John Brayne and His Other Brother-in-Law

WHEN IN 1579 John Brayne and his brother-in-law, James Burbage, mortgaged their playhouse in Shoreditch, the Theatre, Bayne had just resolved a quarrel with another brother-in-law over another mortgage. He was Edward Stowers, a blacksmith, who explained his side of the quarrel in a lawsuit against Brayne in the Star Chamber. (1) The events at issue began in or before 1562 and ended in 1578. Brayne, a grocer, built the Red Lion playhouse in 1567, and he and Burbage built the Theatre in 1576. Brayne's wife was Stowers's sister, and Burbage's wife was Brayne's sister. In the lawsuit, which consists only of Stowers's bill of complaint, Stowers says he is of "Averstone," Essex, yeoman--rather than blacksmith, presumably, because he wanted to appear as a property owner, not a rude mechanical. "Averstone" is Alphamstone, then also called Alverston. He explains that he owned "one messuage or tenemente wth thappurtenances theare vnto belonginge" together with two parcels of land containing six acres in Bures St. Mary, Essex. That parish extends across the Stour into Suffolk, where the church is. The part in Essex was and is often called Bures Hamlet, and it adjoins Alphamstone. (2) Stowers mortgaged the property to William Sparkes for 15 [pounds sterling]. Then William Warrison, citizen and pewterer of London, paid off the mortgage and took a new one. When Warrison died, he left the new mortgage to his uncle and next heir, Peter Warrison, clerk, parson of Brown Candover in Hampshire, who conveyed it to Alice Abell, widow of St. Andrew Holborn in London. In her hands it became forfeit so that she owned the property. She would not, however, take advantage but (like John Hyde, the mortgagee at the Theatre) allow Stowers to redeem the property when he could pay off the debt, because the value of the property was great, the amount still owing was small, and she cared for Stowers's welfare. Now Brayne, "a verry dangerous sobtell and craftie mane," secretly "intreated" the widow to convey the property to him. Brayne alleged "vnto her by greate and sollem vowes ... that he did it only for the love he bore vnto" Stowers, to whom "he was tied in concience as well as in respecte of marriadge of his sister to doe what good he coulde for" Stowers. The idea, Stowers thought, was to enable him more easily to redeem the property. Brayne would control it and the widow would continue to hold the mortgage so that Stowers could "wth better and greater ease ... and lese grefe of mynd" make small payments that Brayne would give to the widow. Brayne often solicited Stowers "to the said purpose," alleging that he would "franckly and frely wthout any recompence at all" allow Stowers to redeem the property and speaking of "betteringe and presearvinge" Stowers's "estate and welfare." Supposing that Brayne "ment honestly and faythefully as he did speke and swere," the widow "willed" Brayne to send Stowers to her, and she, too, urged Stowers to consent to the arrangement. So "vpon thes and many other solleme othes and professiones," Stowers consented, and in two indentures dated in the fourteenth year of Elizabeth (which began on 17 November 1571) the widow assigned the property to Brayne. Stowers then spent great sums on the place, on traveling to it, and "for the lone of the saide money." Eventually he repaid Brayne and demanded that Brayne convey the property to him along with the evidences by which he controlled it. Brayne complied. He had a lawyer draw up "an ample and sufficient reassueravnce of the messuage & lands" to Stowers and "Vppon the sodden broughte fourthe & deliueryd vnto" him "a great many of owld wrightinges" about it. Stowers could not read and "neuer trobled" anybody "wth the sighte of" the documents, but "beleued faythefully" everything Brayne had said about them. Then "for the preservacione of him selfe his wife and famelly," he "was constrayned to once more morgadge the saide messuage or tenement wth the twoe peces of land therevnto belonginge vnto one of his trustie frendes who did not refuse to pleasure" him. …