BRICE, John I

The earlier biography did not take note of Brice’s bailiffship of Weymouth.3 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 355. He and his fellow bailiff appeared at the Exchequer by attorney in Michaelmas term 1424 to answer for forfeitures of Scottish coin made during their term of office. This was a few years after Brice had represented his home-town in Parliament. In the following spring he returned to the Commons, this time as a representative of the neighbouring port of Melcombe Regis, and although this appears to have been the last time he sat, in consecutive years in the mid 1420s he attested the elections of the knights of the shire held at Dorchester.

It is not now possible to state with certainty that it was this John Brice who from the later part of the decade lived at Wimborne Minster, in the east of the county. A man of this name was a juror there at inquisitions post mortem in June and November 1429, and served likewise at Blandford in the same year and at Shaftesbury in March 1434 – the last being an inquiry into the estate of the late Thomas Erdington†.4 C139/37/1, 9; 45/30; 63/23. Brice of Wimborne, described as a yeoman, married Joan Lake, a widow whose dower lands in Sturminster Marshall were occupied by her new husband from 1430 until early in 1462.5 Dorset Nat. Hist. and Arch. Soc. lxv. 102-3. He appeared in person in the court of common pleas in Hilary term 1435 to sue men of Shaftesbury for debts amounting to £5, and later, by attorney in 1443, to bring a plea against a gentleman called Robert Bavent for £2.6 CP40/696, rot. 49d; 728, rot. 71.