BRUYN, Thomas

On 23 Oct. 1450 Bruyn was elected for Hereford in company with John Weobley*.1 C219/16/1. His election came, if indictments taken before the royal justices who visited Hereford in September 1452 are true, at a troubled time in the city. His fellow MP was said to be the leader of a disaffected group of tradesmen and other lesser citizens active in opposition to the greater; and, if this was the case, the hustings of 1450 witnessed a victory for the disaffected. The combination of his election at these hustings and his obscurity suggests that Bruyn too was one of this group, and it is possible that he is to be identified with ‘Thomas Broun, saddler’, named among Weobley’s confederates in the 1452 indictments.2 KB9/34/1/5. Another candidate is the attestor to the Herefordshire parliamentary election of 1432, who, two years later, was named among the county gentry required to take the oath not to maintain peace-breakers.3 C219/14/3; CPR, 1429-36, p. 377. Neither identification satisfies, and all that can certainly be said is that the MP attested the Hereford election of 1459.4 C219/16/5.