The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. III.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.
Prepared by Michael A. Linton
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Somerey : from Sommeri, near Rouen. Roger de Someri is on the Dives Roll. William de Sumeri held the lordship of Catsfield, in Sussex, in the time of Henry I., when Helia, his son, is also mentioned. They were near neighbours and frequent benefactors of Battle Abbey. Simon de Sumeri feoffed to the Abbey a mill-pool at Piperenges (this name still survives under the grotesque alias of Pepper-in-Eye), and Samfrid de Sumeri gave lands in Beausse and Ninfield, which his nephew Robert confirmed; besides some gifts from others of the family.[1] They first emerge into importance in the early years of the thirteenth century, when John de Somerie (the same John who, before 1210, feoffed land in Bexhill to Simon, Bishop of Chichester) attained baronial rank through his marriage with Hawyse Paganel. She was the sister and sole heir of Gervase Paganel, Baron of Dudley, and brought him a great inheritance in Staffordshire, with Newport-Pagnell and thirteen knight's fees in Buckinghamshire. Their son Ralph had to pay three hundred marks for livery of these lands, and was further mulcted of a sum of £50 in aid of Coeur de Lion's ransom. He exchanged Wolverhampton, part of his mother's barony, for three other manors in Staffordshire with King John, and died in 1210. William his son was then a minor, and at his own death in 1221 he again left an heir under age, Nicholas de Somerie, who, with all his lands, was committed to the charge of Ranulph Earl of Chester. Seven years afterwards he, too, died, and died childless, whereupon the inheritance devolved on his uncle Roger, the husband of Nichola de Albini, one of the sisters and co-heirs of Hugh Earl of Arundel. She "had for her principal Seat," Dugdale tells us, "Barewe in Cheshire"; and in 1244 their joint possessions amounted to fifty-one knight's fees. Sir Roger followed the King to Gascony in 1252, and on three subsequent occasions was summoned for service against the Welsh; but fell into disgrace in 1261 for venturing to castellate his manor house at Dudley without the customary Royal license. His works were summarily prohibited; but two years afterwards, when he took part for the Crown in the baronial war, the requisite permission was forthcoming, and they were resumed, but, as it would seem, not altogether completed in his lifetime. He was taken prisoner at Lewes, and died soon after Edward I.'s accession. His son, Roger II., was the father of the two childless brothers with whom the line was brought to a close. The elder, Roger III., either died in his minority, or did not long survive it; and John, the younger, succeeded in 1299, "being not then of age." He was summoned to parliament by Edward II. in 1308; served in seven Scottish campaigns, and died in 1321, when he can scarcely have been much over forty. Dugdale pourtrays him as one of the local tyrants who made their rule intolerable to their neighbour. "In 4 Ed. II. it was reported that John de Somery, Baron of Dudley, had taken upon him so great authority in Staffordshire, that no man could have Law or Reason by means thereof: and that he domineer'd there more than a King; as also that it was no abiding for any man in those parts, except he well brib'd the said John de Somery for protection, or yeilded him much assistance towards the building of his Castle; and that the said John did use to beset Men's Houses, in that Country, for to murther them; as also thereby extorted large summes of money from them." He adds that the King sent William Trussel and Alan la Zouch, as his commissioners to enquire into the matter, but does not inform us of the result.
Lord de Somerie's heirs were his two sisters. The eldest, Margaret, who had married John de Sutton, succeeded to Dudley Castle, the town of Dudley in Worcestershire, Pensnet Chace, and other manors in Staffordshire. Her son John had summons to parliament as Baron Dudley in 1342. The other, Joan, the wife of Thomas Bottetourt, had for her share Bradfield and two other manors in Berkshire, with Rowley-Somery, etc., in Staffordshire.
This was certainly not the only family of the name. Stephen de Someri held a barony in Cambridgeshire prior to the reign of Stephen: and in 1139 Roger de Somerie paid five marks of silver for livery of the lands he derived from his mother:—no doubt the same Christian de Somerie who was a benefactress of the nuns of Stratford. She, with her sons, had bestowed upon them some land at Haselingfield in Cambridgeshire; her grant being confirmed by King Stephen. Courthope makes Stephen father of the John de Somerie that married the heiress of Dudley; but neither his name nor that of Roger appear in the records of the Sussex Someries. In the time of Henry III., there was a John de Somerie, the son of Adam, who was in arms with Simon de Montfort, and is conjectured to have belonged to Hertfordshire, where Adam and Stephen de Somerie are mentioned in 1289. Stephen, who had an elder brother named Roger, had died s.p. in 1240, leaving four sisters to inherit. Sir John de Somerie, of the same county, has already been mentioned as occurring in Sir H. Nicolas' Roll of Arms of 1308-1314, where we also meet with a Sir Perceval[2] Somerie of Warwickshire, bearing the baronial lions counterchanged. Then there was a Robert de Somerie, called "the brother of the Lord of Dudley," but unnamed in any of the Somerie pedigrees, who in 1299 held land at Bishampton in Worcestershire, and was knight of the shire in 1315. He left a daughter Julian, married to Thomas de Luttelton, ancestor of the Lords Lyttelton of Frankley. Richard de Somerie had likewise an estate at Bishampton in 1315: Roger de Somerie is noticed in the Cal. Inq. ad quod damnum in 1320 and 1326 in connection with the same place; and in 1339 Thomas de Somerie was patron of the church there.
The name was in process of time abbreviated; like St. Omer, it became Somer: and there is little reason to doubt that John Somer, the son of a Worcestershire attorney, who became illustrious as Lord Chancellor of England, and is said to have added an s as an intended improvement to his patronymic, belonged to this family.
Besides Rowley-Somery in Staffordshire, there is a manor in Bedfordshire named Great Hampstead-Someries.