BROKWOD, William

A Member of the last, Yorkist-dominated Parliament of Henry VI’s reign, Brokwod was possibly the yeoman of Edward IV’s household of that name, to whom that King granted wages of 6d. per day for life shortly after his accession. The yeoman certainly possessed links with Gloucester, for he drew his wages from the farm that the abbot of Gloucester paid the King for the nearby manor of King’s Barton. He also held a corrody at Gloucester abbey, again by grant of the Crown,3 CPR, 1461-7, p. 52; CCR, 1461-8, p. 248. and he was probably the William Brokwod who sued Maurice Denys, Edward IV’s first appointee as sheriff of Gloucestershire, in the autumn of 1465. In a bill he presented to the Exchequer, this plaintiff alleged that Denys owed him £10, a debt arising from a bond that the then sheriff had given him at Westminster in May 1462. Denys obtained licence to treat with his opponent out of court and there is no further record of the suit in the plea rolls.4 E13/151, rot. 40d.

It is possible that the MP became bailiff of Gloucester as successor to John Doding*, whom a mob of Gloucestershire peasantry hacked to death in the middle of the town on 27 Oct. 1463. A short chronicle written by one of the monks of Gloucester abbey records Doding’s gruesome fate, and it is only thanks to this source that we know that he was one of those originally chosen as bailiff for 1463-4.5 J. Rhodes, ‘Anarchy at Gloucester in 1449 and 1463’, Glevensis, xxv. 39; Kingsford, 356; VCH Glos. iv. 374. A contemporary deed identifies Brokwod and William Granger as the bailiffs for that term,6 Glos. Archs., Gloucester bor. recs., GBR, J1/1149. The deed is damaged and only part of the name of Brokwod’s co-bailiff, ‘William Gra…’, is visible, but it is assumed here that this was William Granger, one of the stewards of Gloucester in 1469-70: Glos. Archs., cath. deeds, D1609/9/16. but one of them must have taken over from the unfortunate Doding. If Brokwod was both Doding’s replacement and the Household man, it may well be that the Crown imposed a royal servant on the burgesses in the hope of preventing further trouble in the town. Unrest in Gloucestershire was certainly a concern for the authorities in the early years of Edward IV’s reign. At the beginning of 1464, there were attempts to raise a rebellion in the county against the Yorkist Crown, and in February that year sessions of oyer and terminer at Gloucester, at which the King himself presided, dealt with the ringleaders.7 C.D. Ross, Edw. IV, 57-58; KB9/33/49-51.

By the time he became bailiff, Brokwod was already embroiled in what would turn into a prolonged quarrel with Richard Beauchamp†. On 18 Oct. 1459 he had entered into a bond by which he undertook to pay Beauchamp no less than £500 just 12 days later. As it happened, he was quite unable to meet such an onerous demand, the reason for which is unknown. Thereafter the state of affairs between the two men deteriorated, for in 1462 Brokwod began lawsuits against Beauchamp and his father, John Beauchamp, Lord Powick, in the court of King’s bench. (His readiness to take on such powerful opponents might suggest that he was indeed the Household man of his name.) In one of these actions, neither of which appears to have progressed to pleadings, he sued Richard Beauchamp for robbery and breach of the peace in Henry VI’s reign; the other was a suit for trespass that he brought against both Beauchamps.8 KB27/803, rot. 2; 805, rot. 5d; 806, rot. 43; 807, rot. 6; 808, rot. 19.

Although there is no evidence for Brokwod’s activities and whereabouts in the second half of the 1460s, he was still at odds with the younger Beauchamp early in the following decade. In the spring of 1471 Sir Richard sued him in the court of piepowder at Gloucester over the bond of 1459. Initially brought before that body under the custody of one of the town’s serjeants of the mace, Brokwod attended several hearings there over the following few days before absconding. The court responded by awarding Beauchamp £505, comprising his debt and costs and damages of £5, but this was a meaningless judgement given Brokwod’s disappearance and inability to pay this sum. In April 1472 Beauchamp took the matter to the Exchequer, where he sued Nicholas Hert* and John Chaunterell, the bailiffs of Gloucester in 1470-1, for the £505. In his bill, he claimed that they had failed to keep an attached debtor in safe custody, or to ensure that Brokwod had possessed sufficient sureties. He also asserted that, by custom of their borough, they should pay him the sum he had recovered in the court of piepowder. Thomas Leckhampton, the attorney representing Hert and Chaunterell in the Exchequer, secured licence to imparl with the knight and it would appear that the parties settled matters out of court.9 Sel. Cases Law Merchant, ii (Selden Soc. xlix), pp. lxx, 122-6. Brokwod is last heard of in the autumn of 1481 when the Crown ordered the sheriff of Gloucestershire, by means of a writ of exigi facias, to bring him and John Guise of Elmore in that county into King’s bench, so that they might answer for ‘divers’ insurrections, misprisions, forcible entries and other offences.10 KB27/880, rex rot. 29.