Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/323

  his diocese until July 1371, by which time he had been dismissed from the treasurership. The failures in France enabled the opponents of the clerical ministers to drive them from office. Wykeham lost the chancellorship on 14 March 1371, and on the 27th Scrope succeeded Brantingham as lord treasurer (, Const. Hist. ii. 440; cf., Age of Wycliffe, 2nd edit. p. 4).

For six years Brantingham took no part in politics; but the accession of Richard II, in June 1377, brought Wykeham and his friends once more into power, and on 19 July following Brantingham was again appointed lord treasurer (Cal. Patent Rolls, 1377-81, p. 7;, ii. 461). In January 1380-1 Walsingham (Historia Anglicania, Rolls Ser. i. 449) makes Sir Robert Hales succeed Brantingham as treasurer; but, according to Bishop Stubbs, Sir Hugh Segrave [q. v.] became treasurer in the August of that year (Const. Hist. ii. 480). Brantingham, however, continued to take an active part in public affairs. He constantly served as trier of petitions in the parliaments from 1381 onwards (Rolls of Parl. iii. 99-229 passim). In November 1381 he was one of the peers appointed to confer with the commons, and he was similarly employed in 1382 and 1384 (ib. iii. 100, 134, 167). In November 1381 he was also on the commission appointed to reform the king's household; in 1385 he was made controller of the subsidy, and in the same year was one of those nominated to inquire into the king's debts.

These attempts to check abuses having proved ineffectual, the barons under Gloucester took control of the government in 1386, impeached the chancellor, Michael de la Pole, earl of Suffolk [q. v.], and appointed eleven lords, of whom Brantingham was one, to reform and regulate the realm and the king's household. He was not, however, one of the appellants who rose against Richard in 1387, and when the procedings of 1386 were annulled in 1397, Brantingham, who had been dead three years, was on the commons' petition declared by the king to have been innocent and loyal (ib. iii. 353). Moreover, when in May 1389 Richard declared himself of age, and changed his ministers, Brantingham returned for a few months to the treasury. But by this time he was too old for the work. In August he resigned the treasury, and on the 26th Richard, on account of Brantingham's age and services to his grandfather and himself, excused him from further attendance at parliament and the council (, Fœdera, orig. edit. vii. 649).

Brantingham retired to his diocese, and died at St. Mary le Clyst in October 1394 (, p. 92; says 13 Dec.) He was buried in the nave of Exeter Cathedral. His tomb, which was opened on 3 Dec. 1832, was found to have been completely despoiled by the puritans in 1646 (, loc. cit.) Brantingham's episcopal register, which occupies two volumes, is still extant. His 'Issue Roll' as treasurer for the year 44 Edward III (1370-1) was translated and published by Frederick Devon in 1835 (London, 4to).



BRASSEY, ANNA (or, as she always wrote the name, Annie), (1839–1887), traveller and authoress, first wife of Thomas Brassey, first Baron Brassey, born in London on 7 Oct. 1839, was daughter of John Allnutt, by his first wife, Elizabeth Harriet, daughter of John Faussett Burnett of May Place, Crayford. Losing her mother when she was an infant, she lived with her grandfather at Clapham, and afterwards with her father in Chapel Street, and Charles Street, Berkeley Square. In her early years she acquired a love of country life and pursuits which she retained to the last, and she made a special study of botany. On 9 Oct. 1860 she married at St. George's Church, Hanover Square, Mr, Thomas Brassey (created Baron Brassey in 1886), eldest son of [q. v.], the railway contractor. She bore her husband one son and four daughters. At first she and her husband lived at Beauport Park, three miles from Hastings, and then at Normanhurst Court, a house which they built in 1870, in the parish of Catsfield, Sussex. She became a leader of society in the neighbourhood of her residence, and [q. v.] records of the season 1862–3, 'The great event of the winter was a fancy ball given at Beauport by the Tom Brasseys, most hospitable of youthful hosts' (Recollections of a Happy Life, i. 33). Her husband's candidature for parliament at Birkenhead, Devonport, and Sandwich, where he was unsuccessful, and at Hastings, for which constituency he was elected in