BROWN, Thomas I

It is impossible to be entirely sure of the identity of the Thomas Brown who represented Bodmin in the Parliament of 1426, but the most likely candidate appears to be a local man. This Thomas was styled a mere chapman, but he was probably rather more prominent in trade than this description suggests. He had extensive mercantile connexions in the ranks of the London Mercers’ Company, including the wealthy and powerful William Estfield*.3 CPR, 1429-36, p. 20; CCR, 1429-35, p. 59. Certainly, Brown’s horizons were wide enough for him to take an interest in parliamentary affairs. In 1420 he attended the Cornish shire elections in the county court, and set his seal to the sheriff’s indenture, and it was probably also he (albeit on that occasion not distinguished as ‘of Bodmin’), who did likewise in 1427, the year after his own return to the Commons.

Within Bodmin, Brown was well respected, so much so, that in the autumn of 1421 the burgesses elected him their mayor,4 CAD, iii. A6020. while in January 1434 he ranked prominently among the arbiters appointed to settle a dispute over the boundaries between the lands of Bodmin priory and the important local gentleman Richard Flamank of Boscarne.5 Harl. Ch. 57 A 35. Similarly, on the occasion of his return to Parliament in 1426 the sureties who guaranteed his appearance in the Commons were John Peyntour, mayor of the borough, and the wealthy and influential John Nicoll I*, a former mayor who had represented the borough in the previous year, but had on this occasion secured a seat at Helston.6 C219/13/4. The connexion with Nicoll appears to have been a particularly close one. At Christmas 1443 Brown witnessed a deed of enfeoffment for Nicoll’s son-in-law, John Colyn† of Helland, and about the same time he was among four Bodmin men who were bound to Philippa, widow of Sir William Bodrugan*, in the sum of £40, as surety for certain of Nicoll’s goods seized by the sheriff.7 CP40/754, rot. 115; Arundell mss, AR1/353. The background to this latter transaction lay in a prior seizure of certain of Bodrugan’s possessions by Nicoll, and it is possible that this dispute provided the motive for Brown’s murder – if it was he – by the retainers of Henry Bodrugan*, Lady Philippa’s son, and John Arundell of Tolverne, her nephew, in 1448. The murdered man’s widow appealed the murderers in the court of King’s bench, but the legal process was slow and continued into the 1450s.8 Arundell mss, AR7/5; KB27/752, rot. 27d; 754, rot. 86d; 762, rot. 77. No address is given for the victim, but the Bodmin man disappears from the records about this time.