Skip to content
Cotswolds Info

Dicky Pearce, the jester of Berkeley

He is often called England's last court jester. His tomb is real; the rest is a mixture of record and legend.

· 3 minute read

A path between old table tombs leading to the porch of a long medieval church
Photo: Helen Steed, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Berkeley lies in the Severn vale below the western edge of the Cotswolds. In the churchyard of St Mary's stands a chest tomb, listed Grade II and known as the Jester's Tomb, to Dicky Pearce, the fool of the Earl of Suffolk.

What the tomb says

The verse on the tomb calls Pearce the Earl of Suffolk's fool, and jokes that plenty of fools are left behind. It gives his burial as 18 June 1728, at the age of 63. The official listing says he was killed "in revelry at the Castle in 1725" and that the inscription's date is wrong.

Did he fall, or was he pushed?

The story is that he fell from the minstrels' gallery at Berkeley Castle during a feast. In 2006 a BBC programme asked whether he fell or was pushed. Nobody knows, and the title of England's last court jester is a tradition rather than anything a historian has proved.

Chest tombs and headstones in a churchyard before a long Gothic church
The chest tombs of Berkeley churchyard Photo: Neil Owen, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Visiting

Berkeley Castle opens on set days in its season; check its site for times and prices. The churchyard and the tomb are nearby. Our guide to the Cotswolds' country houses and castles tells the castle's own story, from the Berkeley family to Edward II.

Questions

Where is the jester's tomb?

In the churchyard of St Mary's, Berkeley, near Berkeley Castle.

Was Dicky Pearce the last court jester?

He is often called that, but it is a tradition, not a proven fact.

When was Dicky Pearce buried?

The verse on his tomb gives his burial as 18 June 1728, at the age of 63, but the official listing says he was killed in 1725 and that the inscription's date is wrong.

How did Dicky Pearce die?

The story is that he fell from the minstrels' gallery at Berkeley Castle during a feast. Whether he fell or was pushed, nobody knows.

Read next

All stories
  • The view down the Slad valley towards Stroud from the top of Swift's Hill

    Famous people with Cotswold connections

    Story · History · 10 minute read

    The writers, composers, scientists, queens and prime ministers whose lives are tied to Cotswold places, from Tyndale and Katherine Parr to Laurie Lee, Holst and Edward Thomas, and where to find their traces.

  • A dark oak-panelled room at Chavenage House with a carved settle, a lamp and a portrait above the fireplace wall

    The ghost of Charles I in the Cotswolds

    Story · Strange Things · 4 minute read

    Two Cotswold houses have stories of Charles I: the Court House at Painswick, where tradition says he stayed in 1643, and Chavenage, near Tetbury, where legend says his ghost drove a hearse.

  • A classical stone town hall with a pediment, sunlit against a dark storm sky

    Two sundials in Woodstock

    Story · Strange Things · 3 minute read

    High on Woodstock's church and in a niche on its Town Hall are two near-twin sundials, one of which writes seven as IIV and eight as IIIV.

Don't miss a thing

What is on, what is new and what is in season in Cotswolds Info, in your inbox about once a month.

About once a month. Unsubscribe at any time.