BROWN, John II (d.1422), of Bishop's Lynn, Norf.

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

Family and Education

Offices Held

Commr. to make arrests, Lynn May 1406; of inquiry May 1408.

Biography

Following a cessation of trade with the Hanse as a consequence of piratical attacks on their shipping, in June 1404 John Brown of Lynn was dispatched with an apologetic letter to Conrad of Jungingen, High Master of the Order of Teutonic Knights, requesting forbearance and deprecating any breach of long-established friendly relations. Two years later Brown was commissioned to arrest certain local men for causes laid before the King by ambassadors recently returned from Prussia, and in January 1409 he again promoted friendship with foreign merchants by acting on behalf of the envoys of the Hanse at their meetings with the Council.1

Perhaps because of his frequent absences abroad, Brown took little part in local affairs. Of such involvement little of importance is recorded, save that in 1421 he was a member of the recently formed lower council of 27. In November that year he became a feoffee, along with Philip Frank*, of a quay in Lynn, but he evidently died shortly afterwards. Proof of this is furnished both by the fact that in 1422 one John Shouldham was permitted to enter the liberty on the ground that he had been Brown’s apprentice, and by evidence that in the same year his executors, who included John Copnote†, brought a suit in the admiralty court against a mariner from Danzig. Three years later Copnote was in possession of Brown’s tenement in Grass Market.2

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

  • 1. J.H. Wylie, Hen. IV, ii. 69; iv. 10; Letters Hen. IV ed. Hingeston, i. 242; ii. 355.
  • 2. King’s Lynn Town Hall, Bc 3, Ca 5; CP25(1)169/185/57; Cal. Freemen Lynn, 34; CPR, 1422-9, pp. 160-1.