The Smithsonian Channel aired a three-part series about King Henry VIII and his men. The episodes provide good educational and entertaining biographies of those who associated with Richard Fermor of Easton Neston and his brother William Fermor of Somerton.
The book “Thomas Fermor and the Sons of Witney” spans a period from the 1400s to 1685 into nearly eight hundred pages. The challenge was to summarize almost three hundred years of English feudalism, land ownership, military technology, geography, history, court proceedings, international commerce, fashion, and other facets of life into those pages. In some cases, entire books have been written about persons or events that regrettably were condensed into a sentence, paragraph, or a few pages.
The Smithsonian Channel aired a three-part series providing good educational and entertaining biographies of Henry VIII and of his men who associated with Richard Fermor of Easton Neston and his brother William Fermor of Somerton.
Henry VIII and the King’s Men – TV Series | Smithsonian Channel
Mentioned in the series and in the book are the following men:
Sir Richard Empson
Sir Richard Empson, born 1505 in Towcester, Northamptonshire, was a knight, high lawyer, Member of Parliament for Northamptonshire, Speaker of the House of Commons, High Steward of Cambridge University, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Empson was quite wealthy owning the manor and hundred of Towcester, the manors of Easton Neston, Hulcote, Alderton, Stoke Bruerne, Shutlanger, Bradden, Cold Higham, Grimscote, Potcote and Burton Latimer, and lands in other parts of the country.
With his colleague, Edmund Dudley, Empson collected taxes for Henry VII using extortion, harassment, and other suspicious, but legal, methods. This made the king very rich but made Empson and Dudley very unpopular. When Henry VIII became king, he arrested the two men and stripped them of their land.
Dudley was sent to Guildhall in London for trial on 18 July 1509, and Empson was sent to the castle of Northampton for trial on 03 October 1509. Richard Fermor, recorded as living in Isham, Northamptonshire, was named one of the jurors for Empson’s trial. Innocent yet convicted of treason, Empson and Dudley were beheaded on 17 August 1510.
The Easton Neston estate, still in attainder since January 1510, was initially granted to William Compton in 1512, said then to be of “late Comberford,” but then given by a petition and act of restitution to Sir Richard Empson’s son and heir, Thomas Empson, Esquire. By indenture dated 12 July 1527, Thomas Empson in consideration of £1,000 deeded Easton Neston and other lands to William Fermor. It is unclear if William purchased the Empson estates on behalf of his brother Richard, or if he relinquished ownership to Empson within three years of the indenture, as it is recorded that Richard purchased the manor of Easton Neston in 1530 from Empson, and not from William.
Cardinal Thomas Wolsey
Richard Fermor became a wealthy man due to his position as a Merchant of the Staple of Calais. Richard was at Florence, Italy, in December 1524 when he gave financial aid to John Clerk, an agent in Rome negotiating for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey’s election to the papacy.
By 1527, Henry VIII ordered Cardinal Thomas Wolsey to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. Unable to convince the Pope, Wolsey was arrested in 1529 and stripped of his government office yet permitted to remain Archbishop of York. He was also stripped of his property including his magnificent Hampton Court, which Henry took to replace the Palace of Westminster as his own main London residence.
After his fall in 1529, Wolsey owed £124 8s. 9d. by 13 October 1529 for silks Richard supplied him. In 1530, William Fermor was on the Commission of Inquiry into Cardinal Wolsey’s possessions in whose records show “To Roger Elys, for duties paid to William Farmer, Clerk of the Crown, for discharging my Lord’s praemunire, and entering his pardon, 4£.”[1] On 16 May 1530, probably for his work in the preparation of a pardon for Cardinal Wolsey, he received £100.
Accused of treason, Wolsey was ordered to London by Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland. He fell ill during the journey and died at Leicester on 29 November 1530.
Thomas Cromwell
Henry VIII, weary of the Pope’s delays in the matter of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, severed the Church of England from the Church of Rome in 1534.[2] While there were no discernible changes in the liturgy or the practice of daily religion, the faithful who had denied the king’s blasphemous title of “Head of the Church” were ordered to be drawn, hung, and quartered. In varying degrees of legislation, bribery of the nobility, and magnifying slander into a crime, the king confiscated church land.
Thomas Cromwell urged Henry VIII to plunder the gold and silver chalices and other sacred religious objects that had been bestowed by the parishioners to the churches and monasteries.[3] Thomas Wriothesley and Richard Pollard coldly relate in a letter to Cromwell the confiscation of objects from the Abbey of Bury St. Edmund valued at five thousand marks, along with treasures from other places of worship. In preparation of seizing and confiscating abbey lands in Oxfordshire, a writ dated at Westminster on 30 January 1535 authorized an enquiry to the inventory and value of each place of worship and was addressed to the mayor, knights, and several other prominent men, including William Fermor.[4]
In 1535, William was appointed one of the Royal Commissioners for Oxfordshire for collecting the tenths of spiritualities forbidden to be paid to Rome.[5] Cromwell commissioned William in June 1537 to inquire into allegations of treason made against the abbots of Eynsham and Osney. Considering William as a totally reliable servant of the Crown, Cromwell secured his return as a Member of Parliament for Oxfordshire in 1539. William reported to Cromwell again in 1540 about alleged seditious speeches by a priest and by a wool-winder.
For denying the king’s supremacy and maintaining the supremacy of Pope Paul III, Henry VIII condemned the “traitorous” James alias Nicholas Thayne, with a praemunire and imprisonment at Buckingham Gaol in autumn 1539. Richard came to the aid of his former priest and confessor with a couple of shirts and 8d., the equivalent of a day’s wages for a skilled laborer.[6] For this egregious act of charity, Richard incurred Henry VIII’s wrath. With the efforts of his “false friend” Thomas Cromwell, Richard was arraigned in Westminster Hall and sentenced on 09 May 1540 to life imprisonment. Additionally, Richard’s entire estate including Easton Neston was seized for the king’s use, and executed with such strictness and severity that nothing was left for him, his wife, or his children.[7]
Will Somers
Richard Fermor’s freedom and wealth were later fully restored to him due to an unlikely ally. During his prosperous days, Richard employed comedian Will Somers from Shropshire as his personal fool. It was Somers’ first job, and enjoying his professional successes, was appointed court jester by Henry VIII in 1525 after Richard made introductions at Greenwich and presented him to the king.
Lean and “hollow-eyed,” Somers had a comical face, and with a monkey on his shoulders, walked in a mincing way with a stoop around the room, rolling his eyes. Somers would tell jokes, himself laughing uncontrollably at the punchlines, or mercilessly impersonating those who were the subject of his jests. Even the monkey performed tricks. Somers’ sense of humor was very much in demand leaving monarchs and courtiers in fits of laughter. For twenty years he was the king’s constant companion and entertainment, yet never sought to capitalize on his friendship with the king, keeping in the background when not performing and preserving his privacy.[8] Using all of his wit, charm, and well-timed speeches, Somers made all attempts to restore his former employer’s fortunes, particularly when Henry VIII was feeling melancholy from his failing health.
Philip Farmer is the author and publisher of “Thomas Fermor and the Sons of Witney” tracing the family history from 1420 to 1685, and “Edward Farmar and the Sons of Whitemarsh” following their 1685 arrival from Ireland into Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Harlan County, Kentucky.
[1] Blomfield, History of the Present Deanery of Bicester, Oxon (1882), p.104.
[2] Hankins, “Papists, Power, and Puritans: Catholic Officeholding and the Rise of the ‘Puritan Faction’ in Early-Seventeenth-Century Essex,” The Catholic Historical Review, vol.95 no.4 (October 2009), p.689.
[3] Lee, History and Antiquities of the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Thame (1883), pp.298-302.
[4] Lee, History and Antiquities of the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Thame (1883), p.302.
[5] Blomfield, History of the Present Deanery of Bicester, Oxon (1882), p.105.
[6] Dyer, A Country Merchant, 1495-1520 (2012), p.7.
[7] Hamilton, The Chronicle of the English Augustinian Canonesses Regular of the Lateran, at St Monica’s in Louvain, vol.2 (1906), pp.118-120; Evans, Highways and Byways in Northamptonshire and Rutland (1918), p.318; Collins, The Peerage of England, vol.5 (1768), p.49.
[8] Weir, Henry VIII: The King and His Court (2001), p.29.