SIR ANTHONY BROWNE AND HIS

DESCENDANTS.

HE famous Sir Anthony Browne, standard-bearer to King Henry VIII., stands out from the canvas of history by his devotion to a worthy cause and course of upright action. He was twice married: his second wife was a more celebrated lady than his first. She was the second daughter of the ninth Earl of Kildare, the Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald; and was the issue of that unfortunate nobleman's second wife, the Lady Elizabeth Grey fourth daughter of Thomas Marquis of Dorset by Cicely his wife, daughter and heir of William Bonville, Lord Bonville and Harrington. The Lady Elizabeth was a great beauty, and had been brought up with the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, afterwards Queens Mary and Elizabeth of England, at Hunsdon House; she being by descent and relationship their second cousin, and her mother being a granddaughter of the Lady Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Richard Woodville, Earl Rivers, and relict of Sir Thomas Grey of Groby, whose beauty and high character had caused Edward IV. to make her his queen. Thus, again, was Sir

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Anthony's family connected with royalty: for his second wife's mother, the Countess of Kildare, was niece in halfblood to King Edward v. and his brother Richard Duke of York, who were both so cruelly murdered in the Tower; and to the Princess Elizabeth, in her own right Queen of England, and wife of King Henry VII.: consequently she was cousin to the husband's royal patron and friend, Henry VIII.

At Hunsdon House Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald was seen by Henry Howard the poet, Earl of Surrey; and by the sonnet he has left behind him in commemoration of her attractions, it is not only natural to conceive that he admired her, but that he would have married her if he could. The sonnet is as follows:

'From Tuscane came my ladie's worthie race,

Fair Florence was sometime her ancient seat;
The Western Ile, whose pleasant shore doth face
Wild Camber's cliffes, did give her livelie heat.
Fostered she was with milke of Irish breste;
Her sire an earle, her dame of prince's bloude.
From tender years in Britaine she doth rest
With king's child, where she tastes costlie food.
Hunsdon did first present her to mine eine :

Bright is her hew, and Geraldine she hight.
Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine;

And Windsor, alas! doth chase me from her sight.
Her beautie of mind, her vertues from above;

Happie is he that can obtain her love.'

'Windsor' refers to Surrey's imprisonment in Windsor Castle, where many of his sonnets were composed; and the 'dame of prince's bloude' applies to her grandmother, the

Marchioness of Dorset, who was daughter and heiress of Henry Duke of Exeter by the Lady Anne, sister of Edward IV. This lady has ever since been known as the 'Fair Geraldine,' although by that confusion which is frequently caused by careless writing, the first wife of Anthony Browne, Alice, is in some works called by the second one's just sobriquet. This Fair Geraldine' had no children by Sir Anthony Browne; but marrying soon after her husband's demise, she had a large family by her second husband, Sir Edward Clinton, first Earl of Lincoln of that name, and ancestor of the Duke of Newcastle.

A very remarkable and interesting event occurred in this family, namely, the marriage of Mabel Browne, second daughter of Sir Anthony by his first wife, with Geraldine Fitzgerald eleventh Earl of Kildare, and brother to the Lady Elizabeth, Sir Anthony Browne's second wife.

Mabel's husband's career had been a most romantic one; for he was, as a child, hunted down by the rancour of Henry VIII., who had not only executed his half-brother, Thomas tenth Earl of Kildare, with his five uncles-Sir James, Oliver, Richard, Sir John, and Walter Fitzgeraldbut by keeping his father Gerald, ninth earl, in the Tower, and for many years cruelly treating him, caused him to die, after the execution of his son and brothers, of grief and

'At p. 529 of the History and Antiquities of Sussex, by Thomas Walker Horsefield (2 vols. 4to, 1835), occurs the following note in a reference to the tomb of Sir Anthony Browne: 'It is said that Alice was a great beauty, and celebrated by the Earl of Surrey, at the tournaments, under the name of the "Fair Geraldine."

pain. Gerald had been Lord-Deputy of Ireland, and was a man of high estate and character, who at times had been in much favour with his sovereign, although he was always hated and envied by Wolsey. His death took place on December 12, 1534, and he was buried in the chapel of the Tower, as attested by an inscription on a chest found there in 1580.

After many stirring adventures in Ireland and in Scotland, the young Gerald was sent, in the custody of his tutor, Thomas Leverons, who was foster-brother to his father, and was afterwards created Bishop of Kildare as a meet reward for his fidelity, to France. Thence his tutor, having reason to suspect the sincerity of the French (Sir John Wallop, the English ambassador, demanding him in his master's name), removed him secretly to Flanders, whither he had no sooner conveyed him, than an Irishman, one James Sherlock, a spy, arrived in pursuit of him. Leverons waited on the governor, and desired his protection from Sherlock's wicked intention to betray the innocent child to his enemies, whereupon the governor sent for Sherlock and examined him ; and finding him guilty, and without reasonable defence, he imprisoned him, until the generous youth interceded for his liberation.

From Flanders they went to Brussels, where Charles v. held his court. Here, too, the hatred of Henry pursued him, and he was again demanded by the English ambassador; but Charles answered that he had nothing to do with him, and, for aught he knew, he intended to make but a short

stay in the country, and so sent him to the Bishop of Liege, allowing him for his support one hundred crowns a month. The bishop gave him an honourable reception, and placed him in an abbey of monks for greater safety of his person; whence Cardinal Pole, his kinsman by his mother's side, sent for him to Rome, receiving him very kindly, and had him educated under the care of the Bishop of Verona and the Cardinal of Mantua.

After some year and a half the Cardinal Pole sent for him to Rome; and the Duke of Mantua gave him an allowance annually of 300 crowns. He continued in Rome some three years an inmate of the cardinal's house. He travelled, with his relative's permission, to Naples, and accompanied the Knights of Rhodes to Malta; thence he went to Tripoli, on the coast of Barbary, then belonging to those knights, where he remained a short time, serving valiantly against the Turks, or rather Moors; he returned with a rich booty, first to Malta and then to Rome.

Some three years after, he one day, in the heat of the chase, when accompanying Cardinal Farnese to hunt the stag, narrowly escaped death. In the violent pursuit, his horse leaped into a deep pit which had been concealed from view. Finding himself falling, the young man clung to some roots of trees, by which he hung, leaving his unfortunate horse to precede him to the bottom of this deep pit; but at last tired out, he relinquished his hold, and fell on his dead horse. In the pit he remained ankle-deep in water some three hours, no one coming to relieve him, notwithstanding his