Anthony Browne (died 1548)

Sir Anthony Browne, KG (c. 1500[2] – 6 May 1548) of Battle Abbey and Cowdray Park, both in Sussex, England, was a Member of Parliament and a courtier who served as Master of the Horse to King Henry VIII.

Sir Anthony Browne, wearing the Great George badge of the Order of the Garter. National Portrait Gallery, London[1]
Arms of Sir Anthony Browne, KG

Origins

He was the son and heir of Sir Anthony Browne (died 1506) "the Elder", Standard Bearer of England and Governor of Queenborough Castle in Kent, by his wife Lucy Neville, the widow of Sir Thomas Fitzwilliam of Aldwark and a daughter of John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu and Isabel Ingaldsthorpe.[2] The younger Anthony was, therefore, a younger half-brother of William Fitzwilliam, 1st Earl of Southampton.

Career

Anthony Browne's recorded royal services began in 1518, when he was appointed surveyor and master of hunting for the Yorkshire castles and lordships of Hatfield, Thorne, and Conisbrough. He was in an embassy to hand over Tournai to King Francis I of France. Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, knighted him on 1 July 1522. In 1525 he was made lieutenant of the Isle of Man. He was the English ambassador to France in 1527, reporting home in increasingly anti-French terms.[3]

Browne played a supporting role in the military suppression of the 1536 Roman Catholic uprisings in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, commonly known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. In particular, he led a force of around 2000 mounted troops to Lincoln in October 1536 and was placed in charge of a garrison at Barton-upon-Humber the following month.[4]

In 1539 Browne was elected as a Member of Parliament for the county seat of Surrey and was elected again in 1542, 1545, and 1547. In 1539 he was appointed as the king's Master of the Horse, a position he retained until his death.[3]

In January 1540, when King Henry VIII went to Rochester in Kent to meet his future fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, he first sent Browne, as his Master of the Horse, into her chamber. Browne later declared that he was never more dismayed in his life, "lamenting in his heart to see the Lady so far unlike that which was reported". Henry VIII confided his own disappointment the next day to Browne as they returned to Greenwich Palace on the royal barge.[5]

In 1540 Browne was made a Knight of the Garter and was granted Battle Abbey, the buildings and estate of which had come into the hands of the Crown in 1538 following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, which he turned into a country house.[6]

In 1542, on the death of his elder half-brother the Earl of Southampton, Browne inherited from him the estate of Cowdray House in Sussex, purchased by him in 1528. Browne completed the building of "that magnificent house" which was destroyed by fire in 1793, but which was rebuilt. It was sold in 1843 to the 6th Earl of Egmont by the nieces of the 8th Viscount Montagu.[7]

Browne had to be careful not to be brought down by factional politics at the court of King Henry VIII. A possible threat to his position was his mother Lucy Neville, an unreconciled Yorkist who was never trusted by the Tudors. He became so trusted by the king that in his later years he held a dry stamp of the King's signature, to use for minor letters. By 1547 he was Keeper of Oatlands Palace.

Marriages and issue

Lady Elizabeth FitzGerald, great-grand-daughter of Queen Elizabeth Woodville and second wife of Sir Anthony Browne

He married twice:

Death and burial

Chest tomb monument with effigies of Sir Anthony Browne and his first wife Alice Gage, in St Mary the Virgin Church, Battle

Anthony Browne died on 6 May 1548 at Byfleet House in Surrey, which he built,[13] and was buried in St Mary the Virgin Church, Battle, Sussex, in the tomb of his first wife Alice Gage, as requested in his will.[14] His chest tomb with effigies of himself and his first wife Alice Gage survives.[15] He was succeeded in his estates by his eldest son, Anthony Browne, who subsequently in 1554 was created Viscount Montagu.[16]

King's mistresses

Two members of the Browne family were reported to have been among the mistresses of Henry VIII. One of these, recorded only as a 'Mistress Browne', was allegedly his sister. This lady was stated to have been a prime mover in the downfall of Anne Boleyn, the king's second wife. Elizabeth Somerset, Countess of Worcester was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne Boleyn and the chief witness against her at her trial for adultery. Another less closely related member of Browne's family, Anne Basset, was rumoured to be in the running to become Henry VIII's fifth wife, and there were rumours of an earlier affair, shortly before the king's marriage to Anne of Cleves in January 1540.[17]

References

  1. "Sir Anthony Browne - National Portrait Gallery".
  2. Bindoff. The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509–1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982. 'BROWNE, Sir Anthony (c.1500–48), of Battle Abbey and Cowdray Park, Suss.'
  3. Robison, William B. (17 September 2015). "Browne, Sir Anthony". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3665. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. Hoyle, R. A. (2001). The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Politics of the 1530s. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 283, 207–208. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208747.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-1982-0874-7.
  5. Strype, John, Ecclesiastical Memoirs, vol. 1 part 2, Oxford (1822), 456–458.
  6. "Houses of Benedictine monks: Abbey of Battle". British History Online. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
  7. Cokayne, G. E.; H. A. Doubleday & Lord Howard de Walden, eds. (1936). The Complete Peerage, or a history of the House of Lords and all its members from the earliest times (Moels to Nuneham). 9 (2nd ed.). London: The St. Catherine Press, p.97, note (b)
  8. Both John Grey of Pirgo and Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald were grandchildren of Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset
  9. History of Parliament biography
  10. Pedigree of Hastings in: Cokayne, G. E.; H. A. Doubleday; Duncan Warrand & Lord Howard de Walden, eds. (1926). The Complete Peerage, or a history of the House of Lords and all its members from the earliest times (Gordon to Hustpierpoint). 6 (2nd ed.). London: The St. Catherine Press, pp.365-7
  11. History of Parliament
  12. History of Parliament biography
  13. Per inscription on his portrait in the National Portrait Gallery, London
  14. History of Parliament biography
  15. Gruffog, Julian P. (21 January 2012). "Tomb of Sir Anthony Browne & wife, Battle church". UK Geograph. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
  16. Elzinga, J. G. (21 May 2009). "Browne, Anthony, first Viscount Montagu". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3667. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  17. Hart, Kelly (1 June 2009). The Mistresses of Henry VIII (First ed.). The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-4835-0.
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