Alice de Bryene

Alice Bures (about 1360-1435), also known by her married name of Alice Brian and sometimes as Alice de Bryene, was an English landowner whose estates were centred on Suffolk. Widowed about age 26, she spent the next 49 years of her life bringing up her two daughters, looking after her household, and running her estates. Some letters she received and some of her household accounts have been published, giving a valuable insight into the life of a well-off gentlewoman in the English countryside at that time.

Origins Probably born at Acton in Suffolk around 1360, she was the only surviving child of Sir Robert Bures, of Bures St Mary, a landowner, and his wife Joan Sutton, and secondly Henry Scrope, 3rd Baron Scrope of Masham, who survived her and was executed in 1415. No children are known from either marriage. Elizabeth Brian, born and baptised in London in 1381 and dead by 1438, who married Robert Lovell, son of John Lovell, 5th Baron Lovell. He died after 1424, leaving one daughter, Maud Lovell. Maud, born about 1405 and died 1436, married first Sir Richard Stafford, son of Sir Humphrey Stafford, who died about 1427, leaving a daughter, Avice Stafford, born in 1423 in Dorset and died in 1457, who married James Butler, 5th Earl of Ormond, son of James Butler, 4th Earl of Ormond, but left no children. Maud's second husband was John FitzAlan, 7th Earl of Arundel, son of John FitzAlan, 6th Earl of Arundel, who died in France in 1435, leaving a son, Humphrey FitzAlan, born in 1429 and died before reaching his teens in 1438.

The other is her household book for the twelve months from October 1412, giving details in Latin of food and drink consumed.

Unpublished but surviving are some stewards' accounts for the manor of Acton and some bailiff's accounts, which illustrate her life and finances and by extension those of contemporaries in a similar position.