Sir Anthony Browne (d.1548)

Sir Anthony Browne, KG (c. 1500 – 6 May 1548) was an English courtier, Master of the Horse and a Knight of the Shire.

He was the son of Sir Anthony Browne, Standard Bearer of England and Governor of Queenborough Castle, by his wife Lady Lucy Neville, daughter of John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu and widow of Sir Thomas Fitzwilliam. Anthony junior was thereby half-brother of William Fitzwilliam, 1st Earl of Southampton.

By 1528, Browne married Alice, daughter of Sir John Gage, and by her had seven sons and three daughters including:

His recorded royal service 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 included him in an embassy to hand over Tournai to Francois I. Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, knighted him on 1 July 1522. In 1525 he was made lieutenant of the Isle of Man. He was ambassador to France in 1527, reporting home in increasingly anti-French terms. In 1539 he was appointed Master of the Horse for life.

During the uprisings in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire in 1536, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace, Browne was sent against the Catholic protesters to test his loyalty. Anthony maintained Henry's trust. He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1540 and given ownership of Battle Abbey, confiscated by the Crown in 1538 as part of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, which he turned into a country house.

When Henry VIII came to Rochester to meet Anne of Cleves, he first sent Anthony, as his Master of Horse, into her chamber. Anthony 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 confided his own disappointment the next day to Anthony as they returned to Greenwich by barge.

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