Anthony Browne (died 1548)

Sir Anthony Browne, KG (c. 1500[2] – 6 May 1548) of Battle Abbey and Cowdray Park, both in Sussex, England, was a Member of Parliament and a courtier who served as Master of the Horse to King Henry VIII.

Anthony Browne's recorded royal services began in 1518, when he was appointed surveyor and master of hunting for the Yorkshire castles and lordships of Hatfield, Thorne, and Conisbrough.

[3] Browne played a supporting role in the military suppression of the 1536 Roman Catholic uprisings in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, commonly known as the Pilgrimage of Grace.

In January 1540, when King Henry VIII went to Rochester in Kent to meet his future fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, he first sent Browne, as his Master of the Horse, into her chamber.

In 1540 Browne was made a Knight of the Garter and was granted Battle Abbey, the buildings and estate of which had come into the hands of the Crown in 1538 following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, which he turned into a country house.

Following Henry's death, Browne rode to Hertford where the nine year old Prince Edward was, and brought him to Enfield where his half-sister Princess Elizabeth was living.

He married twice: Anthony Browne died on 6 May 1548 at Byfleet House in Surrey, which he built,[17] and was buried in St Mary the Virgin Church, Battle, Sussex, in the tomb of his first wife Alice Gage, as requested in his will.

Elizabeth Somerset, Countess of Worcester was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne Boleyn and the chief witness against her at her trial for adultery.