BRUGGE, John (d.1436), of Staunton-on-Wye, Herefs.

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

m. Joan, da. of Philip de la Hay of Archenfield, Herefs., 1da. d.v.p.1

Offices Held

Commr. of inquiry, Herefs. May 1401 (lands late of Sir Simon Burley), Oct. 1404 (persons trading with Welsh rebels), Jan. 1414 (lollards), May 1414 (shoemakers and tanners), Dec. 1417 (lands of Sir John Oldcastle*), Glos. Nov. 1421 (novel disseisin at Nailsworth); array, Herefs. Mar. 1419.

Escheator, Herefs. and adjacent march 9 Nov. 1406-30 Nov. 1407.

Sheriff, Herefs. 4 Nov. 1409-29 Nov. 1410, 30 Nov. 1416-10 Nov. 1417.

J.p. Herefs. 9 July 1419-July 1423.

Steward of Kington and Huntington, Herefs. by Feb. 1421.2

Biography

Brugge’s parentage is obscure, but he may have been a son of Sir Baldwin Brugge of Bridge Solers, Herefordshire, or of Sir Edmund Brugge, MP for the county in October 1377. His own manors, certainly, were Staunton-on-Wye (to the church of which he presented between 1397 and 1427), Letton and Sapey, all in the Wye valley west of Hereford. He also apparently had landed holdings in Gloucestershire and Shropshire.3 Little is known of his early career, but it was probably he who stood surety for the attendance of his neighbour, Thomas Oldcastle, at the Parliament of January 1390, and who in October 1400 served with Sir John Oldcastle under Lord Grey of Codnor on the Scottish border. As ‘of Staunton’, he sat on his first royal commission in 1401. Early in 1405, along with John Russell III* and others, he acquired an estate at Lower Bullingham, a suburb of Hereford; and in the autumn of that year he accompanied Sir Richard Arundel’s expedition against Owen Glendower’s forces in South Wales. In October 1407, while serving as escheator for Herefordshire, he was a surety for the attendance in Parliament of Thomas Holgot.4

Like his relation John Brugge† of Bishop’s Castle, he was a retainer of John Talbot, Lord Furnival (afterwards earl of Shrewsbury), and it was in this capacity that, in 1411, he witnessed the baptism of Talbot’s nephew and godson, John Barret, grandson of Sir Thomas de la Barre*. In 1418, moreover, he shared with John Merbury* custody of the Herefordshire lands of Gilbert, Lord Talbot, Furnival’s brother, during the minority of his heir. It is probable also that, by the beginning of Henry V’s reign, Brugge was connected with the duchy of Lancaster: in December 1415 he stood surety (again with Merbury) for two senior duchy officials, (Sir) Roger Leche* and Hugh Mortimer*; and then in 1417 he was granted an annuity of 12 marks from the manor of Alexanderston, Breconshire, and 4d. a day for life from the exchequer of Brecon, a duchy of Lancaster lordship. When, in 1421, Brecon was assigned to Anne, countess of Stafford, Brugge lost his pensions, and his petition in one of Henry VI’s Parliaments that they be restored and made a charge on the city of Worcester proved unsuccessful.5

On 27 Aug. 1417, during Brugge’s second term as sheriff of Herefordshire, he happened to be staying with his friend, John Merbury, at Weobley when news came that the fugitive lollard, Sir John Oldcastle, was in hiding at nearby Almeley: Brugge and Merbury failed, however, to capture him. Brugge was closely associated with Merbury in private as well as public matters. In 1419 the two men were joint sureties, and in 1420 they were co-feoffees of Sir William ap Thomas in the manor of Talgarth, Breconshire. Both were trustees of Westbury, Gloucestershire, and Tillington, Herefordshire, the property of Merbury’s stepdaughter, Elizabeth Devereux, and Brugge, with John Russell III, was among the purchasers of Merbury’s estate at Dymock, Gloucestershire. Brugge was also a feoffee of Richard Oldcastle, Merbury’s stepson by his first marriage. Others with whom he was connected included Guy Whittington* (with whom he was a co-trustee of the manor of Aspley Guise, Bedfordshire, in 1420), Sir John Skydemore* (for whom he was a mainpernor in January 1430) and Giles Bridges† of Coberley, Gloucestershire, possibly a close relation.6

Brugge witnessed the Herefordshire elections to the Parliaments of 1419, 1421, 1425 and 1433. In May 1434 he was one of the Herefordshire gentry required to take the oath passed by Parliament to prevent maintenance of those who broke the peace. He died on 30 Sept. 1436, his heir being Sir John Baskerville, the son of his daughter Joan.7

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: Charles Kightly

Notes

Variants: Brigge, Brygge. He is to be distinguished from John Brugge of Ross-on-Wye, who in 1415 acted as Bp. Mascall of Hereford’s bailiff at Ross, was a juror (with John Brugge of Staunton), in 1431, a Herefordshire elector in 1432 and a tax collector in 1436: Reg. Mascall (Canterbury and York Soc. xxi), 88; Reg. Lacy (ibid. xxii), 25-26; Feudal Aids, ii. 416; C219/14/3. It is less easy to disentangle his career from that of John Brugge of the Lea by Bishop’s Castle, Salop (MP for Salop in 1426), who was apparently a close relation (Herefs. RO, B56/1, f. 98; Vis. Glos. (Harl. Soc. xxi), 233). The Salop man was, by 1401, a King’s serjeant and yeoman of the chamber, escheator in Salop 1404-5, captain of Ludlow castle 1408, sheriff of Salop 1412-13, and a member of the Shrewsbury guild merchant: Salop Peace Roll ed. Kimball, 86, 90, 112; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 3), v. 35-54. John of Bishop’s Castle served under John Talbot, Lord Furnival, against Glendower in 1404-8; and in 1414, when Furnival became lieutenant of Ireland, he acted as jt. admiral of his fleet there. He d. 1443, leaving a widow, Joan, and an eldest s. John. Richard Legatt, Talbot’s receiver-general, was an executor of his will, and Talbot himself a supervisor: E101/43/28; Rot. Pat. et Claus. Hib. ed. Tresham, i. 206; CCR, 1429-35 p. 258; CFR, xvii. 234; PCC 16 Rous; A.J. Pollard, ‘The Talbots’ (Bristol Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1968), 232-3, 417.

  • 1. CCR, 1435-41, pp. 116-17; C139/79/5. Joan’s parentage is from (the unreliable) W.R. Williams, Parl. Hist. Herefs. 31.
  • 2. Reg. Poltone (Canterbury and York Soc. xxii), 4.
  • 3. Feudal Aids, ii. 409, 414, 417, 419; Reg. Trefnant (Canterbury and York Soc. xx), 182; Reg. Mascall, 170, 175; CFR, xvi. 297-8.
  • 4. C219/9/7, 10/4; E101/42/38, 40, 44/7; CIMisc. vii. 156; CPR, 1401-5, p. 34.
  • 5. J. Duncumb, Hist. Herefs. iv. 98; CFR, xiv. 132, 265; SC8/105/5241; Somerville, Duchy, i. 181-2.
  • 6. EHR, lv. 433; KB27/634 m. 11; CFR, xiv. 295, xv. 302; xvi. 148; CPR, 1416-22, pp. 306-7; 1422-9, pp. 17-18; 1429-36, p. 141; CCR, 1422-9, pp. 65, 427; 1435-41, pp. 75, 116-17; T.R. Nash, Worcs. i. 87; Trans. Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc. iii. 56; Vis. Glos. 233.
  • 7. C219/12/3, 5, 6, 13/3, 14/4; CPR, 1429-36, p. 376; C139/79/5; CFR, xvi. 297-8.