BROWNE, Samuel (1597 or 1598-1668), of Arlesey, Beds.

Two puzzles surround this MP’s ancestry. His father was Nicholas Browne, the vicar of Polebrooke, Northamptonshire and a prebend of Peterborough Cathedral. The surname was so common, however, that Samuel’s paternal ancestry cannot be traced back any further than that. However, Nicholas Browne is known to have had a brother, Lancelot.34PROB11/112/29. This may well have been Lancelot Browne (d. 1605), the eminent London physician who had been born in York.35Oxford DNB. If so, the MP was a first cousin of Elizabeth Browne, the wife of William Harvey (1578-1657), the discoverer of the circulation of the blood. But Lancelot Browne’s own origins are equally obscure. The other puzzle involves the MP’s maternal ancestry. In 1597 Nicholas Browne married Frances St John, who was unquestionably related to the St Johns of Bletso. Her father, Thomas, is said by some later sources to have been the younger son of that name of Oliver St John†, 1st Baron St John of Bletso (d. 1582).36English Baronetage (1741), iv. 178. An alternative suggestion, however, has been that her father was instead a son of Henry St John of Keysoe.37Page-Turner, ‘Browne fam.’, 137-8, 141. This point has some significance, for Browne’s friendship with Oliver St John* was probably to be one of the key themes of his parliamentary career. If the traditional identification of Browne’s maternal grandfather is correct, Browne was merely St John’s third cousin once removed; if the alternative suggestion is correct, however, Browne was his first cousin once removed. Suggestively, when he died in 1626, St John’s father, Oliver St John of Keysoe, appointed Samuel Browne, ‘my loving nephew’, as one of the five overseers of his will, who were to ensure that Oliver completed his education.38PROB11/149/6.

Samuel, the future MP, had probably been born in late December 1597 or early January 1598, as he would later claim to have reached the age of 70 only a few days before he made his will on 6 January 1668.39PROB11/327/76. He would therefore have been aged only about ten when his father died in 1608. Nicholas Browne left a number of properties in London, Kent, Surrey, Bedfordshire, Lincolnshire and Hertfordshire as the inheritance for Samuel as his eldest son.40PROB11/112/29. But none of these seems to have been especially substantial and together the total income probably did no more than provide for Samuel’s education as a lawyer. In 1616, after spending two years at Queens’ College, Cambridge, Browne was admitted as a student at Lincoln’s Inn.41Al. Cant.; LI Admiss. i. 174. He was called to the bar in 1623.42LI Black Bks. ii. 247. Over the next two decades he seems to have established himself as a respected London barrister. As early as 1633 he lectured as the reader at Furnival’s Inn.43Baker, Readers and Readings, 206, 521. In 1641 he was promoted to the bench of his own inn and in 1642 he was the reader for the Lincoln’s Inn autumn lectures.44LI Black Bks. ii. 356, 359; Baker, Readers and Readings, 141. His clients during the 1630s included the 4th earl of Northumberland (Algernon Percy†), for whom he acted as his regular retained attorney in the court of common pleas.45CKS, U1475/A98, A99. From as early as 1631 he was also heavily involved in the financial affairs of Sir William Lytton*.46Herts. RO, DE/K/22259-60; DE/K/46557; DE/K/46559; DE/K/46566; DE/K/46798-9; DE/K/46568; Coventry Docquets, 609. In 1638 St John appointed him, along with Sir Gilbert Gerard* and John Hampden*, to manage the jointure lands of his new wife, Elizabeth Cromwell of Upwood.47Hunts. RO, DDMB6/1.

In the late 1620s Browne was among the group of godly clerics and laymen who joined together as the feoffees for impropriations. Browne was one of the four lawyers among the twelve feoffees; the others included John White II* and the former Speaker, Sir Thomas Crewe†. Their aim was to purchase impropriated tithes from their lay owners so that this income could be used to support suitable clergymen willing to preach regular sermons. This was why White and Browne bought the tithes of Dunstable Priory from Sir Lodowick Dyer in 1628.48VCH Beds. iii. 366. Viewed by the king and the rising Laudians as a group of troublemakers intent on promoting sedition within the church, the feoffees were suppressed by the court of exchequer in early 1633 at the instigation of the attorney general, William Noye†.49Harl. 832. Browne was thus already linked to some of the leading critics of the king’s ecclesiastical policies. This circumstance also gave him a personal grudge against Archbishop William Laud, in whose destruction he would subsequently play a crucial role. Several of the feoffees were also heavily involved in some of the colonial ventures of this period. However, Browne was not, as has sometimes been supposed, the patentee of that name of the Massachusetts Bay Company who emigrated to New England in 1629 and who sided with some of the more radical voices in the Massachusetts Bay colony during its bitter religious controversies of the 1630s; that Samuel Browne was from Roxwell in Essex.50A. Young, Chronicles of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay (Boston, 1846), 61.

In April 1629 Browne married Elizabeth Meade of Finchingfield, Essex.51PROB11/327/76; St Ann Blackfriars, London par. reg.; Genealogia Bedfordiensis, 7. With a new wife and a growing legal practice, Browne probably then established himself as a country gentleman. In 1628 he had acquired a share in lands at South Walsham in Norfolk when, along with his younger brother, John Browne, and Oliver St John, he had bought Chambery Hall. The owners from whom they acquired it may have included John Gurdon*. This purchase may not have been made with the intention of living there, however, and the three men sold it on to the Calthorpe family five years later.52Coventry Docquets, 577, 646. When he did decide to settle down in the country, Browne chose Bedfordshire. The properties he had inherited from his father had included some land at Clifton.53PROB11/112/29. In time he and his family settled at Arlesey, a couple of miles to the south, close to the border with Hertfordshire. As early as 1634, Browne, again with his brother and Oliver St John, but also with Miles Corbett*, bought the advowson of the local church from the rector of Clifton, William Buckby.54Coventry Docquets, 656. Four years later one of Browne’s sons, John (who died in infancy), was baptised there.55Genealogia Bedfordiensis, 7; ‘Gleanings from par. regs.’, 106. It would not be until 1646, however, that he acquired the manor of Etonbury, one of the principal local estates.56VCH Beds. ii. 262. He had meanwhile become the recorder of the corporation of the county town; his admission as a burgess of Bedford in September 1641 probably coincided with that appointment.57Min. Bk. of Bedford Corp. 147. (By the early 1650s Edmond Wingate* would be acting as his deputy.) In 1641 Browne was also promoted to county offices for the first time, becoming a Bedfordshire justice of the peace and a subsidy commissioner.58C231/5, p. 477; SR.

The new star at Westminster, 1641-3

The death of John Upton I* in September 1641 created a vacancy as one of the MPs for the Devon constituency of Dartmouth. Browne had no obvious connections with the south west, let alone with Dartmouth specifically, and yet he was chosen as the new MP in the ensuing by-election later that autumn. The obvious explanation is that he had been recommended by Oliver St John, who was MP for the neighbouring constituency of Totnes. Those in Dartmouth who backed Browne presumably also viewed him as a well-connected barrister who could be expected to make his mark in a Parliament that was now unlikely to be dissolved anytime soon. If so, they were not to be disappointed. The real mystery is not why a constituency would have wanted to choose Browne at this point so much as why he had not been elected anywhere previously. He was already a man with a most promising political future.

Browne had taken his seat in the Commons by 14 December 1641. On that day he was named to the committee to consult with the House of Lords about how they were to complain to the king about the decision to station the Middlesex trained bands around Parliament without first consulting them. Or at least, according to the Journal, ‘Sir Sam. Browne’ was included on that committee.59CJ ii. 343b. This premature award of a knighthood was presumably just a minor error by the clerks who were, as yet, unfamiliar with him, although it could conceivably be a mistake for Sir Ambrose Browne*. But more basic problems of identification bedevil any attempt to reconstruct Browne’s early parliamentary career. Two other men with the same surname – John Browne I* and Richard Browne I* – also already sat in the Commons. While Sir Ambrose can usually be easily distinguished, the other three were often simply referred to as ‘Mr Browne’. Disentangling them with any certainty is often impossible. Thus, as early as 17 December 1641, ‘Mr Browne’ was added with Bulstrode Whitelocke* to the committee on the impeachment of Daniel O’Neill.60CJ ii. 347a. If this was Samuel, it could be interpreted as an example of how his legal skills were quickly put to use following his election, but certainty is unattainable. There is no ambiguity about his appointment three days later to the committee on the bill to disarm popish recusants, but for the next few years references to ‘Mr Browne’ vastly outnumber those to Samuel specifically.61CJ ii. 349b. However, there are good reasons for thinking that he was always more prominent than any of the other Browne MPs. Precisely because of this, the clerks may have felt it unnecessary to distinguish between them.

Samuel emerged as a significant figure in the Commons almost from the outset. His closeness to St John immediately linked him to the leadership of the dominant faction within the House and, like many experienced barristers, he adapted quickly to life in the Commons. The king’s attempted arrest of the Five Members (4 Jan.) soon gave him his chance to shine. One of the first things the Commons did that day was to send four MPs to the inns of court to find out what legal advice the king might have sought regarding his proposed impeachments of the Five. Browne was sent to Lincoln’s Inn. He and the other three reported back to the Commons later that day.62CJ ii. 367b, 368a; PJ i. 6-7. Fears of the king’s intentions had multiplied and so Parliament considered a number of precautions for its own safety. One proposal may have originated from Browne. On 11 January he brought in a bill which would have allowed the Commons and the Lords to adjourn elsewhere. This was immediately sent to a committee and later that day, after Browne had reported back on several amendments, the bill was engrossed.63CJ ii. 370a, 371a; PJ i. 59, 61. For a new MP piloting his first bill through the Commons, this was a conspicuous success. He was probably the ‘Mr Browne’ who sat on several committees relating to the Five Members over the next few days. That included reporting to the Commons on 13 January on the allegations to be made against the attorney-general, (Sir) Edward Herbert I*, for presenting the king’s impeachment articles against the Five.64CJ ii. 374b, 376b, 377a, 377b, 382b; PJ i. 59, 61. He may also have been included on what became the Committee for Examinations (13 Jan.).65CJ ii. 375b. On 17 January he was among those who, at the suggestion of William Pierrepont*, were added to the committee to put the kingdom into a posture of defence.66CJ ii. 383b; PJ i. 90. That same day he may also have sat on the committee on the letter to be sent by Parliament to the king protesting about his actions against the Five Members.67CJ ii. 384a. He was certainly among those who then went to the Lords to hear the response of the 12 bishops to the impeachment that the Commons had brought against them.68CJ ii. 385b. On 25 January he may have been the first MP named to the committee responding to petitions submitted from around the country in reaction to recent events.69CJ ii. 393b, 394a. Over the following weeks he may also have sat on the committees on the bill to vindicate the Five Members (16 Feb.) and to prepare for Herbert’s trial (2 Mar.).70CJ ii. 436a, 464b. Moreover, on 12 February he and John Wylde* were asked to draft the bill against innovations in religion, although this task was then passed on to Edmund Prideaux I*.71CJ ii. 427a; PJ i. 360.

Further erosion of trust in the king prioritised action on the controversial militia bill which had been under discussion. On 8 February the Commons considered a draft declaration on the subject. Browne opined that the king’s consent to it would be sufficient to transform it into an Act of Parliament. He and John Maynard* were then sent off to prepare some amendments.72PJ i. 310, 320, 324-5. Browne again spoke in the debate on the militia bill on 28 February, arguing that the king (who was now Greenwich, the nearest he had been to London since early January) should not absent himself from Parliament except on the grounds of ill health.73PJ i. 483. When by 2 March it had become evident that royal assent would not be forthcoming, Browne was probably one of the four MPs who were asked to bring what had become ‘the ordinance of Parliament’.74CJ ii. 465b. Later that month he may well have been a member of the committee that drew up the declaration defending this Militia Ordinance (14 Mar.).75CJ ii. 478a.

Browne was equally determined to limit the king’s powers to raise forces of his own. In a debate on 27 May, he argued that the king had the right to muster troops within any particular country, but that he could not then transfer them to other counties.76PJ ii. 380; CJ ii. 588a. With the king then tried to raise troops by issuing commissions of array, Browne was probably included on the Commons committee to prevent them being circulated (17 June) and to prepare a declaration condemning them (18 June).77CJ ii. 630a, 632a. He probably went on to chair the committee which drafted the reply to the king’s response to Parliament’s complaint against the commissions (18 Aug.), while he is likely to have been on the committee which prepared the order by which those who implemented them were to be arrested (20 Aug.).78CJ ii. 725b, 729b. The further declaration against the commissions of array issued later that year was probably also primarily Browne’s work.79CJ ii. 818a; LJ v. 446a.

By the autumn of 1642 both sides were busy recruiting opposing armies. Browne seems to have taken a lead in raising forces in London.80Burton’s Diary, iii. 272. He had already been active in London civic affairs, as earlier that year he had led the parliamentary investigations against the recorder, Sir Thomas Gardiner*, as well as supporting the impeachment of the lord mayor, Sir Richard Gurney.81CJ ii. 484a, 558b, 660a. Now he alone (or at least ‘Mr Browne’) was added on 22 October to the committee on the commission of Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, as captain-general of the west, after it was told to prepare a similar commission for the 1st earl of Warwick (Sir Robert Rich†) as the captain general of the forces to defend the capital. Browne was the manager and reporter for the conference with the Lords on that subject two days later.82CJ ii. 818b, 822a. The defence of London became even more important, when, in the aftermath of the inconclusive outcome of the battle of Edgehill, the king began moving his army towards the capital: if he captured it, the war might be over almost immediately. On 25 October Browne may well have helped draft the order allowing Londoners to ignore the planned fast for the following day so that they could prepare the city’s defences.83CJ ii. 823a. On 13 November, with the king’s army only a few miles to the west, Browne met Londoners who volunteered horse and men to serve under Philip Skippon*.84CJ ii. 847b, 848a. Three days later, with the royalist army was in retreat, he was probably included on the bill concerning the London, Westminster and Middlesex trained bands.85CJ ii. 852b. The following day he took to the Lords an order about the watch in London and Westminster.86LJ ii. 449a. Two weeks later he may have been promoting a plan to seize horses in the capital.87CJ ii. 870b, 871a.

Browne now took the lead in introducing a new taxation system in the capital to pay the soldiers. He largely oversaw several of the assessment bills passed in late 1642 and early 1643. On 23 November he was given care of the bill demanding contributions from those Londoners who had not yet made voluntary donations; he and Samuel Vassall* decided which City worthies were to be given powers to nominate the collectors. This bill was passed within three days. Browne then carried it to the Lords, along with the order for the relief of the local inhabitants at Brentford who had suffered when Prince Rupert had seized the village earlier that month.88CJ ii. 860a-b, 863b, 865a, 865b; Add. 31116, p. 22; LJ v. 460b; A. and O. However, perhaps because of Browne’s inexperience, the text contained ambiguities, requiring him to bring in a series of further clarificatory bills.89CJ ii. 865a; A. and O. As MPs debated his third bill on 5 December, for the first time he chaired the committee of the whole House.90CJ ii. 870b, 875a, 875b; Harl. 164, f. 243; Add. 31116, p. 25; A. and O. i. 46. When another, defining the powers of the collectors, was debated on 13 December, Browne argued against the inclusion of a clause permitting them to conduct examinations on oath, on the grounds that any new oaths should only be authorised by statute.91CJ ii. 878b; A. and O.; Harl. 164, f. 248. This suggests that Browne still thought that there were legal limits to Parliament’s experiment in trying to rule without a cooperative king. He took the chair of the whole House again during this bill’s committee stage the following day.92CJ ii. 888b; Harl. 164, f. 248v. Yet another bill clarifying the original ordinance, drafted by Browne and Roger Hill II*, would be passed in early February 1643.93A. and O.; CJ ii. 944a. Meanwhile, Browne was heavily involved in the protracted gestation of the similar assessment covering some of the midland counties, including (significantly for Browne) Bedfordshire. This was eventually passed on 14 January.94CJ ii. 894b, 900a, 912b; A. and O.

Browne occasionally exhibited an interest in commercial affairs, which hint at possible links between him and the London mercantile community. In May 1642, on the motion of Sir Henry Vane I*, he was asked to bring in a bill to counter the embargo by the Venetians on the trade in currants.95CJ ii. 557b; PJ ii. 277. (The eventual ordinance was not passed until January 1644.) In February 1643 he was included on the committee to consider the petition against the Spanish ambassador which had been presented by a group of Spanish merchants.96CJ ii. 968a. In April 1643 he was on the delegation sent to discuss a possible tax on commodities with the London authorities.97CJ ii. 41a. Later that year he was included on the committee to ensure that all goods being landed in the port of London were searched (7 Aug.).98CJ iii. 196b. In early 1644 he sat on the committee on the East India Company bill (10 Feb.).99CJ iii. 395b.

Backing the war party, 1643-4

All-out war between the king and Parliament prompted attempts to resolve the conflict through negotiations. Commissioners were appointed by Parliament in early 1643 to travel to Oxford, carrying with them a set of preliminary demands to be offered to the king, in which Browne probably had a hand.100CJ ii. 903a, 911a, 935a. He had a personal interest in them since they included a list of individuals whom Parliament wished to see appointed to various senior judicial offices; Browne was suggested as a potential baron of the exchequer.101LJ v. 504b, 582b. The talks lasted from February to mid-April, but got nowhere. Prior to them opening, Browne almost certainly backed Parliament’s objections to the king’s decision to adjourn the Westminster law courts to Oxford, and he was involved in orders on this issue over the next year.102CJ ii. 915b, 932b; iii. 49b, 373a. Another show of defiance in early 1643 was Parliament’s decision to print a new declaration against the commissions of array. On 12 January Browne was given the job of arranging that this be printed.103CJ ii. 923a. He was probably willing to support efforts to reach a negotiated peace settlement, while, at the same time, remaining (rightly) sceptical of the chances of success and determined that Parliament should not give way unnecessarily to the king.

Plenty of MPs at Westminster wanted to see Charles brought to heel by an unambiguous defeat in the field and it was St John who increasingly provided the requisite leadership in the Commons. Browne almost certainly shared his vision, but his support for the war effort was often indirect. He remained primarily a lawyer and preferred to leave military affairs to others. A more obvious use for his talents was when, in August 1643, he helped John Selden* and Roger Hill II draft the bill to appoint a provost marshal.104CJ iii. 199b. He may well have been the senior member of the committee on the arrears due to the Aylesbury garrison (31 Oct. 1643), but probably only because this was in the interests of those living over the county border in Bedfordshire.105CJ iii. 297a. He was first-named to the committee on the bill for the relief of injured soldiers and war widows (24 Oct.), but that was more a matter of social justice than military policy per se.106CJ iii. 287b.

The revelations in late May of a royalist plot allegedly centred on Edmund Waller* strengthened the hands of the parliamentarian hardliners. On 14 June Browne was among those MPs who, in order to extract the maximum publicity from the discovery, were assigned the task of converting the statements taken from the plotters into a published narrative.107CJ ii. 128b; Harl. 165, f. 112. Ten days later he was probably the MP who headed the committee on the order to require all peers and MPs to take the oath introduced as a test of loyalty in the wake of the plot.108CJ iii. 144a, 173b. Browne had already taken it on 6 June.109CJ iii. 118a. When, later that summer, the Lords promoted a possible peace settlement, he appears to have agreed with the Commons’ decision to reject it.110CJ iii. 197b. The alliance with the Scots offered more promising opportunities. The obvious, immediate benefit was the military support they could offer, but Browne may already have seen religious advantages in such a partnership. He himself took the Covenant on 10 October.111CJ iii. 271b. Others, however, had their doubts. On 8 November 1643 Browne informed the Commons that William Pierrepont had scruples about taking the Covenant and that he wished to withdraw to the country to consider his position. Browne assured the House of Pierrepont’s good character and loyalty to Parliament. This prompted Sir Simonds D’Ewes* to note that Browne was ‘a religious, honest man’, but the Commons denied the request.112Harl. 165, ff. 244v-245. Browne was also able to think tactically. He almost certainly assisted in the interrogation of the 1st earl of Holland (Henry Rich†) who had been among peers who joined the king at Oxford in August 1643, but returned to Westminster two months later.113CJ iii. 304a; Add. 18778, f. 88v. On 22 December Browne reported to the Commons the bill to punish the earl by excluding him from the House of Lords. When some MPs objected that this was too lenient, Browne countered that this would encourage others to defect from the king.114Harl. 165, f. 253. On 17 January 1644 Browne, reporting from the committee investigating the earl’s conduct, recommended Holland’s impeachment.115CJ iii. 369b-370a; Add. 187779, f. 49; Add. 31116, pp. 217-18.

But Browne also challenged more militant parliamentarian peers. In late 1643 he aligned himself with those hostile to William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, and his son, Nathaniel Fiennes I*, particularly over the alleged cowardice of the latter in surrendering Bristol. In October Browne defended their most vocal critic, Clement Walker*, in his complaints that the proceedings against him by the Lords constituted an abuse of parliamentary privilege by Saye.116Add. 31116, p. 166; CJ iii. 274b. Moreover, Browne was one of the three MPs to whom the Commons granted permission to give evidence at Fiennes’s court martial, although it is not clear whether he did actually testify.117CJ iii. 340b; Add. 31116, p. 200.

Attempts were made during this period to rectify the wrong that many thought had been done to the feoffees for impropriations. Browne was surely the MP who (along with (Sir) Thomas Whitmore I*) was added to the committee on church government on 30 April 1642, when it was asked to consider what money had been raised by the feoffees.118CJ ii. 549b. Eventually, in August 1643 the bishop of London, William Juxon, was ordered to pay £1,725 7s 4d to Browne and John White II as the back rents on lands in Herefordshire and Aylesbury which had been confiscated from the feoffees. Browne and White were then to pay this to the surviving feoffees.119LJ vi. 162a-b; CJ iii. 193b; Add. 18778, f. 15.

The pressures of war encouraged administrative innovation. Since the lord keeper, 1st Baron Lyttelton of Mounslow (Edward Littleton†), had taken the great seal with him when he had joined the king at Oxford, Parliament needed an alternative means of authorising letters patent. In late 1643, Browne participated in the discussions with the Lords over making an alternative seal.120CJ iii. 145a, 146b. The following October he sat on the committee which considered some of the practical problems involved (21 Oct.).121CJ iii. 283b; Add. 18778, f. 73v. The bill authorising the new seal, passed by both Houses on 10 November, appointed six commissioners to use it – two peers and four MPs, including Browne and his kinsmen, the 1st earl of Bolingbroke (Oliver St John†) and Oliver St John.122CJ iii. 307b; LJ vi. 302a; Add. 18778, f. 87; Add. 31116, p. 180; A. and O.; Clarendon, Hist. iii. 251. This may well have been a deliberate attempt by St John to gain a controlling interest on the commission. The six, who took their oaths on 30 November, had a direct role in how Parliament exercised its powers of patronage over the next three years.123LJ vi. 318a; Add. 18779, ff. 17v, 18, 31. This was not without controversy. Within weeks Browne and Edmund Prideaux I* refused to swear in Walter Long* as the registrar of chancery on a legal technicality.124Add. 31116, p. 218; Add. 18779, f. 50.

Another innovation was the increasing use of executive committees. One of them, the Committee of Accounts, was partly Browne’s creation. He was probably included on the committee which drafted the bill to set it up (4 Nov. 1643).125CJ iii. 302a. He was certainly the first MP named on 1 January 1644 to the committee on that bill, and probably chaired it. He reported the bill back to the House on 29 January.126CJ iii. 355a, 381a. Browne may subsequently have thought this one of his bigger mistakes.

Committee of Both Kingdoms, 1644

The creation in February 1644 of the ultimate executive committee, the Committee of Both Kingdoms*, designed to co-ordinate the parliamentary war effort, elevated Browne to even greater prominence and placed him at the heart of decision-making at Westminster. He was one of the 14 Members of the Commons initially appointed to serve on it, and was reappointed when it was continued three months later.127CJ iii. 382a, 391b, 392b, 395b, 403b-404a, 495b, 504a; Add. 18779, f. 58v; LJ vi. 430a, 542b; A. and O. Increasingly, his role in the Commons became that of a spokesman for the Committee. In that capacity, in early March Browne was asked to raise with Parliament the case of Thomas Cunningham, an arms dealer based in Holland who was keen to assist, while on 5 April, he asked the Commons for arms for the forces that were to attack Nottingham.128CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 32, 86; Harl. 166, f. 43v. During the early weeks of June he kept the House up-to-date with the latest news from Nottinghamshire, Kent, Lyme Regis and Rutland and from Sir William Waller*.129CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 202, 216, 218, 227, 238. On 24 July he informed the House that the earl of Essex had advanced as far as Tiverton in Devon on his way to cut off Prince Maurice’s royalist army in the south west, while also pointing out that Waller had evidently failed to obey his orders also to march westwards.130Harl. 166, f. 100v. On 29 August, with the earl holed up at Lostwithiel and his humiliating defeated already underway, Browne presented Essex’s latest letter to the Commons, in which he pathetically complained that he had insufficient troops.131CJ iii. 611a-b. On 6 September Browne was first-named to the committee on the dispute between Lord Grey of Groby (Thomas Grey*) and the Leicestershire county committee.132CJ iii. 618a.

As might be expected, Browne was often used in matters that had some connection with Bedfordshire or with the eastern counties. On 18 May he secured the addition of two men to the Bedfordshire county committee.133Harl. 166, f. 63v. He repeatedly insisted on more funds for the garrison at Newport Pagnell.134CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 126, 325; CJ iii. 464a, 510b; LJ vi. 634b. In July he and Sir Henry Vane II* drafted the appeal to the Cambridge committee of the Eastern Association and the county committees within the association asking for more money for the association’s army.135CSP Dom. 1644, p. 325; CJ iii. 567b. Like most of the other members of the Committee of Both Kingdoms, Browne was involved in the attempts during the spring and summer of 1644 to come up with proposals for a possible peace settlement; like them, he may well have remained sceptical as to just the outcome.136CJ iii. 428b, 569a, 594a; Add. 18779, f. 76v.

Having sat on the committee to consider the sequestered estates of recusants (23 Feb. 1644), on 4 April he was added with Robert Nicholas* to the important executive Committee for Sequestrations*.137CJ iii. 405a, 448a. He was also included on the committees to prepare legislation for the prosecution of unrepentant royalists (25 Apr.) and on the bill to regulate the sequestration process (30 Apr.).138CJ iii. 470a, 473b. That summer he was probably first-named to the committee to ensure that Parliament controlled the wardship of the heir of any man who had died fighting for the king (12 June).139CJ iii. 526b. But the following week he was the messenger to the Lords to ask that Lucy, countess of Cleveland, be provided with an allowance from her husband’s sequestered estates in Bedfordshire.140CJ iii. 596a. On 3 July, at the suggestion of William Strode I*, he was asked to prepare a bill on what to do with all the confiscated estates.141Harl. 166, f. 79; CJ iii. 550b. He probably again acted as a messenger to the Lords on 7 August, carrying to them the list of MPs newly recruited to the Committee for Sequestrations.142LJ vi. 663a. On 22 August John Ashe*, chairman of the Committee for Compounding, set out proposals for composition fines to be paid by former royalists. Browne and Sir Simonds D’Ewes, while fully accepting the principle, suggested that a more flexible system might work better.143Harl. 166, f. 109.

In June 1644 Browne and John Selden were delegated to draft the bill to enforce the payment of tithes. They oversaw its passage through the Commons before it become law that November.144CJ iii. 528a, 566b, 582a, 599b, 689a; Harl. 166, f. 105. On 19 November Browne was re-appointed to the Committee for Plundered Ministers* (having been added to this body in October 1643).145CJ iii. 283b, 699b. That year Browne also had the satisfaction of assisting in the conviction of Archbishop Laud and avenging his harassment of the feoffees for impropriations. Browne had sat on both the committees set up to gather evidence against him (Mar. 1642; May 1643).146CJ ii. 499b, iii. 68a. He headed the list of MPs appointed to the new committee created on 3 January 1644 specifically to bring charges against the archbishop.147CJ iii. 357b; Add. 18779, f. 40. When Laud’s impeachment trial finally began that March, William Prynne* took on the role of lead prosecutor, but Browne summed up the evidence against the archbishop before the Lords on 11 September. (Having been granted a fortnight’s leave of absence by the Commons just the day before, Browne seems to have delayed his departure from London specially for this purpose.)148CJ iii. 623a. The trial then moved on to the legal arguments from Laud’s lawyers.149LJ vi. 700b; CJ iii. 628a; Add. 31116, p. 318. Faced with the prospect that peers might refuse to convict, on the basis that Laud’s actions did not qualify as treason, Browne was probably among those who concluded that a change of tactics was required. He was among four lawyers chosen by the Commons on 31 October to draft legislation for an act of attainder.150CJ iii. 682b. On 2 November Laud was brought to the bar of the Commons to hear Browne recite the evidence against him once again.151CJ iii. 683b, 685a, 693a; Harl. 483, f. 135; Add. 31116, pp. 341, 345. According to D’Ewes, Laud acknowledged that Browne ‘had dealt fairly with him’.152Harl. 166, f. 152. Browne repeated that evidence on 13 November before the Commons approved the bill, which he delivered to the Lords on 16 November.153CJ iii. 694b, 698a; LJ vii. 66b; Harl. 166, f. 166v; Harl. 483, f. 142v; Add. 31116, p. 346. The Lords were still hesitant to condemn Laud, but pressure from the Commons, led by Browne, in late December and early January helped resolve those doubts and the bill was passed.154CJ iii. 734b, iv. 7a, 12b; Add. 31116, p. 366. The archbishop went to the block on 10 January 1645. The following day the Commons directed Browne to arrange for an account of the trial to appear in print.155CJ iv. 16b. In the event, an account was provided by Prynne in his Canterburies Doome (1646).

Factional tactician, 1644-6

In early 1645 the two most controversial issues confronting Parliament were the proposed remodelling of the army and the related the self-denying bill. Browne was enthusiastic about both. On 10 January 1645 he was sent by the Commons to encourage the Lords to pass the bill, which had been sent to them three weeks earlier.156CJ iv. 16a. He is thus likely to have been appointed as one of the joint reporters for the conference with the Lords on that subject the following day.157CJ iv. 17a. He later sat on the committee on the second self-denying bill, appointed after it was introduced on 24 March.158CJ iv. 88a. As for the New Model, he assisted at several of the conferences between the two Houses between February and April 1645 at which the Commons pressed the Lords to accept those plans.159CJ iv. 48b, 81a, 83b, 95b.

This activity had a local dimension, for it was probably no accident that Browne had been encouraging complaints about the conduct of the 2nd earl of Manchester (Edward Montagu†) as commander of the army of the Eastern Association. With William Strode I* and Denis Bond* he was sent on 19 December 1644 to ask Manchester why he had given a warrant of protection to a Catholic, Henry Bedingfield.160CJ iii. 728b. Five days afterwards, presumably in response to a complaint from Browne, the Commons ordered that soldiers were not to be quartered in his house at Arlesey.161CJ iii. 734b; Luke Letter Bks. 416. On 13 January, he was among MPs sent to tell Manchester to remove his cavalry forces from the county.162CJ iv. 18b. Some of the complaints about that from the county had probably been raised directly with Browne.163‘Civil War Pprs. of Sir William Boteler’, 14-15. Sir Samuel Luke*, who, as governor of Newport Pagnell, had actually taken the decision to station those forces there, evidently assumed that this was linked to attempts to strike at some members of the county standing committee.164Luke Letter Bks. 138, 434. Browne was also first-named to the committee appointed on 24 January to consider the latest complaints from Bedfordshire against the behaviour of soldiers stationed there.165CJ iv. 28b. Within months Luke feared that his ‘cousin Browne’ sought to undermine Luke’s own position by calling for the Newport Pagnell garrison, just across the Buckinghamshire border, to be reduced in size.166Luke Letter Bks. 250, 253.

Browne had not weakened in his resolve for a military solution to the war. Now that the negotiations at Uxbridge had ended in failure, he remained committed to an outright victory in the field. Thus, he helped encourage the Scottish army under the 1st earl of Leven to march southwards.167CJ iv. 19a, 86a, 145a; Harl. 166, f. 193v. On 28 April 1645 he obtained the Lords’ agreement to the order instructing Sir Thomas Fairfax*, the new commander-in-chief of the New Model army, and Philip Skippon* to march westwards to relieve Robert Blake* at Taunton.168CJ iv. 124b, 125a; LJ vii. 339a. Moreover, on 21 June, one week after Naseby, he informed the Commons that the Committee of Both Kingdoms had resolved, ‘That the enemy shall be vigorously prosecuted in the field’.169CJ iv. 181b; Harl. 166, f. 220v; Add. 18780, ff. 42, 42v. In August he headed the committee on the bill to raise money for the siege of Newark-upon-Trent (9 Aug.), while on 23 August he told the Commons that the Committee of Both Kingdoms wished to assign infantry troops to Major-general Richard Browne II* to strengthen the forces surrounding Oxford.170CJ iv. 235a; Harl. 166, f. 256. In November he was keen that the Scots should assist at Newark.171CJ iv. 340a, 353a.

Browne viewed those at Westminster who were insufficiently determined to win the war as his enemies. This included the Committee of Accounts. Created with a general brief to search out financial irregularities, it had in practice and under Prynne’s leadership, specialised in targeting Essex’s opponents, like Viscount Saye and Sele. Determined by late 1644 to rein it in, its critics turned to Browne. On 3 December Browne was asked by the Commons to draft a bill which would create an appeals procedure against the committee’s decisions.172CJ iii. 712b. On 18 April 1645 the Commons created its own committee, chaired by Browne, with powers to consider cases from Prynne’s committee.173CJ iv. 116a. Browne and his friends were then able to hijack an alternative bill prepared by the Committee of Accounts and amend it to incorporate the reforms they had originally proposed.174CJ iv. 123b, 174b, 178b; Harl. 166, f. 220; LJ vii. 443a.

Browne was no less tactical in other matters. On 21 May 1645 he called for one of the Presbyterian peers, Henry Grey*, 1st earl of Stamford, to be arrested, after Sir Arthur Hesilrige* had complained that the earl had assaulted him.175Add. 18780, ff. 23v, 24v; CJ iv. 150b, 152b, 218b; LJ vii. 639b. Then there was Browne’s handling of the ‘Savile affair’. In June 1645 the renegade royalist peer, Viscount Savile (Sir Thomas Savile†), was sent to the Tower of London after claiming that Denzil Holles* and Bulstrode Whitelocke* had been secret correspondence with Lord Digby (George Digby*). Browne chaired the committee appointed on 4 July to investigate, evidently seeing this as an opportunity to embarrass two prominent Presbyterians.176CJ iv. 195a; Add. 18780, f. 61v. When Whitelocke attended the committee three days later he found that Browne, who was ‘no friend’ to him, ‘pressed things against them more than became that place’, in which he was supported by St John, Sir Henry Vane II*, Sir Peter Wentworth* and John Gurdon*.177Whitelocke, Diary, 171. But Browne was not in complete control of the committee. On 10 July he was overruled when he attempted to argue that Savile should be present when they questioned Holles and Whitelocke.178Whitelocke, Diary, 172. Browne reported back to the Commons on 17 July.179CJ iv. 207b, 211a, 212b, 214b; Harl. 166, f. 241; Add. 18780, f. 77v; Add. 31116, p. 441. MPs were probably less convinced than the committee had been by the evidence collected and they voted to clear Holles on 19 July.180CJ iv. 213a. Having then asked Browne’s committee to investigate the allegations being made by Colonel Edward King† and John Bastwick, the Commons almost immediately transferred that investigation into the hands of the Committee for Examinations.181CJ iv. 213b, 215a. Browne’s conduct over this investigation may have played on his conscience. Several weeks later, in the course of his work as a barrister, Whitelocke thought he detected that Browne was being ‘the more kind to him, being conscious that he had pressed too hard upon him on the business of the Lord Savile.’182Whitelocke, Diary, 177.

Yet, however hostile Browne may have been towards individual leading Presbyterians, the root of this dislike does not seem to have been disagreement over religious policy. Browne could be as Presbyterian as some of the Presbyterians. This is evident in his support for the distribution of copies of the Directory of Worship to all parish churches (17 Apr. 1645) and for the purges of the college fellows of Cambridge University.183CJ iv. 114a, 174a, 312a, 350b; Add. 18780, ff. 37v, 145. Moreover, in July 1645 he was added to the committee for the appointment of godly ministers in the north of England (18 July).184CJ iv. 211b. He seems to have been willing to countenance legislation to exclude certain persons from receiving communion, although his speech on 20 August probably argued for clear definition of the grounds for such exclusions.185Add. 18780, f. 103v. He returned to this point on 8 October in the debate on the resulting bill. At his suggestion the Commons agreed that exclusions on other grounds must be reported to Parliament. He was then second on the list of those MPs appointed to consider this bill, as well as being named as one of the triers for the Sergeants’ Inn classis.186Add. 18780, ff. 138, 138v; CJ iv. 300b; LJ vii. 637b, 652b. On 12 December he sat on the committee on the enforcement of the Covenant.187CJ iv. 374a. In January 1646 he was first-named to the committee to ensure that the ecclesiastical liberties within London were brought under the authority of the new Presbyterian system of church government.188CJ iv. 413a.

The future of that system depended on what settlement might be reached with the king. By early August 1645 Browne was at the forefront of an Independent initiative for dictating terms to Charles. On the 6th he moved – successfully – that propositions be sent for ratification, ‘without any treaty’, thereby pre-empting Scottish plans and squeezing them out of the process.189CJ iv. 232b; Add. 18780, f. 91v; Add. 31116, p. 448. His convictions were clear in his major speech on 21 August as the Independents pressed for the issuing of writs for ‘recruiter’ by-elections. These, he argued alongside other Independents like St John, should precede any settlement. Only by asserting the ‘right to choose’ could Parliament’s legitimacy be secured; an act of Parliament ought to be sufficient justification for the writs. A sub-text that it was important that those supporting all-out victory should be returned as MPs was apparent in his warning that, ‘if the king prevails, all our acts are nothing’ and that the only safeguard against this was for ‘the sword’ to prevail instead. Otherwise they would share the fate of the 1341 Parliament, which had found all its legislation simply annulled by Edward III.190Add. 18780, f. 106. Browne was not inclined to be any more trusting of Charles I.

Browne was doubtless in the same frame of mind when on 13 December he presented to the Commons papers from the Scottish commissioners arising from a new round of negotiations: the upshot was that MPs resolved not to be deflected by the Scots’ representations.191CJ iv. 376a, 378a. On 9 January 1646 he obtained the agreement of the Lords that allowing the king to travel to London for the talks should be firmly rejected.192CJ iv. 401a-b, 403b; LJ viii. 93b. Later that month, after the first draft of the Newcastle Propositions had been completed, Browne was a member of the committee for turning the Propositions into bills (30 Jan.), and a manager of the conference with the Lords to discuss them.193CJ iv. 423a, 425b. In March he may have sat on the committee which issued a pass to the French agent, Jean de Montreuil, to travel to Oxford and to Scotland to try to broker a new deal.194CJ iv. 462b.

That month Browne spearheaded a defence of the bill to exclude improper persons from the sacrament in response to petitioning from some Presbyterians in the City who thought it gave too much power to parliamentary commissioners. Seeking to soothe the Presbyterian Scots and the Westminster Assembly (which had promoted the bill), on 16 March he affirmed to the common council of London the good intentions of all parties. The Assembly was an advisory body which did not seek to assert a divine right to dictate religious policy; Parliament did not object to petitioning in itself, but considered that if it occurred in the interval between legislation passing the Commons and passing the Lords, then it constituted breach of privilege. ‘So dexterously’ did Browne and others argue, according to the sole source for this encounter, that the corporation finally ordered that, to avoid a potentially dangerous breach with Parliament, its initial support for the petitioning ‘might be razed out of’ its records.195Juxon Jnl. 109-10. When that provoked the Assembly into reasserting what it saw as its superior rights over ecclesiastical policy, Browne took the lead in reaffirming this as breach of privilege. Commissioners appointed by Parliament were one safeguard against this. Browne’s religious Presbyterianism was of a consistently Erastian cast: the church was subordinated to secular authority and, in practice, to political ends. When the bill for exclusions from the sacrament was first proposed in March 1645, he had endorsed Selden’s argument that potentially it gave too much power to the clergy.196Harl. 166, f. 183.

Meanwhile, on 26 March, Browne had probably taken the lead in drafting Parliament’s reply to the king again rejecting his request to be allowed to come to Westminster.197CJ iv. 490a; LJ viii. 236a. In May he was prominent in the discussions between the two Houses as to how they should react to the news that the king had fled from Oxford to join the Scots.198CJ iv. 538b, 541a, 541b. On 15 June he also took part in the conference with the Lords on the king’s renewed request to be allowed to travel to Westminster.199CJ iv. 576a.

Browne remained aligned with enemies of the earl of Essex. In June 1646 he attempted to win back one peer, the 2nd earl of Middlesex (James Cranfield*), who had gone over to the Presbyterian interest. A group of Gloucestershire MPs had approached the earl’s steward, Richard Dowdeswell, with a view to removing the assessment of £200 a week the county paid towards the upkeep of the Bristol garrison, a move which would be advantageous to Middlesex, owing to his considerable estates in the county.200 Cent. Kent. Stud. U269/C250, unfol.: Richard Dowdeswell to earl of Middlesex, 17 June 1646. Seizing the opportunity to court his new ally, Essex, with Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby of Parham, persuaded the relevant Lords committee in Middlesex’s favour.201Cent. Kent. Stud. U269/C250, unfol. But, as Dowdeswell informed Middlesex, on 15 June the Independents enlisted Browne to offer him a counter-proposition

Mr Samuel Browne, that wise, just, and noble person, on Monday last saw me in the court of requests and of himself came up to me and pulled me by the cloak and told me these words, ‘Trouble no lords to be your solicitor, you shall be heard when ever you come and have justice done you, and of that rest assured’.202Hatfield House, A. 161/2, 148/17; Box L/6.

Dowdeswell appreciated that Browne was not acting alone. ‘I am not insensible of the hand whence this comes’, he told Middlesex, ‘nor never will be whiles I live’.203Cent. Kent. Stud. U269/C250, unfol. 17 June 1646. Nevertheless, Browne’s offer was unavailing and Middlesex became further estranged from the Independent interest in the Lords.

Searching for a settlement, 1646-7

The king’s flight to the Scots and the surrender of Oxford complicated Browne’s position. The Presbyterian majority in the Commons continued to press for a settlement with the king and on terms that Browne thought promising. Seeing no problem with a political settlement based on the Covenant, he gave his full support to what would become the Newcastle Propositions. In late June he was first-named to the committees which considered how those propositions should be presented to the king (22 June) and on the reaction to them of the Scottish commissioners (25 June).204CJ iv. 584b, 587a. On 11 June he was sent to the Lords to request their response.205CJ iv. 615a; LJ viii. 433a. He was later part of the delegation sent to thank the Scottish commissioners for joining with the parliamentary commissioners in presenting the Newcastle Propositions to the king and on 22 September, when there were still unrealistic hopes that the king might agree to them, Browne was included on the committee appointed to recast them as bills (22 Sept.).206CJ iv. 643a, 674a.

Browne had long taken an interest in the treatment of those who had formerly fought for the king. In late 1644 he had sat on the committee on the oath to be imposed on all royalists deserting from Oxford (23 Dec. 1644).207CJ iii. 733a. In August and September 1645 he had been asked to draft a bill to restrict the financial rights of the wives of those delinquents whose estates had been sequestered.208CJ iv. 197b, 244b, 260b, 261a; Add. 18780, ff. 63, 99, 111; Add. 31116, p. 457. On 6 December 1645, in view of the growing number of royalists who were surrendering, he had presented the Commons with a detailed set of proposals to streamline the compounding process by reducing the powers of the local committees and setting a deadline (1 Jan. 1646) for compounding.209CJ iv. 367a, 367b, 369a-b, 375a-b, 376; Add. 18780, ff. 176v-177. These were agreed.210CJ iv. 376b, 398a, 399b; LJ viii. 41b. Browne took an especially hard line against ex-royalists. He was among MPs appointed on 23 July 1646, just ten days after the fall of Oxford, to seek out those who had come to London.211CJ iv. 625b. Several weeks later (11 Aug.) he was first-named to the committee which aimed to raise money for the Irish campaign by selling the lands of four prominent royalists, while he was probably added to the Committee for Compounding on 21 August, when it was asked to help raise money for the Scots.212CJ iv. 641b, 650b. That autumn he supported the bill for a general sale of delinquents’ estates.213CJ iv. 650b, 708a. In December he and Miles Corbett were asked to prepare a declaration warning that any future rebels against Parliament would also have their estates confiscated.214CJ v. 6b. He was added to the committee on the debts owed by those whose estates had been sequestered, after the case of the 2nd earl of Cork (Richard Boyle*) was referred to it (6 Jan. 1647).215CJ v. 43a. Some of the largest estates that had been confiscated were those of John Paulet, 5th marquess of Winchester. In early January 1647 Browne, St John and John Lisle* were given the job of drafting the legislation to grant them to Oliver Cromwell*.216CJ v. 44b, 162b. That same month Browne was included on the committee to consider how the more senior supporters of the king who had been exempted from Parliament’s pardon could be put on trial (23 Jan.).217CJ v. 61b. On 2 February he headed the list of those named to consider the powers of the Committee for Compounding.218CJ v. 70a. In late April he reported from the Committee for Sequestrations on the lands of Anne, Lady Rich, wife of Lord Rich (Robert Rich*) and daughter of Sir Thomas Cheke*.219CJ v. 149a.

Browne was also closely involved in the decision to sell former episcopal estates. On 2 November 1646 he was appointed to the committee to check the bill on that subject before it was sent to the Lords, as well as to the separate committee appointed that same day to consider what financial support ought to be provided for the ex-bishops.220CJ iv. 712a; Add. 31116, p. 576. Browne may then have taken control of the first of those committees, as four days later he was reporting back to the Commons on the instructions to be issued to the surveyors and contractors who were to carry out those sales.221CJ iv. 714b, 716a. He was later named to the committee on the additional bill to clarify some of the ambiguities in that original bill (27 Feb. 1647).222CJ v. 99b. He meanwhile supported the measures against sequestered and malignant clergymen.223CJ iv. 608a; v. 119b. In particular, he backed the bill for a purge of Oxford University and in the resulting ordinance, passed in May 1647, he was named as one of the commissioners to hear any appeals arising from it.224CJ iv. 595b; v. 83a, 155b; A. and O. However, this was balanced by his concern for the well-being of more deserving clergymen, which was why he also supported the bill for the maintenance of ministers (11 Dec. 1646).225CJ iv. 719b.

At the end of the first civil war Browne and the other commissioners of the great seal were still in office, their tenure having been extended in March 1646.226CJ iv. 477b; LJ viii. 221b, 223a; A. and O. The king’s original seal was captured when Parliament took Oxford in June and was formally destroyed. But the appointment of a lord chancellor or a lord keeper being still out of the question, it was decided to replace Browne and his colleagues with the two Speakers. Evidently signalling his agreement, on 23 October 1646 Browne carried the order for this from the Commons to the Lords.227CJ iv. 702a, 702b; LJ viii. 543b. He then sat on the committees on the bills to implement it.228CJ iv. 703b, 708b. The Commons meanwhile authorised a grant of £6,000 to Browne and the other five retiring commissioners.229CJ iv. 708a On 31 October the Commons sent him to the Lords to ask that the two Speakers take their oaths as the commissioners, which they both then proceeded to do.230CJ iv. 711a, 711b; LJ viii. 552a.

However, this was only a temporary arrangement, which was due to expire in early December. Four times over the next four months Parliament approved brief extensions, always at Browne’s prompting.231CJ iv. 713b, 715a; v. 15a, 15b, 40b, 42a, 100a; LJ viii. 558b, 613b, 643b. In the meantime, Browne argued for the appointment of three non-MPs as the commissioners. He set out this proposal in a report to the House on 6 January 1647.232CJ iv. 44a. A week later the Commons agreed to nominate Sir Thomas Bedingfield*, Chalenor Chute I* and Sir John Bramston.233CJ v. 52a. Browne later carried the bill to the Lords.234CJ v. 53a, 53b; LJ viii. 675a. However, despite continued Commons pressure, the Lords were reluctant to appoint commoners and the plan eventually had to be abandoned. In the meantime, in late April 1647 Browne urged the Lords to agree to the appointment of Bramston as a judge of the court of common pleas.235LJ ix. 158a, 161a; CJ v. 155b, 156b, 157a.

Dealing with the army and the king, 1647-8

As the Presbyterians at Westminster pressed ahead with the disbandment of the army in the summer of 1647, Browne supported the demands of the increasingly restless soldiers. He was among those who, on hearing the news on 4 June that George Joyce had seized the king at Holdenby, pressed Parliament to repudiate its declaration of 30 March against the army’s grievances.236CJ v. 198b. He may then have chaired the committee that drafted the bill declaring it void.237CJ v. 201b. He also sat on the committees on the indemnity bill that the soldiers demanded.238CJ v. 166a, 198b, 199a. When on 12 June, Parliament despatched a delegation to the army at Royston to renew efforts to find a compromise with them, Zouche Tate*, Browne and Sir Walter Erle* drafted the accompanying letter.239CJ v. 208b. Three days later Browne took the lead in drafting a second letter which assured the army, which had advanced to St Albans, that Parliament was not raising forces of its own in London.240CJ v. 210b, 212a. A third letter, announcing arrangements for the army to receive one month’s pay, was drafted by Browne, Whitelocke and John Swynfen* on 17 June.241CJ v. 215a. Browne then chaired the committee that prepared the Commons’ initial response to the army’s charges against the Eleven Members (23 June).242CJ v. 221a. Following the withdrawal of those Members from the Commons three days later, Browne drafted the letter in which Parliament authorised its commissioners to open negotiations with the army.243CJ v. 224b, 225a; LJ ix. 296a, 297b.

In his committee overseeing the Committee of Accounts, Browne presided over a body which could offer to army officers potential relief from auditing by Prynne and his colleagues. The case of one of the Eleven Members, Edward Massie*, was also referred to it on 10 July 1647.244CJ v. 239b. Yet, at a time of political crisis, when he might have wielded significant influence, Browne disappeared from Westminster. Although not among MPs who fled to the army, he was absent from mid-July until late September, missing both the Presbyterian coup and its overthrow. He may have been active behind the scenes: Whitelocke attributed the impeachment on 8 September of the seven Presbyterian peers who had remained at Westminster to a new faction that was following what he saw as Browne’s principle that ‘the greatest merits are to be laid aside if a man happen never so little to fall under their displeasure’.245Whitelocke, Diary, 199. However it was mid-October before Browne himself was added to the committee preparing the impeachments.246CJ v. 334b.

In the meantime, the king had given hope to some of the Independents by indicating that, of the competing sets of peace plans on offer, he was inclined to prefer the Heads of the Proposals over the Newcastle Propositions. When Browne resurfaced at Westminster at the end of September, it was to participate in discussions about what further proposals could now be offered to the king. More than some fellow Independents, Browne’s own preference was probably some form of Presbyterian church government; he was included on the committees appointed on 30 September and 6 October to draw up such a scheme.247CJ v. 321b, 327b. In a context where Charles’s endorsement of the sale of former episcopal estates was for some a precondition for negotiations, Browne was named first to the committee on the bill for further sales (28 Oct.)248CJ v. 344a, 400a. Two days later he was included on the committee which prepared the final version of the latest peace proposals.249CJ v. 346b. When, following the king’s flight to Carisbrooke, the Lords promoted new proposals in the form of the Four Propositions, Browne was first named to the committee to recast them as bills (29 Nov.).250CJ v. 371a.

Throughout December, Browne worked hard at maintaining Parliament’s communications with the Scottish commissioners. The revelation of their secret deal with the king and the latter’s rejection of the Four Bills on 28 December was a major setback.251CJ v. 385a, 391a, 392a, 405b. The departure of the Scottish commissioners in late January 1648 was another bitter blow.252CJ v. 470a. On 7 March Browne reported to the Commons that relations had further deteriorated.253CJ v. 483a. The following month the Scottish Parliament declared that any alliance between the two countries was now at an end. When on 19 April the Commons sought advice from the Derby House Committee (the successor to the Committee of Both Kingdoms), St John and Browne were delegated to investigate the breakdown in relations.254CJ v. 536b-537a; CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 47.

The threat of a Scottish invasion with royalist support prompted Parliament to court the Presbyterian-dominated common council of London by conceding the reorganisation of the London militia committee which the Independents had previously opposed. Browne, as a member of the delegation to convey this news to the council on 18 May, signalled his approval.255CJ v. 565a. Following the outbreak of rebellion in Kent Browne announced to the Commons on 27 May a further concession: the Derby House committee was prepared to receive petitions from the rebels now in control of Greenwich and Deptford.256CJ v. 576a. As the City fathers demanded the re-opening of talks with the king, Browne co-ordinated Parliament’s largely successful attempts to placate the capital’s inhabitants (1, 2 June): even when the rebel army reached Blackheath, Londoners failed to rise in support.257CJ v. 581a, 582a; LJ x. 294a.

Despite his involvement in committees pursuing harsh measures against those who had risen in south Wales (6, 10 June), Browne continued to take a conciliatory line with the London authorities and explore negotiations with the king.258CJ v. 587a, 593a, 624a. On 10 July he was a reporter of a conference with the Lords on the subject, while on 15 July he helped draft a justification of the three preconditions for reopening talks which the Commons wished to impose on the king.259CJ v. 631a, 637a. Most tellingly, on 29 July it was he who carried to the Lords the vote by the Commons for the negotiations to proceed and report the Lords’ concurrence.260CJ v. 650b; LJ x. 402a. Among the commissioners appointed in early September, he arrived with his colleagues at Newport on the Isle of Wight for the opening of the negotiations on the 18th.261CJ v. 697a; vi. 6a; LJ x. 486b, 488a, 492b. According to John Crewe*, writing on 7 October, Browne made an effective contribution to them. When the king tried to argue that the sale of church lands to lay owners was sacrilegious, Browne and John Glynne* challenged him and ‘spake well and learnedly’.262CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 296.

Promotion, retirement and promotion (again), 1648-60

While at Newport, both Browne and Glynne received news that they were to be appointed as judges.263Baker, Serjeants at Law, 397. As a preliminary to his promotion to justice of king’s bench, Browne was also to be appointed as a sergeant at law.264CJ vi. 50b, 51a, 64b, 65b; LJ x. 551a-b, 566b, 570a-b. The bill, through which St John became lord chief justice of common pleas, was passed on 30 October. Returning to London, Browne was among the commissioners thanked by the Commons on 9 November.265CJ vi. 72a. Four days later it was agreed that the new judges could be sworn in.266CJ vi. 75a, 75b, 77b; LJ x. 586b, 587a-b, 592b, 593b. At the ceremony marking Browne’s formal admittance as a serjeant, Robert Atkyns* presented the rings, while Browne’s distant kinsman, Oliver St John, 2nd earl of Bolingbroke, and Anne, countess of Pembroke, were the parties in the fictitious suit in which he pleaded as a serjeant for the first time.267Baker, Serjeants at Law, 441.

In theory, Browne had now ceased to be an MP, since senior judicial office rendered him ineligible. Yet his time in this Parliament had a curious shadowy afterlife. On 16 November 1648 he was named first to the committee to draft the bill for the banishment of the earl of Holland.268CJ vi. 77b. More surprisingly, he was one of the MPs appointed as a reporter for a conference with the Lords on abuses in parliamentary privilege.269CJ vi. 80b. This suggests Browne had been such a ubiquitous figure in this Parliament for so long that his colleagues had forgotten that he was no longer a Member. The following month he and St John were replaced as members of the Committee for Sequestrations.270CJ vi. 101b; LJ x. 636b.

Browne’s first period as a judge was to be very brief. The execution of the king was a step too far for him. On 8 February 1649 the Speaker informed Parliament that Browne and five other judges had refused to serve under the new republic.271CJ vi. 134b. Browne now withdrew completely from public life. For much of the 1650s he held no offices at all, either nationally or in Bedfordshire, although he remained recorder of Bedford and in the spring of 1650 his name was among those submitted by the corporation to the commissioners of the great seal when they applied for a new commission of the peace.272Min. Bk. of Bedford Corp. 36. The diary of his friend John Harington I* shows that between 1651 and 1653 Browne was spending much time in London.273Harington’s Diary, 64-84. Their mutual friends in the capital during that period included the archbishop of Armagh, James Ussher. In 1647, when he had been the inn’s treasurer, Browne had helped secure Ussher’s appointment as the preacher at Lincoln’s Inn.274LI Black Bks. ii. 375; CJ v. 393b. The pair probably now dined together regularly.275Harington’s Diary, 71, 74, 78. Harington and others sometimes sought legal advice from Browne and it is likely that, still a serjeant at law, he had resumed his legal practice.276Harington’s Diary, 61, 63, 75. Other evidence reveals that he was still acting for Sir William Lytton.277Herts. RO, DE/K/46577. He seems to have prospered, for at about this time he expanded his own land holdings in south-east Bedfordshire by purchasing the manor of Astwick.278VCH Beds. ii. 204.

Browne resumed his political career only in 1659, when he sat in Parliament as MP for Bedford, where he was still recorder. However, in contrast to his former prominence, Browne played no obvious part in proceedings: he was named to no committees and he seems never to have spoken, although he was mentioned during one of its debates. On 14 February 1659 Thomas Tyrrell* recalled how in 1642 Browne had overseen the Long Parliament’s assertion of control over the London trained bands.279Burton’s Diary, iii. 272. There is no evidence that Browne attempted to resume his seat when the Rump resumed its sittings in May 1659 or when the secluded Members were readmitted to Parliament in February 1660. Edmund Ludlowe II* later included Browne’s name on the list of those MPs appointed as the new council of state on 23 February, but this was an error.280Ludlow, Voyce, 87.

Browne sat as MP for Bedfordshire in the 1660 Convention, but, as in 1648, his time service was ended by judicial promotion. In November 1660 Charles II named him as a judge of common pleas.281Sainty, Judges, 77. He held that office until his death in 1668.

It was no coincidence that twice Browne should have found himself elevated from the Commons to the judicial bench. He may have seen himself as a lawyer first, whose career in Parliament proved to be more extensive than he had ever expected. Others may also have thought so. Yet his involvement in the feoffees for impropriations was an early indication that he did have a larger agenda. One reason for entering Parliament was to push forward the sort of godly reform that the feoffees could only ever have achieved on a much smaller scale. By that measure, his achievements as an MP were mixed. During the 1640s the church in England underwent a thorough upheaval, which swept away the bishops, the Prayer Book and much else. But this also created religious freedoms that Browne may have equally distrusted. More than most, Browne was well aware of the deals, compromises and personality clashes that had made a clear settlement so difficult to achieve. He was always, in the end, a political realist.