Nicholas Brembre: Difference between revisions

 

Line 23: Line 23:

During the [[Peasants’ Revolt]] in 1381, Brembre, with his allies Walworth and Philipot, accompanied the king to Smithfield, and was [[Knight Bachelor|knighted]] with them for his services on that occasion.<ref>”[[Letter-book H]], f. cxxxii” and “[[Jean Froissart]]. ”Chronicles”, cap. 108.” both from {{harv|Round|1886}}</ref>

During the [[Peasants’ Revolt]] in 1381, Brembre, with his allies Walworth and Philipot, accompanied the king to Smithfield, and was [[Knight Bachelor|knighted]] with them for his services on that occasion.<ref>”[[Letter-book H]], f. cxxxii” and “[[Jean Froissart]]. ”Chronicles”, cap. 108.” both from {{harv|Round|1886}}</ref>

Brembre was for from around 1379 to around 1386 one the [[port of London]]’s two [[collectors of customs]], and [[Geoffrey Chaucer]] was the comptroller of Customs.<ref name=”QR Customs”>According to {{harv|Round|1886}} the accounts are still preserved as “Q. R. Customs Bundle, 247″</ref> He is also mentioned as the king’s financial agent in 21 December 1381 ”Issues of Exchequer”, and as one of the leading merchants summoned “a treter and communer” with parliament on supplies, 10 May 1382.<ref>Rolls of Parliament iii. 123</ref>{{sfn|Great Britain. Parliament|1767|p=123}} His foremost opponent, [[John Northampton]],<ref>[[Thomas Walsingham]]. ”Historia Anglicana”. ii. 111</ref> held the mayoralty for two years (1381–3) in succession to Walworth.

Brembre was for from around 1379 to around 1386 one the [[port of London]]’s two [[collectors of customs]], and [[Geoffrey Chaucer]] was the comptroller of Customs.<ref name=”QR Customs”>According to {{harv|Round|1886}} the accounts are still preserved as “Q. R. Customs Bundle, 247″</ref> and summoned and with of .{{sfn|Great Britain. Parliament|1767|p=123}} His foremost opponent, [[John Northampton]],<ref>[[Thomas Walsingham]]. ”Historia Anglicana”. ii. 111</ref> held the mayoralty for two years (1381–3) in succession to Walworth.

Brembre held the mayoralty for three more consecutive terms{{which?|date=October 2025}} between 1383 to 1386. At the election of 1383 Brembre, who had been returned to parliament for the city at the beginning of this year,<ref>Return of Members of Parliament i. 215</ref> and who was one of the sixteen aldermen then belonging to the great Grocers’ Company,<ref>Herbert, i. 207</ref> “”ove forte main … et gñt multitude des gentz … feust fait maire””<ref>Rolls of Parliament iii. 226.</ref> [[William Stubbs]] calls attention to this forcible election as possessing “the importance of a constitutional episode,”<ref name= “Stubbs”>William Stubbs. ”Constitutional History”. iii. 575.</ref> but wrongly assigns it to 1386.<ref name= “Stubbs”/>

Brembre held the mayoralty for three more consecutive terms{{which?|date=October 2025}} between 1383 to 1386. At the election of 1383 Brembre, who had been returned to parliament for the city at the beginning of this year,<ref>Return of Members of Parliament i. 215</ref> and who was one of the sixteen aldermen then belonging to the great Grocers’ Company,<ref>Herbert, i. 207</ref> “”ove forte main … et gñt multitude des gentz … feust fait maire””<ref>Rolls of Parliament iii. 226.</ref> [[William Stubbs]] calls attention to this forcible election as possessing “the importance of a constitutional episode,”<ref name= “Stubbs”>William Stubbs. ”Constitutional History”. iii. 575.</ref> but wrongly assigns it to 1386.<ref name= “Stubbs”/>

Lord Mayor of London, 1377, 1383–1385

Sir Nicholas Brembre (died 20 February 1388) was a key ally of Richard II within City of London politics. He was a wealthy merchant and became Lord Mayor of London in 1377 and for three terms in the mid 1380s, also becoming an MP for London. He became an important ally to Richard and joined Richard’s Council. His attempts to raise forces in London loyal to Richard against the Lords Appellant who had taken control of the government failed. Brembre was executed in 1388 for treason by the Merciless Parliament despite Richard’s efforts.

Although he’s noted as the son of Sir John Brembre later historians have said that his origin was unknown. He may have been related to Sir Thomas Bramber a keeper of the Privy Seal in 1354–5 under Edward III. By 1369 he had married Idonia Stodey the daughter of a rich London wine merchant.

He became a grocer and citizen of London, and Richard Grafton marked him out as a prominent and powerful citizen.^[3] Although a grocer, most of his money was through being London’s biggest wool exporter and by 1373 he was wealthy enough to purchase land in Kent^[5] and Middlesex with a London residence in Bread Street Ward. He was wealthy enough that he would later be in a position to lend large amounts of money to King Richard II.

London was divided into two factions supporting or opposing John of Gaunt, Brembre was firmly in the opposition together with many other more well off merchants. Brembre’s faction within London was particularly strong among the food suppliers and richer merchants, especially Brembre’s own then dominant grocers and the fishmongers, the latter of whom had an unpopular but lucrative monopoly to supply fish to London.^[9] It opposed to the “lesser companies” such as the cordwainders and butchers, and opposed attempts to give them a greater say in the city’s government,^[10] and this meshed well with Richard’s autocratic policy.^{[citation needed]}

Brembre’s first appearance in London politics is in 1372 as an Alderman for Bread Street^[11] as well as Sheriff of the City of London serving with John Philipot.^[12]

In 1377 after anti Gaunt riots at the close of Edward III’s reign, Brembre replaced Adam Stable as Lord Mayor in the City’s bid keep its self government by putting forward candidates more acceptable to John of Gaunt, taking his oath of office at the Tower of London on 29 March 1377.^[13] He was also re-elected for the succeeding year (1377–8).^{[citation needed]}

In late 1377 Brembre had managed to get a new charter for London agreed. However a few months later a mob broke into the London home of the king’s uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, leading to the charter’s revocation. Woodstock also demanded Brembre’s impeachment as Lord Mayor in the parliament of Gloucester, but this was dropped after Brembre advanced compensation to Gloucester.

During the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381, Brembre, with his allies Walworth and Philipot, accompanied the king to Smithfield, and was knighted with them for his services on that occasion.^[14]

Brembre was for from around 1379 to around 1386 one the port of London‘s two collectors of customs, and Geoffrey Chaucer was the comptroller of Customs.^[9] In May 1382 Nicholas Brembre was recorded among the leading London merchants — including William Walworth and John Philipot — who were summoned “to treat and commune with the Lords and Commons concerning the subsidies and aids of the king.” He is also mentioned as the king’s financial agent in December 1381. His foremost opponent, John Northampton,^[16] held the mayoralty for two years (1381–3) in succession to Walworth.

Brembre held the mayoralty for three more consecutive terms^[which?] between 1383 to 1386. At the election of 1383 Brembre, who had been returned to parliament for the city at the beginning of this year,^[17] and who was one of the sixteen aldermen then belonging to the great Grocers’ Company,^[18] “ove forte main … et gñt multitude des gentz … feust fait maire“^[19] William Stubbs calls attention to this forcible election as possessing “the importance of a constitutional episode,”^[20] but wrongly assigns it to 1386.^[20]

On the outbreak of John Northampton’s riot in February 1384, Brembre arrested and beheaded a ringleader, John Constantyn, cordwainer.^[21] Our main knowledge of Brembre’s conduct is derived from a bundle of petitions presented to parliament in October–November 1386 by ten companies of the rival faction, of which two (those of the mercers and cordwainers) are printed in the Rolls of Parliament, iii. 225–7. In these he is accused of tyrannous conduct during his mayoralty of 1383–4, especially of beheading the cordwainer Constantyn for the riot in Cheapside, and of securing his re-election in 1384 by increased violence.^[22]

Forbidding his opponents to take part in the election, he filled the Guildhall with armed men, (acorrding to the original Anglo-Norman French of the petition: sailleront sur eux oue graunt noise criantz tuwez tuwez lour pursuiantz hydousement, (…the aforesaid armed men sprang out upon them with a great noise shouting “Slaughter! Slaughter!”, threateningly chasing them.). In 1386 he secured the election of his accomplice, Nicholas Exton, who was Lord Mayor at the time of the petition, so that the mayoralty was still, it urged, tenuz par conquest et maistrie (taken by conquest). While Lord Mayor (1384), Brembre had effected the ruin of his rival, John de Northampton (who had appealed in vain to John of Gaunt), by his favourite device of a charge of treason;^[23] and though Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, and the opposition accused him of plotting^[24] in favour of Suffolk (the chancellor), who was impeached in the parliament of 1386, and of compassing their death, he not only escaped for the time, but at the close of the year (1386) was, with Simon de Burley and others of the party of resistance, summoned by Richard into his council.

Through the year 1387 he supported Richard in London in his struggle for absolute power. He was one of Richard’s advisors in Shrewsbury in August 1387 and was in London in the Autumn getting allies among the guilds to swear loyalty to Richard and to promise to rise for him against the Lords Appellant. Thomas Woodstock accused him in Parliament^[when?] of inciting the mayor and citizens against the Lords Appellant.

Late in 1387 Richard went to the royal stronghold of the Tower of London to await forces to take on the Lords Appellant who had taken over Richard’s government. Brembre went with him to London, and unsuccessfully attempted to raise forces for Richard in the city of London due to the opposition of his successor and fomer ally Exton.^[29]

The Lords Appellant charged him with treason on 14 November 1387 with four other of Richard’s close councillors.
When London citizens failed to revolt Brembre fled London but was captured in Wales^[30] and imprisoned first at Gloucester^[31] and then on 28 January 1388 moved to the Tower of London.^[32] He was the only one of Richard’s five councillors who was not able to flee abroad.

When the Merciless Parliament met on 3 February, Brembre and the other four, absent, councillors were formally summoned to be impeached. Brembre, who was styled the “unworthy knight of London”^[34] and who was hated by York and Gloucester,^[35] was specially charged with taking twenty-two prisoners out of Newgate and beheading them without trial at the “Foul Oke” in Kent.^[36] On 17 February he was brought from the Tower to Westminster before Parliament and put on trial. He pleaded “guilty of nothing” to all charges and claimed trial by battle as a knight, but it was refused. When the king supported him, 305 people in Parliament threw down their gauntlets opposing the king. He was sentenced on 20 February and was ordered to be taken back to the Tower, whence the marshal should “lui treyner parmye la dite cite de Loundres, et avant tan q’as ditz Fourches [Tyburn], et illeõqs lui pendre par le cool“^[37] The hanging was carried into effect, though he had “many intercessors” among the citizens^[38] but was reversed by Richard in his last struggle, 25 March 1399.^[39] John Stow in his annals incorrectly wrote that he was beheaded (“with the same axe he had prepared for other”). He was buried in the choir of the Christ Church Greyfriars^[40]

• Castor, Helen (2024). The Eagle and the Hart.
• Hasted, Edward (1797). The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent. Vol. 2.
• Herbert, William (1834). The History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies. Vol. 1.
• Lloyd, T. H. (1977). The English Wool Trade in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Prescott, Andrew (23 September 2004). “Brembre, Sir Nicholas”. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
• Round, John Horace (1886). “Brembre, Nicholas” . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 6. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
• Sumption, Jonathan (2009). The Hundred Years War: Divided Houses. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-4223-2.
• Rotuli Parliamentorum; ut et petitiones, et placita in Parliamento (in Anglo-Norman and Latin). Vol. 3. London: Record Commission / Great Britain Parliament. 1767. OCLC 695983551.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: “Brembre, Nicholas“. Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.