Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/255

 His colleagues made good their escape, but Braybroc was taken, roughly handled, and imprisoned in the castle. His wife carried the news to the king, then in parliament at Northampton, who immediately marched upon the town. William de Breaute, refusing to surrender on the king's summons, was promptly excommunicated by the archbishop, and the castle was reduced by a regular siege, after a stubborn resistance lasting sixty days (16 June-15 Aug.), the commandant and the garrison, with the exception of three templars, being hanged on the spot. The king ordered the tower and outer battlements to be razed to the ground, the inner works to be dismantled and the moats filled up, and appointed Braybroc to superintend the execution of this work. The ruins of that portion of the building which was left standing were extant in Camden's time. Braybroc was justice itinerant for the same counties next year (1225), and in the year following (1226) justice itinerant for Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. In an exchequer record of the year 1227 he is described as justice of the bench. The last mention of him is in 1228, when Dugdale notices a fine as having been levied before him. That he was dead in 1234 appears from the record of a fine which his widow Christiana in that year paid to the king for the privilege of marrying whom she pleased. She was the daughter of Wischard Ledet, a rebel, part of whose estates had been confiscated by John, and granted to Master Michael Belet in 1216. The portion which remained unforfeited devolved upon his daughter on his death in 1221-2, Braybroc then paying a fine of 100l. upon the succession. It was situate in Northamptonshire, where he had estates, as also in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, and Cambridgeshire. Braybroc had two sons, (1) Wischard, who took his mother's name of Ledet; (2) John, a descendant of whom, Sir Reginald Braybroc, knight, married in the reign of Henry IV a granddaughter of John de Cobham, whose only child Joan married Sir Thomas Brooke, father of Sir Edward Brooke of Cobham, ancestor of the noble family of Cobham.

 BRAYBROKE, ROBERT (d. 1404), ecclesiastic and judge, son of Sir Gerard Braybroke, knight of Braybroke Castle in Northamptonshire, a descendant of  [q. v.], studied civil law at Oxford, taking the degree of licentiate therein. After taking holy orders he obtained (1360), by papal provision, the rectory of Hinton, Cambridgeshire, which, in 1379, he surrendered for the rectory of Girton, Lincolnshire, and this again for that of Horsenden soon afterwards. He was appointed to the prebend of Fenton, in the church of York, 9 Nov. 1366; to that of Fridaythorpe, in the same church, 19 Oct. 1370; to that of All Saints in Hungate, in the church of Lincoln, about 1378; and to that of Colwich, in the church of Lichfield, in the following year. He became dean of Salisbury in 1379-80; archdeacon of Cornwall July 1381; bishop of London, by bull of Pope Urban, 9 Sept. of the same year, to which he was consecrated at Lambeth 5 Jan. 1381-2. The same year (9 Sept.) he was created chancellor at Bristol, receiving the seal on the 20th following, but he resigned the office 10 March 1382-3. In 1382 he gave great offence to the Londoners, then much under the influence of Wycliffe, by refusing to proclaim the nullity of the statute against preachers of heresy passed in the previous year. His laxity in enforcing the laws against prostitutes also produced disturbances. In 1385 he made a vigorous attempt to vindicate the sanctity of St. Paul's by denouncing excommunication against all who were guilty of buying and selling, or playing at ball, within the precincts of the cathedral, or of shooting the birds which made the roof of the edifice their home. In the following year he established the festival of St. Erkenwald, in commemoration of St. Paul. In 1387 Richard II, having been forced by the barons, headed by the Duke of Gloucester, to dismiss the chancellor Michael de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, and to vest the executive power in a 'continual council,' sought to regain his former position by compelling the judges to declare the ordinances by which the revolution had been carried into effect null and void. At this juncture Braybroke attempted, at the instance of the Duke of Gloucester, to mediate between the king and the barons, and at first with some effect; but on Pole, who was present at the interview, breaking out into abuse of the duke, the bishop rejoined with more energy than the king deemed respectful, bidding the late chancellor remember that as he owed his life to the favour of the king, it was unseemly in him to speak evil of others. Braybroke was forthwith dismissed the king's presence, and the barons impeached and executed or banished the chiefs of the king's party. In 1392 Braybroke tried to induce the London cobblers to give up work on Sunday by a threat of excommunication. In 1394 he made a journey to Ireland, to represent to the king, then engaged in attempting to reform the 