All the Kings' Fools: Disability and the Tudors

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Crown Copyright courtesy of The National Archives.

Henry VIII illuminated initial page

For centuries, disabled people and their history have been hidden in plain sight.

Before the advent of modern medicine, any impairment, disease or frailty was often a matter of life and death. The treatment of disabled people reveals a great deal about periods throughout history and contemporary wider societies.

From the nobility to the lowest of society (including William Somer, Henry VIII's fool at court), Phillipa Vincent-Connolly casts a light on the lives of disabled people in Tudor England and guides us through the social, religious, cultural, and ruling classes’ response to disability as it was then perceived.