BROOKE, Sir Thomas

More can be added to the earlier biography.1 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 375-7.

Brooke’s status in Devon is interesting in that, for all his numerous estates in the county and friends in high places, he appears never to have built up a solid and extensive affinity there. Although his principal residences were in Devon (in the south-east of the shire at Weycroft and Holditch on the border with Dorset), and although he was sheriff in 1424-6, he was never elected to the Commons for that county. Rather, he was elected during his father’s lifetime for Dorset (where he had been given an estate at ‘Blundeshay’ in Whitchurch worth at least £44 p.a.), and he sat four times for Somerset, where his parents’ combined landed holdings were worth over £309 a year.2 Feudal Aids, vi. 426, 448, 508. That he was never elected for Devon may be attributed to his long-lasting quarrel with his close neighbour Sir William Bonville*, a quarrel which was to extend well beyond Brooke’s lifetime, with dramatic effect on his son Sir Edward’s political alignment in the civil wars. Initially, it seemed that Bonville was at fault for starting the dispute. In February 1427 Brooke complained that Sir William was guilty of having trespassed on his property near Axminster, and a high-powered royal commission was appointed to investigate the affair. However, in October that year in the sheriff’s court and at Easter 1428 before the bailiff of the abbot of Newenham presentments were made not against Bonville but against Brooke himself and his mother Joan, it being shown that the issue at the core of the dispute was Brooke’s enclosure of his park near Weycroft, and the blocking of three major highways that crossed his property. Jurors asserted that the highways had been blocked by the Brookes as long before as August 1426. That no action had been taken against them in the meantime is probably explained by the formidable support Sir Thomas secured from those he had enfeoffed in his property, who included the Protector himself (Humphrey, duke of Gloucester), and the earls of Salisbury and Suffolk, and the fact that in May 1427 these feoffees had been formally licensed by the King’s Council not only to enclose, crenellate, turret and embattle his manor-house at Weycroft, but more pertinently to empark 800 acres of land and wood there.3 CPR, 1422-9, pp. 363, 400, 403; KB9/223/1/5, 6; 224/320, 321; M. Cherry, ‘Crown and Political Community, Devon’ (Univ. of Wales, Swansea Ph.D. thesis, 1981), 222-4; CChR, v. 1. By August 1428 Bonville felt able to bring the dispute once more before the abbot of Newenham’s court where he won an award against Brooke. The latter, humiliated, was required to attend a love-day with Bonville as the guest of the abbot, an event which set the seal on the changed balance of power in the region.4 Devon RO, Petre (Bonville) mss, TB470. In the same period, in the summer of 1427, action had been taken in the Exchequer against Brooke’s friends, Richard Cheddar (his half-brother), Edmund Pyne† esquire and William Newton†, on the grounds that because he had broken his bond made ten years earlier not to make illegal conventicles, they, as his mainpernors, were subject to severe penalty.5 E159/203, recorda Trin. rots. 7, 7d, 8, 8d, brevia Trin. rot. 8d; 205, recorda Mich. rots. 7d, 7[B]. The bonds had originally been enforced to prevent Brooke from aiding his wife’s stepfather, the traitor Sir John Oldcastle†. Presumably, Brooke’s fresh transgression had arisen from his quarrel with Bonville.

There were also tensions arising in south-east Devon from the challenge brought by John Wolston* of Staverton, who claimed the manor of Weycroft in his wife’s name, alleging in 1430 that Sir Thomas and his mother had forged their title deeds. Wolston claimed the enormous sum of £1,000 in damages in the King’s bench. However, early in 1431 Brooke successfully established at the assizes and in the court of common pleas that the deed whereby his parents had purchased Weycroft in 1393 was genuine, and the manor continued in his family’s possession.6 KB27/675, rots. 22d, 86d; CP40/678, rot. 423. Later in the 1430s the Brookes fell at odds with the young Thomas, earl of Devon (whose opposition to Bonville, with its dire consequences, had yet to take shape). Here, the cause of their differences has not been discovered, but they were clearly focused on landed holdings at Lynch in North Petherton in Somerset, where Brooke’s son Sir Edward had taken up residence and where the earl also held property. In September 1435 an inquiry was held at Wells to hear allegations that father and son, together with their friend of longstanding, Sir Thomas Beauchamp* of Whitelackington, had taken about 40 men in armed array to Lynch and had committed numerous insurrectionary acts in the vicinity. This particular dispute was to concern Sir Edward more than his father, but some significance may be attached to the involvement of Bonville, who presided over the judicial hearing.7 Cherry, 241-4; KB9/227/1/78, 79. A different challenge came early in 1438 when the duke of York (Brooke’s feudal overlord at Holditch) accused our MP of poaching in his park at Marshwood.8 CP40/708, rot. 437d.

For much of his life Brooke did not have full possession of his inheritance from his father owing to the longevity of his mother, who held a large part of it as her jointure and dower. She lived on nearly 20 years after the death of his father, and eventually died in April 1437, leaving the valuable Cheddar estates of her first husband to her oldest surviving son Thomas Cheddar, and only then releasing Brooke’s own patrimony,9 Cherry, 8, 101-2; C139/84/62; The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 538. which he was to enjoy for little more than two years. Nor did his wife obtain her full inheritance until shortly before he died. This was because of a settlement made in May 1428 in favour of Sir John Harpenden, the fifth husband of his mother-in-law, Joan, Lady Cobham. By this arrangement, to which Brooke and his wife were party, Harpenden was given a life interest in many of Lady Cobham’s manors, situated in eight counties. Thus, when she died in January 1434 the Brookes received possession of less than half of her substantial estate: namely, just ‘Cobham’s Inn’ in the London parish of St. Dunstan, and two manors in Wiltshire, besides Cooling castle and some other properties in Kent. They also seem to have acquired Swynbrooke in Oxfordshire, which Sir Thomas leased or granted to John Golafre*. Only when Harpenden died in May 1438 did Brooke’s wife finally came into her own.10 CP25(1)/292/66/76; C139/65/37, 86/28.

Brooke had produced a large family for whom financial provision needed to be made. For the most part the details of such provisions are not known, but it is clear that he entertained high hopes for the prospects of one of his daughters, Joan, for in about 1425 it was agreed that she would marry William Bush, the eldest of the three children of Eleanor Fitzwaryn, the heiress of the valuable Fitzwaryn estates, by her second husband, Ralph Bush*, and that Eleanor’s inheritance would descend in their line instead of passing to her first-born son, Sir John Chideock*. Yet these hopes were dashed when young William died, and on Joan’s second marriage, to John Carent*, her father Brooke had to promise under bonds of 500 marks that if Carent died before she came of age she would relinquish any title she had in the Fitzwaryn estates to Chideock. This was in 1439, shortly before Brooke’s death.11 Harl. Chs. 48 B7 (quitclaim of the Fitzwaryn inheritance Sept. 1425 by Eleanor’s da. Alice Chideock, dated at Holditch); CPR, 1441-6, p. 34; CP25(1)/292/67/133, 69/231; Dorset Feet of Fines (Dorset Recs. x), 357-8. He appears to have settled his principal manor in Dorset on his eldest son Sir Edward at the time of the latter’s marriage to Lord Audley’s daughter, about two years earlier.12 C140/13/26. Sir Thomas made his will on 12 Feb. 1439 and died on 12 Aug. following. Although he named Sir Edward as an executor, provided that his wife had no objections, it is clear that he had serious doubts that his children would respect his last wishes. He feared they might ‘trouble, disese or pursew’ his ‘trew servandys’ (among them William Taverner† and John Bettiscombe*), and instructed his wife to protect these loyal followers from ‘the malice of myne owne children and of all other’, whose ‘ivyll wyll’ needed to be withstood. She and these faithful servants were to have the residue of his estate.13 Fifty Earliest English Wills (EETS lxxviii), 130.