BROWNING, William II

As the first-born son of William Browning, the wealthy Dorset landowner and retainer of the duke of York, it was no doubt to his father’s connexion with the duke that William II owed his appointment as escheator of Somerset and Dorset at a relatively young age in 1454, for this appointment was made during York’s first protectorate. However, it was his younger brother Alexander who first sat in the Commons – in the assembly summoned after York’s victory at St. Albans a year later. His own election to Parliament followed another victory for the Yorkists, in the battle of Northampton in July 1460. The Parliament, summoned to meet on 7 Oct., witnessed York’s attempt to seize the throne and the compromise agreement made by the Lords that he should be recognized as next in line for the succession after Henry VI’s death. William’s return to the Commons was almost certainly due to his father’s influence as receiver of the duke’s estates in Dorset, of which the borough of Weymouth formed a part. Yet he did hold property in the town, for when he died he left burgage tenements there and nearby at Wyke to his widow, and a Chancery petition refers to four messuages and 64 acres of land belonging to him there.7 PCC 3 Vox (PROB11/10, f. 16); C1/186/41.

Browning was trained in the law, he had been described as ‘gentleman of the parish of St. Dunstan in the West, London’ (close to the inns of court) in March 1460, when he provided sureties for Hugh Pakenham esquire and Simon Godmanston, clerk (chaplain to Bishop Waynflete of Winchester) then given keeping at the Exchequer of two Dorset manors previously belonging to John Godmanston*.8 CFR, xix. 262. Probably, too, he was the William Browning who petitioned Waynflete when chancellor (so, between 1456 and July 1460) regarding a tenement in King’s Street, Westminster, called the Synn of the Schip, which his feoffees refused to return to his possession.9 C1/26/610. Even so, his public career was focused on the West Country. In the 1460s he was appointed to royal commissions of gaol delivery in Dorchester, and he evidently proved acceptable to Edward IV’s regime, for by Michaelmas 1468 he had taken over his father’s office as receiver of the estates in Dorset and Somerset then held by the King’s mother Cecily, dowager duchess of York. The post was one of considerable responsibility, requiring him to transfer large sums of money to his lady at Kennington or Baynard’s Castle in London. His fee of £6 13s. 4d. p.a. continued to be paid for another 15 years.10 SC6/1114/4.

Meanwhile, in August 1465, following Browning’s marriage, his father had made a settlement of the manor and advowson of Melbury Osmond to ensure that after his death these would be held by the younger William and his wife, and entailed on William’s issue. Seven years later, in September 1472, the father died and our MP came into possession of these and other of the principal Browning estates. Melbury Sampford remained in the hands of his stepmother, Alice, for her lifetime, but she died before June 1479, when William acted as patron of the church there.11 C140/41/41; J. Hutchins, Dorset, ii. 681. His father had settled on William’s younger brother, Alexander, the manor of Nethercote in Gloucestershire, along with land at Slaughter, and William made a formal quitclaim of his title to the same in July 1484, so that Alexander could sell them.12 CCR, 1476-85, no. 1252.

Although William had served on commissions of gaol delivery at Dorchester during his father’s lifetime, he never sat on the Dorset bench, and thereafter his only ad hoc commission was one to take musters of Lord Audley’s force in 1475. Curiously, despite now being a landowner of considerable substance, he does not seem to have been returned to Parliament again; nor does his name appear as an attestor on surviving electoral indentures. Probably in the early 1470s he was the subject of a petition to the chancellor from David Warberton, whose brother Hugh had named Browning as overseer of his will and custodian of a major part of his goods. In return for ‘diverse rewards’ for him and his wife, Browning undertook to oversee the disposition of these possessions, promising not to withhold or keep any part of them from David, Hugh’s executor. But although David took on the administration of the will and paid the testator’s debts Browning refused to relinquish the goods, of which no inventory had been kept.13 C1/45/285, 47/134. More creditably, in 1480 Browning was associated with John Morton, bishop of Ely, John Byconnell* and others in obtaining a royal licence to found the ‘Chantry of Lord Jesus Christ’ in the parish church at Yeovil, Somerset, where a chaplain would pray for the welfare of the King and queen as well as for the founders.14 CPR, 1477-85, p. 201. He also appeared as a feoffee of the estates in Berkshire belonging to his cousin Margaret Samborne (one of the daughters and coheirs of his maternal uncle Thomas Drew*), to hold to her use and perform her will, although in the event he pre-deceased her.15 CIPM Hen. VII, i. 1120.

Browning continued in the service of the dowager duchess of York at least until Michaelmas 1483, but the receiver’s account for Michaelmas 1484-5 shows that by then he had been replaced by William Knoyle.16 SC6/1114/7, 8. The new regime under Richard III had no use for his services; but neither did the government of Henry VII. Browning died on 29 Aug. 1493, having made his will at the beginning of the month. This brief document said little more than that he wished to be buried in the Benedictine monastery at Milton Abbas. None of his extensive manorial holdings were mentioned by name, only his property in Weymouth and Wyke, which he left to his widow Katherine, the residuary legatee and executrix.17 PCC 3 Vox. Katherine’s full identity is not revealed in the records, but it seems likely that she was a member of the old Dorset family of Filoll, for her fellow executors of Browning’s will included Maurice and John Filoll, the sons of John Filoll*, who had sat for the county in seven Parliaments. Perhaps she was their sister. By deeds of December 1491 Browning had given her jointure in his most important manors, those of Melbury Osmond and Melbury Sampford. At the time of his death the couple had no surviving children, but Katherine was pregnant, which issue ‘when God shall have given it birth’ would fall heir to the Browning estates. Otherwise, these would pass to William’s nephew and namesake, the son of his late brother Alexander.18 CIPM Hen. VII, i. 954. Subsequently, in a petition to the chancellor, this nephew alleged that Katherine had wrongly kept possession of the title deeds, so he was unable to examine them. In response, Katherine asserted her right to keep the Melbury manors, as her jointure, and the property at Weymouth under the terms of her late husband’s will. She claimed to be still ‘greate wyth childe’, and although the birth was long overdue by the normal course of nature, she still hoped to be safely delivered of a healthy infant. By the time a writ was sent from Chancery to investigate the matter in July 1495 that hope must have been extinguished.19 C1/186/41. Katherine acted as patron of the church at Melbury Sampford in 1495 and 1498,20 Hutchins, ii. 681. and took as her second husband Henry Strangeways, who set about acquiring for himself and his family the Browning manors in Dorset. In June 1500 it was arranged that the Melburys should be conveyed to trustees, who would hold Melbury Sampford to the use of William Browning (our MP’s nephew) and his wife Anne and William’s heirs, and the other manor, after the death of Katherine, to the use of William and his issue, and in default of such issue to the use of Strangeways and his male issue by Katherine. A final remainder favoured Strangeways and his heirs. Strangeways paid William 600 marks, a sum which was to be returned if William produced any children. This was not to be.21 Ibid. ii. 657-60; iv. 438; The Commons 1509-58, iii. 395-6.