BRAUNSTON, John

A vintner and taverner by trade and perhaps hailing from Braunston, a few miles to the west of Northampton, Braunston is not recorded as holding borough office. His career is one of almost unrelieved obscurity. In 1426 he offered mainprise for the appearance of his fellow vintner, John Bernhill†, in the court of King’s bench. Three years later he was one of the sureties for John Bosworth*, elected to represent the town in Parliament, and he himself was returned at the next election.1 KB27/660, rot. 21 (but Bernhill is described as ‘scrivener’); C219/14/1, 2. Curiously, he was appointed as one of the collectors of the tax voted by the Parliament of which he was a Member, and it is likely that he was responsible for the collection of the tax outside his native town. He certainly appears to have had some minor property outside it: when on 4 Nov. 1430 he had sat on an inquisition post mortem jury at Northampton he was described as ‘of Cold Higham’, a few miles to the south-west.2 CFR, xvi. 67, 107; CIPM, xxiii. 525. He was alive as late as Hilary term 1456 when, as ‘once of the vill of Northampton, esquire’, he was sued, in a Middlesex plea, for a debt of £40 by Queen Margaret. He was dead by Hilary 1463 when his widow appeared as co-defendant in an action of rescous.3 CP40/780, rot. 86; KB27/807, rot. 59d.