Matthew Browne

Matthew Browne was the only son of Sir Thomas Browne (d. 9 February 1597) and his first wife, Mabel Fitzwilliam, the eldest daughter and coheiress of the courtier Sir William Fitzwilliam, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber and Lieutenant of Windsor Castle, by Jane Roberts, daughter and coheiress of John Roberts of Cranbrook, Kent, and Mayfield, Sussex.

[3] In October 1601, as Nicholas Brend, with whom Browne had been admitted to the Inner Temple in 1582, lay dying, he entered into complicated legal and financial transactions to ensure payment of his debts by which his stepbrother, John Bodley, John Collet, and Sir Matthew Browne would act as his trustees,[1] and by which: Bodley would pay the debts and in return take a mortgage on the properties in Bread Street and Southwark, including, now, the Globe...So on October 7, Bodley, Collet, and Browne agreed in writing to pay the debts and Collet to give Nicholas £250 in cash.

In return, Nicholas mortgaged his properties in Bread Street and Southwark to Collet and Browne for the supposed amount of the debts, £1478.

On October 8 he signed a bond in which he promised to pay Collet and Browne £2500 if he did not perform the requirements of the mortgage.

On 1 August 1603 he fought a duel on horseback on Hounslow Heath with a kinsman, Sir John Townshend.