Catalogue description THE BREOUSE INHERITANCE

The lordship of Bramber which William de Breouse was licensed in 1316 to grant to his son-in-law John de Mowbray (See BCM/D Administrative history) consisted of Bramber castle, the four hundreds of West Grinstead, Steyning, Burbeach and Brightford and three half-hundreds of Fishersgate, Wyndham and Easwrith, the towns of Bramber, Shoreham and Horsham, and the manors of Beeding, King's Barns, Findon, Washington, Knepp and West Grinstead, with Bewbush Park and the chase of St. Leonard's. [Of the six rapes into which Sussex was divided from east to west, Bramber and Lewes were the two central ones. The other halves of Fishersgate and Wyndham hundreds were in Lewes rape, half of which came to the Mowbrays in the 15th century.] All of those, except Findon, were assigned to Howard in the division of 1483 and occur only in the valuation of his portion.

Other Breouse lands came to the Berkeley family when the cadet branch of Breouse of Tetbury died out c. 1500. The third wife of William de Breouse of Gower (d. 1290) was Mary, daughter of William de Roos of Helmsley, who brought the Yorkshire manor of Weaverthorpe in free marriage. [For this and what follows, see GEC ii. 308-10 (Breouse of Tetbury).] She bore him three sons, and at her death in 1326 the heir to lands in Little Bookham, Bramley with Clandon, and Effingham (Surrey) and Chesworth and Sedgewick (Sussex) was her grandson Thomas de Breouse (d. 1361), the son of her son Peter, who had died in 1312 when Thomas was 10. [CIPM vi, no. 702. The reversion of Little Bookham belonged to Ralph Camoys and his wife Margaret, who was Mary's daughter by Breouse, but the manor was settled on Thomas and his wife Beatrice before 1361.] Thomas's inheritance consisted of Tetbury (Glos.), Manningford Bruce (Wilts.), Chesworth, Sedgewick and Bidlington (Sussex), Bookham and Bramley (Surrey) and Weaverthorpe. He was closely connected with Thomas of Brotherton and his family: his sister Mary was Brotherton's second wife, he himself married Beatrice Mortimer, widow of Brotherton's son and heir apparent Edward, and their son John was briefly married to Elizabeth, daughter (and then coheir) of Brotherton's daughter Alice and Edward de Montague. [All eight manors of his inheritance were settled on Thomas and Beatrice, except that in Jan. 1361 they settled Tetbury and Weaverthorpe, along with Ember (Surrey), on their son when he married. For the children of Alice and Edward, see BCM/D Administrative history.] John (d. 1367) was succeeded by his brother Thomas (d. 1395), and Thomas by his niece Elizabeth Say. She died without issue and the Breouse lands then reverted, on the death of Elizabeth's husband William Lord Heron (see below BCM/D/3/4/1) in 1404, to George Breouse, son of John, younger brother of Thomas (d. 1361). George died without issue in 1418, and the lands passed to his nephew Hugh Cokesey (d. 1445), to Hugh's sister Joyce Beauchamp (d. 1473) [She also married Leonard Stapleton: below, BCM/D/3/4/2 [GC 4254].] and to her son John Greville (d. 1480) and grandson Thomas Greville alias Cokesey. On Thomas's death the heirs were found to be Howard and Berkeley as descendants of Aline, daughter of William Lord Breouse (d. 1326) and wife of John (I) de Mowbray. [VCH Wilts. x. 114. The descendants of Aline's younger sister Joan, the Bohuns of Midhurst, had failed in the male line with the death of John Bohun 1488 x 1494, but John left two daughters, one of whom had issue and should have shared in this inheritance: GEC ii. 200-1.] Exactly which lands were concerned is not clear. According to Smyth, the lands which Maurice (V) Lord Berkeley inherited were the manors of Tetbury, Manningford Bruce and moieties of the manors of Gate Burton, Scotton and Lea (Lincs.) and of Weaverthorpe. [Smyth, ii. 158, 260, 357. Tetbury and Manningford Bruce certainly passed to the Berkeleys: VCH Wilts. x. 114.] Charters in the castle suggest that in Feb. 1500 Maurice de Berkeley and his son Maurice (VI) quitclaimed to Thomas FitzAlan, earl of Arundel, the manors of Lea and Gate C Burton, perhaps for some sort of settlement. [BCM GC 4498 (after 1492 and so outside the scope of this catalogue).] In Jan. 1501 Thomas Howard, earl of Surrey, and Maurice (V) reached an agreement with Sir Edward Stanley, who had married Elizabeth, widow of Sir Thomas Cokesey, regarding her dower, and in Feb. 1515 Howard, then duke of Norfolk, granted to Maurice (VI) an annuity of £14 from Lea and Gate Burton, presumably to replace his moieties [BCM GC 4502, GC 4595 (both after 1492 and so outside the scope of this catalogue).] Again according to Smyth, Thomas (VI) de Berkeley (d. 1534) held the annuity of £14 although it was then said to be from Bramley (Surrey) and Scotton as well as from Lea and Gate Burton, but it was sold in 1565-6. [Smyth, ii. 260, 357.]

The lands for which evidence earlier than 1492 survives in the muniments are Bookham, Corton and Manningford Bruce from the Breouses of Tetbury, and Findon and Gower from the Gower branch. Findon was separated from the rest of the barony of Bramber, which passed to Howard, and the two Gower charters below seem to be present only because of John (VI) de Mowbray's grant of the office of supervisor of Gower to William de Berkeley in 1453.