John Somers or Somer or Sommers (died 1585) was an English diplomat, courtier, and cryptographer. He served as joint keeper of Mary, Queen of Scots, at Tutbury Castle with Ralph Sadler.John Hosack, Mary, Queen of Scots, and her Accusers, 2 (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1874), pp. 287, 303. Somers is said to have been Sadler's son-in-law.John Guy, The Life of Mary Queen of Scots (Fourth Estate, 2009), p. 455.
Diplomat
As a diplomat, Somers worked as a secretary for Nicholas Wotton in Paris in 1554, and was available to tutor Wotton's guests in the French language. Wotton sent Somers to report to Mary I of England in March 1557 and ask for funds.Tracey A. Sowerby, "Tudor Diplomatic Secretaries", Florian Kühnel & Christine Vogel, Zwischen Domestik und Staatsdiener (Köln, 2021), pp. 59–60, 65–67: William B. Turnbull, Calendar State Papers Foreign, Mary (London: Longman, 1861), pp. 138 no. 292, 292-293 nos. 583, 588, 298 no. 593.
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.Joseph Stevenson, Calendar State Papers Foreign Elizabeth, 1559–1560, (London: Longman, 1863), pp. 93 no. 243, 157 no. 373(7), 187–188 no. 1290 Somers worked with Robert Jones and Henry Middlemore for Nicholas Throckmorton, the ambassador in France in 1559.Nadine Akkerman & Pete Langman, Spycraft: Tricks and Tools of the Dangerous Trade from Elizabeth I to the Restoration (Yale, 2024), p. 70: Christopher Andrew, The Secret World: A History of Intelligence (London: Allen Lane, 2018), pp. 162–164: Gary M. Bell, A Handlist of British Diplomatic Representatives: 1509–1688 (London, 1990), p. 85: E. John B. Allen, Post and Courier Service in the Diplomacy of Early Modern Europe (Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1972), p. 110.
Somers had discussions with the Duke of Guise and Cardinal of Lorraine, an uncle of Mary, Queen of Scots, who was Queen of France at this time.Joseph Stevenson, Calendar State Papers Foreign Elizabeth, 1558–1559 (London: Longman, 1863), p. 540 no. 1316: Patrick Forbes, Full View, 1 (London: Bettenham, 1740), pp. 222, 470: Philip Yorke, Miscellaneous State Papers, vol. 1 (London, 1778), pp. 126–128.Tracey A. Sowerby, "Tudor Diplomatic Secretaries", Florian Kühnel & Christine Vogel, Zwischen Domestik und Staatsdiener (Köln, 2021), p. 67. Somers looked after Thomas Cecil, eldest son of William Cecil and a student of Gray's Inn, on his first visit to France in June 1559 and taught him some French.Stephen Alford, Burghley: William Cecil at the Court of Elizabeth I (Yale, 2011), p. 113: Patrick Forbes, Full View, 1, p. 124: Joseph Stevenson, Calendar State Papers Foreign Elizabeth, 1559–1560, (London: Longman, 1863), pp. 308 no. 831, 368 no. 962. Somers also bought books for William Cecil including, in February 1561, a gardening manual,Joseph Stevenson, Calendar State Papers Foreign Elizabeth, 1560–1561 (London: Longman, 1865), p. 584 no. 1035. possibly for his new works at Cecil House on the Strand.Manolo Guerci, London's Golden Mile: The Great Houses of the Strand (Yale, 2021), pp. 99-100: Jill Husselby & Paula Henderson, "Location, Location, Location! Cecil House in the Strand", Architectural History, 45 (2002), pp. 176-178.
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.Joseph Stevenson, Calendar State Papers Foreign Elizabeth, 1559–1560, (London: Longman, 1863), pp. 26–28.
In April 1560, Throckmorton sent John Somers and Robert Jones to meet Jane Dormer and the Count of Feria as they were travelling to the Château d'Amboise to meet Francis II of France and Mary, Queen of Scots.Joseph Stevenson, Calendar State Papers Foreign Elizabeth, 1559–1560, (London: Longman, 1863), p. 594 no. 1082. In the summer of 1560, Somers tried to meet Mary, Queen of Scots, in France, and obtain her ratification of the Treaty of Edinburgh.Armel Dubois-Nayt and Valérie Nachef, "Developing the Art of Secret Writing across Borders: The Journey of Marie de Guise's Ciphers between France and Scotland", 37 Études Épistémè (2020). William Murdin, Collection of State Papers (London, 1759), p. 752 In September 1561, Somers wished to retire from his work with Throckmorton. Elizabeth had granted him a relatively modesty annuity of £20 in August 1560. Throckmorton recommended that Somers have the office of Clerk of the Signet.Joseph Stevenson, Calendar State Papers Foreign Elizabeth, 1561–1562 (London: Longmans, 1866), p. 303 no. 496: The annuity is mentioned in his will, and Calendar State Papers Domestic, Addenda 1547–1565, no. 70.Tracey A. Sowerby, "Tudor Diplomatic Secretaries", Florian Kühnel & Christine Vogel, Zwischen Domestik und Staatsdiener (Köln, 2021), pp. 57, 75.
Somers gained the office of a Clerk of the Signet as a successor to Gregory Railton (died 1561).Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1560–1563, 2 (London: HMSO, 1948), p. 100Simon Adams, "The Casket Letters: Controversy and Conspiracy", Religion, Politics and the Public Sphere, 1500–1850 (Boydell, 2025), p. 64. Railton, a Marian exile, was a decipherer of coded letters,Joseph Stevenson, Calendar State Papers Foreign Elizabeth, 1559–1560, (London: Longman, 1865), p. 37 no. 76. and a correspondent of John Knox. He was involved in negotiations with the Duke of Châtellerault and his son the Earl of Arran, Protestant leaders in Scotland in 1559.Jane Dawson, John Knox (Yale, 2016), pp. 184–188: Christina Hallowell Garrett, The Marian Exiles: A Study in the Origins of Elizabethan Puritanism (Cambridge, 1938), pp. 265–266: Joseph Stevenson, Calendar State Papers Foreign Elizabeth, 1559–1560, (London: Longman, 1863), p. 516 no. 1290 Railton was for many years Ralph Sadler's servant and "inward man".Simon Adams, Ian Archer, George W. Bernard, "A Journall of Matters of State", Religion, Politics, and Society in Sixteenth-Century England (Cambridge: Camden Society, 2003), p. 61 fn. 43: James Gairdner & R. H. Brodie, Letters & Papers, Henry VIII, 20:1 (London, 1905), p. 331 no. 631. These were all colleagues and acquaintances, Robert Jones wrote a friendly joking letter to a friend at the English court in October 1560, mentioning his colleague Somers as a fellow player of the cithern, and listing their mutual friends including Railton.Joseph Stevenson, Calendar State Papers Foreign Elizabeth, 1562, (London: Longman, 1867), no. 1433.
In England, Somers showed some antique medals and coins to Cecil and Elizabeth I on approval, and Elizabeth (who was in St James's Park) was disinclined to hear Somers relate news of the Colloquy of Poissy, a conference intended to heal the religious divide in France. Elizabeth showed more interest in the coins, some were thought to be made from an alloy known as "aes Corinthium". They were presented in a gilt box lined with red velvet. Somers noted that Peter Meutas had been sent to Scotland.Hirofumi Horie, "The Lutheran Influence on the Elizabethan Settlement, 1558–1563", The Historical Journal, 34:3 (September 1991), p. 528: Calendar State Papers Foreign Elizabeth, 1561–1562, pp. 333–334 nos. 540, 568. Meutas, like Somers, was given the fruitless task of requesting a ratification of the Treaty of Edinburgh. Elizabeth decided not to buy the medals.Joseph Bain, Calendar State Papers Scotland, 1 (Edinburgh, 1898), p. 553 no. 1019. Somers and Jones met Carlo Ubertino Solaro, Count of Moretta, the ambassador from Savoy in November 1561.Joseph Stevenson, Calendar State Papers Foreign, Elizabeth 1561–1562 (London, 1867), p. 412 no. 679.
In July 1578, as a depute to Francis Walsingham, he went to Mons to see the Duke of Alençon,Conyers Read, Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (London: Jonathan Cape, 1960), pp. 200–201: Conyers Read, Mr Secretary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen Elizabeth, 1 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1925), pp. 395, 402–403Arthur John Butler, Calendar State Papers Foreign, Elizabeth, 1578–1579 (London: HMSO, 1903) pp. 88–89 no. 109. 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.Arthur John Butler, Calendar State Papers Foreign, Elizabeth, 1578–1579 (London: HMSO, 1903) pp. 55 no. 77, 195 no. 255:John Gage, The History and Antiquities of Suffolk: Thingoe Hundred (London: Bentley, 1836), pp. 189–193. 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.Natalie Mears, Queenship and Political Discourse in the Elizabethan Realms (Cambridge, 2005), p. 44: Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, 2 (London, 1791), p. 308 footnote citing Dudley Digges, The Compleat Ambassador (London, 1655), pp. 378–384, 397, 400, 410, 441.Arthur John Butler, Calendar of State Papers Foreign: Elizabeth, 1581–1582, 15 (London, 1915), no. 303.
Somers was sent to the Low countries in March and April 1583,Charles Trice Martin, "Journal of Sir Francis Walsingham", Camden Miscellany, 6 (London, 1871), p. 48. 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.Natalie Mears, Queenship and Political Discourse in the Elizabethan Realms (Cambridge, 2005), p. 46: William K. Boyd, Calendar State Papers Scotland, 6 (Edinburgh, 1910), p. 576 no. 593: TNA PROB 11/68/621. 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. His will mentions that he was born around the year 1525 and his father was Thomas Somers of Halstow, Kent.Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, 2 (London, 1791), p. 308 footnote: Armel Dubois-Nayt and Valérie Nachef, "Developing the Art of Secret Writing across Borders: The Journey of Marie de Guise's Ciphers between France and Scotland", 37 Études Épistémè (2020), fn. 31.
Agnes Strickland characterised him as an "honest-hearted country gentleman" as much concerned with the repair of Rochester Bridge as affairs of state.Agnes Strickland, Letters of Mary Queen of Scots, 2 (London, 1844), pp. 99–106.Nigel Yates & James M. Gibson, "The Elizabethan Statutes", Traffic and Politics: The Construction and Management of Rochester Bridge (Boydell, 1994), p. 150. 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.Natalie Mears, Queenship and Political Discourse in the Elizabethan Realms (Cambridge, 2005), p. 50: Natalie Mears, "The Council", Susan Doran & Norman Jones, The Elizabethan World (Routledge, 2014), p. 63.
Cipher keys and codework