SEMER, John

It is not known whether the very obscure Semer followed a trade. He was, however, qualified to act as an auditor, in which capacity he and Richard Sutton heard an account made at Cambridge on 12 Jan. 1422, between a fellow burgess, John Knapton*, on the one hand and a London fishmonger, John Trunche, on the other. Later that decade, Knapton pursued a suit at Westminster against Trunche, claiming that the audit had revealed that the latter owed him just over 60s.2 CP40/669, rot. 421. Given this involvement with auditing, it is worth noting that John ‘Somer’, probably a relative of the influential bureaucrat, Henry Somer*, became an auditor of the Exchequer in 1427, even if it is impossible to prove that he was the MP. By the late 1420s Henry had began to build up a large estate at nearby Grantchester just outside Cambridge, and within a few years he was playing an active part in the affairs of both the town and the wider county of Cambridgeshire.3 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 402, 403.

In 1426, 1428 and 1435 the MP was considered, but not pricked, for jury service at the gaol delivery sessions held in Cambridge.4 JUST3/8/12, rot. 3; 18/15, rot. 17; 219/2, rot. 3. A John Semer was a co-defendant of Robert Damay in a Chancery suit of the early 1460s, but it is impossible to tell whether he was the MP, a namesake known to have been living in Cambridge at the end of the fifteenth century, or another man altogether. In the bill, the plaintiff, Thomas Gale, claimed that the defendants had broken into his house at Royston and taken away a coffer, containing evidences relating to lands in Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire that he had inherited from his mother upon her death. Gale also stated that his mother had died while he was away serving the present chancellor, George Neville, bishop of Exeter, at the battle of Northampton (10 July 1460), presumably to explain why he had been unable to defend his property.5 C1/29/483. The John Semer living in Cambridge in the late 15th cent. had a son, Peter (b.1471), and was 50 years of age when he served as a juror at an inq. held in the town in 1494: CIPM Hen. VII, i. 898.