BREDON, John, of Worcester.

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

Feb. 1388
Nov. 1390
Jan. 1397

Family and Education

m. Joan, 1da.

Offices Held

Bailiff, Worcester Mich. 1384-6, 1396-8, 1399-1400, 1401-2, 1403-4, 1406-7, 1411-12.1

Biography

This John Bredon is to be distinguished from the mason of the same name who was living in Fish Street, Worcester, in the late 14th century.2 He was, in fact, a draper who had obtained citizenship of Worcester some time before his first return to Parliament in 1381, thereafter being a regular witness to local conveyances. Bredon took out royal pardons in February 1382 and in March and June 1398. Feelings of political insecurity may well have lain behind the last two, for he had been a Member of the Merciless Parliament of February 1388 and benefited from the judgements brought there against the King’s friends, in so far as for the next ten years he shared with Richard Ruyhale* and others possession of a messuage and garden in the city, which formed part of the estates forfeited to the Crown by Sir John Beauchamp† of Holt. A bailiff for as many as nine annual terms in all, during his third and fifth (1396-7 and 1399-1400) he represented Worcester in Parliament, and it was immediately after holding office for the sixth time that he was returned again in 1402. At the elections held at Worcester to the Parliaments of 1390 (Jan.) and 1395 Bredon found mainprise for the appearance of the city’s representatives. It was also in the 1390s that he was appointed a trustee of the Worcester property of a fellow draper, John Hereford*, although a similar trusteeship was to involve him in litigation. In February 1409, on payment of £110, he surrendered certain property in the High Street which he had held as a mortgagee. During Henry IV’s reign Bredon sued Thomas Stevens* of Gloucester in the court of common pleas for debts amounting to £20, but he was able to recover these and damages before December 1421.3

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

Variants: Bredoun, Breodon.

  • 1. Worcester Chs. (Worcs. Hist. Soc. 1909), 193; Collectanea (ibid. 1912), 11, 12, 27, 29, 30, 51, 65, 66, 161; Almoner’s Bk. Worcester Priory (ibid. 1911), 25.
  • 2. Worcester Chs. 38.
  • 3. E101/345/11; C67/29 m. 13, 30 mm. 18, 29; C219/9/5, 11; Collectanea, 29; Worcester Chs. 12, 76; CPR, 1416-22, p. 356.