| Constituency | Dates |
|---|---|
| Cambridge | 1432 |
Attestor, parlty. elections, Cambridge 1429, 1433, 1447.
Treasurer, Cambridge Sept. 1431–2;1 Cambs. Archs., Cambridge bor. recs., treasurers’ acct. 1431–2, City/PB Box X/70/7. bailiff 1434 – 35, 1439–41.2 Add. 5833, f. 139; E368/212, rot. 8d; 213, rot. 2d.
Having sat as an MP, Plomer sued a widow named Katherine Colby in Chancery for breach of contract, by means of a bill dating from between 1433 and 1443. He alleged that she had agreed to sell him two rods of land in Barnwell, upon which there was the right to set up a booth during Cambridge’s Stourbridge Fair, and that he and a London haberdasher, Nicholas Plomer (presumably a relative), gave her a bond as security that she would receive the agreed purchase price of eight marks. Despite this, he went on to claim, she had reneged on the agreement by refusing to convey the land to him, and by taking action at common law upon the bond.3 C1/40/251.
A later lawsuit in the court of common pleas at Westminster reveals that Plomer owed his surname to his trade, that of a plumber (dealer in lead). In pleadings there of Trinity term 1447, a merchant named Thomas Kyrkeby alleged that the MP and 16 other defendants, who also included William Mate*, Simon Rankyn* and other Cambridge burgesses, had illegally maintained a suit that Richard Togood* had brought against him in the town’s borough court. Following out of court negotiations between the parties, there were further pleadings in Easter term 1448, at which both plaintiff and defendants agreed to a trial by jury, although this probably never occurred.4 CP40/746, rot. 512d; 749, rot 117. Plomer was still alive in 1450, when a tax assessment found that he held lands worth 40s. p.a.5 E179/81/103.