Welsh Journals

THE OFFICERS AND HOUSEHOLD OF HENRY, EARL OF WORCESTER, 1526-491 IN A commentary on the members of the English higher nobility written in or shortly after 1538, Henry Somerset, earl of Worcester (d. 1549), was briefly characterised as 'young and foolish and of great power in Wales'.2 In this and other unflattering remarks, the writer was not putting forward balanced judgements, but he was right to regard Worcester's 'great power in Wales' as deserving of comment. Worcester was unique among contemporary earls in that his lands and local offices were predominantly concentrated in Wales, where the lordships and manors in his possession or under his control extended from Chepstow to Swansea in the south and through central Wales as far as Ruthin in the north. Accounts and documents relating to these lands and offices have already been published, but Worcester's officers and servants have not been the subject of a separate study.3 The present article brings together the available information on this subject. The first part describes the officers, both central and local, concerned with the administration of Worcester's lands. The second, much less well-documented, notes those of Worcester's household officers and servants whose names are incidentally recorded in the estate accounts and other sources, and offers comment on the earl's chaplains. Chronologically the article relates mainly to the 1530s, since a set of estate accounts for a consecutive period of four years from Michaelmas 1533 and related documents provide a quantity of evidence for this decade which is not available for the years immediately following Worcester's succession to the earldom in 1526 or for the 1540s. Throughout this 1 I am grateful to Mr. T. B. Pugh for his helpful comments on this article. Letters and Papers, Henry VIII, XIII, pt. 2, no. 732. The reference to the earl of Shrews- bury as 'young' indicates that it was written after the death of George, earl of Shrewsbury, on 26 July 1538 and its reference to the earl of Wiltshire indicates that it cannot have been written after the latter's death on 13 March 1539 became known. 'Early Tudor Policy towards Wales: The Acquisition of Lands and Offices in Wales by Charles Somerset, Earl of Worcester', Bull. Board of Celtic Studies (hereafter B.B.C.S.), XX, pt. iv (1964), 421-38; 'Early Tudor Policy towards Wales, Part 2: The Welsh Offices held by Henry, Earl of Worcester (1526-1549)', ibid., XXI, pt. 1 (1964), 43-74 (hereafter 'Early Tudor Policy', Part 2); 'Early Tudor Policy towards Wales, Part 3: Henry, Earl of Worcester and Henry VIII's Legislation for Wales', ibid., XXI, pt. iv (1966), 334-61 (hereafter 'Early Tudor Policy', Part 3); 'The Welsh Estates of Charles, Earl of Worcester in 1520', ibid., XXIV, pt. iii (1971), 384-411 (hereafter 'Welsh Estates'); 'The Lands of Henry, Earl of Worcester in the 1530s, Part 1: Gower, Glamorgan and Breconshire', ibid., XXV, pt. ii (1973), 188-242 (hereafter 'Lands', Part 1); 'The Lands of Henry, Earl of Worcester in the 1530s, Part 2: Chepstow, Tidenham, Caldicot and Magor', ibid., XXV, pt. iii (1973), 298-337 (hereafter 'Lands', Part 2); 'The Lands of Henry, Earl of Worcester m the 1530s, Part 3: Central Monmouthshire and Herefordshire', ibid., XXV, pt. iv (1974), 454-500 (hereafter 'Lands', Part 3).