvet (similar to one made for Will Sommers) furred with white hare skins, black knitted hose, another green velvet gown dressed with tinsel cloth, and a fustian-lined Dutch or German-style gowns of crimson and purple striped satin and blue damask.Nadia T. van Pelt, Intercultural Explorations and the Court of Henry VIII (Oxford, 2024), pp. 142–43: William H. Turner, [https://archive.org/details/calendarofcharte00bodluoft/calendarofcharte00bodluoft/page/n21/mode/2up Calendar of Charters and Rolls Preserved in the Bodleian Library (Oxford: Clarendon, 1878), pp. xviii-xix, 150] Another fool called Beden was given a Dutch gown of cloth. This style of gown, and the use of striped fabrics, may have made a costume deemed suitable for fools.Nadia T. van Pelt, Intercultural Explorations and the Court of Henry VIII (Oxford, 2024), p. 143.

Jane's head was shaved,Henry Ellis, Original Letters, Series 1 vol. 1 (London, 1824) p. 273. just as the heads of male jesters. Jane hurt her eye in 1557. Mary gave gilt silver salts as rewards to two women who looked after her, a Mistress Ayer and a woman from Bury St Edmunds who healed her.John Nichols, [https://archive.org/details/illustrationsofm00nich/page/n409/mode/2up llustrations of the manners and expences of antient times in England (London, 1797), pp. 27-8]{{Cite web |url=https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_62525&index=0 |title=British Library Add. MS 62525 f.6r Queen Mary's gift roll }}{{Dead link|date=September 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

It has been suggested that Jane was married to Will Sommers, but this has not been confirmed. It is known that Jane and Will Sommers often performed together, dressed in matching outfits: they are noted to have done so in 1555.{{cite book|author=John Southworth|title=Fools and Jesters at the English Court|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h1mPAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT108|date=30 November 2011|publisher=History Press Limited|isbn=978-0-7524-7986-6|pages=108–}}

It is not known what happened to her after Mary's death in 1558.

Philippa Gregory's historical novel The Queen's Fool is focused on a female jester active in the court of Mary I, though the fictional character is not called "Jane Foole".

Jane Fool appears as a character in C. J. Sansom’s novel Lamentation.

Jane Fool appears as a character in Kathryn Lasky’s series Tangled in Time.

{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.midlandshistoricalreview.com/a-motley-to-the-view-the-clothing-of-court-fools-in-tudor-england/ Zoe Screti, "A motley to the view: The clothing of court fools in Tudor England", Midlands Historical Review, 2 (2018).]
• {{cite magazine|last=Selleck|first=Denise|date=Spring 1990|title=On The Trail Of Jane The Fool|url=http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/1990spring/Spr90_selleck.php|magazine=On the Issues|access-date=31 March 2011}}
• [https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b60009795/f2.item.zoom Fragment of a Latin wardrobe account of Mary I mentioning clothes for Jane Foole, BnF Gallica Anglais 176]
• [https://sarahgordy.com/2024/02/all-the-kings-fooles-jane-foole-documentary/ Documentary about Jane Fool in Tudor court - Sarah Gordy blog article on playing Jane Fool in a documentary]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DD6Ih3HcEU&t=3s Who was Jane Foole? Mary 1st's jester and companion - King’s Fooles Docuseries on YouTube] Verve Bee Media Ltd - filmed 2020

Category:English jesters

Category:Year of birth unknown

Category:Year of death unknown

Category:16th-century English women

Category:English courtiers

Category:Household of Anne Boleyn

Category:Court of Mary I of England

Category:Household of Catherine Parr

Category:Women of the Tudor period

Category:Female jesters