BROWN, Richard I

Very little is recorded about Brown, and it has previously been assumed that the baron for Winchelsea in the Parliament of 1445 was Richard Bruyn*, a lawyer and retainer of the earl of Stafford, who had earlier represented the boroughs of Stafford and Newcastle-under-Lyme. Indeed, a plausible case might be made for Bruyn’s return for the Port, given his prominent role as a royal commissioner and j.p. in Kent, and the fact that his late father-in-law, John Rickhill*, had been able to claim exemption from taxation as a Portsman of the liberty of Winchelsea, a privilege which he himself might have held jure uxoris.2 E179/225/50. Furthermore, Bruyn’s links with the earl of Stafford may well have led to an association with the earl’s half-brother, Henry, Lord Bourgchier, at that time captain of the French fortress of Le Crotoy, which was regularly supplied from Winchelsea. Yet the existence of a local man, whose name was usually spelled Broun rather than Bruyn, supports the conclusion that Richard Bruyn was not the MP for this Port.

As a Portsman, Brown claimed exemption from taxation on his chattels at Guestling, near Winchelsea, in the 1430s,3 E179/226/71. and he was chosen by the mayor of Winchelsea, Thomas Sylton*, to serve on the body of 12 jurats of the Port in the spring of 1443. Later that same year he was one of the two men commissioned by the Crown to organize the shipment of food and other supplies to the garrison at Le Crotoy. This led to an association with the captain, Bourgchier, for whom Brown later on in the decade received prests at the Exchequer to pay for the safeguard of the fortress.4 E403/773, m. 3, 777, m. 1. Thomas Thunder I* nominated him as a jurat of Winchelsea both on his election as mayor in 1444 and on his re-election on 29 Mar. 1445. Meanwhile, Brown had been returned to the Parliament which had assembled a month earlier, on 25 Feb. It was eventually dissolved in April 1446. There is no record of the names of the jurats for sometime after that date, so it is not known whether, or for how long, Brown continued in the office after his service as a parliamentary baron ended. Otherwise, he is recorded in 1444 as a feoffee of land in the vicinity of Winchelsea, which John Godfrey* and his wife held for life, with reversion to Godard Pulham*.5 CP25(1)/241/89/14. He is not mentioned after 1449.