Good Morning To You, My Gentle Friends,

When King Henry VIII visited Lincoln in 1541, Sir Anthony Bronwe, as Master of the Horse, led the sovereign's horse in the procession into the city. On his return to London, the King was told of Catherine Howard's infidelity. Sir Anthony Browne took part in the questioning of the culprits, taking evidence in his own handwriting from one of the Queen's attendants and examining the Duchess of Suffolk about the relations between the Queen and Francis Dereham; Sir Anthony Browne was one of the special commission which tried Sir Francis Dereham and Thomas Culpeper at Guildhall. In 1543 Sir Anthony Browne attended the King's marriage to Catherine Parr. In 1543 he was one of the Councillors who questioned witnesses on charges against the Earl of Surrey, and in 1547 he took part in the earl's trial: he also examined Surrey's father, his old patron Norfolk, and witnessed his confession.

In religious matters, "as is commonly known", according to his servant William Wightman, Sir Anthony Browne "did much dissent from the proceedings", that is, from the breach with Rome. In his will, which was made on April 22, 1547, he directed the saying of masses and dirges by te priests of Battle church. Only once had his sympathies brought him under suspicion and that was in 1536 when the King believed that nearly all of his Councillors, Cromwell included, were secretly supporing Princess Mary in her refusal to submit. On that occasion, Sir Anthony Browne was closely examined on his ideas about the succession, his words, his actions and his evident affection for the Princess: his answers must have satisfied the King since there was no aftermath. Foxe has a story that in 1539 the keeper of Princess Elizabeth's bears, a keen Catholic, went tothe Council chamber to give Sir Anthony Browne and Stephen Gardiner what he considered was damning evidence of heresy against Thomas Cranamer, and in 1543, Thomas Bronwne's chaplain was examined during the prebendaries' plot against eh Archbishop. A rumour circulated in 1539 that William Fitzwilliam, Kingston, and Sir Anthony Browne wanted Bishop Tunstall to replace Cromwell and had suggested as much to the King. Russell, one of the reformign members of the Council and an enemy of Sir Anthony Browne's wrote of him to Paget as "a man most unreasonable and one whose words and deeds do not agree together . . . one that will blame every man for that fault and yet will do worse himslf".

Himself one fo the conservatives appointed by the King as his sons's Councillors, Sir Anthony Browne tried to persuade the King to include Stephen Gardiner among them. Stephen Gardiner;s exclusion left the conservative party without a leader adn on the King's death, Sir Anthony Browne was the first to accept the ascendancy of the Earl of Hertford. According to an account given by Sir Anthony Browne's servant, William Wightman to William Cecil in 1549, Sir Anthony Browne agreed while walking with the Earl of Hertford in the garden at Enfield, as they were brining Edward VI from Hertford Castle to London, that the Earl of Hertford should be Protector, "thinking it . . . both the surest kind of government, and most fit for that commonwealth". His adhesion was significant since he stood eighth of the late King's executors in order of precedence, andalso because as a Catholic he was one of those on whom Henry VIII is said to have relied to check the Earl of Hertford and the reformers. Sir Anthony Browne was one of the seven Councillors who signed the letters patent of March 12, 1547 confirming the Earl of Hertford's appoitnment. In March 0f 1547, Sir Anthony Bronwe, The Earl of Hertford, and Sir Edward North received the great seal from the outgoing chancellor, Wriothesley.

Sir Anthony Browne's inheritance was relatively modest, although on his mother's death in 1534, he received the manor of Wichambreaux, Kent, which was worth one hundred eleven pounds a year. The bulk of his estate he acquired for himself, starting in 1528 with a grant of the manors of Stewton in Lincolnshire, Newhall and Coppenhall in Cheshire, and Egleton in Rutland. By 1537 he had exchanged these for the Cheshire lordship of Nantwich and for various Sussex manors which had belonged to Henry, The Fifth Earl of Northumberland. In 1538, while the court was at William Fitzwilliam's house at Cowdray, Sir Anthony Browne was granted teh site and demesne lands of Battle abbey and in 1539 he paid eight hundre fifty pounds for several of the abbey's manors. He obtained further monastic lands in Sussex and his last acquisition there formed part of the bequest of lands worth one hundred pounds a year made to him by Henry VIII. The total acreage of his lands in Sussex, including those of which he had the ultimate reversion from William Fitzwilliam, has been estmated as elevn thousand acres and its annual value of six hundred seventy-nine pounds for lands in possession and one hundred forty-seven pounds for those in reversion. His estate in Surrey, although worth less than half that in Sussex amounted to not less than eight thousand five hundre acres and included the priory of St. Mary Overey, granted to him in 1544 "for his services". He also obtained property in Cambridgeshire, Essex, and Warwickshire. His half-brother, William Fitzwilliam left no legitimate child, and most of his lands, which included, beside such further Sussex property as tbe manor of Midhurst, some four thousand six hundred acres in Hampshrie, were to pass to Sir Anthony Browne on the death of the widow, Mabel Clifford. Although Sir Anthony Browne died before the Countess, he had already come into the possession of at least one of these estates, Cowdray, which was to become the family seat.

Sir Anthony Browne married Alice Gage, the daughter of Sir John Gage, and their children included Anthony Browne, The First Viscount Montagu; Mary Browne, who married John Grey of Pirgo, and was the mother of Henry Grey, The First Baron Grey of Groby; and Mabel Browne, who married Gerald Fitzgerald, The Eleventh Earl of Kildare.

Sir Anthony Browne married secondly, Elizabeth Fitzgerald, the sister of Gerald Fitzgerald, The Eleventh Earl of Kildare.

Sir Anthony Browne died on April 28, 1548 at Byfleet, and was probably replaced as Knight of the Shire by Sir Thomas Cawarden. He appointed as executors of his will: Sir Richard Rich, Lord Rich; Lord Russell; Sir William Paulet, Baron St. John; Sir John Baker; Sir John Gage; and John Skinner, leaving each of them a gift as toke of his goodwill and explaining that "these simple legacies come from the father of so many children". He directed them that he should be buried in the same tomb as his first wire, Alice ( Gage ) Browne, and that the funeral procession began in London and passed through East Grinstead and Allington to Battle. Sir Anthony Browne's son, Anthony, was still under age at his father's death. of his other children: Mary Browne married the Marquess of Dorset's younger son, John; and Lucy married Thomas Roper.

Sir Anthony Browne's widow, Elizabeth ( Fitzgerald ) Browne, married secondly, Edward, The Nine Earl Clinton, who was later The First Earl of Lincoln.