John Somers (courtier)
[4] Somers worked for the English commissioners of the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, and in March 1559 returned to bring Elizabeth I a summary of the ongoing negotiations.
[11] While Francis II was hunting at houses and estates belonging to the Duke of Guise in September 1559, Throckmorton, Somers, and Henry Killigrew toured Lorraine, visiting Toul, Metz, Thionville, Nancy, Saint-Nicolas-de-Port, and Saint-Dizier.
[25] In July 1578, as a depute to Francis Walsingham, he went to Mons to see the Duke of Alençon,[26][27] and in August was involved with William Davison in arrangements to borrow money for the English crown from Benedict Spinola and Horatio Palavicino, in connection with the Second Union of Brussels.
[29][30] Somers was sent to the Low countries in March and April 1583,[31] but declined Walsingham's invitation to join him in an embassy to Scotland in August 1583 due to illness, and in the same month he wrote a will.
[32] The historian and genealogist Edmund Lodge (1756–1839) was unable to discover details of Somers' family, and more recent writers have not yet traced his early career.
[33] Agnes Strickland characterised him as a "honest-hearted country gentleman" as much concerned with the repair of Rochester Bridge as affairs of state.
[34][35] Natalie Mears identifies him as a member of closely-knit second tier or "outer ring" of diplomats and advisers trusted to give counsel to Elizabeth I.
[37] Later in the same month, the Duke of Norfolk wrote to William Cecil for a copy of an alphabet or cipher key made by Somers to decrypt French diplomatic correspondence.
Norfolk wanted to try the key with intercepted coded letters sent from the French captains at the siege of Leith to Mary of Guise in Edinburgh Castle.
[38][39] Mary's half-brother, James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, a Protestant leader in Scotland, sent intercepted ciphered letters from the Guises to Cecil for decoding.
Throckmorton praised Somers and his colleague Robert Jones to Cecil for the decipherment, which "to discover was the crabbedest piece of work I ever saw".
[46] Some ciphered letters from the castle found with Archibald Douglas during the Marian Civil War were deciphered by a schoolmaster in Leith, or a Mr Peters.
[49] Walsingham wrote from Windsor with his request:To my very loving frend, Mr John SommersSir, th'enclosed letter in cipher is, as we doe gesse, from the Q of Scottes to the B. of Glasco, which Hir Majesty would have you to have a speciall care to decypher.
[51] Phelippes valued Somers as a senior colleague,[52] on one occasion writing that "Mr Sommer" would be a judge of his "imperfect lines" deciphered from encrypted faulty Latin.
[53] When charges were prepared against Mary, Queen of Scots, for her trial at Fotheringhay in 1586, evidence included her "most despitefull letter" deciphered by "Mr Sommer".
[63] In conversation at Sheffield, Somers told Mary that Queen Elizabeth was troubled by Scots landing in Ireland to fight the English, encouraged by "great ones" in Scotland.
[65] Somers wrote to William Cecil, describing Mary's expressions of despair at her long predicament and failing health on their "removing day" from Sheffield.
[69] Somers asked her about the "enterprise", rumoured plans for her rescue and the invasion of England,[70] which were mentioned in the letter he had deciphered for Walsingham back in April.
Mary wanted a pavillon, which was a tent of tapestry over her bed, "doble lyned with canvas for her chamber", presumably for warmth and to guard against draughts.
[86] Somers bought a plain hard-wearing wool and linen fabric called dornick or dornix at Coventry in February 1584 for hangings and curtains in the lodgings.
[89][90] In March 1585, Somers, (or Sadler),[91] delivered a letter to Mary brought from Scotland by Lewis Bellenden, in which her son James VI declined to join her in the "Association", a plan for her to return to power with him as a joint ruler.
[92][93] Sadler and Somers both wrote to Walsingham in March, defending their decision to allow Mary to ride and fly her hawks outside the castle.
[95][96] While he remained at Tutbury, Somers gave the new keeper Amias Paulet details of routines and the backgrounds of the servants, including the three English laundrywomen.
[98] Mary's servants told him that she suffered by Paulet's "rigours and alterations", including the removal of her cloth of estate, symbolic of majesty, from the Great Chamber used for dining.
[99][100][101] Paulet wrote to Walsingham that he had discussed the cloth of estate with Claude Nau in the presence of John Somers, and offered that Mary could have it set up in the dining room she regularly used,[102] (which was next to her attic bed chamber).
John Somers had two daughters who survived to be co-heirs of the family estate at Halstow and St Mary Hoo, and a house on Fleet Street inherited from their grandfather Edward Ridge:
