Family and Education

?s. of John Brandon*.

Offices Held

Collector of customs and subsidies, Lynn 30 July 1425-Oct. 1426, 17 Nov. 1431-May 1435, Gt. Yarmouth 26 Oct. 1426-Jan. 1439.

Commr. to arrest vessels for the duke of York’s expedition, Yarmouth Mar. 1436.

Biography

First heard of in May 1410 as ‘of Norfolk’, it was more specifically as ‘of Lynn’ that Brandon provided securities in the Exchequer in 1420 and 1426 for the keeper of ‘La Lovecop’ in the town. Also described on the latter occasion as ‘gentleman’, Robert nevertheless seems to have carried on the family’s mercantile interests, for he became a member of the Holy Trinity guild before 1422 and later, in June 1433, served it as treasurer. Save for his attendance as an elector of the borough officers in 1425, Brandon took no part in local government. He was enfeoffed of two messuages in Lynn by John Wyth but, some time after 1432, was accused in Chancery by Wyth’s widow of refusing ‘by subtle conynge and ymaginacion’ to perform his will.2

In July 1425, Brandon (here accorded the rank of esquire) went surety in the Exchequer for Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter, who was then appointed guardian of the temporalities of the bishopric of Norwich, and it was on the very next day that he secured appointment by the royal council as collector of customs in Lynn. He went on to hold the post there and at Yarmouth for almost 20 years. In 1434 Brandon was among the Norfolk gentry required to take the oath not to maintain breakers of the peace. He is last recorded in November 1437, again standing surety in the Exchequer, this time for Richard Alred†, who was shortly afterwards to be made attorney-general of the duchy of Lancaster.3

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

• 1. The return (C219/12/6) has John Brandon, but it was certainly Robert who reported the Parliament’s proceedings in the guildhall: M. McKisack, Parl. Repn. Eng. Bors. 143, from King’s Lynn Town Hall, Ca 6 m. 1.
• 2. CCR, 1409-13, p. 111; CFR, xiv. 360; xv. 153. HMC 11th Rep. III, 228; C1/11/301; Lynn Town Hall, assembly bk. I, f. 50; Gd 48.
• 3. CFR, xv. 108; xvii. 11; CPR, 1429-36, p. 405.