Bridgwater was founded in the years around 1200 by William Briwere. There had been a settlement here for a few centuries before this, but this is what made it a town.
What do we know about the man who founded Bridgwater? Quite a lot as it happens, even if he is a more or less totally forgotten figure today. The majority of what follows is based on the work of Ralph V. Turner is his book Men Raised from the Dust: Administrative Service and Upward Nobility in Angevin England (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988).
Why is he forgotten? It’s partly because his achievements in life aren’t especially exciting (he was a fantastic administrator for example – how many famous tax collectors can you think of?), some of his deeds aren’t so savoury today (he opposed Magna Carta), but most importantly, he came from nothing, and after he died, it all went back to nothing. He was from the middle rank of society, and although he had children to continue his legacy, the male line died out, so the landed empire he built up was dismantled after he died.
Briwere became one of the most important men in England in the time of King Richard and King John, being one of the central men in government. He seems to have been a close personal friend of King John, and was exceptionally loyal to him. To give a flavour of him though, the fact that Briwere served as Sheriff of Nottingham for a time in John’s reign. He’s probably not the Sheriff of Nottingham of legend, but this perhaps sheds a dim light on the sort of person Briwere was. He was not liked in Somerset: twenty-five years after his death it was remembered that ‘did his will with many folk’.
William emerges into the historical record in 1175 when he was forester of Bere in Hampshire for Henry II, having succeeded in that role from his father, Henry Briewere. William’s grandfather was a William Briwerre, who held property at Winchester, and funded the nunnery of Polsloe in Devon. Our William Briwere didn’t have much to do with his grandfather’s foundation, however.
William seems to have served through Henry II’s reign as a local administrator, and seems to have earned a name for himself. It is in the reign of Richard the Lionheart that William was propelled upwards as one of five lesser justices appointed as a team of seven to govern the kingdom in 1189. That council fell apart, but it still shows his rising star, and William would remain a key figure in government for sometime to come, working alongside the likes of William Marshal. William served as a justice, but excelled in the exchequer, being ‘greatest expert of his day in financial matters’. William was with Richard in Chinon in 1190, the same year he was made Sheriff of Oxfordshire and Berkshire.
Despite his later closeness to King John, William remained loyal to Richard when John rebelled and in 1193 he went to Worms in Germany to help negotiate the Lionheart’s ransom from captivity.
When John came to the throne after Richard’s death, William became one of the most important men in the kingdom, and one of John’s most constant companions. William tried to go on crusade in 1200, but John prevented this, as he was too important to his administration. John was lavish in his gifts to William, including dismissing debts and even gave him a ship.
As such, William was loyal to King John in 1215 and one of the military commanders when rebel barons tired to force John to accept Magna Carta. In 1223 during discussions for the reissue of Magna Carta, William spoke against Stephen Longton and other advocates for the charter, saying ‘the liberties you ask for ought not to be observed, for they were extracted by force’.
Over his lifetime, William served as sheriff of
- Berkshire 1190-4 and again 1201-2
- Oxfordshire 1190-4 and again 1201-2
- Nottingham 1194-1200, then again 1203-4
- Derbyshire 1194-1200, then again 1203-4
- Cornwall 1200, 1202-4
- Devon 1179-1200, 1202-9
- Hampshire 1200, 1207-9, 1215-6
- Somerset and Dorset 1207-9
- Wiltshire 1207-9
- Sussex 1208-9
There was little love, however, for William in the counties he held. Years later the men of Somerset would recall how he ‘one who had exploited this shire beyond the law’s limits’. William also held a number of castles for the crown, including Nottingham, Southampton, Oxford, Exeter, Bolsover, Lydford and Devises. In 1187 he was made warden of the Cornish tin mines.
William amassed landholdings in several counties. The concentration of his landholdings were in Devon, with lands in Cornwall, Somerset and beyond. Some lands acquired by purchase, some were thankful gifts from the king, some weregenerous bribes from other men, and some were pure extortion. Turner notes how William ‘often contesting surprisingly small plots of lands of only a few acres’. As sheriff he would have custody of lands held in minority by children. He would marry his children to the heirs to secure them for his family.
Some of the lands gifted by king John which were subject of contested succession, which enraged the previous owners. Essentially, William benefited from John’s arbitrary rule, and this sort of disregard for rightful ownership was one of the fuelling drives behind Magna Carta.
In 1190 he acquired King’s Somborne in Hampshire, Bridgwater was acquired in 1199, he also got his hands on Pentefenand Somerset; Blisworth Northamptonshire; Radworth Devon; Bampton Devon; Rainham Kent. William’s acquisition of Rainham and Bridgwater were probably bribes from their previous owner, Faulk Paynell, Briwere had intervened on Faulk’s behalf while out of favour with the king.
Briwere was not content in just owning lands, he made serious efforts to develop them. Including securing for them borough status, with markets and fairs. Chesterfield was made a free borough with the same rights as Nottingham, for example. Other economic exploitation included gaining the fisheries at Kingswear in Devon. William’s name in John’s reign is conspicuous in the number of charters granted to boroughs, which Turner suggests might indicate that William was part of the negotiators for them. It would mean that when it came to Bridgwater, William was very well aware of what a profitable town would need.
William married Beatrice de Valle, said to have been the mistress of Reginald the Earl of Cornwall, and mother to that man’s son Henry Fitzcount. Though their marriage William was given the manor of Colton in Somerset. They had two sons and five daughters, although his eldest son died in 1215. Briwere died in 1226. He was succeeded by the like-named William. That man had been captured by the French in 1201-4 defence of Normandy and had to be ransomed. He died in 1232 without offspring.
Bridgwater is not the only of Briwere’s creations. He founded Toore Abbey in 1196, apparently the richest of all he Premonstratensian houses in England; then a house of Augustinian canons at Mottisfont Hampshire which served as his archives and treasury, as a repository for charters, deeds and other valuables. In 1201 he founded a Cistercian house at Dunkeswell Devon – this would where he retired to die, taking a Cistercian habbit. He and his wife are buried below the high altar, where a candle was to be constantly burning until the end of time.
So what does all this mean for Bridgwater? For the town itself, we know it would have been founded with the most advantageous privileges that Briwere could have acquired. Given Briwere’s extensive work and landholdings around the West Country, he perhaps realised the economic and strategic advantages of this undeveloped location. When it came to the castle he built, we know three facts: first he was a military man, second that he had ample experience in other castles around England and third that he had a lot of money on which to expend on the project. There’s no doubt therefore that Bridgwater Castle would have been ambitious and at the fore-front of castle design in England.
For more on the town charter of 26 June 1200, see here.
MKP 7 April 2024