♂John Brome

John Brome was a townsman of Warwick in the reign of Henry IV, one of the borough’s members of Parliament in 1406, whose marriage to the heiress Joane Rody brought her family’s lands at Baddesley Clinton in Warwickshire to the Bromes. Their son John later became lord of the manor. He was the sixteenth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006) by two separate lines of descent, both through his son John Brome (died 1468). Through that son he was an ancestor of Thomas Dudley^W, later governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony^W.

Family and career

John was the son of Robert Brome, a lawyer of Warwick, whose wife is said to have been the daughter and heiress of William Stonley. The Bromes are said to have been tanners for several generations, living in the suburb of Warwick south of the bridge, until Robert took up the law and became steward of the courts of Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, for his lands in the county. The family also owned Brome Hall, or Brome’s Place, in Lapworth, and it was believed that they had first come from there. In 1450 John’s son declared that his father and all his ancestors had held a house in Warwick called Bromesplace “of tyme that no mynde remembereth”.

In 1406 John was one of the members of Parliament for the borough of Warwick^W. In 1419 he released to John de Catesby, of Ashby St Ledgers in Northamptonshire, his right in a half share of the manor of Lapworth.

Marriage and children

John married Joane Rody, the daughter and heiress of Thomas Rody of Baddesley Clinton. Through her he came into the lands at Baddesley Clinton that her grandfather William Rody had held, and he was holding them by 6 December 1434. Their son John held land there in his mother’s right before he gained the lordship of the manor itself.

Two sons of John and Joane are known: John, who became a lawyer and lord of the manor of Baddesley Clinton, and William Brome of Holton in Oxfordshire, who died in 1461. The records do not give the date of John’s death.

Lines of descent

Both lines run through his son John Brome, John’s daughter Isabel Brome, her daughter Alice Denton, Alice’s son Edward Purefoy, Edward’s daughter Mary Purefoy, Mary’s daughter Susanna Thorne, Susanna’s son Thomas Dudley (1576–1653) and Thomas’s son Samuel Dudley (1608–1683). One comes down through Samuel’s son Stephen Dudley (1654–1735) to Nathaniel Dudley (1763–1844), and the other to Nathaniel’s wife, Anna Smith (1764–1825); the two lines meet again in their daughter Sarah Dudley (1795–1839).

Notes

Sources for his life

The account of John Brome’s family and career comes from James William Hawes, Edmond Hawes of Yarmouth, Massachusetts (1914), pp. 73–76, which quotes the antiquary William Dugdale^W’s Antiquities of Warwickshire (2nd ed., vol. 2, pp. 970–972) and draws on Henry Norris’s history of Baddesley Clinton and the calendar of Ancient Deeds. Writing of the son, Dugdale says the family “for several Descents were Tanners”, that Robert “was a Lawyer, as also Steward of the Courts to Thomas de Beauchamp Earl of Warwick”, and that John, the son’s father, “served in the Parliament of 8 H. 4. [1406-7] as one of the Burgesses for the town of Warwick”. The Lapworth release of 1419 and the holding at Baddesley Clinton in December 1434 are given by Hawes on p. 76. Bromesplace is named in the son’s statement of 1450, which Hawes quotes on p. 73. Robert’s marriage to the daughter and heiress of William Stonley comes from the Warwickshire visitation pedigree as Hawes gives it on p. 76.

Dugdale’s pedigree

The Brome pedigree in the first edition of Dugdale’s Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656, p. 710) sets out “Rob. Brome de Warwick”, dated to the twentieth year of Richard II (1396–97), then “Joh. Brome Senior”, dated to the eighth year of Henry IV (1406–07), married to “Johanna filia & haeres Thomae Rody de Badsley-Clinton”, and below them their sons John Brome of Baddesley Clinton and “Will. Brome de Halton in Com. Oxon.”.

His son William

Hawes once writes that Robert Brome had “two sons John and William of Halton, Oxfordshire”, which would make William John’s brother, but in the same entry he lists John’s own children as John and “William, m. ---- and had Robert”. Dugdale’s pedigree and the Warwickshire heraldic visitation^W of 1619 (Harleian Society vol. 12, p. 97) both place William of Holton as the second son of John and Joane. William’s death in 1461 is given in the Victoria County History of Oxfordshire, vol. 5, under Albury.