Robert Henry Brodie

“ BIGOD or BYGOD, Sir FRANCIS (1508–1637) , rebel, of Settrington and Mulgrave Castle in Yorkshire, was descended from John, brother and heir of Roger Bigod, sixth earl of Norfolk. His grandfather, Sir Ralph Bigod, died in 1515, leaving Francis, then aged seven, his heir (Inq. p.m. 7 Hen. VIII, Nos. 139, 144) ; for his father, John Bigod, had fallen in the Scotch wars. ”

“ He spent some time at Oxford, but took no degree, though his letters show that he was a scholar. In 1527 and the following years he was in the service of Cardinal Wolsey, and under Cromwell, Wolsey’s successor in the favour of Henry VIII, was engaged in advancing in Yorkshire the king’s reforms in church matters. Nevertheless in 1536 we find him implicated (though unwillingly) in the Pilgrimage for Grace, an insurrection produced by these reforms. ”

“ Cook exercised the office of Garter king of arms. In that capacity he accompanied the Earl of Derby to France in 1585, carrying the garter to Henry III, who rewarded him with a present of two gold chains worth over 120l. apiece. At this period there seems to have been some talk of uniting the offices of Garter and Clarencieux. Cook gave 20l. and a bond for 80l. to George Bentall, servant of Shrewsbury, the earl marshal, to obtain him the office of Garter, but his suit was unsuccessful. ”

“ BROKE or BROOKE, Sir RICHARD (d. 1529) , chief baron of the exchequer, was fourth son of Thomas Broke of Leighton in Cheshire, and his wife, daughter and heiress of John Parker of Copnall. His ancestors had been Brokes of Leighton since the twelfth century, and came of a common stock with the Brookes of Norton. ”

“ He fought under his father at Flodden, and was knighted after the battle as Sir Marmaduke Constable of Everingham, 9 Sept. 1513. In 1520 he went to France to the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and was present at the subsequent meeting of Henry VIII and the emperor at Gravelines. He took an active part in the Scotch wars of 1522 and 1523 and in the latter year distinguished himself at the capture of Jedburgh (23 Sept.) and Fernieherst (27 Sept.) In the parliament of 1529 he was one of the knights of the shire for Yorkshire. ”

“ An inventory (Lansd. MSS. vol. lxxv. No. 31) of papers in his house in London, which Dethick proposed should be bought for the Heralds' College, was taken after his death by order of the privy council; it is dated 11 Oct. 1593, and signed by the sheriff in presence of Dethick Garter, Lee Richmond, and John Woodnote. Cook was also a painter, and it has been supposed that he painted the portraits of Henry VII, Henry VIII, Queen Catherine, the Duke of Suffolk, Sir Anthony Wingfield, and Sir Robert Wingfield and his family at Cockfield Hall in Yoxford, Suffolk ”

“ Bridget had married George Fastolfe of Nacton, who died without issue in 1527, leaving his manors of Nacton, Cowhall, and Shullondhall, Suffolk, to her, with remainder to her father and his heirs, who thus became Brokes of Nacton. Sir Richard left property in Norfolk, Kent, Surrey, and Sussex. A direct descendant, Robert Broke of Nacton, was created baronet in 1661, and died without male issue in 1693, when the estates passed to his nephew Robert, grandfather of Admiral Sir Philip Bowes Vere Broke [q. v.] ”

“ A theological treatise entitled ‘The Clowde of Knowing and the Clowde of Contemplation’ has been ascribed to him or Chauncy, but the handwriting of the copy in the Harleian collection (Harl. MS. 674) belongs to an earlier period, and the writer of that copy signs himself Walter Fitzherbert. Another copy at University College, Oxford, is mentioned in the Oxford Catalogue of Manuscripts.
[Cal. of Henry VIII, vols. vii. viii.; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr.; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. i. 160; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.; Strype's Eccl. Mem.; Baga de Secretis in 3rd Rep. of Deputy-Keeper of Public Records.] ”

“ Cromwell, your servant,’ to explain that the writer is ill and cannot come up as commanded. ‘This bringer’ was afterwards lord privy seal and earl of Essex. As part of a scheme for redeeming first-fruits in Norwich diocese, St. Benet's Abbey was by bull, dated 31 May 1528, of Pope Clement VII (Rymer, xiv. 244) , and by private act of parliament (Tanner, Notitia Monast. p. 333) , made directly subject to the bishops of Norwich who were to be ex officio abbots there; but Capon continued abbot and was succeeded by Repps, afterwards bishop of Norwich. ”

“ Marmaduke Constable, son of Sir Robert Constable of Flamborough, and Agnes, daughter of Sir Philip Wentworth of Suffolk, was the eldest of a family of eleven, five sons and six daughters. His epitaph says his age was seventy at Brankiston (i.e. Flodden) Field in 1513. ”

“ VII, p. 1, m. 11) , and that office was, on 16 April 1532, renewed to him and his son Leonard in survivorship (Privy Seal, 28 Hen. VIII) . In the summer of 1512 he led thirty men in Sir William Sandys's company in the fruitless expedition led by Thomas, marquis of Dorset, to Biscay, to aid King Ferdinand's invasion of France. In the following spring Lord Edmund Howard carried on the war with France by sea until killed in a fight off Brest on 25 April, and Chamberlayne was captain of the Henry Totehill, 3 tons, 62 men, in Howard's fleet. ”

“ Constable was then sheriff of Staffordshire, 1486–7, and of Yorkshire, 1487–8; in the latter year he received ‘by way of reward’ 340l. He also obtained the stewardship of some of Northumberland's lands during the minority of the young earl (Pat. 5 Hen. VII, p. 1, m. 21) . His father dying in 1488 he became Sir Marmaduke Constable of Flamborough, having previously been known as of Someretby in Lincolnshire. He was a knight of the body to Henry VII, and was at the reception of Catherine of Aragon in 1501. In 1509 Henry VIII sent him to Scotland, with Sir Robert Drury and Dr. ”

“ Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. ii. 208) , in which he refers to the royal license already granted to him on account of his ‘great age and impotency’ to take his ‘ease and liberty,’ and addresses him as knight of the body, Sir Marmaduke Constable, the elder, ‘called the little.’ In July 1515 he received a charter of liberties constituting Flamborough a sanctuary for felons and debtors, &c. (Pat. 7 Hen. VIII, p. 1, m. 29) . ”

“ To this Pits adds that he was no common poet and a good orator, and that in 1555 he built a tomb for the bones of Chaucer in Westminster Abbey. Later writers have taken this to be Nicholas Brigham, a 'teller' of the exchequer, who died in 1558. Wood (Athenæ Oxon. i. 309) conjectures that he was born near Caversham, where his eldest brother Thomas had lands of inheritance, and died in 6 Edward VI, but was descended from the Brighams of Brigham in Yorkshire. ”

“ In the Record Office are two orders, one dated 18 Jan. 1518, by Lord Darcy to a servant, to deliver wethers and kids to Constable. They are curious as written on the backs of playing cards (Cal. Hen. VIII, vol. ii. app. 43) . ”

“ VIII) , and chief baron of the exchequer on 24 Jan. 1526 (Com. de Term. Hill., 17 Hen. VIII, Rot. 1) , and continued in both offices till his death in May or June 1529. As serjeant, and afterwards as judge, his name appears in many commissions for the home and Norfolk circuits. His will, dated 6 May 1529, was proved on 2 July 1529 by his widow, daughter of ___ Ledes, by whom he left three sons, Robert (afterwards of Nacton) , William, and John, and four daughters, Bridget, Cicely, Elizabeth (married ___ Fouleshurst) , and Margaret. ”

“ Le Neve's Fasti; State Papers Henry VIII; Browne Willis's Not. Parl. i. 128; Burnet's Hist. of Reformation; Anderson's Annals of Engl. Bible, ii. 150; Haynes's Burghley Papers, p. 177; Britton's Salisb. Cath. ”

“ Bale's Scriptores, ed. 1557-9; Pits; Weever's Funeral Monuments, ed. 1631, p. 489; Tanner; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. i. 309; Dodd's Hist. of the Church, i. 369; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547-80, pp. 77, 101, 102, and 1601-3, Add. p. 538 ”

“ Harl. MSS.; Addit. MSS.; Cat. Arund. MSS. in Coll. Arm.; Ayscough's Cat.; Coxe's Cat. of Oxford MSS.; Lansd. MSS.; MSS. Phillipp.; Smith's Cat. of Caius Coll. MSS.; Cal. of Chanc. Proc. Eliz. iii. 186 ”