Tom Durie

Tom Durie, or Duri, or Dury, or Derry ( fl. 1600-1620), Scottish fool or entertainer to Anne of Denmark.

Tom Durie first appears on record at the Scottish court in 1603, when he was bought clothes to accompany Anne of Denmark on her journey to England after the Union of the Crowns. The queen had his portrait painted in 1614 by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, and again by Paul van Somer, recorded in an inventory as the picture of "Tome Derey at Length". Gheeraert's painting is displayed at the National Gallery of Scotland. At Denmark House in London his portrait was displayed in an antechamber or passage between the queen's withdrawing room and the gallery, and was recorded in an inventory as the picture of "Thomas Derry" in 1619. In the 1630s the painting was in the Queen's Gallery at Greenwich, with portraits of Anne's Danish relatives.

King James used to call Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury "my little beagle" or "young Tom Durie". After the queen's death, one of her long-serving Danish courtiers, William Belou, complained that he had been poorly rewarded for his service and paid less than Tom Durie, who was "a natural fool", or Archie Armstrong, "a counterfeit".

Tom was still alive in 1620 when an account mentions a payment of 9s-6d weekly for his food and lodging.