BROMLEY, John

Apart from his participation in the government and representation of Salisbury little is known about Bromley. He may have been the man who, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, paid £5 to be excused the office of alderman, but the name is virtually illegible in the record.7 First General Entry Bk. no. 34. A merchant, he was assessed for alnage on 25 woollen cloths sold in the city in 1414-15, but otherwise his trading activities have left scarcely a trace.8 E101/345/4; CP40/705, rot. 347. He made a good first marriage, to the widow of a citizen of Salisbury who had left her for life nearly all of his tenements and lands, which were to be sold after her death. In advance of that event, the Bromleys decided to sell them to Richard Fitton*, one of the bishop of Salisbury’s officials, and others for the sum of 100 marks.9 Domesday bk. 1, f. 104. Other property dealings gave him tenements and shops in Brown Street, ‘Fish Row’, Castle Street and New Street.10 Domesday bk. 2, ff. 48v, 76v-77, 126v.

From 1414 for the next 23 years Bromley attended nearly all the civic assemblies for which records survive. These included the elections to the Parliament of 1416 (Oct.).11 First General Entry Bk. nos. 134, 167, and passim. He would appear to have been one of the wealthier members of the community, for in March 1415 when the city advanced a loan of £100 to Henry V he was assessed to contribute £1, and in 1426 his share towards a loan of 100 marks was a similar fraction of the total. The size of his contributions could sometimes be even larger (he gave £1 towards the 40 marks offered at the installation of Bishop Chaundler, and the same amount towards a loan of £40 to the Crown), although on other occasions he lent just 10s.12 Ibid. nos. 146, 169, 193, 213, 224A, 254, 297, 321C. In May 1417 Bromley stood as a pledge for the future good behaviour of William Reynald, who had accused 15 inhabitants of Salisbury of treasonable activities, but had since withdrawn his allegation.13 Ibid. no. 178. Towards the end of the same year he was elected as one of the reeves, and a year after that he was chosen and sworn to the 24, in the place of a member of that body who had recently died.14 Ibid. nos. 185, 202. Terms of office as a chamberlain followed, and his experience of the financial affairs of the city led him to be chosen as an assessor of parliamentary subsidies and the expenses of the MPs of 1425 and 1433.15 Ibid. nos. 187, 190, 250, 278, 294-5.

Bromley was evidently regarded as someone to be trusted. At a convocation held on 20 Jan. 1420 a sealed purse was formally opened and from it Henry Man* was given pieces of broken gold and Bromley (the chamberlain) ‘false gold’ worth 10s., the two men being instructed to obtain what they could for it at the exchange in London, turning the gold to the community’s profit. However, more than three years elapsed before Bromley paid 10s. into the city’s coffers as one noble and two quarters of silver.16 Ibid. no. 215. Meanwhile on 1 Feb. 1422 a royal writ had come to Salisbury for the election of a coroner to take the place of John Swift, who was unable to carry out his duties (clearly on the grounds, not stated, that he had been elected mayor). Bromley was duly elected, and told to take his oath at the next county court. He held the office until May 1423 when orders came for fresh elections, as the authority of the coroners appointed by Henry V had ceased on that King’s death.17 Ibid. nos. 228, 234. He had again participated in the election of Salisbury’s MPs on 19 Oct. 1422 and did so again on 24 Sept. 1423. In March 1425 he was among those who agreed to become brethren of the hospital of Holy Trinity, undertaking to make annual payments for the relief of the poor and debilitated dwelling there.18 Ibid. nos. 231, 236, 247.

Bromley’s first of three Parliaments, in which he accompanied Henry Man to the Commons, assembled at Leicester in February 1426 and was dissolved at the beginning of June. There is nothing to indicate what the two men did there. Back home in September Bromley was an arbiter in the disputes between the mayor, William Warwick*, and the argumentative mercer Thomas Freeman*,19 Ibid. no. 256. while other public duties included acting as a juror at inquisitions post mortem conducted in the city.20 CIPM, xxii. 787; C139/60/43. Bromley was elected mayor in November 1427, and after the end of his term he was returned to Parliament again, once more with Man as his companion. Both of them were listed as participating in the election conducted in the civic assembly. At the close of the Parliament they were to receive as their expenses £14 1s. each, at the usual rate of 2s. a day, as they served in the Commons for 141 days.21 First General Entry Bk. nos. 265, 267.

A further measure of Bromley’s standing in the city is given by his inclusion in the body of just five citizens, headed by the former mayor Robert Warmwell and including the newly-elected mayor Richard Gatour*, who in November 1430 obtained the permission of the royal Council to grant five messuages in mortmain to the mayor and commonalty in part satisfaction of the licence issued by Henry IV (which had allowed the civic authorities to acquire land to the value of 100 marks a year in mitigation of the charges and subsidies incumbent on them).22 CPR, 1429-36, p. 101. In April 1432 and June 1433 he was again present at the city’s elections to Parliament,23 First General Entry Bk. nos. 282, 289. as he was too on the occasion of his own last election, early in October 1435, when he was returned with Richard Ecton*, a King’s esquire who by contrast with Bromley had been only marginally involved in the business of the city. When Bromley set out for Westminster William Pakyn* took over his role as an assessor of taxes in the city. The two MPs each received £8 2s. for their service over 81 days.24 Ibid. nos. 305, 306, 312.

Of Bromley’s more private affairs only a few details survive. At the beginning of his career in the spring of 1415 he had been named as an executor of Adam Mottrum, the precentor of Salisbury cathedral, who left him bequests of money and a large bed; and he acted similarly for John More, a local baker who had made him a feoffee of his property.25 Reg. Chichele, ii. 42-43, 50; Tropenell Cart. ed. Davies, i. 235.

Bromley attended his last civic assembly on 18 Nov. 1437.26 First General Entry Bk. no. 334. He was dead by Michaelmas term 1439, when Joan, his widow and executrix, sued a number of his debtors in the court of common pleas. Among his five executors was Henry Man, his former companion in the Commons, while Thomas Pakyn*, another Salisbury man who had attended the Parliament of 1435 (as a Member for Old Sarum), acted as attorney for the widow after she ran into difficulties arising from Bromley’s executorship of John More’s will. William and Agnes White sued her for unjust detinue of some of More’s chattels, worth £20, and More’s widow Joan and her new husband John Mayn alleged in a petition to Chancery that goods worth £200 which More had intended his widow to keep, had not been handed over to her by Bromley before he died.27 CP40/715, rots. 515d, 565d; 724, rot. 298; C1/1508/6. Back in 1435 the Whites had accused our MP of breaking into Agnes’s property and taking goods worth £40, as well as for failing to make proper account as her receiver: CP40/698, rot. 285d. In 1451 Bromley’s widow was assessed for tax on landed holdings in Wiltshire worth £3 p.a.28 E179/196/118.