SONEMAN, John

Soneman was one of three sons of a minor Kentish landowner. The eldest, Robert (d.c.1448),3 Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, Rochester consist. ct. wills 1453-61, DRb/PWr 2, f. 116. appears to have remained on the family lands at Higham, while the two younger siblings, confusingly both named John, settled in nearby Clive and Rochester. The MP was the elder of the two Johns and trained as a lawyer. By 1440 he was an attorney in both the common pleas and King’s bench,4 CP40/718, rots. 156d, 506d; J.H. Baker, Men of Ct. (Selden Soc. supp. ser. xviii), ii. 1427. and he was described as clerk to John Martin, one of the justices of the former court, when he drew up a list of tenants of the manor of Langdon for the wardens of Rochester bridge in the same year.5 Rochester Bridge wardens’ accts. 1439-40, FO 1/42. Further employment in the affairs of the bridge followed, for by Michaelmas 1444 he was clerk of the works there, an office for which he received a substantial annual fee of 40s. and in which he served until his death. His duties involved overseeing the continuous upkeep of the bridge, although it partly collapsed during his first year as clerk, rendering it unusable for several months.6 Traffic and Politics, ed. Yates and Gibson, 71-72. During 1445-6, in an effort to raise money for its repair, he rode to London for meetings with Thomas Brown II*, and to Canterbury to speak to Cardinal Beaufort and the executors of Geoffrey Lowther* and William Billyngton*.7 Rochester Bridge wardens’ accts. 1445-6, FO 1/45. Soneman’s legal training and contacts ensured that he was also employed on wider business concerning the bridge. In 1466-7, for example, he and its wardens surveyed its manor of Grain.8 Ibid. 1466-7, F 1/63.

It was perhaps his connexion with the bridge, rather than the city, that earned Soneman his election to the Commons in 1447 and 1455, even though he appears to have joined Rochester’s ruling council. Whatever the circumstances of his return, it is unlikely that he was an unpopular choice among the citizens, not least because his sureties upon his election in 1455 were two prominent Rochester men, Thomas Cotyng* and Robert Doget*, of whom the latter appointed him the supervisor of his will of 1470.9 Rochester consist. ct. wills 1468-81, DRb/PWr 3, ff. 57v-58. He must also have enjoyed good relations with other citizens for whom he witnessed or supervised wills and acted as a feoffee.10 Ibid. 1440-53, DRb/PWr 1, f. 48; DRb/PWr 2, ff. 192v, 206, 220. Soneman was again associated with Cotyng in July 1463, when they were appointed collectors in Rochester of an extraordinary parliamentary aid of £37,000, a position they retained when the grant was converted into a fifteenth and tenth in the following November.11 CFR, xx. 107, 112.

As for Soneman’s private affairs, in July 1450 he and his family took the trouble to obtain pardons in the aftermath of Cade’s rebellion, an unusual step among the elite of Rochester but not one that implies any sympathy with the rebels’ cause.12 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 357-8. Those pardoned included the MP, his wife and er. s. John; his father Laurence and his wife, also Agnes; and his brother, John Soneman the yr., and his wife, Margaret. By then he had married Agnes, the widow of John Poleyn, a grocer from Clive with whom he had had previous dealings. In the early 1440s he had represented Poleyn as an attorney in the common pleas and bought lands in Hoo from him and his then wife, the same Agnes.13 CFR, xx. 107, 112. A John Soneman was also involved in another conveyance in Kent in January 1458, but it is unclear whether he was the MP or his younger brother and namesake. By means of this transaction, this John and William Alexander of Northfleet demised a messuage, land, woods and marsh in and around Clive to Richard Ford, the treasurer’s remembrancer in the Exchequer, Richard Glover, a London tailor, and two Rochester men, the lawyer Thomas More II* and Thomas Elbregge.14 E326/1119. Although the fact that an Exchequer official, a Londoner and a lawyer had a role in this transaction might suggest that the lands were granted in return for the payments of debts at the Exchequer, possibly in connexion with the MP’s involvement in the affairs of the bridge or the city of Rochester.

It is likely that Soneman was old and in poor health when he made his will on 10 Jan. 1471, and he probably died soon after making it. He had certainly been unwell when surveying the manor of Grain in 1466-7: the wardens of Rochester bridge had paid for a boat to take him to Grain and back because he had been too ill to ride.15 Rochester Bridge wardens’ accts. 1466-7, FO 1/63. In his will Soneman sought burial in the parish church of St. Nicholas, Rochester, and left money for obits to be held there, as well as for the fabric of the building and its clergy. He also bequeathed money to the parish church of Higham, where he had been baptized. He provided for his widow by assigning his property in Rochester and Clive to her. Following her death and that of his brother, those in Clive were to descend to his elder son, John, while those in Rochester, along with the so-called Westmarsh and a water-mill in Clive, were to descend to his younger son, Henry. As for his lands situated in Higham and ‘Sonnys’ these were to be sold to meet the provisions of his will.16 DRb/PWr 3, ff. 132-3.

Soneman’s sons did not long outlive him. John, who continued the family association with Rochester bridge and served as its warden from 1479, was probably dead by 1481.17 Traffic and Politics, 291. This source errs in identifying John Soneman the warden of Rochester bridge with the MP. Henry made his will on 30 May 1479. In it he sought burial beside his father and ordered that the lands due to descend to him on his mother’s death should pass instead to his brother, John. If John was also already dead by then, they were to descend to the testator’s daughter, Joan.18 DRb/PWr 3, f. 227.