BROWE, Robert

More can be added to the earlier biography.3 The Commons 1386-1421, ii. 386-7.

Towards the end of his career Browe was involved in a curious incident. In March 1439 an approver, imprisoned in Lincoln castle, appealed him of feloniously receiving livestock stolen from two Nottinghamshire esquires, John Cokfeld and John Hickling. According to the approver’s testimony, Browe himself had been in London at the time of the alleged receipt on 21 Aug. 1438 but had taken possession of the stolen livestock through the agency of his wife Joan, and on his return to Woodhead at the end of the month had paid the approver 40s. in gold. On 8 Jan. 1440, during the prorogation of a Parliament in which Browe was sitting, an indictment was heard by the Kesteven j.p.s which puts this appeal in a very different light. The jurors claimed that (Sir) Hugh Willoughby*, then sheriff of Lincolnshire, had procured the appeal against Browe and other lesser men with the aim of extorting money from them. Browe had been arrested and paid Willoughby as much as £10 for his release.4 KB9/232/1/33, 2/88. Oddly, this indictment against Willoughby was repeated before the Rutland j.p.s. in 1441 and 1443, presumably at our MP’s instigation: KB9/235/49, 244/36; KB27/733, rex rot. 29.

Browe’s supposed presence in London in August 1438 may be connected with the writ of subpoena issued in the previous February for his appearance before the royal council. It might speculatively be suggested that this summons was connected with his dispute with the college of the Holy Trinity in Pontefract over certain manors in Norfolk once belonging to his kinsman Sir Robert Knolles (d.1407). This long-running dispute may also explain why he appears to have been in debt towards the end of his career. Debt is the most likely explanation for an arrangement he entered into at Michaelmas 1448. He took a ten-year lease of all his lands in Rutland and five other counties at an annual rent of £200, in excess of their market value, from the Northamptonshire lawyer, William Aldewyncle*, and two wealthy merchants of Stamford, John and William Browne.5 PPC, v. 92; CCR, 1429-35, p. 189; E326/5553.