JOHN AND JASPER HORSEY - TWO TUDOR OPPORTUNISTS
PETER WEBB
Part I
As the eldest son of John Horsey Esquire of Clifton Maybank (d. 153l), John Horsey junior inherited the family estates. Jasper, the younger son, had initially to look further afield to the Marquis of Exeter’s service. Both brothers prospered greatly in the service of the King at a time of unprecedented dynastic insecurity. Upon his death on 8th July, 1531, John Horsey was seized of land from the Bristol Channel to the Dorset Heights. This property included the manor of Horsey near Bridgwater[1], from which the family derived its name and origin, the moiety of the manor of Charlton Mackerell shared with the Earl of Northumberland, the manor of Clifton brought into Horsey ownership by his great grandmother, Eleanor Maubank, and finally the manor of Melcombe which had come to him through his marriage to Elizabeth Turgis. From the family seat at Clifton Maybank on the Somerset and Dorset border, John Horsey was well placed to enjoy his estates in both counties and to fulfil the burdens his wealth and standing imposed. The geographical range of the family’s estates was already complete at John Horsey’s death. His heir added flesh to the skeleton. The three overseers of his will clearly bear witness to the status achieved by the family in its own locality[2]. Sir John Fitzjames, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, was John Horsey’s uncle, whilst Sir Giles Strangways had been the deceased’s colleague as JP, Sheriff and latterly as MP for Dorset in 1529. William Horsey, clerk, and brother to the deceased, had been Chancellor to Richard Fitzjames, Bishop of London, and the Chief Justice’s uncle.
The nature of John Horsey’s estates had involved him as a servant of the King in both Somerset and Dorset. He was included in the Commission of Peace sixteen times during Henry VIII’s reign[3] for one or other of the counties, being nominated for both in February 1514. Continuity was provided by his eldest son’s inclusion in the Commission of Peace (between 1524 and 1530) three times for Somerset, twice for Dorset. Similarly both father and son were amongst commissioners appointed for Gaol Delivery at Dorchester in June 1530. As Sheriff, John Horsey served three times in 1512, 1523 and 1524. Unusually amongst English counties, Somerset and Dorset at this time shared their sheriffs.
The financial demands of war led, in August 1513, to his appointment as a commissioner in Somerset[4] to seize the property of all Scotsmen except ecclesiastics. In March 1520[5] he appears with Henry and Giles Strangways and Sir Thomas Trenchard for Dorset in the list of notables to attend the King and Queen at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. 1523 and 1524 saw his nomination as a commissioner for Dorset to collect the subsidies for the French war; his eldest son served in Somerset. In May 1521 he was empanelled at Bedminster near Bristol in one of a number of juries in various parts of the country hearing indictments against the ill-fated Duke of Buckingham[6]. Clifton Maybank provided a convenient base for the Horseys as servants of the Crown between the English and the Bristol Channels.
Seemingly his influence was not confined to his native ‘country’; clear evidence of direct court involvement exists. The Pardon Roll of May 1510 describes him as John Horsey Esquire of Clifton Maybank and London[7]. In 1516 he features in a royal household list as a Knight of the Body[8] whilst his sepulchral inscription at St. Andrew’s Yetminster dubs him ‘Esquire for the body of our Sovereign Lord King, Henry VIII’. Finally we may note his name in a list of gentlemen, mostly of Somerset and Dorset, giving presents to Wolsey in May and June l529[9]. His gift of ‘two beeves, two pheasants and two dozen quails’, whilst it came at the fatal crisis of the Cardinal’s career, may well have had relevance to the family’s relations with Thomas Cromwell, as yet Volsey’s faithful servant.
Without doubt John Horsey’s career was overshadowed by the disgrace of his brother, William, Doctor of Law and Chancellor to the Bishop of London. The fury of London obviously had little effect in the native Dorset of the Horsey and the Fitzjames families. The suspicion of his guilt in the alleged murder of the heretic Richard Hunne in 1512 has never been satisfactorily resolved. This fact and the circumstances of his acquittal privately before King’s Bench on a plea of ‘Not Guilty’ without any evidence being offered by the Crown did not alienate him from his family. He was not only an executor to his brother’s will in 1531 but also made bequests to the children of his nephews, John and Jasper, on his death in 1543. Possibly his exile to profitable Test Country preferments as Canon Residentiary of Exeter Cathedral allowed him to pay heavy fines exacted by the King as the price of his acquittal[10]. On the evidence of his will, his last years seem to have been comfortable. Doubtless West Country religious conservatism, violently exemplified in the rising of 1549, was more willing to accept the theory of Hunne’s suicide. Whether John Horsey gained or lost by his younger brother’s notoriety is difficult to assess. William Horsey’s attachment to the old ways of Catholicism was matched by that of his elder brother and his daughter, Agnes, a nun at Barking in Essex. Both brothers remembered her in their wills. John Horsey had been a generous benefactor of his parish church at Yetminster leaving 40 shillings for its maintenance and repair on condition that he was prayed for annually in the Bede Roll there. No suspicion could thus be justified to suggest that John Horsey was not a faithful son of the Church. Although, as an MP from November 1529, he must have foreseen the coming revolution, it was perhaps happy for him that he did not live through it and auspicious for family fortunes that his son, like so many of his kind, was able to discard the prejudices of centuries.
It is fair to say that when he died in 1531, John Horsey was enjoying estates, status and Court connections which provided an excellent basis for his two sons’ careers. The era ushered in by the Henrician Reformation brought unprecedented changes both at home and abroad. John Horsey’s sons were shrewdly able to exploit the enhanced opportunities offered by service to the Crown.
For a younger son, employment in the household of Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter, offered Jasper Horsey a worthwhile career[11]. His comptrollership of the Exeter estates in Devon and Surrey by 1535 marked his modest success. However, his master’s ancestry, rather than his lands, provided Jasper’s great chance. Amid Henry VIII’s dynastic fears and the threat of intervention by the Catholic powers, Henry Courtenay’s descent as a grandson of Edward IV, by Elizabeth of York’s younger sister Catherine, was to prove fatal. The time had clearly come to sacrifice his master in his own and the King’s interest.
Jasper Horsey’s deposition on 14th November, 1538 giving information on the Marchioness of Exeter’s relations with the Nun of Kent was produced as part of the Crown’s evidence at the attainder of the Marquis[12]. That Jasper’s evidence was flimsy there is little doubt since it referred to events of at least five years before. The inducements which led him to play his part are at present obscure. A mixture of coercion and bribery seems likely; obviously Jasper was in no position to resist the ruling factions at Court. Rewards were soon forthcoming. Whilst retaining the comptrollership of his late master’s estates, he was granted the Surrey manor of Bletchingly and was included in the Commission of the Peace for Surrey on four occasions between July 1538 and October 1542. By July 1540[13], he had been appointed steward to Anne of Cleves at £26 1 3s. 4d. per annum. Doubtless, her estates, which included much of Cromwell’s land, gave ample scope for his skills. On 8th July 1545 he was nominated as chief gentleman of the Prince of Wales’ Privy Chamber[14]. It is perhaps worthwhile to speculate whether Jasper owed his final promotion to a friendship with Ralph Sadler, whose daughter Anne eventually married George his eldest son. Certainly his career after 1538 shows that he was well rewarded for Exeter’s betrayal and that Cromwell’s fall did not deprive him of the Council’s patronage.
At his death in 1546 Jasper was survived by his wife Joanna[15], three daughters and seven sons. His widow inherited a modest estate in South Devon around the village of Kenton near Exeter where she lived until 1558. It seems likely that employment in the Prince of Wales’ household necessitated Jasper’s residence at Hampton Court, apart from Joanna. His will, witnessed by the Rector of Hampton, contains a bequest to the court almoner and nominated three ‘aides’, presumably lawyers, ‘dwelling upon London Bridge’ to assist his wife in its execution. In 1558[16] Joanna left her nephew Sir John Horsey ‘the debt he owes me for the black velvet gowne’ and intriguingly ‘to Hogge, my foole £10 yearly during his life’.
The careers of Jasper’s offspring are not totally obscure. Edward and Francis served in Charles V’s armies in the early l550s and were exiled for their part in the Dudley and Throgmorton Plot against Mary in l554[17]. Edward was Captain of the Isle of Wight between 1566 and 1582 and was knighted in 1577. George, the eldest son, married advantageously. Mary Periam brought him his estate at Diggeswell, Hertfordshire on her mother’s death in 1546[18]. He took as his second wife Anne, daughter of Ralph Sadler, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1568-78 and appears to owe his post as Receiver-General of the Duchy to his father-in-law. The tradition of Court employment established by Jasper was thus continued. Jasper’s finest posthumous achievement must however be that George’s son, Ralph, succeeded to the family’s Somerset and Dorset estates on the death of his cousin, Sir John Horsey, without issue in 1588. Ralph’s marriage to Edith Mohun, his cousin’s niece, would seem to have been an obvious insurance in preserving the family’s West Country estates should the senior line fail. Finally, we must record that the Dictionary of National Biography suggests that Sir Jerome Horsey, traveller, merchant and M.P., was probably Sir Jasper’s grandson by his sixth son, William. Jasper Horsey’s achievements were, therefore, considerable. As a younger son with little hope of inheritance, his ability obviously impressed the Marquis of Exeter, whilst his lack of scruple enabled him to serve the King and to enjoy the benefits of his service. The prominence of his two eldest sons and the fact that his grandson inherited the entire family estates are both adequate testimony to the success of this particular younger son in a competitive and unscrupulous world.
We are able to construct a reasonably full outline of the career of Jasper’s elder brother. John Horsey junior had served as JP in both Somerset and Dorset during his father’s life-time. After 1531, apart from an inclusion in the Commission for Dorset in July 1536, he did not serve again until the end of the decade[19]. On this last occasion his own son, John, was included in the Dorset list. Why did this break between 1532 and 1536 occur? It certainly coincides with the period in which John Horsey gained his knighthood and established the influence through which the family’s estates were to be greatly enlarged at the Dissolution. The years 1532-36 were, of course, the first four of Cromwell’s ascendancy and the last four of the Long Parliament, in which Sir John had followed his father as one of the members for Dorset.
Sir John’s later involvement with local affairs was influenced by national events. His inclusion in the Commission of the Peace of July 1536, coincides with the period of tension preceding the Pilgrimage of Grace. His appearances in 1539-40 can perhaps be related to the invasion threat of those years. Sir John’s inclusion in the JP’s Commission for his own ‘country’, and also his nomination in 1540 as a Commissioner of the Peace for the Western Circuit as a whole, came at a time when influence locally, rather than at Court, must have been more valuable in absorbing the territorial rewards of his earlier manoeuvring[20].
After 1540 his activity in the routine affairs of his ‘country’ lay solely in his service as Sheriff, a duty which he had performed once before in 1536. Indeed, between 1536 and 1546 Sir John was chosen as one of the three Sheriffs serving the counties of Somerset and Dorset. During the period from 1540 to his death no other name appears with the same frequency as Sir John’s. Only members of the Paulet family cumulatively approach his total of six appearances (his inclusion in local commissions of gaol delivery and of ‘oyer and terminer’ not surprisingly are more frequent in these years)[21]. Consolidation of his estates following the Dissolution and a preoccupation with local affairs seem to have been the prevailing factors in his last six years. His familiarity with local affairs led the Crown to employ him in other than routine matters. In January 1535, he is named as a Commissioner for the Tenths of Spiritualities to make enquiry in Dorset, Somerset and the City of Bath. In 1545, in company with four other stalwarts, Sir John Paulet, Sir Giles Strangways, Sir Thomas Trenchard and Sir Thomas Arundell, he collected the Benevolence in the county. Finally, February 1546 saw him as one of seven Commissioners for the survey of chantries in Dorset and Somerset, Wells and Bath, a duty inherited by his eldest son[22].
Duties in conjunction with defence come, therefore, as no surprise[23]. On 7th October, 1536, during the Pilgrimage of Grace, he was appointed to attend upon the King’s person with 150 men of Dorset. The summons was cancelled five days later but his name appeared in a list of gentlemen to whom it was proposed to write regarding security. The threat of invasion by both France and Spain following the Truce of Nice June 1538 brought major responsibilities. In February 1539, he was appointed with eleven others as a Commissioner to search and defend different portions of the coasts of Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall. Shortly afterwards came the ultimate accolade with his appointment to the new but short-lived Council in the West. In the muster of 15th May, 1539, he is found to be jointly in charge of the hundreds of Yetminster, Sherborne, Browns hill, Buckland and Redlane, the tithings of Free Gillingham, Gillingham Town and the borough of Shaston. The identity of his fellow muster-master is at present obscure, except insofar as his first name was William. However, it seems possible that this was William Thornhill of Thornhill near Stalbridge. The area allotted to Sir John and his colleague covered the whole of Blackmore Vale which, since it extended to the fringes of Salisbury Plain, could not have been handled from Clifton Maybank or Melcombe Horsey alone. William Thornhill at Stalbridge was suitably placed to deal with the area around Gillingham and Shaftesbury peripheral to the Plain. In 1544 Sir John is found in the muster of the Army against France[24]. Later in that year he was listed with Sir Thomas Poynings and Sir Giles Strangways for Dorset in the Rearguard of the Army. A commissioner to collect the Benevolence of 1545, he appears for Dorset in the muster list of 1546. In conclusion, John and Jasper Horsey took full advantage of the contrasting opportunities available to elder and younger sons. Having outlined John Horsey’s role as one of the King’s servants in his own ‘country’ we will turn, in the next volume, to look at some aspects of his service during a period of national uncertainty and danger.
REFERENCES
1. The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset by John Hutchins, MA, 1870. IV p 427-9.
2. Extract from John Horsey’s will 1532, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, Thower 16. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII 1509 and 1547, ed Brewer, Gairdner and Brodie (1862-1910, 1920) (hereinafter L and P) Vol IV Pt II 6043(2).
3. Land P Vol II, Pt 1, p 1543; Vol IV Pt I, p 137(8) (18), 233, 900; Vol IV Pt II 5083; Vol 1 Pt II 1494(9); Vol IV Pt III 6803(12); Vol IV Pt III g 6490.
4. L and P Vol I Pt 11 2222 (16 Soms).
6. L and P VoI III Pt lI p 136l; L and P VoI III Pt I p 493; L and P Vol III Pt II p 3583, Vol IV Pt I p 819.
7. L and P Vol I Pt I p 438 3 m 5.
9. L and P Vol IV Pt III p 5746.
10. A. Ogle, The Tragedy of the Lollard’s Tower (1949), Pen-in-Hand Publishing Co Ltd, Oxford. Keilway’s Report p 150 referred to in L and P Vol II Pt 11313. William Horsey’s will P C C 25 Spert 1543.
11. L and P Vol IV Pt I p 794; Vol X g 392(40); Vol VIII g 802.
12. Land P Vol XIII Pt I g 1519, Pt II 754(3), 755, 802, 827(2), 830(2), 831(4), 1000; 1003; Land P Vol XIV Pt 1 403(60), 1056(46); L and P Vol XV g 282(86), 733, 942(58). L and P Add 1404.
13. L and P Vol XV 937, 991; L and P Vol XV 991; Vol XVI 24; Vol XVI 503(32), Vol XVI g 580(36), Vol XVII 1012.
15. Jasper Horsey’s will (d 1546) Alen 18.
16. Joanna Horsey (d 1558), Will F 22 Noodes, P C C Wills Index.
17. D. M. Loades, Two Tudor Conspiracies (1965), Cambridge University Press. Dictionary of National Bibliography.
18. L and P Vol XXI Pt II g 648(3).
19. L and P Vol lV Pt I g 985 p90l, Pt I1 g 5083(l2), Pt III g 5243(26), Vol IV Pt III 6803(l2); Vol XI g 202, g l2l7(23); Vol XIV Pt II g 619(36); L and P XV 831(34).
21. Land p vol XI, XII Pt II g 1150; Vol XVI 1391(67); Vol XVII; Vol XVIII Pt II g 449-791; Vol XXI Pt 11472; Vol XX g 622 (and others).
22. L and P Vol VIII g 149(59, 79); Vol XXI g 302.
23. L and P Vol XI 580; Vol XIV Pt I 398 p 152; L and P Vol XIV i 743; L and P XIV Pt I 652.
24. L and P Vol XIX Pt 1 276; Vol XXI Pt I 91 (Dors); L and P Vol XX Pt I 623 p 325.
