Robert Broke

Sir Robert Broke SL ( – 5 or 6 September 1558) was an English judge, politician and legal writer. Although a landowner in rural Shropshire, he made his fortune through more than 20 years' service to the City of London. MP for the City in five parliaments, he served as Speaker of the House of Commons in 1554. He is celebrated as the author of one of the Books of authority. A prominent religious conservative, he founded a notable recusant dynasty. His surname is also rendered Brooke, and occasionally Brook, which are, for modern readers, better indicators of pronunciation.

Early life and education Robert Broke was born by 1515: his known Oxford University admission date suggests the first decade of the century. He was the eldest son of Thomas Broke of Claverley in Shropshire. Margaret Grosvenor, daughter of Humphrey Grosvenor of Farmcote, a hamlet to the south-east of Claverley. Most of early 16th century Shropshire was poor and underdeveloped sheep country, ruled by the Council of Wales and the Marches. Claverley was a large parish, dominated by the Gatacre family, whose seat was at its southern edge.

Broke was admitted to study for a BA at Oxford University in 1521. As a very minor member of the landed gentry, Broke needed to seek sources of income outside his own locality if he were to prosper, and he did so through London and the law. He studied at Strand Inn, and from there was admitted to Middle Temple at some point between 1525 and 1528. He studied pleading with John Jenour, a famous Prothonotary who influenced a whole generation of judges and jurists.

Judicial career Broke enjoyed considerable power as an official of the City of London before attaining high office in the last four years of his life. He was also the author of several important works on the law.

Offices held Broke's judicial career began in 1536 when he was appointed Common Serjeant of London on the recommendation of Henry VIII and the queen, Jane Seymour; how he gained such royal favour is unknown.

London had four MPs. Two, called knights, were elected by the Aldermen, and one of these was always the Recorder. The other two, called burgesses were elected by the Court of Common Council from a list of twelve proposed by the Aldermen. The Recorder always resigned his seat when he left office: hence Broke's election was automatic. London was second only to the Crown as sponsor of legislation and solid legal acumen was in need at all times among its delegation to the House of Commons.

Broke's colleagues in the 1545 parliament a former Lord Mayor, John Sturgeon, a staunch Protestant, and Paul Withypoll, a wealthy merchant with interests in the Netherlands, Spain and Crete. Much of their work involved defending the City against the claims of its clergy. They were unsuccessful in getting their bill on sanctuaries through the House, but they were able to force a compromise over a bill intended to tighten up tithe collection from the citizens. Bowes remained a London MP throughout Broke's term, apart from a short break in 1553. The first session of the parliament definitively abolished chantries. A major concern of the London members in the second and subsequent sessions of the parliament was to ensure that the City did not lose control of the wealth of the chantries within its boundaries to the king. who had specialist knowledge of the subject. The other burgess, Thomas Curteys, was elected an alderman in 1551 – a move which he resisted to the point of imprisonment and which forced him to resign his seat in parliament. In 1552 Broke was sent to lobby for further assurances from the Crown about lands recently purchased by the city.

Broke was not limited to purely metropolitan concerns: as a skilled lawyer and draftsman, his talents were useful to the Crown and its ministers, and he was called upon by others if they thought his skills could benefit their cause. In 1549, he was given responsibility for a bill "for preaching divers opinions." The third session of the parliament passed an Act to reform canon law and Broke was appointed to the commission set up for this purpose on 12 February 1552. In March 1552 he was one of those deputed to the redraft the Treason Act 1551 to make it illegal to say that the king "is an heretic, schismatic, infidel or usurper of the crown." He was one of those enlisted in 1549 by the supporters of Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland, whose family had long held the shrievalty of Westmorland by hereditary right: the supporters of his neighbour Thomas Wharton, 1st Baron Wharton, were proposing to end the arrangement. He was also called in by John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford in 1552 to advise on legislation he was promoting to free himself of commitments made to Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, the disgraced and executed former Lord Protector.

Parliament of March 1553 Broke and Bowes were sent to the last parliament of Edward VI's reign, along with two burgesses: Curteys's replacement, John Blundell, and John Marshe – both Protestants and particularly long-serving MPs. The parliament met as the succession question loomed large and lasted for only the month of March 1553. However, the London delegation were initially more concerned with their campaign to get the use of fuel in London better regulated – in which they succeeded through the passage of an Act.

However, Broke was soon given the question of the Maidstone election to investigate, and this was perhaps a result of the succession crisis. An election was called as soon as the parliament was summoned, but there was no reference to parliamentary representation in the charter. Broke was joined in his work by Richard Morgan, a fellow judge and MP for Gloucester, as well as a fellow Catholic. They were enjoined by parliament to "peruse the charter of Maidstone ... whether they may have burgesses in this House; and in the meantime the burgesses there to be absent out of this House till it be fully ordered." It was possible that supporters of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland had used Maidstone's ambiguous status as a way of increasing parliamentary support for Lady Jane Grey's succession, as the town was in the Protestant heartland of Kent. In fact, the lord of the manor was Thomas Wyatt, the High Sheriff of Kent who made the return was Sir John Guildford, a cousin of Dudley's wife, and one of the burgesses elected was a relative of both Dudley and Jane Grey. It is unclear what Broke and Morgan reported, or even if they delivered their report, but Maidstone was disfranchised and did not regain the right to parliamentary representation until it was granted by a new charter 1559.

Parliaments of Mary I

For the parliament of October 1553 Bowes was temporarily replaced by Sir Rowland Hill, a former Lord Mayor and a Protestant, making Broke the only Catholic MP from London. Despite this, and the momentous events of the summer, in which Dudley attempted to place Jane Grey on the throne and was defeated by a rebellion in favour of Mary, Edward's Catholic elder sister, the London delegation attended the parliament with an entirely commercial agenda. They toiled away at legislation to regulate London's physicians, chandlers in both wax and tallow, leather tanners and bowling alleys, as well as a measure to deregulate the sale of wine. For two centuries Madeley was to be the seat of the Brooke family, famous or notorious for their royalist plotting during the English Civil War and Commonwealth. In the same year, Broke also bought the advowson of the parish church. and in 1549 the property of St Mary's guild, a lay fraternity that had tended the Lady chapel. He even purchased the pension that the rector of Badger, Shropshire had paid to Wenlock Madeley's mineral wealth was already partly apparent: there had been coal mining since the 14th century and there was already an iron ore working rented out when Broke bought the manor. It was to prove one of the focal points of England's Industrial Revolution.

In 1548 Broke bought the manor of Lapley from Sir Richard Manners. Formerly the demesne estate of Lapley Priory, this had been granted by Henry V to the College of St Bartholomew, Tong, Shropshire, which was the shrine church of the Vernon family of Haddon Hall. Manners acquired it at the abolition of colleges and chantries and was now in a position to sell this former church property for ready cash. Broke settled Lapley on his second wife, Dorothy Gatacre, at their marriage and she obtained it on his death. However, in common with the Shropshire and Staffordshire gentry circle in which he moved, Broke showed no great sympathy for the power and wealth of the clergy. He worked to limit the power of the London clergy and later readily accepted lands expropriated from monasteries and chantries, using his power as Speaker to attempt to secure the purchases.

Broke's attitude was generally strictly professional: he was willing to use his legal skills on behalf of employers or clients, irrespective of their religious inclinations or intentions, so it is never entirely safe to read his beliefs from his actions. Hence he worked on both the passage and the repeal of the 1551 Treason Act, which specifically forbade religious criticism of Edward VI. It was never likely that he would appear on the October 1553 Crown Office list of MPs as one of "those which stood for the true religion," in this case, Protestant. Only 60 names are marked, although they include two colleagues, Blundell and Marshe.

Broke married within his own Catholic regional circle: the Gatacres were to become mainly recusants, as were his own descendants.

Death Broke's inquisition post mortem records that he died on 5 September 1558 at Patshull Hall. However, his tomb inscription says that he died on 6 September, while "visiting his friends and country". The overseers were William Gatacre, his father-in-law; John and Richard Brooke, his eldest son by each marriage; and Richard Whorwood, his "clerk and cousin". Whorwood very briefly took wardship of John, as he reached his twenty-first birthday in June 1559. The estates were divided between John and Richard, although the widow, Dorothy, had Lapley and retained Madeley until her death. The other sons were given £40 each, with the proviso that they take up study or trade to earn a living "meet for a gentleman's son."

Family Broke married twice and his will shows that he had seventeen children in all. His wives were:

Anne Waring, daughter of Nicholas Waring of Shrewsbury, widow of Nicholas Hurleston, former MP for Rochester, who had died in 1531. Broke married Anne by 1537, and she gave birth to his eldest son, John, his main heir, and at least three other children before dying. John Brooke inherited Broke's most important estate, Madeley, although he did not obtain it until the death of Dorothy Gatacre, around 1572. He died in 1598. Basil Brooke (1576–1646), John's son and Robert's grandson, was a royalist conspirator, a noted wit and raconteur, and an important ironmaster. Partly through economic necessity resulting from his recusancy, he sought to exploit the full industrial potential of the Madeley estate, establishing ironworks and even a steelworks at Coalbrookdale.

Dorothy Gatacre, daughter of William Gatacre of Gatacre, near Claverley. Broke married Dorothy in 1544. She outlived Broke by about 14 years. They had at least four daughters and five sons, including: Richard Brooke, who inherited part of Broke's property as the eldest son of the marriage.