BRAMSHOTT, William (d.c.1433), of Bramshott, Hants and Lordington, Suss.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Apr. 1414

Family and Education

s. and h. of John Bramshott by Elizabeth, da. of John Lisle of Gatcombe, I.o.W. and sis. and h. of John Lisle (d.1369) of the same; bro.-in-law of (Sir) John Pelham*. m. bef. Nov. 1402, Joan, 2s.

Offices Held

Sheriff, Hants 4 Nov. 1409-29 Nov. 1410, 4 Nov. 1418-23 Nov. 1419.

Commr. of array, I.o.W. Apr. 1410, Hants Apr. 1418 I.o.W. June 1429.

Biography

Bramshott’s antecedents had long been well-established among the gentry of Sussex and Hampshire. On his mother’s side he was a great-grandson of John, Lord Bohun of Midhurst (d.1367), and it was through her that he inherited the substantial Lisle estates which included three manors on the Isle of Wight as well as Lordington and Compton in Sussex. Claims of other members of the Lisle family to certain of these properties had been for the most part successfully refuted by his parents.1 In 1402, on the occasion of his marriage, William received a settlement of his mother’s manor of Hilsea near Portsmouth and a moiety of Rustington in Sussex. His paternal inheritance, comprised of Bramshott (on the border between the two counties) and Terwick, fell to him before 1412 when his lands were assessed for purposes of taxation as providing a clear annual income of £80.2 Both of Bramshott’s sisters married well. He himself had witnessed the contract made in 1391 on the occasion of Joan’s wedding to Sir Hugh Zouche of Ashby-de-la-Zouche, and her second marriage, made in 1399 or 1400, gave him as a brother-in-law the highly influential Sir John Pelham, councillor and executor of Henry IV. His other sister, Margaret, married John Lisle* (d.1429) of Wotton, a distant kinsman. In November 1411, together with the Lisles, Bramshott and his wife obtained a papal indult for a portable altar. Later he witnessed deeds for Lisle and acted as his co-feoffee of property on the Isle of Wight.3

Both of Bramshott’s terms as sheriff and all of his service on royal commissions of array took place in Hampshire, yet it was the neighbouring county which he represented in Parliament. There, to the local standing provided by his own property was added the newly-acquired benefit of his relationship to Pelham, whose landed resources in Sussex rivalled those of the earl of Arundel. Bramshott probably died not long after he and his wife made a settlement on their younger son, Baldwin, of the manor of Gatcombe and land at Hilsea, at Michaelmas 1432. Certainly, he is not recorded among the gentry who in 1434 took the oath against maintenance, although his elder son, John, appeared on the lists for both Sussex and Hampshire. Nor was he mentioned five years later in the will of his widowed sister, Joan Pelham, whose residuary legatee was his son John. Bramshott’s widow lived to see John’s marriage in 1444 to Sir John Pelham’s grand daughter.4

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

Variants: Brambleshete, Brembelschete, Bremschot.

  • 1. Suss. Arch. Colls. xii. 32; lxxiii. 106-7; CP, ii. 200-1; CIPM, xii. 373; Peds. Plea Rolls ed. Wrottesley, 182, 376; VCH Hants, iii. 169; v. 231, 247, 273; VCH Suss. iv. 92, 115-16.
  • 2. VCH Hants, ii. 492; VCH Suss. iv. 28; Suss. Feet of Fines (Suss. Rec. Soc. xxiii), no. 2746; Feudal Aids, vi. 455, 523.
  • 3. Genealogist, n.s. xxxiv. 32-34; CP, viii. 44; xii(2), 962; CPL, vi. 338; CCR, 1422-9, pp. 321, 343.
  • 4. CAD, ii. C2658; CPR, 1429-36, pp. 372, 397; PCC 26 Luffenham; Suss. Feet of Fines, no. 3071.