BROWNLOW, Sir William, 1st bt. (1595-1666), of Great Humby, Lincs.

Brownlow’s ancestry has proved impossible to trace beyond his great-grandfather, who resided in Derbyshire in the early Tudor period. The family had moved to London at some point in late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, but had failed to make any significant mark upon metropolitan life until 1590, when Brownlow’s father, Richard Brownlow, an Inner Temple barrister, had been appointed chief prothonotary of the court of common pleas. With the profits from this office, worth an estimated £3,000 a year, Richard Brownlow had been able to build up an extensive estate in Lincolnshire, including the manor of Belton (near Grantham), which became the family’s principal residence.40Cust, Recs. of the Cust Fam. 33, 35, 37-8, 40-1, 47; G. Aylmer, The King’s Servants, 210; Oxford DNB, ‘Richard Brownlow’. William Brownlow followed his father into the legal profession and was called to the bar in 1617. However, there is no evidence that he practised law on a regular basis, and there was certainly no financial compulsion on him to do so – his wife came with a marriage portion of £2,000, and his father settled lands upon him in Lincolnshire and Middlesex worth £1,100 a year.41Cust, Recs. of the Cust Fam. 111, 112; Lincs. RO, 3-ANC/2/6, pp. 17-19. That he was active on the 1633 Lincolnshire commission for collecting donations for the repair of St Paul’s Cathedral – a project much favoured by the king and Archbishop William Laud – does not suggest a man implacably opposed to the policies of Charles’s personal rule.42E178/5404, ff. 5v, 9, 13; Lincs. RO, 2-ANC/8/14; YARB/8/2/3; LMA, CLC/313/I/B/004/MS25474/001, p. 30.

Brownlow’s contribution of £6 towards the relief of Ireland’s Protestants early in 1642 was one of the largest made by any Lincolnshire inhabitant; his elder brother Sir John Brownlow contributed £10.43SP28/193, pt. 2, ff. 8, 8v. The two brothers were involved that spring in tendering the Protestation to the county’s inhabitants.44Protestation Returns for Lincs. 1641-2 ed. A. Cole, W. Atkin (CD, Lincs. Fam. Hist. Soc. 1996), returns for Haceby and Rippingale. Brownlow was a leading signatory to the Lincolnshire declaration of June 1642 ‘against all such as shall attempt to separate his Majesty from his great and faithful council of Parliament’.45PA, Main Pprs. 4 July 1642. He was named to numerous local parliamentary committees during the 1640s, and in May 1643 the Commons ordered him to assist Colonel Oliver Cromwell* in the defence of Lincolnshire.46CJ iii. 67b; SP28/211, f. 537. That September, he was made one of Parliament’s deputy-lieutenants for the county, although at the time of this appointment he seems to have been living in London, where he was assessed at £300 for his twentieth part.47CJ iii. 209a, 232b, 271a; LJ v. 351a; CCAM 231-2. His decision to support Parliament may have had a religious dimension; his notes in the family Bible certainly suggest that he was a man of deep, possibly puritan, piety.48Cust, Recs. of the Cust Fam. 120-3. However, he seems to have made no significant contribution to the parliamentarian war effort; and at a meeting of the Eastern Association commissioners early in January 1645, he apparently endorsed the prevailing view that the establishment of the New Model army would undermine the security of the association, which was deemed to take priority over the pursuit of victory nationally.49PA, Hist. Colln. 67 (Manchester mss), no. 565, unfol. In June 1645, he signed a letter from the association to Sir Thomas Fairfax* asking him to have a care for the region’s safety.50Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vi. 38. He was also signatory to a letter from the Lincolnshire county committee to Parliament in May 1647, pleading its inability to execute an assessment ordinance due to ‘distempers’ in the county occasioned by its conflict with Colonel Edward King.51Bodl. Tanner 50, f. 478; C. Holmes, ‘Col. King and Lincs. politics, 1642-6’, HJ xvi. 451-84. He appears to have remained active in local government under the Rump.52Borough Government in Newton’s Grantham: the Hall Bk. of Grantham, 1649-62 ed. J.B. Manterfield (Lincoln Rec. Soc. cvi), 69.

Who recommended Brownlow to represent Lincolnshire in the Nominated Parliament, and why, is something of a mystery. That he was reasonably well-connected in local gentry circles can be inferred from the match made in 1649 between one of his daughters and Charles Hussey*, who went on to represent the county in the second protectoral and Cavalier Parliaments.53Infra, ‘Charles Hussey’; Cust, Recs. of the Cust Fam. 114. Brownlow was named to just two committees in the Nominated Parliament, although one of them was the important committee for legal reform.54CJ vii. 283b, 286b. In the elections to the seventh council of state on 1 November 1653, he received 58 votes, which was enough to secure him a place.55CJ vii. 344a, 344b. He attended 19 of the council’s 37 sessions and was named to just one conciliar committee.56CSP Dom. 1654-4, pp. xxxvi-xl, 237. The establishment of the protectorate was probably welcomed by Brownlow, who joined Sir William Armyne* and several other Kesteven justices in a letter of support to Cromwell in March 1655.57TSP iii. 311. In November, Major-general Edward Whalley* asked Secretary John Thurloe* to add Brownlow’s son, Richard, to the Lincolnshire commission of the peace, describing him as ‘a gentleman of a very good report, a hopeful young man, whose father, Sir William, acts very cordially for you’.58TSP iv. 197. Whalley was also an occasional guest at Brownlow’s residence at Great Humby.59TSP iv. 607.

Brownlow’s activities and career after 1655 are largely obscure. He seems to have stood as a candidate for one of the Lincolnshire county seats in the elections to the second protectoral Parliament in the summer of 1656, but received only 5 votes on a poll – barely one per cent of the figures achieved by the ten successful candidates.60Supra, ‘Lincolnshire’; Lincs. RO, MM6/10/6/11. He seems to have welcomed the Restoration, signing the loyal address of the Lincolnshire gentry in June 1660 and retaining his place as a justice of the peace for Holland and Kesteven.61The Humble Congratulation of the Nobility and Gentry of the County of Lincolne (1660). He petitioned for and received a royal pardon in August 1660, but seems to have withdrawn entirely from public life thereafter.62SO3/13, unfol. He died on 14 December 1666 and was buried at Belton on 19 December.63Belton par. reg.; Cust, Recs. of the Cust Fam. 124. In his will, he bequeathed £2,000 to his youngest daughter for her portion (having already married off his three other daughters) and bestowed those lands in Middlesex and Lincolnshire which he had not already settled, upon his two surviving sons.64PROB11/327, f. 145. None of his immediate descendants sat in Parliament.