BRANDE (BRENDE), James (by 1532-82 or later), of Bitterne, Hants and Gray's Inn, London.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Mar. 1553
Apr. 1554
Nov. 1554

Family and Education

b. by 1532. educ. G. Inn, adm. 1549.2

Offices Held

Town clerk, Southampton 1553-9 or later, recorder by Mar. 1554-Oct./Dec. 1565, solicitor by 1578; feodary, Hants 1562-70 or later.3

Biography

Southampton was the port used by the wool merchants of south-west Wiltshire and by William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. This commercial link presumably explains Brande’s Membership in 1553, but whether he owed it to Pembroke or to one of the many families with connexions both there and at Southampton is not known.

Brande claimed gentility, but his parentage has not been traced. The retention of his legal services by Southampton at the outset of his career suggests that he had family ties with the port and its neighbourhood. By Michaelmas 1553 he had taken over the clerkship of the town from Thomas Mill, even though Mill continued to hold the office in name, and in the following spring he replaced Mill as recorder. It was the recordership which accounts for his recurrent election for Southampton, although on the first occasion he was perhaps only recorder-designate, the first reference to him in the office dating from 29 Mar. 1554. If his Membership then satisfied one of Southampton’s requirements, it did not comply with the town’s preference for freemen and residents, but these omissions were rectified when on 13 July he was made free of Southampton and in September leased a house in Bull Street. Brande was one of those informed against in the King’s bench for quitting the Parliament of November 1554 before its dissolution, but as no further proceedings were taken against him he presumably established his innocence, at least of deliberate abstention, and he did not join the opposition headed by Sir Anthony Kingston in 1555. A bill of expenses submitted by Brande in 1562 and settled by the corporation not long afterwards included his parliamentary wages under Mary: unlike his successive fellow-Members he was paid at the standard rate of 2s. a day and was reimbursed his expenses in receiving the precept for the election and making the customary gifts to the serjeant of the House and its doorkeeper.4

Although Brande was replaced as recorder by John Hooper in 1565, his legal services were to be used by Southampton until 1582.5

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Authors: Patricia Hyde / Elizabeth McIntyre

Notes

  • 1. C219/282/9; HMC Hatfield , xv. 386.
  • 2. Presumed to be of age at election.
  • 3. Soton RO, bk. of debts 1525-1602, ff. 60, IIIV; Third Bk. of Remembrance, ii (Soton Rec. ser. iii), app. ii; CPR, 1560-3, pp. 448-9; 1563-6, pp. 37, 331; 1566-9, p. 204; 1569-72, pp. 33, 199.
  • 4. C. Platt, Med. Southampton, 245; Soton RO, bk. of oaths and ordinances, f. 27; leases SC4.3(16)15; bk. of debts 1525-1602, ff. 59v-60; KB29/188, r. 48.
  • 5. Soton RO, bk. of debts 1525-1602, f. IIIV; Bk. of Remembrance, i (Soton Rec. Soc. XV), 93.