Book Review: Disability and the Tudors: All the King's Fools by Phillipa Vincent Connolly

Disability and the Tudors: All the King's Fools by Phillipa Vincent Connolly is a nonfiction book. Throughout history, how society treated its disabled and infirm can tell us a great deal about the period. Challenged with any impairment, disease or frailty was often a matter of life and death before the advent of modern medicine, so how did a society support the disabled among them? For centuries, disabled people and their history have been overlooked - hidden in plain sight. Very little on the infirm and mentally ill was written down during the renaissance period. The Tudor period is no exception and presents a complex, unparalleled story. The sixteenth century was far from exemplary in the treatment of its infirm, but a multifaceted and ambiguous story emerges, where society’s ‘natural fools’ were elevated as much as they were belittled.Meet characters like William Somer, Henry VIII’s fool at court, whom the king depended upon, and learn of how the dissolution of the monasteries contributed to forming an army of ‘sturdy beggars’ who roamed Tudor England without charitable support. From the nobility to the lowest of society, 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.

Disability and the Tudors is a fascinating look at what we know of how disabled individuals were treated in the past, and how society has changed (or not) in that regard. I found the writing style to be engaging and the acknowledgement of how money and power effects everything past and present. I think that readers that enjoy history, and want to learn more about what did not make it into history lessons will find this read interesting. While many of us know large chunks of history have been forgotten (deliberately or not) to highlight the parts that make those in power look good- I often find the information we have to look harder for much more interesting. As a bonus- the author took the time to properly and thoroughly cite sources (with endnotes and all) which seems to be less common in nonfiction books than it should be these days. When this is done correctly it makes me extra happy with a book.