Anthony Browne

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, the widow of Sir Thomas Fitzwilliam of Aldwark and a daughter of John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu and Isabel Ingaldsthorpe. 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. 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.