BRAY, Thomas II, of Sutton in Chiswick, Mdx.

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

Family and Education

Offices Held

Biography

Very little is known about this obscure figure, although, according to Lysons, members of the Bray family were living in the Chiswick area of Middlesex from the mid 14th century onwards, and Thomas himself was at some point lord of the manor of Sutton in Chiswick.1 This property eventually passed by descent to his grandson, Baldwin, who conveyed it to trustees in 1469. Bray himself first appears in 1380, when he witnessed two deeds at Acton in Middlesex. He again acted as a witness in May 1385, this time at Chiswick, but, save for his one return to Parliament as shire knight in 1391, no further evidence survives about his career.2

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: C.R.

Notes

It is unlikely that the London draper, Thomas Bray (fl. 1403), sat as a shire knight in 1391, although the two men may have been related (CCR, 1402-5, p. 160). Another Thomas Bray was being sued for debt and breaches of the peace in Kent in 1411 and 1412 (ibid. 1409-13, pp. 190, 329), but again no connexion with the subject of this biography can be proved.

  • 1. In his Environs London, ii. 190 n. 27, D. Lysons refers to a John Bray of Sutton (who may have been Thomas’s father). His citation of Harl. 4507 as the source of this information is, however, incorrect.
  • 2. CCR, 1377-81, p. 468; 1381-5, p. 624; 1468-76, pp. 93-94.