Sir Nicholas Brembre (died 20 February 1388) was an important figure in late 14th-century London and an ally of King Richard II during his dispute with his rebel Lords Appellant in the 1380s. Nothing is known of Brembre’s birth, but he was probably of humble origins. At some point, he became a merchant and joined the Grocers' Company, an important London guild. He became extremely wealthy through involvement in the wool trade. His wealth enabled him to make substantial cash loans to the Crown, and this, in turn, granted him access to the highest levels of government.
Brembre was highly active in London’s civic political life, serving on commissions, as an alderman, sheriff and for four terms as Mayor of London. Much of the latter years were spent in a bitter dispute with a mercantile rival, John Northampton, who also became Mayor. Northampton attacked the traditional processes of city politics, including the traditional monopolies of the major guilds, and this became a source of both political and physical unrest in London. Brembre eventually managed to overturn Northampton's mayoral policies and get his rival arrested and expelled from the city. Brembre was also elected Member of Parliament for the City of London.
Following his last term as Mayor, he became increasingly identified with the court party against the rebels, whose ire he earned when he attempted to raise an army against them, in the King's name. The Appellants eventually gained control of Richard's government and proceeded to dismantle the King's household, many of whom were arrested and executed during the Merciless Parliament of 1388. This included Brembre, who, accused of treason, corruption and judicial murder—and despite the King's personal support—was hanged at Tyburn on 20 February that year.
Political background
London The historian Michael Hicks has described late-medieval London as "the largest port, the largest market and retail outlet for luxuries and manufacture, and the largest employer" in Late Medieval England. Nationally and financially, it was the most important trading post in the country, and in the late medieval period was handling over 60 per cent of English trade abroad. Throughout the period, maintaining control of—and influence in―the city was of fundamental importance for every monarch. For their part, London's citizens benefited from proximity to royal administration, justice, and patronage, with Parliament and the King's Council at Westminster. The city, though, was also hit heaviest by the King's poll taxes of 1376–1381, damaging the King's relations with the city.
Relations with the crown
London was governed and administered by men from its merchant class, who were organised by their trades into different guilds (or misteries). These men, among whom Brembre was numbered, formed London's political upper class. They filled the offices of alderman, sheriff, and Mayor, and governed through the Common Council. The council was omnicompetent, and dealt with the city's complex and often delicate relations with the King and royal government. The city was politically turbulent at this time. Although a contemporary chronicler, Jean Froissart, believed Richard II favoured London at the expense of the rest of the kingdom, it is probable that King and city had poor opinions of the other. But, they had to live with each other: the Crown depended on the wealth of London's merchants for the subsidies and loans they provided, and the city relied on the King to protect its trade abroad and its liberties at home.
Relations were not only strained between city and Crown, but also suffered internecine tension, having been riven with factional strife since the late 1370s. Always prone to violence, the city had become increasingly so by the early 1370s. This had several causes, including a shortage of bullion and ready cash, the aftermath of plague outbreaks with concomitant depopulation, followed by different guilds vying for power, combined with a high level of immigration and an as-yet undeveloped sense of community solidarity. Internal tension was exacerbated by weak central government, owing to Edward III's last years being characterised by illness and popular discontent, and his successor, Richard, being a minor. By 1381, London's ruling class was itself engaged in a bitter internal feud for political dominance on the council and was thus unstable and divided. These issues were to influence city politics throughout Brembre's lifetime, until Richard lost his throne in 1399. Brembre was part of a merchant capitalist party in city politics which was known pejoratively as victuallers. The two groups were roughly aligned along guild lines, with Brembre representing the trading and non-productive victualling guilds - primarily the Vintners, Fishmongers and Grocers - against the artisanal labouring guilds, Brembre's group effectively controlled city government.
Early life It is unknown when Nicholas Brembre was born, and nothing is known of his early life or background, although he was likely of relatively humble origins, possibly, according to the early-19th-century antiquarian Edward Hasted, a son of one John Brembre. His most recent biographer, Andrew Prescott, has speculated that Brembre was related to Sir Thomas Brembre (also Bramber), an influential and wealthy Chancery clerk, receiver of the King's chamber and associate of the courtier Guy Brian. By 1369, Nicholas Brembre had married Idonia, the eldest daughter and coheir of the oligarch Vintner John Stodey, to whom Brembre appears to have been close, in 1371, for example, standing surety to Stodey over the latter's grant of a wardship and receiving custody of Stodey's youngest daughter, Joan, on Stodey's death. Brembre's marriage cemented his position in the upper echelons of London society. He established his primary residence as a mansion near Knightrider Street, not far from the Grocers' Company headquarters. Brembre also amassed a considerable property portfolio; tenements in the city were worth around , and included, per historian Sylvia L. Thrupp, "two large houses and several blocks of shops, four cellars, eleven chambers, two stables, a wharf, and a crane". He also purchased manors in Kent, such as at Mereworth, Maplescomb and West Peckham.
Career At a date now unknown, but probably not before 1365, Brembre joined and re-founded the Grocers' Company, although his primary business interests were in the wool trade. He became the biggest exporter of wool in London by 1365, when he traded over 1,400 sacks. His marriage also brought him close links to other merchants, particularly among the Merchants of the Staple and the various victualling companies. He was still a large exporter of wool in 1380 both from London and Hull.
Brembre first entered politics in 1372 after an English naval defeat at La Rochelle left English wool exports undefended. He was elected one of the two Sheriffs of the City of London and an alderman for the ward his home ward Bread Street which may have been the result of a deal with John Northampton. There had been rioting in the city shortly before his election. He was to be an Alderman office on five occasions, and still held the office on his death. He may have been motivated to do so through commercial concerns; the recent English defeat at the Battle of La Rochelle gave France control of the Bay of Biscay and allowed France to disrupt the safe passage of trade between England, Gascony and Spain. This endangered both London's trade and its food supply. In 1373, Brembre was elected Mayor of the Westminster Staple, which furthered his business interests and allowed him to make new commercial contacts.
Brembre maintained close relations with the leading merchants of the day, such as the Mercer John Pyel―to whose son Brembre stood godfather—and John Fressh, who regularly brokered Brembre's wool at the Middelburg Staple. Brembre was also on good terms with the wealthy and influential Fishmonger, John Philipot, with whom he had been elected sheriff in 1372; Brembre arranged the marriage of Philipot to Brembre's sister-in-law, Margaret Stodey. He was connected to Geoffrey Chaucer who as Comptroller of Customs was responsible for supervising the accounts of the Keepers of the Customs, including Brembre, who had been appointed in around 1372 as a collector of the wool subsidy for the Port of London. A commons petition to the 1388 parliament suggests that this office was popularly seen as a sinecure for those willing to take bribes and other corrupt practices. Still, the position also strengthened Brembre's influence among the London citizenry. He also maintained close links with leading government administrators, such as John Fitznichol, who had long been associated with Edward III's son-in-law John, Duke of Brittany, and who in 1384 married Philipot's widow, Brembre's sister-in-law, probably through Brembre's influence.
Brembre has been described as part of a "new and... ambitious generation" that established itself in the royal circle from Richard's coronation—what Favent called —and as such Brembre became a royal favourite early on. He gained entry to the royal circle by virtue of several large loans to the Crown, which continued over the course of his career. In 1382, he lent Richard over £1300 (equivalent to £1,291,600 in 2023), in December 1384 nearly and this was followed the following year later by . In 1387 he helped fund Richard's "gyration" around the Midlands, Brembre also organised large corporate loans from the city to the Crown, beginning Richard's reign with one of and one in 1378 of .
Mayoralty and political career First term
Brembre served four terms as Mayor, three of them wholly under Richard II. His first began in 1377. In that year the King's uncle, John of Gaunt, proposed a Bill to the Bad Parliament to replace the elected Mayor with a captain appointed by the Crown, the combination of which caused severe rioting in the city. Mayor Adam Stable was deprived of office on 21 March by King Edward at Gaunt's instigation. In the city government's bid to reconcile with a Gaunt dominated government, it put Brembre forward as a candidate more acceptable to John of Gaunt. Brembre was sworn in the same day as Stable was deposed.
He obtained a charter from the King in December, which guaranteed the city's liberties―including the right to alter their own charter―and restricted the right of aliens to trade. In April the following year Brembre, with other royal justices, oversaw the treason trial of Sir John Minsterworth within the Guildhall. Minsterworth, previously a loyal soldier fighting for Edward III in France, had recently been captured fighting for the French, although it is unknown whether he was present through choice or coercion. Minsterworth was found guilty of supporting a proposed French invasion of England and encouraging the Welsh rebel Owain Lawgoch. This was deemed "willful support of the King's enemies"; found guilty, Minsterworth was drawn, hanged and quartered at Tyburn. In March 1378, following a riot between the rival goldsmith and pepperer guilds, Brembre dismissed one of the sheriffs, goldsmith Nicholas Twyford, for attempting to prevent the arrest of a rioter. Several people had been wounded and took refuge in St Paul's Churchyard. Around the same time, a mob attacked the Earl of Buckingham's house and injured one of his servants. At the 1378 parliament held in Gloucester later that year, Buckingham threatened to impeach Brembre as Lord Mayor. Brembre bought the Earl off with a gift of 100 marks, but the charter he had recently gained for London was rescinded.
Peasants' Revolt and John Northampton