BROWN, Thomas IV

Brown’s paternal grandmother, Maud, inherited from her nephew Robert Aleyn (d.1411) property in the Berkshire hamlets of South Moreton, Fulscot, Long and Little Wittenham and Sugworth by Bagley Wood, valued at just over £7 p.a. at Aleyn’s post mortem, and took them in marriage to her second husband, the much-married William Stokes.6 CIPM, xix. 397. Although she died in 1421, Stokes continued to hold her lands ‘by the courtesey’ until his death in 1427, so Brown’s father, Robert, then aged 22, possessed them for just five years before he died in 1432. Our MP’s inheritance also included property at Abingdon and East Hagbourne,7 CFR, xiv. 336; xv. 169; C139/28/34. but its most important components were the manors of ‘Adresham’ and Fulscot. Indeed, the lordship of Fulscot pertained to his mother, Agnes Huscarle, who herself owed suit of court to the honour of Wallingford.8 VCH Berks. iii. 501-2. In 1428 Robert Brown was recorded holding half a knight’s fee in South Moreton, while Agnes held lands and rents in Fulscot of Nicholas Carew as of his manor of Purley, by service of rendering a sparrowhawk every year: Feudal Aids, i. 65. Thomas was a minor, having been born only nine years earlier, and in July 1432 his inheritance was committed at the Exchequer to William Danvers* and Richard Adderbury of Newbury. The terms of the lease, renegotiated in November, allowed Adderbury alone to keep two-thirds of the estate, paying a farm of £5 5s. p.a. at which this had been valued, while the remaining third was to be assigned to the heir’s mother. In fact, there was some delay over this assignment of dower, which did not take place until October 1433.9 CFR, xvi. 119; CCR, 1429-35, p. 204; C139/61/56. The heir’s marriage was granted to Peter Fettiplace* on 10 Feb. 1434, in return for a payment of 20 marks.10 CPR, 1429-36, p. 331. When Brown’s mother died in 1438 the Wiltshire lawyer John Giles* secured custody of the dower portion of the estate at South Moreton and Wantage, for which he paid just under £2 19s. a year.11 C139/86/26; CFR, xvii. 44, 105-6.

Brown made proof of age at Wallingford on 15 Dec. 1444. One juror remembered his date of birth as he had long resented the fact that the child’s father had excused himself from paying a debt of £1 on account of the expenses of the baptism.12 C139/120/55. Brown’s inheritance may have been mismanaged during his youth. In the Hilary term of 1447 he brought actions in the court of common pleas against a sherman of Reading for cutting down trees on his land and two local men for breaking his closes at Fulscot and taking hay, these depredations costing him £10, and two years later he brought similar charges, this time for the theft of timber at Sugworth valued at £20 and crops at Fulscot worth £22.13 CP40/744, rot. 239d; 754, rot. 24. It must be assumed that his finances were in a parlous state, as in the course of the next few years he gradually disposed of all his landed holdings, beginning in January 1448 when he and his brother John made a quitclaim to Thomas Denton the elder, Thomas Bessels (who had been a juror at his proof of age) and Richard Wilcocks of five tenements in Abingdon.14 CCR, 1447-54, p. 35. Nor was Brown successful in his attempts to expand his interests by litigation. In the Easter term of 1449 he sued Arthur Ormesby† and his wife Mercy, the widow of Nicholas Carew† (d.1432), for possession of the Berkshire manor of Great Purley. This he claimed by virtue of a settlement made in 1342 on Sir Thomas Huscarle† and his wife Lucy, asserting that as the couple had left no issue, title descended to him through his mother, whose great-grandfather had been Sir Thomas’s brother. In fact, the Carews had come into possession of the manor soon after Lucy had taken as her second husband Nicholas Carew† (d.1390), and various members of the Huscarle family had started to relinquish their rights as early as 1379.15 CP40/753, rot. 340; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 482-3; VCH Berks. iii. 418-19.

It may have been in order to pursue his claim in the courts that Brown sought election to the Parliament summoned for November 1449. He was returned for Wallingford, only about four miles from his home. It is likely that he was well known there, for he held Fulscot of the honour of Wallingford and inquests had been conducted in the town regarding his mother’s post mortem and his own proof of age. During the Easter term of 1450, while the Parliament was in session at Leicester, he continued his suits in the common pleas, and the Ormesbys brought a counter-action against him, claiming that he had illegally disseised them of Great Purley, which they said had been formally settled on Mercy and her former husband Carew and their issue. Brown, appearing by attorney, denied the charge. Later imprisoned in the Marshalsea, he secured his release on bail in Hilary term 1451 by entering bonds in £100 to keep the peace towards Mercy’s stepson, another Nicholas Carew*. Various postponements took the case to November that year, and although in the meantime Brown was occasionally called ‘of Great Purley’, and may have been in possession of the manor for a while, he proved unable to make good his claim. The Carews completed further settlements regarding the manor in 1454, and in February 1455 Carew was acquitted at his trial for entering the manor by force and ejecting Brown.16 CP40/757, rots. 83, 302; KB27/759, rex rot. 2d; Add. Chs. 23864-6.

Brown apparently made similar attempts to gain other parts of the former Huscarle estate. In Hilary term 1451 as ‘of Great Purley, gentleman’ he was attached to answer John and Joan Iwardby in a plea alleging that the previous July, using stakes and stones, he had obstructed the flow of the Thames at Mapulderham Gurney so it failed to serve the mill which they held by descent from Sir Thomas Huscarle. The river remained blocked for six months or more. How the dispute was resolved is not known, although in October 1452 Brown, now called ‘esquire’, entered recognizances to Iwardby in 20 marks.17 CP40/760, rot. 356d; CCR, 1447-54, p. 401. In another suit, which Brown brought in Trinity term 1453, he alleged that William Borde* had conspired to deprive him of land at Wantage.18 CP40/770, rot. 216d. Meanwhile, at an unknown date, he had married, and at Easter 1451 he and his wife Joan conveyed to a body of feoffees, including Thomas Bessels and the latter’s stepfather William Warbleton*, seven messuages and a virgate of land in Abingdon and Sunningwell. This was probably a sale to Bessels.19 CP25(1)/13/85/24. In July following he entered recognizances in 200 marks to John Pury* and Thomas Kempston*, and although the background to this transaction is obscure, it seems likely that it, too, had something to do with the Huscarle inheritance, for Kempston had been the administrator of the goods of Brown’s mother, who had died intestate.20 CCR, 1447-54, p. 283; CPR, 1446-52, p. 294 (where Brown’s mother is called Agnes Hamwell or Hurstall). Brown may have hoped to recoup his financial losses through military service overseas, even though by this stage nearly all the English possessions in France had been lost. He took out letters of protection to go abroad, first, on 16 Mar. 1452, as ‘of Lambourn’, to join the garrison of Calais under its captain, Edmund, duke of Somerset, and then, on 13 Apr. as ‘formerly of Great Purley’, to serve under Gervase Clifton*, the treasurer of Calais. Both letters were revoked on 4 May as he failed to cross the Channel, instead tarrying at Ormesby in Lincolnshire.21 CPR, 1446-52, p. 565. Meanwhile, on 4 Apr. he had placed his manor of Fulscot in the hands of feoffees, headed by Sir Robert Harcourt* and including the courtier John Norris*, most likely as the first step in arranging its sale to the latter, for in February 1453 his brother John made a formal quitclaim of the property to Norris, and in November he himself conveyed to Norris and his kinsman Richard Bulstrode* all his lands, rents, and other property in the town and parish of South Moreton. These transactions were confirmed in a fine to which Brown’s wife was a party, and in the course of a year John made formal confirmation of his brother’s sales of the family estates.22 CCR, 1447-54, pp. 407, 423, 475-6; 1454-61, pp. 30, 110; CP25(1)/13/86/10. Brown acknowledged receipt of 400 marks from Norris in December 1454 and of a further 605 marks in May 1456. At the same time he made a release of all legal actions against him.23 CCR, 1454-61, pp. 48, 136. What became of him thereafter is not recorded.