THE FAMILIES OF BRAOSE OF CHESWORTH, AND HOO. BY WILLIAM DURRANT COOPER, F.S.A. READ AT HORSHAM, JULY 12, 1855. THE tombs of Braose and of Hoo, on either side of the chancel, are the most interesting antiquarian remains in the church of Horsham. One commemorates the last lord of the Chesworth' branch of the noble and powerful Braose family; and the other is stated by Philpot and Grimm to be the tomb of the only lord of the knightly family of Hoo, and an ancestor of Queen Elizabeth; although I am inclined to think that the MS. collections in the College of Arms, which state that Lord Hoo was buried at Battle Abbey, are correct, and that the tomb at Horsham was erected to the memory of his halfbrother, Thomas Hoo. Much historical interest however attaches to the men, of whom Sussex may well be proud, and whose memories are sought to be preserved by these stately memorials. There have been many genealogical difficulties with reference to both, which, with the assistance of Sir Charles George Young, Garter; T. W. King, Esq., York Herald; and Walter Nelson, Esq., of the Public Record Office, I believe that I shall be able to remove, referring to public documents, many of which have never been noticed in any published account of either family. And first, of BRAOSE2 of Chesworth. There has been considerable confusion in the accounts of descent of the Braose property subsequently to the death of 1 It is nearly certain that Chesworth was the house at which Edward II was entertained on Sept. 4, 1324. See Sussex Arch. Collections, vol. VI, p. 48. Thomas de Braose would have been his host. VIII. 2 The early pedigree of Braose of Bramber has been printed in the Sussex Arch. Collections, vol. V, p. 5, and in Cartwright's Rape of Bramber. 13 WILLIAM DE BRAOSE, lord of Bramber and Gower, who died 19 Edw. II (1326), leaving two daughters and heirs : 1. ALIVA, who married first John de Mowbray, and afterwards Richard de Peshale, and who succeeded to the castle and manor of Bramber, and the manors of Horsham, Shorham, Knapp, and Beaubusson in Sussex; and 2. JOAN, who married James de Bohun of Midhurst. Upon the death of this William, the male line was continued through his half-brother PETER, till the eldest branch of that line became extinct, on the death of THOMAS the infant son of THOMAS DE BRAOSE, who resided at Chesworth, and who lies buried under the tomb on the south side of the chancel in Horsham church. In 1395, a sad calamity overtook the family. The father died 2d September, 19 Rich. II, aged forty-two years, leaving as his survivor, his widow, Margaret, and two children, viz., THOMAS, of the age of seven days only on his father's death, and who died on 7th of the following month, October; and one daughter JOAN, who was two years and a half old when her father died, and became heiress to her brother, surviving him however only three days, and dying October 10, 1395, as appears by the inquisition on the death of Thomas de Braose, or Brewese, their father, taken at Horsham, October 22, 1395.3 The tomb no doubt contains the bodies of the children as well as of the father. 4 By this inquisition, it appears that Thomas de Brewese, at the time of his death, owned in Sussex the manor of Bydlyngton, held as of the barony of Bramber by knight's service; £4. 8s. 91d. rents of assize in Horsham and Nuthurst, formerly parcel of the manor of Seggwick, held of the Earl Marshal; and 28. 9d. rents of assize in Horsham, formerly part of the manor of Chesworth, held of John Halsham as of his manor of Appelsham. Thomas de Braose had previously executed a feoffment of "Chersworthe and Seghwyke,' 3 Inq. Carl. Ho. Ride, 19 Rich. II, m. 8 and 9. 4 By deed dated at Bosham, 46 Edw. III (1372), made between Beatrix, who was the daughter of Roger Mortimer Earl of March, and was then the widow of Thomas, son of Peter de Braose of the one part, and Peter Brewouse, Knight, William Terrwhit, and John, parson of the church of Thorney, of the other part, the manors, &c., of which her son Thomas thus died seized, had been settled, after her death, upon her children, Thomas de Breouse, Peter, Elizabeth, and Johanna, and the heirs of their bodies successively, with remainder to the right heirs of Sir Thomas Breouse, Knt. Add. MSS. 5705, p. 321. This remainder took effect, as all the children named in the deed after Thomas died before 1395, S.P. manors in Sussex, in trust for Margaret his wife. He held also the manors of Manyngfold Brewose in Wilts; half of Bromlegh, worth £10. 28. 8d. a year, and also the manors of Imworth, held of Thomas Earl of Kent, and of Bocham Parva, worth 1008. a year, all in Surrey; Tettebury manor, Gloucestershire; together with a messuage and land at Wyrthorp, Yorkshire; and lands called Gastones, held of the Earl of Stafford, and Campiones Downe in Little Bocham, also in Surrey. On the death of this Thomas and his children, the jury found that Elizabeth, then the wife of Sir William Heron, Knight, was cousin and nearest heir. Margaret, the wife of Thomas Braose, is stated in the pedigree printed by Cartwright to have been the daughter of John Berkeley. Sir John Berkeley however was her third husband, and she held Tettebury during her life "as of the endowment of Thomas Brewes, Knight, her late first husband."5 To her affectionate remembrance of her first husband and their children, we probably owe the erection of the elegant tomb. It has been fully described by Sir Samuel Meyrick in Cartwright's Rape of Bramber, where the recumbent figure is engraved. Drawings by Grimm of tomb and figure are also in the Burrell MSS. (No. 5673). It is only necessary to add that portions of the workmanship of the ample camail may still be traced, and that under the arms there are remains of colours. The workmanship of the tomb seems to me to be foreign : the only stone of a like character in the neighbourhood is the Reigate fire-stone; and the whole appears to be very similar to the Arundel tomb in Chichester Cathedral. LADY HERON was the only daughter of WILLIAM SAY, who married BEATRIX DE BRAOSE, sister of Thomas de Brewose, on whom the inquisition was taken. She married first, at the early age of sixteen, Sir John de Falvesle, Knt.; and on 13th September, 1389, they made a feoffment of Buxted manor (which she had derived from her brother John Say on his death, S.P.) to Thomas Brewes, Knt., Thomas Sackville, Knt., Walter Dalyngrugge, and others. 5 Pardon of alienation for Margaret Berkeley, Rot. Pat., 20th Nov., 24 Hen. VI (1445), part 1, m. 28; not in printed calendar. She married secondly Sir William Burcestre, by whom she also had After the death of Falvesle children, but none by Sir J. Berkeley. 7 Add. MSS. 5705, p. 160. See also Horsfield's Lewes, vol. ii, p. 45. FAMILY OF BRAOSE. (circa 1392), she remarried Sir William Heron. She did not long keep the Chesworth and Surrey property thus acquired; for she died without issue, on July 8, 1399 (23 Rich. II), æt. thirty-two, only four years after her cousins. It seems, from her second husband's will, that she had settled the property of her mother's family (after Heron's death) on the heir of Braose, and died seized to herself and her right heirs, the Says, in Sussex only of the Say manors of Hames (holden of the Earl of Arundel by the service of a knight's fee, and named from her family Ham-say), Bockstede, and Streate, by virtue of a fine levied to her use. Her second husband entered and held these lands till he died October 31, 1404. On two inquisitions in Sussex, taken at Steyning on February 28, 1405, and at Ditchening on March 28 following, her heirs were found to be,-1, William de Clinton, chev., son of William de Clinton, chev., son of John de Clinton, Knight, and Idonea his wife, aunt of the said Elizabeth; 2, Maria, the wife of Otho de Worthington, æt. thirty-four, and Matilda her sister, æt. twentyeight, daughters of Thomas de Aldon, Knight, and Elizabeth his wife, second aunt of the said Elizabeth; and 3, Roger de Fienles, who would be twenty years of age on the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross then next (September 14), son of William de Fienles, son of William de Fienles and Joan his wife, third aunt of the said Elizabeth, and on September 20, 6 Henry IV, the custody of his lands in Sussex, &c., was consigned to Sir John Pelham.9 GEORGE BREWES or BREWSE was in possession of Chesworth, and the other property late of Thomas de Braose, in 1411-12 (13 Hen. IV), when the subsidy of 6s. Sd. in the pound on all who had above £20 a year in land was collected.10 He died without issue, on Innocents' day, December 28, 1418,11 seized of the manor of Bromley, Surrey, by the service of a knight's fee; and Countershall, which he held for life by the service of a rose; and he held jointly with his wife Elizabeth, and their heirs, Little Bockham, and also the Sussex manors;12 and it was thereupon found that Hugh 8 Inq. p. m. 6 Henry IV, on Elizabeth Heron, and also on Sir W. Heron. Carlt. Ho. Ride MSS. Add. MSS. 5485, fol. 70. 10 Subsidy Roll Carlt. Ho. Ride MSS. Chesworth and Sedgwick were both worth 100s. a year. In the same roll, John Brewse held Westneston, worth £20 a Inq. at Southwark, 18th February, Cokesey, son and heir of Walter Cokesey, was his cousin and next heir:13 being son of Walter, son of Isabel, who was wife of Walter Cokesey, daughter of Agnes, wife of Urianus de St. Pierre, sister of the said George Brewse, who in the pardon of alienation of Tettebury 14 in 1445, is further described as son of John Brewes, a brother of Thomas Brewes, who died in 1361, the father of Thomas Brewes, whose widow had remarried Sir John Berkeley. Elizabeth, the widow of George Brewes, had an assignment of dower out of his lands in Horsham, Crawley, Roughey, and Notehurst, Sussex, and also in Bromley, Surrey,15 and having married Thomas Slyfeld, she died August 24, 1433.16 The property of Chesworth, Seggewick, and Bydlington, in Sussex, passed from this HUGH COKESEY to Sir John Greville, son of his sister Joice (who had married John Greville of Campden); he died 24th August 1480,17 leaving an only son, Thomas Greville alias Cokesey, then of the age of twenty-eight years, but who died without issue on the 14th June 1498. On the death of this SIR THOMAS GREVILLE, Thomas Earl of Surrey, and Sir Maurice Berkeley (brother and heir of William, late Marquis of Berkeley), on the 18th June 1498, as cousins and heirs of George Brewse (the brother of Agnes), had special livery of these estates, which thereupon became reunited to the estates of the Braose family.18 It is stated in Collins that the estates were in the following Easter term divided between the families; but a diligent search at Westminster has failed to find the document referred to by Collins. These estates, on the death of the great heiress, Ann Mowbray, had come to the BERKELEYS, who had married Isabel, and the HOWARDS, who had married Margaret, daughters and ultimately coheirs of Thomas Duke of Norfolk, of the family of Mowbray. 13 He was then living, but ob. 9 Henry V, 1421. Inq. Bucks and Beds; his wife was dead. 14 On November 20, 1445 (24 Hen. VI), there was a pardon for alienation of Tettebury, Gloucestershire, granted to Margaret Berkeley, who, it is stated, had it by the endowment of Sir Thomas Brewes, Knight, her late first husband, to whom it came by inheritance from Sir Hugh Cokesey, Knight, the kinsman and heir of the said Sir Thomas, viz. the son of Walter Cokesey, the son of Isabel, the daughter of Agnes, the sister of George, the son of John, the brother of Thomas, the father of the said Thomas Brewes. Rot. Pat. 24 Hen. VI, part 1, m. 28. 15 Inq. 10 Hen. V to 2 Hen. VI, Carlt. Ho. Ride. 16 Inq. p. m. 12th Nov., 11 Hen. VI, Carlt. Ho. Ride. 17 Inq. taken at Kingston, 20 Edw. IV. 18 Coll. Top. and Gen., vol. vi, p. 74. |