ALOMBY, John

It is possible that the MP was the man of this name commissioned in November 1443 to requisition carts and ships for the victualling of Roxburgh castle. This might imply northern origins, and indicate that he had entered royal service by that date.2 CPR, 1441-6, p. 222. Yet where Alomby came from has not been discovered, nor where or how he acquired the necessary education to qualify for employment in the privy seal office. This was primarily a writing office where decisions by the King, council and royal officials were translated into formal royal letters and authenticated with the privy seal. Its purpose was to produce clear, acceptable and polished letters to be sent out in the King’s name. Traditionally, the establishment under the keeper and the secondary was four clerks, but in the early fifteenth century the staff grew larger, the usual number of clerks being six, while from the 1430s these clerks were assisted by up to seven under clerks. All members of staff received an allowance of clothing at the great wardrobe. When Alomby joined the office he was one of three under clerks, the others being like him of humble and obscure background. Yet they must have come to the office literate and with a grounding of secretarial skill, versed in French and to a lesser extent in Latin, even though from the 1440s it was common for English to be used. Alomby progressed to an established clerkship in about 1454.3 A.L. Brown, ‘Privy Seal Clerks in the Early Fifteenth Cent.’, in The Study of Med. Recs. ed. Bullough and Storey, 260-81; E361/6. Normally, a clerk’s life was a settled one in London and Westminster, although occasionally the seal and at least some of the clerks were obliged to accompany the King to a council or Parliament elsewhere. The clerks were not paid wages by the Crown, and by Alomby’s day they had to rely for an income on fees paid by private individuals, favours and miscellaneous grants.

There is nothing to show that Alomby received any royal grants of much note. Yet he was of sufficient substance to be asked to stand surety at the Exchequer on 8 July 1452 for his superior Master Thomas Kent, the secondary in the privy seal office and clerk of the King’s Council, when Kent shared the keeping of the royal warren at Rising Chase, Norfolk; and even though he was still only an under clerk, he was then called ‘of London, gentleman’.4 CFR, xviii. 263. Having been promoted before Michaelmas 1455, it was as a fully-fledged clerk that he was returned to Parliament four years later. This was the Parliament summoned to Coventry for the proscription of the Yorkist lords. As Alomby had no known contact with the borough of Great Bedwyn, which he was supposed to be representing, or with the people of Wiltshire generally, it must be assumed that he was returned because of his royal office and in response to the Lancastrian government’s need of supporters in the Commons. Although the clerks of the privy seal usually served for many years, Alomby’s turned out to be a relatively short career, and he was no longer recorded in post after Henry VI’s deposition in 1461. Whether this was because he had accompanied the King into exile, or died round about then is not known. His superior, Thomas Kent, avoided partisan activities and retained his posts under Edward IV. He named as his executors in 1469 two former subordinates in the privy seal office, but Alomby was not one of them; nor was he mentioned in Kent’s will.5 PCC 26 Godyn (PROB11/5, ff. 205-6v).