Anthony Browne

Sir Anthony Browne, wearing the Great George badge of the Order of the Garter. National Portrait Gallery, London

Sir Anthony Browne, KG (c. 1500 – 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.

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, a daughter of John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu and Isabel Ingoldisthorpe.

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.

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 There is one report, however, that Browne was proxy for Henry at a marriage in Cleves, but that hasn't been substantiated. If Browne had already seen Anne, then it's unlikely he would have made a note of her appearance at Rochester Castle.

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.

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.

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. As an executor to Henry's will, Browne was also to be guardian of Prince Edward/Edward VI and the Princess Elizabeth. Following Henry's death, Browne rode to Hertford where the nine year old Prince Edward was, and brought him to Enfield where his half-sister Princess Elizabeth was living. When both children were together he told them of their father's death and that Edward was now king. Apparently both children wept inconsolably at hearing the news. Browne rode beside the new king into London.

Marriages and issue

He married twice: Firstly, before 1528, to Alice Gage (died pre-1540), a daughter of Sir John Gage by his wife Philippa Guildford, by whom he had seven sons and three daughters: 1st Viscount Montagu, eldest son and heir; Mary Browne, and a younger son of Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of Dorset. She was the mother of Henry Grey, 1st Baron Grey of Groby; Mabel Browne, – 1572), the eldest of the two sisters and co-heiresses of John Hastings, de jure 15th Baron Hastings (27 July 1531 ), the sister of Sir Thomas le Strange. Lucy Browne, Henry Browne 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. He was succeeded in his estates by his eldest son, Anthony Browne, who subsequently in 1554 was created Viscount Montagu.

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.

Cowdray engravings 16th-century wall-paintings, originally commissioned by Sir Anthony Browne and were painted onto the walls of Browne's hall in Cowdray House. The original paintings were destroyed by fire in 1793, but their appearances survive in etchings made while they existed.