, an English judge, the son of sir Weston Browne of Abhess-roding
, an English judge, the son
of sir Weston Browne of Abhess-roding in Essex, was born
in that county, and educated for some time at Oxford,
whence he removed to the Middle Temple, where he became eminent in the law, and was chosen summer reader
in the first of queen Mary, 1553. The following year he
was made serjeant at law, and was the first of the call.
Soon after he was appointed serjeant to the king and queen,
Philip and Mary. In 1558, he was preferred to be lord
chief justice of the common pleas; but removed upon
queen Mary’s decease, to make way for sir James Dyer,
for though a Roman catholic, and queen Elizabeth might
not chuse he should preside in that court, she had such an
opinion of his talents that he was permitted to retain the
situation of puisne on the bench as long as he lived. It is
even said that he refused the place of lord keeper, which
was offered to him, when the queen thought of removing
sir Nicholas Bacon for being concerned in Hales’s book,
written against the Scottish line, in favour of the house of
Suffolk. This book sir Anthony privately answered , or
made large collections for an answer, which Leslie, bishop
of Ross, and Morgan Philips afterwards made use of, in
the works they published in defence of the title of Mary
queen of Scots. Sir Anthony Browne died at his house in
the parish of Southwold in Essex, May 6, 1567. The
only works attributed to him were left in ms.: namely,
1. “A Discourse upon certain points touching the Inheritance of the Crown,
” mentioned already, and 2. “A book
against Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester,
” mentioned by
Dr. Matthew Paterson, in his “Jerusalem and Babel,
”
a
judge of profound genius and great eloquence.
”