Samuel Browne (c. 1598–1668),[1] of Arlesey, Bedfordshire, was Member of Parliament during the English Civil War and the First Commonwealth who supported the Parliamentary cause.
for Clifton-Dartmouth-Hardness, 1640; an active member of the Commons committee for the impeachment of Archbishop Laud, 1644; one of the commissioners to treat with Charles I in the Isle of Wight, 1648; serjeant-at-law, 1648.
[3] Browne, along with a number of other men who would support Parliamentary cause in the Civil War, had connections to the Feoffees for Impropriations, a body set up in 1625 to purchase livings for Puritan preachers, or the Massachusetts Bay Company.
[8] Browne inherited from his father various small properties lying in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Surrey and London.
[3] He appears to have had no connection with the constituency before he was elected and he may have gained it through the patronage of his cousin Oliver St John who was MP for Totness and had been in Lincoln's Inn at the same time as Browne.
[3] In July 1645 a paper was introduced to the House of Commons, emanating from Lord Savile, and containing what was in substance an impeachment of Denzil Holles and Bulstrode Whitelocke, of high treason in betraying the trust reposed in them in connection with the recent negotiations at Oxford, of which they had had the conduct.
The affair is frankly described by Whitelocke as a machination of the independents, designed to discredit the Presbyterian party, of which both Hollis and himself were members; and as he accuses Browne of displaying a strong bias in favour of the impeachment, it may be inferred that at this time he had the reputation of belonging to the advanced faction.
[21][12] Browne's renown derives less from his work as a jurist than from his astute performance as a parliamentary manager during the critical years of the English civil war.
He was widely admired by moderates and radicals alike for his intelligence, his learning, and his consummate professionalism.Browne married Elizabeth, daughter of John Meade, of Nortofts, Finchingfield, Essex.