Jane Foole, also known as Jane The Foole and Jane, The Queen's Fool (fl. 1558), was an English court jester

Court jester

A jester, joker, jokester, fool, wit-cracker, prankster, or buffoon was a person employed to tell jokes and provide general entertainment, typically for a European monarch. Jesters are stereotypically thought to have worn brightly colored clothes and eccentric hats in a motley pattern...

. She was the jester of queen Catherine Parr

Catherine Parr

Catherine Parr ; 1512 – 5 September 1548) was Queen consort of England and Ireland and the last of the six wives of King Henry VIII of England. She married Henry VIII on 12 July 1543. She was the fourth commoner Henry had taken as his consort, and outlived him...

, queen Mary I of England

Mary I of England

Mary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...

 and possibly of queen Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn

Anne Boleyn ;c.1501/1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII of England and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the...

. She has been called the only depicted female court jester.

Jane's full name, birth year and background is unknown. Beden the Fool also appears in the notes and it has been suggested that Beden was her surname. In the accounts of Anne Boleyn, bills for caps to her "female jester" are recorded in 1535-36. The name of this female jester are not mentioned but may have been Jane. Jane was a well liked jester at the court of Catherine Parr, where she is mentioned by name as Jane Foole in 1543. She is believed to have been depicted at the painting of Henry the Eighth and His Family (1545): while the man on the far right on the picture is identified as her colleague, court jester Will Somers, the woman at the far left have been identified with several people, among them Jane. Jane was the jester of Mary Tudor before Mary became regent and continued as her court jester during her reign until Mary's death. She had an apparently favoured position with Mary and was given a valuable wardrobe, and unusually many shoes. Her head was shawed just like the head of male jesters.

As well as Jane, Mary also employed Lucrecia the Tumbler and Will Somers as jesters. It has been suggested that jane was married to Will Somers, but this has not been confirmed. It is not known what happened to her after Mary's death in 1558.