EVERY, Simon (c.1603-1647), of Egginton, Derbys.

The Everys of Chardstock and Chaffcombe, near Chard in Somerset, claimed descent from the Norman house of Yvery and were a branch of the Every family seated at Cothay.21VCH Som. iv. 88; CB; G. Clinch, ‘Common-place book of John Every’, The Western Antiquary, viii (1888-9), 137-8; Burke, Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage (1904 edn.), 580. Every’s grandfather had been a serjeant-at-arms to Queen Elizabeth, and his father, John Every, was a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.22Reg. Magdalen Coll. n.s. iii. 64-6; Wood, City of Oxford, iii. 177-8; Abstracts Somersetshire Wills (1st ser.), 19. At John Every’s death in 1618, his estate – which included the lease of the prebend of Chardstock – was valued at almost £7,000.23Reg. Magdalen Coll. n.s. iii. 67. Every himself married a Derbyshire heiress in about 1628 and thereby acquired two estates in the county, at Newton Solney and Egginton, worth £860 a year.24Newton, ‘The gentry of Derbys.’, 18. In May 1636, he was appointed receiver-general of the duchy of Lancaster with the Derbyshire gentleman and future parliamentarian (Sir) John Curzon*.25Duchy of Lancaster Office-Holders ed. Somerville, 18.

In the elections to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640, Every was nominated by Edward Barrett†, 1st Baron Barrett of Newburgh – the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster – for both Wigan and Leicester. At Wigan he polled only one vote, but he was returned for Leicester with the assistance of one of the borough’s patrons, Henry Hastings†, 5th earl of Huntingdon.26Supra, ‘Leicester’; D. Sinclair, Hist. Wigan i. 214; G.K. Gruenfelder, ‘The electoral influence of the earls of Huntingdon 1603-40’, Trans. Leics. Arch. and Hist. Soc. l (1974-5), 25. After his election, Every was made an honorary freeman of Leicester.27Freemen of Leicester ed. Hartopp, 126 He received only one appointment in the Short Parliament – to a committee relating to duchy business (1 May) – and made no recorded contribution to debate.28CJ ii. 18b. Lord Newburgh recommended Every to Leicester again in the elections to the Long Parliament later that year, but despite receiving the support of the mayor and leading members of the corporation he was rejected by the voters in favour of Thomas Lord Grey of Groby.29Supra, ‘Leicester’; Gruenfelder, ‘The electoral influence of the earls of Huntingdon’, 25. Every was created a baronet in May 1641, for which he paid £1,095, and was knighted at Whitehall the following month.30F.N. Fisher, ‘The Every fam. and the civil war’, DAJ lxxiv. 112; Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 209.

With the approach of civil war, both king and Parliament had hopes of gaining Every’s support. Thus he was appointed to the Derbyshire commission of array in June 1642, and he was included, in August, on a parliamentary committee for executing the Militia Ordinance in the county.31Northants RO, FH133; LJ v. 260b. But the prospect of taking sides held little appeal to him, and he was among the group of Derbyshire gentlemen that sent a ‘threatening letter’ to the parliamentarian commander Sir John Gell (brother of Thomas Gell* and father of John Gell*) in October in an effort to preserve the county’s neutrality.32Glover, Derbys. i. 70; Fisher, ‘The Every fam. and the civil war’, 113; Beats, ‘Derbys.', 110-11. Every was not re-appointed to the Derbyshire commission of array – although the king gave order that his estate there should not be plundered – and in January 1643, while on his way to London, he was captured by the royalists and taken to Oxford, where he was charged with arrears that were allegedly due from the duchy. He secured his release only upon payment of a fine and, in September, the royalist authorities deprived him of his duchy office.33Derbys. RO, D803 M/Z9, f. 59; R. Somerville, Hist. Duchy of Lancaster (1953), ii. 40; Duchy of Lancaster Office-Holders ed. Somerville, 18. He was assessed at £100 by the Committee for Advance of Money* in November 1643.34CCAM 292.

At some point late in 1643, the commander of the king’s northern army, William Cavendish, 1st marquess of Newcastle, appointed Every a colonel of the royalist forces in Derbyshire. Lacking either men or arms, however, ‘and wanting means to trouble this county [Derbyshire], he went to Oxford to expect the success of the anti-Parliament there [the Oxford Parliament]’.35Glover, Derbys. i. 74; HMC Hastings ii. 111; Beats, ‘Derbys.’ 151. In December 1643, he tried to interest Sir John Gell in what was a wholly unworkable scheme for a treaty of pacification in Derbyshire, brokered by Newcastle and the parliamentarian commander-in-chief Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex.36Derbys. RO, D803 M/Z9, f. 73; Beats, ‘Derbys.’, 151-2. Given Every’s eirenic sympathies, it is puzzling that he was not among the signatories to the Oxford Parliament’s letter to Essex of 27 January 1644, urging him to compose a peace.

Every’s movements from the mid-1640s are difficult to trace, but it was alleged in 1650 that he had been ‘in arms’ when the royalists sacked Leicester in May 1645 and had ‘lived long’ in the royalist garrisons of Oxford, Lichfield and Tutbury.37SP19/132, f. 119; SP23/84, p. 646; CCAM 2448. In November 1645, the Committee for Advance of Money increased his assessment to £2,000, but in May 1646 it respited this order until his estates had been freed from sequestration.38CCAM 292. Every had still not petitioned to compound when he died in August 1647. He was buried in Egginton church.39SP23/237, ff. 267, 270v; PROB11/210, f. 220v. In his will – written, in extremis, on 18 August 1647 – he named his legal adviser, the Derbyshire royalist William Allestrye*, one of his overseers, and referred to Sir John Curzon as ‘my much honoured friend’.40PROB11/210, f. 220v; SP23/84, pp. 677, 683.

Every’s case was examined by the Committee for Compounding* in July 1650 after allegations that he had defrauded the state by pretending to the local committee that he had compounded at Goldsmiths’ Hall and by producing a false deed conveying most of his land to his children for their education.41CCC 2448. It was also claimed that he owed the state at least £600 from duchy revenues.42CCC 2448-9; CSP Dom. 1654, p. 298. In 1651, no less a person than Hugh Peters petitioned the Compounding Committee on behalf of Every’s widow, who, he claimed, was ‘like to have her and her children’s bread taken away’ as a result of the county committee threatening her tenants and driving away her cattle.43CCC 2448. The estates were freed from sequestration in September 1652 on payment of a fine of £110. Every’s heir Sir Henry Every was a principal promoter in Derbyshire of the 1659 Presbyterian-royalist uprising under Sir George Boothe*.44CCC 2449. No other member of this branch of the Every family sat in Parliament.