BRECKNOCK, John

The Brecknocks took their name from the synonymous borough on the river Usk in south Wales, and probably originated from that region. It is not clear when a member of the family first entered the service of the house of Lancaster, but it is probable that it post-dated Henry of Bolingbroke’s acquisition of the lordship of Brecon by his marriage to the coheiress of the last Bohun lord, Humphrey, earl of Essex (d.1373). John’s father, David, rose to prominence in the household of Henry V’s brother, the later Regent of France, John, duke of Bedford. He is first heard of in 1415 when he was among a group of journeyman tailors hauled up before the mayor and aldermen of London on charges of seeking to form a company of yeoman tailors separate from the established Merchant Tailors.13 E159/212, recorda Mich. rot. 7; Stratford, 407; C.M. Barron, London in the Middle Ages, 213. Along with another former leader of the yeoman tailors, John Stanbury, David went on to enter Bedford’s service, and by the 1430s he was serving as the duke’s wardrober, entrusted with the custody of, among other items, the furnishings of the duke’s chapel and his library.

It was probably through his father’s good offices that John Brecknock was also introduced to the court and assumed the office of bailiff of Bedford’s liberty of Mumby. He may also have served the duke in France, for he was among the lords, knights and commoners who in 1437 petitioned the parliamentary Commons for payment of their outstanding wages.14 E159/223, brevia Trin. rot. 18d; SC8/153/7626-7. Perhaps following Bedford’s death he (like his father) had been taken into the young Henry VI’s household, where he was serving as clerk of the controlment by 1436.15 E101/410/1, 3, 6, 9. In this office Brecknock evidently proved himself an able administrator, for in mid 1444 he, alongside John Everdon, a fellow financial officer in the Household, was charged with the arduous task of making the arrangements for the marquess of Suffolk’s journey to France to bring home the new queen, Margaret of Anjou. The preparations for the expedition lasted some months throughout the autumn of 1444 and spring of 1445, and it was only in the second half of March that the queen’s entourage established itself at Pontoise and began preparations to sail for England in earnest. A Rouen goldsmith was commissioned to remove the arms of the former chancellor of France, Henry of Luxembourg, from various silver vessels purchased for the queen’s use, and to embellish them instead with Margaret’s devices. The queen’s physician was paid for various ‘aromatibus, confectionibus, pulveribus et speciebus’ to ensure her well-being during the crossing. As Easter fell at the end of March, money and cloth had to be provided for the queen’s alms during the festivities. Lords, ladies, knights, esquires and damsels, heralds and pursuivants, trumpeters and other musicians, as well as other more menial attendants and the masters and mariners of ships all required payment of their wages. To put this into effect, Brecknock was kept busy crossing and re-crossing the Channel, collecting ready money for the queen’s expenses and carrying it to Normandy, and attending periodically upon the King’s council in London which was discussing the arrangements for her reception, including the means by which the necessary funds might be found. In the process he advanced considerable sums from his own pocket.16 Letters and Pprs. Illust. Wars of English ed. Stevenson, i. 443-60; R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 315-16; Navy of Lancastrian Kings (Navy Recs. Soc. cxxiii), 21. The costs of the expedition all but crippled the already strained finances of the Household, and Brecknock could take considerable comfort from the ready access to royal revenue that the post of receiver-general of the duchy of Cornwall (to which he had been appointed in September 1444) gave him.17 CPR, 1441-6, 295; SC6/821/7, rot. 1; Griffiths, 315-16. Nevertheless, repayment of everything he had laid out was slow: as late as 1449 he was still receiving assignments for the costs incurred in escorting the queen.18 E403/773, m. 12.

There can be little doubt that Brecknock owed his return to the Bury St. Edmunds Parliament of 1447 for Cardinal Beaufort’s borough of Downton to his position in Henry VI’s household, although it is impossible to tell which of the leading men of the day was instrumental in securing his election. Beaufort himself was close to death and took no part in the Parliament, but the assembly had been postponed several times, and although the Wiltshire election indenture was not sealed until 10 Jan., it is impossible to know at what point after the issue of the original writ Brecknock’s return was decided upon, or who engineered his election. It is possible – although there is no definite evidence – that William de la Pole, marquess of Suffolk, played a part: Brecknock’s role in the expedition to fetch Queen Margaret had cemented a pre-existing connexion between the two men: in May 1443 John had been among the witnesses to de la Pole’s acquisition of the Berkshire manor of Streatley.19 CCR, 1441-7, p. 228. Equally obscure is Brecknock’s part, if any, in the deliberations of the Commons.20 In Dec. 1447 the Bury merchant John Gerveys sealed a statute staple bond for £47 to Brecknock and the London fishmonger William Chattok: it is possible that it related to a transaction made while Parliament was in session earlier that year, but no context has been established: C241/235/91. Certainly, his service continued to be agreeable to Suffolk’s administration: in May 1447 he was appointed to the office of bailiff of the royal lordship of Princes Risborough in Buckinghamshire.21 CPR, 1446-52, p. 47.

Brecknock’s father had established himself in that county, where he attested the parliamentary elections of 1432, 1433 and 1435, and was among those required to take the general oath against maintenance in 1434. The full extent of the family property (which apparently included scattered holdings at Datchet, Franham Royal and Burnham) has not been established, but it does not appear to have been substantial.22 CP25(1)/22/119/19. In any case, David Brecknock’s survival into the final months of Henry VI’s reign kept his property out of his son’s reach for most of his life.23 Stratford, 408. It was thus only by his second marriage to Lettice, one of the heirs of the Spigurnel family, that John acquired holdings of any substance. These included besides the manors of Dagnall (in Edlesborough) and Loughton in Buckinghamshire, that of Studham in Hertfordshire.24 Lettice’s parentage has not been established. The last lineal heir of the Spigurnels, Anne, wife of John Kirkham, had died in 1427 without issue, and many of the family’s lands had then passed to Lettice and her husband: VCH Herts. ii. 277; VCH Bucks. ii. 332; iii. 353-4; CIPM, xxiii. 13; C140/58/70; E210/4389; CP25(1)/22/120/8, 122/15, 123/25, 26, 124/27. Royal grants augmented these possessions. In 1434 Brecknock was granted custody of the lands of Richard Lovell during the minority of the heir, in 1440 he received from the King five tenements in the London parish of St. Stephen Walbrook forfeited by Walter Chesthunt, and in 1456 he and his father took custody of the recently resumed royal manor of Wraysbury for a term of ten years.25 CFR, xvi. 207; xix. 151-2; CPR, 1436-41, p. 455; 1452-61, p. 417.

Such grants rounded off the family holdings, and provided Brecknock with a place in county society which he found time to fill in spite of his duties in the royal household. Landholding aside, the family had also forged personal ties among the Buckinghamshire gentry: John’s sister Christine had married the prominent landowner John Hampden I* of Great Kimble, and at least one of the MP’s three wives apparently also came from a local family.26 CIPM Hen. VII, i. 418; CCR, 1461-8, p. 161. Even by 1434 Brecknock was thus of sufficient standing in the county to be included among the Buckinghamshire gentry required to take the general oath against maintenance; in 1436, October 1449 and 1453 he was present at the parliamentary elections in the shire court and set his seal to the sheriff’s indenture, and in November 1440 he was pricked sheriff of the double bailiwick of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire.27 CPR, 1429-36, p. 397; C219/15/1, 7, 16/2. From 1446 Brecknock served on the Buckinghamshire bench, and he was periodically included in royal commissions.

Administrative duties aside, Brecknock’s neighbours, as well as fellow members of the Household (such as the newly appointed master of the mint, Robert Manfeld*, for whom he stood surety in December 1445),28 CCR, 1441-7, p. 408. frequently called upon him as a feoffee or arbiter, or to attest their property transactions.29 CCR, 1435-41, pp. 186-88, 237, 351, 466; 1441-7, pp. 141, 197, 205; 1447-54, pp. 97, 123, 250; 1461-8, pp. 410-11; CFR, xix. 152; CPR, 1436-41, p. 51; C1/15/150. Although his principal manor of Horsenden was situated some miles north on the Oxfordshire border, he spent much time about the King at Windsor pursuing his interests in the neighbouring towns and villages, while residing on his property at Wraysbury.30 It is not clear precisely when Brecknock acquired Horsenden, which had come into the hands of the dean and chapter of St. Paul’s cathedral, London, in 1437 under the terms of the will of Sir Gerard Braybrooke†: The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 349; VCH Bucks. ii. 253. Thus it was that in October 1455 he (alongside his fellow courtier John Somerton and the landowner Thomas Frowyk II*) undertook the collection of pontage for the repair of the bridge at Staines (the principal river-crossing on the road from London to the west) and the western causeway leading through Runnymede to Egham in Surrey, and onto the road to Windsor.31 CPR, 1452-61, p. 273. Less than six months later, he may have been instrumental in securing the support of John Bourgchier, Lord Berners (the constable of Windsor castle), and (Sir) John Wenlock* for the establishment by the parishioners of a fraternity dedicated to the Nativity of the Virgin in the Holy Cross chapel (or Rodechapell) of the parish church of St. Mary at Staines, which overlooked the bridge.32 CPR, 1452-61, p. 287. By contrast with many of his contemporaries, it was rare for Brecknock to be drawn into personal litigation in the King’s law courts. Following his term as sheriff he was convicted of refusing to execute a writ of habeas corpora juratorum on the evidence of his own under sheriff, John Glove, and fined the substantial sum of £40.33 CP40/716, rot. 333d.

It is difficult to assess the impact that Henry VI’s total incapacity from the summer of 1453 had on the members of his immediate entourage. In the case of many of the members of the King’s domus providencie it may have been negligible. There is little suggestion that Henry had ever been a forceful master, or had ever had much contact with any of his servants beyond the knights and esquires of the body who were in daily attendance upon him. Conversely, even though the King’s illness had rendered him unresponsive, the normal functions of the Household had to continue about his person. While the costs of the monarch’s swollen establishment had long been a concern of critics of his administration, not least the duke of York who assumed the protectorship in March 1454, it was accepted that Henry ought to be served as befitted a King, and this recognition was enshrined in the new ordinances for the Household in the following November. Among those confirmed in post was Brecknock, as clerk of the controlment.34 PPC, vi. 226. Nor did the monarch’s recovery towards the end of the year, or his renewed incapacity in 1455-6 herald any sweeping changes to the personnel of his establishment. Such change came after the King’s second recovery in 1456. In February the duke of York had resigned the protectorship in the face of the Lords’ refusal to agree to a further Act of Resumption. The duke and his supporters among the peers did, however, continue to attend the council for some time, and it was apparently by common agreement that the office of treasurer of the Household was now entrusted to the experienced administrator Brecknock.35 Griffiths, 772; E101/410/17. Before long, his duties acquired a new dimension, as under the influence of the increasingly dominant Queen Margaret the court made its permanent home at Coventry. The Household’s supply had long been a staple of political debate, and Brecknock now faced the additional difficulty of being physically separated from the Exchequer at Westminster, a situation which time and time again forced him to provide advances from his own funds until fresh money could be brought from the south-east. For once, the administration recognized these problems and assigned specific revenues for the expenses of the Household. Special licences were sold for the export of wool free of customs, and efforts were made to maximise feudal revenues. Brecknock and John Pury*, the King’s avener, were rewarded for their successful investigation into Miles Windsor’s terms of land-tenure and the whereabouts of his son and heir, Thomas†, a royal ward, and renewed distraints of knighthood were imposed. There has to be some doubt whether the latter measure proved particularly gratifying to Brecknock, who became subject to this extraordinary levy in both 1457 and 1458.36 CCR, 1454-61, p. 266, 309; E159/235, recorda Hil. rot. 19; E401/831, m. 1; 834, m. 24; E403/793, m. 8; 796, m. 8; 807, m. 3; 810, mm. 1, 2, 4; CPR, 1452-61, pp. 295-8, 432; 1461-7, p. 289. It is likely that his replacement in October 1458 by the notorious Sir Thomas Tuddenham* came as a relief to him, and he lost little time in securing a pre-emptive general pardon.37 C67/42, m.16.

Nor did Brecknock’s discharge represent his complete removal from government service. He remained in post as receiver-general of Prince Edward’s duchy of Cornwall, an office from which he was only discharged towards the end of 1460 after the battle of Northampton, when the duchy was assigned as an apanage to the King’s nominal new heir, the duke of York. Although he was no longer a young man, Brecknock now prepared to cross the Channel once more. In December 1460 he sued out protection in preparation for joining the earl of Warwick’s retinue at Calais. In view of his age it must be assumed that he was retained in an administrative capacity, for he took out fresh letters of protection in February 1462, and in July nominally handed all his moveable possessions over to his nephew Thomas Hampden and other trustees.38 These letters give the address of the retained man as Horsenden, suggesting that it was indeed the MP, rather than a namesake who went, although it is just possible that there was a younger son and namesake who is not otherwise heard of: DKR, xlviii. 446; C76/145, m. 11; CCR, 1461-8, p. 161. It is, however, also possible that Brecknock’s letters of protection were a mere ruse intended to protect him from any litigation that might be brought against him in the King’s courts, and that he had no intention of setting sail.

Certainly, there is no suggestion that he, a longstanding servant of the deposed Henry VI, was met with distrust by the new Yorkist rulers. His place on the county bench was confirmed after Edward IV’s accession and from the summer of 1461 he received occasional appointments to ad-hoc commissions in Buckinghamshire. Moreover, in October 1463 Edward IV was persuaded to make him a renewed grant of the manor of Wraysbury, along with the advowson of the neighbouring priory of Ankerwick, to the intent that he might recover the moneys he had disbursed as treasurer of the household several years earlier. If the pathetic tone of the royal letters may be believed, the ageing administrator had been reduced to some degree of penury, had been forced to sell his jewels and a large part of his lands, and was still owed some £1,200.39 CPR, 1461-67, p. 289.

Having thus reached an accommodation with the Yorkists, Brecknock did not openly participate in any of the plots for a Lancastrian restoration hatched towards the end of the 1460s. In the prevailing atmosphere of suspicion he, as a former leading member of Henry VI’s household, may nevertheless have become implicated, and in July 1468 he took the precaution of suing out a royal pardon.40 C67/46, m. 29. In July 1470 his background nevertheless seems to have attracted concerns once more, and he was dropped from the Buckinghamshire bench. It does not, however, appear that the earl of Warwick’s administration established in the name of the restored King Henry in October of that year set much store by the elderly administrator’s experience. He was given no responsibility under the new administration, beyond his reappointment to the county bench. This, in turn, may have proved fortuitous when Edward IV returned to the throne within just a few months: there is no indication that Brecknock suffered any reprisals, or even saw any need to procure a fresh royal pardon for his actions. The final years of Brecknock’s life seem to have been spent in quiet retirement, although this was at least temporarily marred by quarrels with two old acquaintances, (Sir) Edmund Rede* and Sir John Plomer alias Leynham. Plomer, a former London grocer, had purchased Brecknock’s manor of Horsenden during the period of his financial difficulty in 1458, and was for his part living out his retirement in Buckinghamshire, having become implicated in the accusations of conspiracy surrounding (Sir) Thomas Cook II* in 1468. According to Breknock’s indignant complaint to the chancellor he had entrusted to Rede a release of all of his lawsuits against Plomer for safe keeping. Rede, however, had surrendered the document to Plomer before the latter had performed certain unspecified undertakings, an allegation which Sir Edmund vigorously denied.41 C1/51/248, 257. In all probability the release was in some way connected with the acquisition by Leynham of Brecknock’s estates in Bucks.: C140/58/70; 73/74; CP25(1)/22/125/30; CPR, 1467-77, pp. 471-2.

Brecknock died in early September 1476, and was buried in the parish church of Wraysbury, where his brass, showing him in full armour and flanked by his third wife, is still in place.42 CFR, xxi. 329; C140/58/70; W. Lack et al., Mon. Brasses of Bucks. 252-3. His widow, Elizabeth, died in April 1488, and was buried alongside him. Their marriage had remained childless, so her heirs were her three nieces, the daughters of her brother, Sir John Francis: Joan (d.1508), successively wife of a member of the Flore family, William Palmer of East Carlton (Northamptonshire) and William Neville (d.1497) of Rolleston, Nottinghamshire, Joan (b.c.1461), wife of Thomas Sapcote† of Burley, Rutland, and Alice (d.1500), who successively married John Worsley, William Staveley† (d.1498) of Bignell, Oxfordshire, and finally the justice, Sir Humphrey Coningsby.43 CIPM Hen. VII, i. 418, 1062, 1172, 1257; ii. 20, 137, 388; iii. 105, 543; William Worsley ed. Kleineke and Hovland, 171. Rather than Elizabeth Brecknock’s limited holdings, it was the inheritance of the coheiresses’ mother Isabel, the niece and ultimate heir of Sir Henry Pleasington* of Burley, that made them attractive to their successive husbands. Brecknock’s heir general, to whom his manor at Wraysbury eventually descended, was his 19-year-old grand-daughter Sybil, the daughter of his son David, and by then married to Thomas Stonor, a younger son of Thomas Stonor II*.44 C1/57/328; C47/37/18/26; C146/1106; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 418; Kingsford’s Stonor Letters and Pprs. ed. Carpenter, pp. xxiv, 117. It was a different David Brecknock, a London skinner, who married Margaret, da. and coh. of John Sifrewast (d.1441) of Clewer, Berks. The couple had at least three sons: CPR, 1467-77, p. 568; CCR, 1454-61, p. 52; 1468-76, no. 1319; E326/1112, 3690; E329/316; C139/103/32; VCH Hants, iii. 262; VCH Berks. iii. 74.

The Spigurnel lands that Brecknock had held in the right of his second wife, Lettice, fell to their two daughters, Alice, the widow of John Smith and at the time of her father’s death wife of Robert Radcliffe, and Margaret, the wife of Sir William Lucy† (d.1492) of Charlecote.45 C140/58/70; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 418, 835, 843. Lucy and several of his descendants went on to follow Brecknock into the Commons under the Yorkist and Tudor monarchs,46 HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 560; The Commons 1558-1603, ii. 496-7. as did Alice Brecknock’s grandson Sir William Cavendish† (second husband of Bess of Hardwick), while Cavendish’s elder brother George gained fame as the servant and biographer of Cardinal Wolsey.47 The Commons 1509-58, i. 597-9.