Family and Education

Offices Held

Bailiff, Gloucester Mich. 1399-1400, 1404-6, 1407-8.1

Biography

Broke appeared as a juror in March 1391 at the escheator’s inquest held at Gloucester during the dispute between the burgesses and Llanthony priory, which was then settled in the town’s favour, although the prior later alleged that the inquest had been rigged. In November 1393, having earlier in the year represented Gloucester in Parliament on the first of four occasions, he became joint recipient of the property between the bridges of Gloucester previously occupied by another burgess named William Head. Two years later his services as a juror were again required, this time by the j.p.s investigating the illegal construction of weirs on the Severn. In 1396-7 he stood surety for four strangers coming to trade in Gloucester. It was just before beginning his first term in office as a bailiff of the town that Broke was again returned to the House of Commons. Not long after Parliament’s dissolution (and while he was still a bailiff), a jury, assembled at Cirencester on 27 Jan. 1400 to give evidence regarding the forfeited property of Thomas, earl of Kent, and other adherents of the late King, Richard II, alleged that Broke had gone to Cirencester three weeks earlier and removed 26 horses, saddles, bridles and other goods belonging to the traitors, worth in all 100 marks.2

Broke was probably connected with the Guise family of Elmore, for he acted as witness to a conveyance of part of their estate in February 1405. Later that year he took out a royal pardon of outlawry for failing to defend himself in the court of common pleas on charges of debt brought by a London vintner. He was once more bailiff and parliamentary burgess in 1406; and on 6 Sept. 1407, towards the end of his bailiffship, he attended the elections at the shire court at Gloucester, then standing surety for both burgesses and knights of the shire chosen. According to the local stewards’ accounts of 1409-10, he received expenses of £3 for rendering his account, presumably as bailiff, at the Exchequer. He is last known to have been alive in January 1409.3

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

Variants: Broc, Brock, Brocke, Brook.

• 1. VCH Glos. vi. 373.
• 2. Gloucester Corporation Recs. ed. Stevenson, 1029; C44/17/3; Trans. Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc. lxii. 143; Gloucester Guildhall, roll 1351; CIMisc. vii. 41; CCR, 1399-1402, p. 228.
• 3. CPR, 1405-8, p. 127; C219/10/4; HMC 12th Rep. IX, 421; Gloucester Corporation Recs. 1063; Glos. RO, D326/T66/2.