England's richest commoner left his fortune to a hospital, and his nephew and Francis Bacon tried to break the will

Thomas Sutton made his money in coal and moneylending. A 19th-century biography says he died with about £5,000 a year in land and over £60,000 in money^†. He bought Howard House, the former Charterhouse, from the Earl of Suffolk for £13,000. Letters patent of June 1611 founded the "Hospitall of King James" there for 80 poor men and 40 poor scholars. His will made the charity his heir. It left nothing to his son Roger, born at Alnwick in the 1570s to Agnes Inskipp, to whom Sutton was not married. Sutton died in December 1611 before the first residents arrived. His nephew Simon Baxter, left an estate worth about £10,000 and £300, sued to overturn the will. His chief adviser was the Solicitor-General, Sir Francis Bacon. Baxter argued the charity was not properly incorporated and so could not receive the property. The judges, in the case Sir Edward Coke reported, held the incorporation and the gift valid. Roger petitioned James I in 1613 and 1615, and a 1621 deed certified his descent and ordered help for him. Sutton is buried in the Charterhouse chapel. The Charterhouse is still an almshouse for people aged 60 and over in housing need.