Around 1539 Richard Browne was born to John Browne of St Peter's in Colchester.
Around 1575 [his son] Christopher Browne of Sayes Court was born to Richard Browne [aged 36]. He married in or before 1605 Thomasine Gonson and had issue.
In 1584 Richard Browne [aged 45] was elected MP Lichfield.
In 1585 Richard Browne [aged 46] accompanied Robert Dudley 1st Earl of Leicester [aged 52] to the Netherlands as Victualler.
In 1588 Richard Browne [aged 49] appointed Clerk of the Green Cloth.
In 1593 Richard Browne [aged 54] was elected MP Newton.
In 1601 Richard Browne [aged 62] was elected MP Cirencester.
On 23rd July 1603 King James I of England and Ireland and VI of Scotland [aged 37] created a number Knights at the Royal Gardens Whitehall Palace:
Henry Savile 1st Baronet [aged 24], William Morgan [aged 43], George Carew, Baptist Hicks 1st Viscount Campden [aged 46], Richard Musgrave 1st Baronet [aged 18], James Calthorpe [aged 44], Thomas Gresham [aged 56], George Fane of Burston [aged 22], Francis Fane 1st Earl of Westmoreland [aged 23], Robert Chichester [aged 25], William Pope 1st Earl Downe [aged 29], Gervase Clifton 1st Baronet [aged 15], Thomas Berkeley [aged 28], Edward Montagu 1st Baron Montagu [aged 40], William Herbert 1st Baron Powis [aged 30], Anthony Irby [aged 26], Drue Drury of Eccles and Rollesby in Norfolk and Arnold Lygon [aged 45].
24th July 1603 Richard Browne [aged 64].
In 1604 Richard Browne [aged 65] was elected MP Harwich.
On 13th May 1604 Richard Browne [aged 65] died.
Chronicle of a Bourgeois of Valenciennes
Récits d’un bourgeois de Valenciennes aka The Chronicle of a Bourgeois of Valenciennes is a vivid 14th-century vernacular chronicle written by an anonymous urban chronicler from Valenciennes in the County of Hainaut. It survives in a manuscript that describes local and regional history from about 1253 to 1366, blending chronology, narrative episodes, and eyewitness-style accounts of political, military, and social events in medieval France, Flanders, and the Low Countries. The work begins with a chronological framework of events affecting Valenciennes and its region under rulers such as King Philip VI of France and the shifting allegiances of local nobility. It includes accounts of conflicts, sieges, diplomatic manoeuvres, and the impact of broader struggles like the Hundred Years’ War on urban life in Hainaut. Written from the perspective of a burgher (bourgeois) rather than a monastery or royal court, the chronicle offers a rare lay viewpoint on high politics and warfare, reflecting how merchants, townspeople, and civic institutions experienced the turbulence of the 13th and 14th centuries. Its narrative style combines straightforward reporting of events with moral and civic observations, making it a valuable source for readers interested in medieval urban society, regional politics, and the lived experience of war and governance in pre-modern Europe.
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John Evelyn's Diary. 12th February 1683. He gave to the Trinity Corporation that land in Deptford [Map] on which are built those almshouses for twenty-four widows of emerited seamen. He was born the famous year of the Gunpowder Treason, in 1605, and being the last [male] of his family, left my [his great granddaughter] wife [aged 48], his only daughter, heir. His grandfather, Sir Richard Browne, was the great instrument under the great Earl of Leicester (favorite to Queen Elizabeth) in his government of the Netherland. He was Master of the Household to King James, and Cofferer; I think was the first who regulated the compositions through England for the King's [aged 52] household, provisions, progresses,49 etc., which was so high a service, and so grateful to the whole nation, that he had acknowledgments and public thanks sent him from all the counties; he died by the rupture of a vein in a vehement speech he made about the compositions in a Parliament of King James. By his mother's side he was a Gunson, Treasurer of the Navy in the reigns of Henry VIII., Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth, and, as by his large pedigree appears, related to divers of the English nobility. Thus ended this honorable person, after so many changes and tossings to and fro, in the same house where he was born. "Lord teach us so to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom!".