SOMER, Henry

More may be added to the earlier biography.1 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 400-4.

A memoranda roll of the Exchequer, the institution in which Somer spent so much of his career, provides further evidence that he was of Kentish origin and indicates where at least some of his interests in that county lay. The roll in question contains a copy of an indenture, dated 1 Apr. 1435, by which he acknowledged receiving a rent of 40s. for lands in Hollingbourne, Leeds, Broomfield and Harrietsham in Kent from Robert Moliton and others, and in which he is identified as the kinsman and heir of George Somer of Kent.2 E159/211, commissiones Easter.

In January 1407 Somer and the prominent London mercer, John Shadworth†, took a bond in statute staple (for no less than £1,500) from Robert Domenyk, another mercer, although in what circumstances is unknown. It was as a consequence of this security that in the following year the City’s authorities assigned various rents and holdings in London, worth some £25 p.a. and held by Domenyk in the right of his wife, to Somer and his associate.3 C131/56/2; C241/198/43. In the same January Somer received several other bonds in statute staple from another Londoner, the grocer William Venour, whose executors he sued on the strength of these securities early in Henry VI’s reign.4 CP40/650, rot. 333d; 659, rot. 578d; 663, rot. 140d. 5 CCR, 1402-5, pp. 440-1; DKR, xliv. 545, 587; E13/133, rot. 4. During the 1420s Somer fell into dispute with yet another Londoner, the grocer Robert Otteley, apparently over access to the former’s hostelry in Thames Street. In March 1428 the mayor and aldermen ruled that a certain great door (presumably serving both men’s properties) should remain open until such time as the dispute could be resolved. The pair tried to settle their differences outside the courts by agreeing to refer it to the arbitration of John Fray†, John Fortescue* and others, only for Somer subsequently to fall out with the arbitrators over the performance of the resulting award.6 Corp. London RO, jnl. 2, ff. 87, 110; C1/7/272.

Apart from confirming Somer’s Kentish links, Exchequer records contain references to loans he made to the Crown in the reign of Henry VI. For instance, he advanced it 100 marks in June 1423, £20 in August 1426 and a further £100 in the following November, 100 marks in December 1429, £100 in October 1430 and another 100 marks in February 1431. Furthermore, he and others of Middlesex, including Thomas Frowyk I* and Robert Warner*, jointly lent the King £94 in February 1429.7 E401/704, m. 10; 713, m. 17; 715, m. 9; 720, m. 30; 725, mm. 2, 32; E403/692, m. 11.

The extent of the landed estates held by the extremely wealthy Somer made him eligible for knighthood, for which honour he was distrained in 1430 but for which he was excused, free of any fine, in 1439.8 E159/216, brevia Mich. rot. 37, recorda Mich. rot. 29. He was not, however, always diligent in the management of his holdings. Although it referred to him as a ‘capable and farsighted landlord’, the previous biography also somewhat contradictorily observed that he eventually allowed most of his wife’s property to fall into decay. Furthermore, in 1425 he was called upon to answer for past ‘wastes and decays’ on the manor and rectory of Felsted, Essex, of which he had received a share of the farm by grant of Richard II in 1397. He responded by claiming that he had no case to answer, by reason of a pardon that Henry IV had granted to him.9 E159/201, recorda Trin. rot. 5d. Felsted is mispelled ‘Felstead’ in The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 401.

In the spring of 1434 Somer was among those called to attend the great council which met between 24 Apr. and about 8 May that year, a summons providing further evidence of his importance.10 PPC, iv. 213. In 1437, late in his long term as chancellor of the Exchequer, Somer took the opportunity to purchase a general pardon, as promulgated in the Parliament of that year.11 C67/38, m. 29. He surrendered another long-held office, that of warden of the Exchange and Mint, at the end of the same decade. Upon relinquishing it, he was the subject of a petition on the part of the London goldsmith, Henry Ragley, who held the position of controller, changer and assayer of the Mint. Ragley complained that Somer had failed to pay the ‘greet part of his wages’ between April 1434 and 18 Dec. 1439, when the MP stood down as warden. In response, the Crown directed the Exchequer not to pass Somer’s account as such until Ragley had received what was due to him.12 E159/217, brevia Mich. rot. 17d.

Late in life, Somer disposed of his manor at Freefolk in Hampshire by selling it to John Roger I* in 1441.13 VCH Hants, iv. 283. (His feoffees of this property had included the chancellor, John Stafford, bishop of Bath and Wells, John Selman* and Thomas Haydock*.)14 Hants RO, Jervoise of Herriard mss, 44M69/C564. Even at this stage in his career, he was still acquiring rewards from the Crown. In November 1443 he another royal servant, Richard Alrede, obtained a grant of £40 p.a. from the temporalities of the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, and three years later the King assigned to him and William Beaufitz*, clerk of the King’s cellars, an annuity of £15 in survivorship from the customs of Sandwich.15 E159/223, brevia Trin. rot. 12; 226, recorda Mich. rot. 3; 224, brevia Hil. rot. 12.

At the end of March 1446 the elderly Somer conveyed his estates to a group of feoffees headed by the then chancellor of the Exchequer, Master John Somerset*, who had also succeeded him as warden of the Exchange and Mint in December 1439. The feoffees also included the King’s serjeant-at-law, Walter Moyle*, Laurence Cheyne* and his kinsman Thomas Somer. Following his death, his executors sold his estates in Grantchester and its vicinity to King’s College, Cambridge, the royal foundation which he had helped Henry VI to establish, for the considerable sum of 2,000 marks.16 King’s Coll., Cambridge, GRA/6, 232, 553; CAM/17; E159/231, brevia Easter rot. 3.

It was previously thought that Somer’s daughter Agnes, whom he outlived, was his only child, yet she had once had a sister, Joan, for whom her father contracted a prestigious marriage to Richard Poynings*, the eldest son and heir apparent of Robert, Lord Poynings. Joan’s short-lived marriage to Poynings ended with her death in 1420, following which she was buried in St. Helen’s priory, Bishopsgate, London. In July 1423, shortly after Poynings married again, Somer received a quitclaim from his former son-in-law and an acknowledgement of a debt of 500 marks from Lord Poynings.17 J. Stow, Surv. London ed. Kingsford, i. 172; R. Gough, Sep. Mons. ii (2), 55; E159/199, scripta recognita Trin., recogniciones Easter rot. 1.