Notes: seated at
Beechworth Castle; from this match the Browne's of Beechworth, Baronets, as also
the Browne's of Walkout, Com. Northampton are descended.
On 30 Sep, two months
after his father's execution, Browne was granted a pardon by the Yorkists,
and in 1470 was arrested with George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence,
and Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. He fought at the Battle of
Tewkesbury on 4 May 1471, and was knighted after the battle by the Duke of
Clarence. He was elected a member of parliament for Guildford in 1472 and
for Canterbury in 1483. In 1478 he was Knight of the Shire for Surrey, and in
1480 Sheriff of Kent. In 1472, he surrendered his title and the Manor of Tong to Cecily
Neville, Duchess of York.
An undated letter in Browne's hand to John Paston, esquire, containing the cryptic
message 'It shall never come out for me', survives among the Paston
Letters.
By 1483 he had
switched his allegiance to the future Henry
VII, and with a force in Kent took part in the rebellion by Henry
Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, against Richard III. In Kent, where
George Browne and John Guildford, knights, Fogge, Scot, Clifford
and Bonting, with five thousand men attempted great matters at Gravesend, but
hearing of the Duke of Buckingham's surprise, dispersed themselves for
that time... whereupon those that lately fled England were indicted of treason,
and other of Henry's factions
beheaded, whereof Sir George Browne and Sir Roger Clifford,
knights, with four others were beheaded at London, and at Exeter for the like
cause died Sir Thomas St. Leger, who had married Lady Anne, Duchess of
Exeter, King Richard's own sister, with others, so jealous was the
king of his usurped crown.
Browne
was beheaded on Tower Hill on 4 Dec 1483, and buried at the Blackfriars, London.
His widow left a will, proved 26 Jun 1488, in which she asked to be buried at
the Blackfriars with her husband.
Notes: it is possible that this is the same
Anne Browne,
single and age 22 in 1538, who was one of the Marchioness of Exeter's
gentlewomen when that lady was arrested. She was "good with the needle" and
could "play well upon the virginals and lute". Anne and
ThomasDannett settled
in Somerset. Dannett was arrested on suspicion of complicity in the Duke of Suffolk's second uprising and upon his release he took his family into exile
from 1554-1558.
Married: Robert
HONYWOOD (b. 18 Sep 1545 - d. 11 Jun 1627) (son of Robert Honywood
and Mary Waters) (w. of Dorothy Crooke) 9 Jun 1584, Black Friars,
London, England
Notes: Pastoral poet
and lawyer, educated at Exeter College, Oxford; subsequently he entered the
Inner Temple. His chief works were the long poem Britannia's Pastorals (1613),
and a contribution to The Shepheard's Pipe (1614). Britannia's Pastorals was
never finished: in his lifetime Books I & II were published successively in 1613
and 1616. The manuscript of Book III (unfinished) was not published until 1852.
The poem is concerned with the loves and woes of Celia, Marina, etc. To him is
due the epitaph for the dowager
Countess of Pembroke ("Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother").
Notes: There was at least one gentlewoman named
Anne Browne at court during the period
from 1517 until 1522. Some sources identify the Anne who took part in the
revels of 1517-1518 as the daughter of Sir Matthew Browne of Beechworth Castle and
Frideswith Guildford, but since
they did not marry until 1506, she could have been no more than ten in 1517 and
is therefore an unlikely candidate. The Anne Browne who was at court in 1517-18 was probably the
same one who was at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520 and took part in revels
in Mar 1521/2. She has been dentified as the sister of Sir Winston
Browne, and therefore was the daughter of Thomas Browne of Longhouse in Abbess
Roding, Essex and Mary Charlton. At the Field of Cloth of Gold, King Francois of
France singled out Sir Winston’s sister (called "my lady Browne" in one account)
and danced with her on several occasions during the festivities.
Married:
John TUFTON (1° Bt.) (b. 1544 - d. 1624)
(son of John Tufton of
Hothfield y Mary Baker) (m.2 Olimpia Blower)
10 Dec 1575, Langenhoe, Essex, England
Notes: The
manor of ROOKWOOD HALL alias BROWNES was first so styled in 1488, when it was
held of the Earl of Oxford as of his honor of Hedingham. The same tenure
was apparently still acknowledged in 1632. It is not unlikely that this part of
Abbess Roding was included in the manor of Roding held in 1086 by Aubrey de
Vere, ancestor of the earls of Oxford, of Alan, Count of Brittany. The
main part of that Domesday manor was undoubtedly in Beauchamp Roding (q.v.).
In
1359 it was stated that the heirs of William Fitz Richard held ½ knight's
fee and William Welde 1 fee, both in Abbess Roding, as tenants of the
Earl of Oxford. It is possible that the ½ fee was that which in 1166 was
held by Walter Fitz Richard of Aubrey de Vere. According to
Morant, who quotes no sources for the statements, John Fitz Richard
held Rookwood in 1250 and was succeeded by Richard Fitz William, who was
the tenant in 1268. William Welde became lord of the manor of Beauchamp
Roding (q.v.) in 1360. This suggests that Rookwood was then part of the manor of
Beauchamp Roding and it seems possible that it had been so continuously since
Domesday.
In
1467 John Browne died seised of the manor of Abbess Roding (i.e. Rookwood).
He had inherited it from his brother Baldwin, who had died without issue;
his own heir was another brother Thomas. Thomas Browne died in
1488 leaving Rookwood Hall alias Browne's manor to his son (Sir) Wistan.
The manor then comprised 300 acres of land, 200 acres of pasture, 26 acres of
meadow, 10 acres of wood, and also a toft, garden, and ½ acre of land, in Abbess
Roding and neighbouring parishes.
Rookwood descended in the direct male line of the Brownes until 1580 when
Wistan Browne, son of George, died leaving as his heir his son
Anthony. Anthony died without issue in 1583. Rookwood was then
divided between his sisters Jane, wife of Gamaliel Capell, and Catherine,
wife of Nicholas Waldegrave. Capel apparently acquired
Waldegrave's share in addition to his own. He certainly lived at Rookwood
Hall, and there is no evidence of a continued Waldegrave connexion with
the manor.
Notes:
Christopher Browne,
of Stamford, Lincoln, and Tolethorpe, Co. Rutland, Sheriff of Rutland 1492,
1500, 1509. He supported Edward IV against Warwick, and in 1480
was granted arms by that monarch, and later assisted Henry VII, fighting with him at
Bosworth Field in 1485, for
which services Henry VIII issued a
patent 6 Jul 1527 to his eldest son Francis, authoring him to appear with
his head covered in the presence of the King.
Notes: arrived in America in
1635 aboard the ELIZABETH. His first residence was at Plymouth. He removed to
Taunton by 1643 and Rehoboth by 1647. It is thought that he returned to England
in 1656 and then returned to New England by 1660.
Died: 1633,
Northampton Jail, Northamptonshire, England
Buried: St. Giles
Churchyard Northampton Northampton Borough Northamptonshire, England
Notes: born at Tolethorpe
Hall in Rutland, England sometime in the 1550s, the son of Anthony Browne.
In 1572 he took a degree from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. It was probably
while Browne was at Corpus Christi that he first met Robert Harrison
who came from Norwich. They were both influenced by Thomas Cartwright the
Puritan theologian.
Browne became a
Lecturer at St Mary's Church, Islington, where his dissident preaching against
the doctrines and disciplines of the Church of England began to attract
attention. During 1578 he returned to Cambridge and came under the influence of
Richard Greenham, Puritan rector of Dry Drayton, near Cambridge.
Browne may have been encouraged to complete his ordination and serve at a
parish church. He was offered a lecturer position at St Bene't's Church,
Cambridge possibly through Greenham, but his tenure there was short lived. He
may have come to reject the Puritan view of reform from within the Church, and
started to look outside the established Church.
Browne was the
first seceder from the Church of England and the first to found a Church of his
own on Congregational principles. By 1581 he had attempted to set up a separate
church in Norwich. He was arrested but released on the advice of William Cecil, his kinsman.
Browne and companions left England and moved to Middelburg in the
Netherlands later in 1581. There they organised a church on what they conceived
to be the New Testament model, but the community broke up within two years owing
to internal dissensions.
His most important
works, A Treatise of Reformation without Tarying for Anie, in which he asserted
the right of the church to effect necessary reforms without the authorisation of
the civil magistrate; and A Booke which sheweth the life and manners of all True
Christians which set out the theory of Congregational independency, were
published at Middelburg in 1582. The following year two men were hanged at Bury
St Edmunds for circulating them.
Browne was only
an active Separatist from 1579–1585 and returned to the Church of England. He
served as Headmaster of St Olave's Grammar School, Southwark 1586–89 and was
also Headmaster of Stamford School between 1589 and 1591. He held the benefice
of Achurch Church in Northamptonshire from 1591 to 1631, and lived on the
Lilford Hall estate until shortly before his death. He was much engaged in
controversy with some of those who held his earlier separatist position and who
now looked upon him as a renegade. In particular he several times replied to
John Greenwood and Henry Barrowe; one of his replies, entitled A
Reproofe of certaine schismatical persons and their doctrine touching the
hearing and preaching of the word of God (1587–1588) sheds light upon the
development of Browne's later views.
He was imprisoned 32
times during his life for his non-conformist beliefs and died in jail at
Northampton, after he was imprisoned for hitting during an argument his godson
who was a constable. He is buried in St Giles's churchyard, Northampton.
He is considered the
father of the Congregational body in the English-speaking world, and 'The Father
of the Pilgrims' due to the Mayflower passengers in 1620 being part of the
Brownist Movement.
Notes:Lord
Mayor of London
from 1513-1514, and died in office. His
father's family was from the north of England; in his will William Browne
left a bequest 'to my poor kinsfolks on my father's side in Northumberland'.His
first wife was Catherine Shaa was the daughter of Sir Edmund Shaa,
mayor of London in 1482. She was coh. with her sis. Margaret, wife of
Thomas Rich. His second wife, Alice Keble was the daughter of Henry Kebel or
Keble (b. 1452 - d. Apr 1517), a grocer
and merchant of the staple who was Lord Mayor of London in 1510-11 and gave
£1000 toward the building of his parish church of St. Mary Aldermary, Budge Row.
The name is also found as Keybull and Kebell. On 15 Feb 1515 Alice remarried, becoming the third wife of
William Blount, Lord Mountjoy.
Married 2: Alice KEBLE
(B. Mountjoy) (b. 1482 - d. 8 Jun 1521, Grey Friars, London, England) (dau.
of Henry Keble, Lord Mayor of London, and Joan Bryce) (m.2
William Blount, 4º B. Mountjoy)
Notes: her daughter
Margaret Mundy,
was the las wife of Sir Edmund Howard, and at his death she married thirdly, before 1542,
Henry Mannox
(d. 1564), of Hemingford Grey, Cambridgeshire, who may have been the Henry Mannox
involved in sexual indiscretions circa 1536 with Catherine
Howard. By Henry Mannox she had two daughters: Anne (b. 1542), who married
John Chapman; and Margaret (b. 1549), who
married Francis Williams alias Cromwell.
Notes: After John Tyrrell's death, she commissioned the chapel at
East Horndon, Essex, where he was buried. Her second husband, to whom she was
married by Mar 1542, was Sir William Petre of Ingatestone Hall. All
accounts agree that she brought to the marriage a dowry of £280 a year. One record also gives her a
daughter named Griselda, but this was Griselda Barnes, one of her husband's
wards. She was at court during the reign of Queen Mary as a member of the queen’s household. Records kept by
Lady Petre exist for 1556-7. In 1561, William and Anne entertained
Queen
Elizabeth at Ingatestone and from 1564-66 he and his wife were responsible for
keeping Catherine Grey under house arrest there. As a widow,
Anne remained
at Ingatestone Hall and there sheltered a number of seminary priests. She was on
the list of recusants for 1582 but she died before any official action was taken
against her.
Notes: Humphrey Browne
of London, Mercer, was an Overseer of the will of his brother, Thomas
Browne, Merchant of London, the will made on 31 Mar 1636 and proved on 07
May 1636. In addition to Humphrey, the Testator also noted three other
brothers; Giles Browne, Henry Browne of London Grocer, and
Edwin Browne of London Merchant.
Presumably
he was the Humphrey Browne of the Mercers' Company who in 1632 became
became Master to William Browne, son of Gyles Browne esq. of
Flamberts, Essex, and who in 1647 became Master to Arthur Roope,
son of Ambrose Roope of Little Dartmouth, Devon, deceased.
In 1651 Humphrey
was recorded in connection with a marriage settlement between an Edward
Cason and a Martha Flyer.
Humphrey,
his son Mun Browne and daughter Martha were noted in the will
of his brother Edwin Browne, the will made on 28 Aug 1665 and proved
on 26 Aug 1668.
Notes:
In the Browne Pedigree in the Visitation of Essex in 1612 he was
recorded as Thomas Browne the third son of Sir John Browneof
Flamberts Hall, Essex and Catherine, daughter of Sir Henry
Buttler of Hertfordshire.
Thomas
Browne of St Margaret Lothbury, London, Merchant, Bachelor,
married by Licence dated 19 Dec 1620, Mary Cornelius of St
Botolph, Aldgate, London, Spinster, daughter of John Cornelius,
Merchant, deceased, at All Hallows in the Wall, London.
In his
will made on 31 Mar 1636 with a Codicil of 15 Apr 1636 and
proved on 7 May 1636 he was recorded as Thomas Browne, Merchant of London. His will was to be buried in the parish church of St
Benet Finke in the City of London. The Testator's principal
beneficiaries were his wife Mary and his children Mary,
Thomas,
Jane, John, Katherine, Henry and Abigall. His wife,
Mary, was
appointed Executrix and his brothers Giles Browne, Humfrey
Browne of London Mercer, Henry Browne of London Grocer, and
Edwin Browne of London Merchant, were appointed Overseers.
Notes: He received only a small annuity and a little property
from his father, and it was many years before he succeeded to the main family
estates in Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Stamford and London. Both his father
and brother were friends of Thomas Cecil, 2nd Lord Burghley; the former
appointed his ‘very good friend’ Thomas Cecil as an executor in
1572, and in 1602 Sir William bequeathed to Burghley and his wife
a piece of plate ‘as a pledge of the love I have ever bore unto them’; he
also mentions £320 that Burghley owed to him. It is possible that Browne
was in the service of Burghley or his brother Robert Cecil, and
virtually certain that his return for Lichfield was due to the Cecils’ influence
after the fall and execution of the Earl of Essex, whose
influence had previously been paramount in the borough. Browne made his will 24 Sept. 1623, two days before his death. He asked his
wife to purchase the wardship of his eldest son, aged 12, and made provision for
the two younger boys. He appointed his wife as executrix, and she proved the
will 9 Feb 1624. See
https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/browne-robert-1623.
a renowned Rear Admiral who helped Elizabethdefeat the
Spanish Armada and was knighted on 23 Jul 1603 in the Royal Garden
at Whitehall before the King James Coronation. He was educated at Exeter College
Oxford, where he had
matriculated on 3 Dec 1575 at the age of 16. He became a student of
the Middle Temple and practiced as a JP with Sir Arthur Ashley as he
is mentioned in his casebook from 1614. Elected High Sheriff for Dorset in
1588; 1616 and 1618 and became Deputy Lieutenant 1625-26. He was buried in Frampton and the picture is of the table
tomb for him and his wife Jane and rests on the North side of the
chancel in St Mary’s church. Sir John is wearing tilting Armour and
through his visor his moustache is visible. Probate of his will was
granted 24 Nov 1627.
Admiral
Browne
by Robert Peake
Father: John BROWNE (Esq.)
Mother: Thomasine WARHAM
Married: Joan PORTMAN (dau of Henry Portman) 18 Jul 1579
Notes: born on the family estate in Frampton which
is a small parish situated on the River Frome, 5½ miles north west
from Dorchester on the Crewkerne road. Frampton is mentioned in the
Domesday Book and at one time there was a priory here. After the
Dissolution the lands were passed to the Browne family who remained
lords of the manor until 1833, it then passed to the Sheridans. The
principal residence for many years was Frampton Court which was
demolished in 1932 after the estate was sold to pay death duties.
Although there has probably been a church here since Saxon time, the
present church of St Mary's dates from the 14th century but has
experienced many rebuildings and additions. As far as we know the
children were baptised here but the parish registers only start from
1627.
On 13 Oct 1598 John and his younger brother George entered
Magdelen College Oxfordtogether, John being aged 16
and his brother 15; John became a student of the Middle Temple in
1599 and went on to be a practicing Barrister-at-Law. He sat
regularly between 1625 and 1638 as a Justice of the Peace in Dorset
at the Quarter sessions often with his fathers friend Sir
Francis Ashley , but with other JP’s who had invested in the
Dorchester Company like Sir
Richard Strode and Sir
Walter Erle . The Quarter Sessions were held in rotation at
Beaminster; Blandford Forum; Dorchester; Sherborne and Bridport and
he sat 19 times during this period. As a highly respected Barrister
he was required to sit on many specially arranged commissions.
On 11 Apr 1628 the soldiers billeted in Dorset removed to Plymouth
to go for Rochell with the Earl of Denbigh but they were left behind
and so returned to be billeted in the County again. twenty three of
them had come from Dorchester and were refused re-entry which
incensed Sir Thomas Frier their Colonel. He obtained letters
from the Council to the town and procured a commission of Sir
Thomas Trenchard, Sir John Brewen, John Browne and Henry Drak Esq to
examine Richard
Bushrod who was described as ‘an agent in deterring other men
from billeting’. Richard Bushrod was well respected in the town and
as the prime mover with John White behind the creation of the
Dorchester Company in which John Browne invested. John was also
related to the Trenchard family through his marriage and it is
probably due to their influence that nothing more serious seems to
have come of it.
On 23 May 1632 he sat on another especially arranged commission at
Weymouth to try the Captain of a Portuguese pirate ship which had
been seized. He sat with Sir
Francis Ashley , Sir Thomas Trenchard and Sir Nathaniel
Napper to hear the case. The Captain was condemned but
reprieved.
In Dec 1648 he was appointed as one of the 135 judges to try Charles
I who was accused of being a "tyrant, traitor and murderer; and
a public and implacable enemy to the Commonwealth of England". In fact only 68 turned up for the trial and he appears to have been one
of those less than happy about being associated with the trial and
did not sit.
Both John Browne and his wife shared John Whites
vision for Dorchester and Lady Browne in 1631/2 gave £10 towards
"the
employ of the poor in work" and this was handed to the Governor of
the Hospital so that according to her request her name might "remayne
in record to posterity amongst many worthy benefactors".
Notes: his wife,
Thomasine Gonson was one of fourteen children of
Benjamin Gonson, Treasurer of the Navy, and Ursula Hussey. She was the only one
born in the Queen's house at Deptford and baptized in the local church there.
Her siblings were all born in the parish of St. Dunstan-in-the-East, where the
family lived in Tower Street. One of them, Catherine (b.1549), married John
Hawkins on 20 Jan 1567. Thomasine married first, between 1578 and 1582,
Edward Fenton (d. 1603), a soldier and sea captain. They had no children.
Christopher Browne was her second husband.
.jpg)
01.jpg)
