John Somers (courtier)

Early Life and Origins

John Somers — also recorded as Somer or Sommers — was born around 1525, the son of Thomas Somers of Halstow, Kent. Details of his early career have not been traced by historians; the genealogist Edmund Lodge (1756–1839) was unable to discover particulars of his family background. He is said to have been the son-in-law of the diplomat and administrator Ralph Sadler. He had a brother, William, who died in 1607 and was buried at Halstow, and a sister, Mary or Marian, who married Richard Watts, victualler of the navy and founder of the Six Poor Travellers almshouse in Rochester.

Diplomatic Career

Somers began his diplomatic work as a secretary to Nicholas Wotton in Paris in 1554, where he was available to tutor Wotton's guests in the French language. In March 1557, Wotton sent him to report to Mary I of England and request funds. He subsequently worked for the English commissioners of the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis and in March 1559 returned to England to brief Elizabeth I on the ongoing negotiations.

Somers worked alongside Robert Jones and Henry Middlemore under Nicholas Throckmorton, the English ambassador in France, from 1559. During this period he held discussions with the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine, an uncle of Mary, Queen of Scots. He also looked after Thomas Cecil, eldest son of William Cecil, during Cecil's first visit to France in June 1559, teaching him some French. He purchased books for William Cecil, including a gardening manual in February 1561. In September 1559, Somers accompanied Throckmorton and Henry Killigrew on a tour of Lorraine, visiting Toul, Metz, Thionville, Nancy, Saint-Nicolas-de-Port, and Saint-Dizier.

In April 1560, Throckmorton sent Somers and Robert Jones to meet Jane Dormer and the Count of Feria traveling to the Château d'Amboise. That summer, Somers attempted to meet Mary, Queen of Scots, in France to obtain her ratification of the Treaty of Edinburgh — a task that proved fruitless. Elizabeth granted him an annuity of £20 in August 1560. Throckmorton recommended him for the office of Clerk of the Signet, which Somers obtained as successor to Gregory Railton upon Railton's death in 1561.

In later years, Somers served as a deputy to Francis Walsingham, traveling to Mons in July 1578 to meet the Duke of Alençon, and in August of that year assisted William Davison in arranging loans for the English crown from Benedict Spinola and Horatio Palavicino in connection with the Second Union of Brussels. In July 1580, he congratulated Henry III of France on making peace with the Huguenots, and in 1581 he was involved in the Anjou courtship negotiations. He was sent to the Low Countries in March and April 1583 but declined Walsingham's invitation to join an embassy to Scotland in August 1583 due to illness, writing his will in the same month.

Historian Natalie Mears identifies Somers as a member of the closely knit second tier, or "outer ring," of diplomats and advisers trusted to give counsel to Elizabeth I. Agnes Strickland characterized him as an "honest-hearted country gentleman" as much concerned with the repair of Rochester Bridge as with affairs of state.

Cipher Work and Cryptography

Somers's cryptographic work is documented in several letters held in the National Archives. In April 1560, he deciphered a letter from the Duke and Cardinal of Lorraine to Mary of Guise for Throckmorton, who praised the codework and had the text re-encoded in his own cipher before sending it to Elizabeth. The Duke of Norfolk subsequently wrote to Cecil requesting a copy of a cipher key made by Somers to decrypt French diplomatic correspondence, intending to apply it to intercepted letters from French captains at the siege of Leith.

In May 1560, Throckmorton described how Somers, by his diligence, had a letter in cipher "cunningly made up again" and returned to its messenger without detection — work Throckmorton called "the crabbedest piece of work I ever saw." Cecil, then in Edinburgh, wrote that he would have paid £100 to have Somers with him.

During the siege of Edinburgh Castle in 1573, Henry Killigrew suggested sending intercepted letters to Somers for decipherment. In July 1581, Walsingham sent Somers an intercepted letter from Mary, Queen of Scots, written entirely in code, at Elizabeth's request. In October 1582, Walsingham forwarded another letter for Somers to decipher, sent from Mary to the Archbishop of Glasgow in Paris.

In April 1584, Somers was able to determine from an intercepted ciphered text that its author was Scottish and accustomed to writing in Scots orthography, even though the source text was in French. Walsingham also sent this text to Thomas Phelippes, who valued Somers as a senior colleague. When charges were prepared against Mary, Queen of Scots, for her trial at Fotheringhay in 1586, evidence included her "most despitefull letter" deciphered by Somers.

A collection of cipher keys in the National Archives, attributed to Somers by archivist Robert Lemon (1800–1867), includes a key for a code used by French diplomat Antoine de Noailles during Wyatt's rebellion in 1554, as well as keys for the correspondence of Mary of Guise and Henri Cleutin during the Scottish Reformation crisis and the siege of Leith.

Keeper of Mary, Queen of Scots

Somers was appointed Ralph Sadler's assistant as custodian of Mary, Queen of Scots, on 12 August 1584, replacing the Earl of Shrewsbury. He accompanied Mary from Sheffield to Wingfield Manor in September 1584, reporting on their conversations, including her denial of knowledge of any "enterprise" for her rescue or invasion of England. He also wrote to Cecil describing Mary's expressions of despair at her long captivity and failing health.

At Tutbury Castle, Somers was involved in furnishing Mary's bedchamber, even exchanging his own mattress with hers. He purchased dornick cloth at Coventry for hangings and curtains, and created a garden for Mary within a wooden paling enclosure — which Mary complained to French diplomats was more like a pig run than a garden. He intercepted and deciphered at least one outgoing letter from Mary considered incriminating, and briefed her new keeper Amias Paulet on household routines and staff backgrounds before departing Tutbury on 10 May 1585.

Death

Somers died in 1585; the exact date is unknown. His will was proved in November 1585. He left half a dozen spoons with large knops to the diplomat Thomas Randolph. He was buried at Rochester Cathedral, where a tomb inscription was later noted by John Manningham, though the tomb no longer survives.