Funeral Pageant of Sir Anthony Browne.
By the Rev. Edward Turner
Read at the meeting at Battle, July 23, 1852.
The following programme of the pageant connected with the obsequies of Sir Anthony Browne, Kt., standard-bearer and personal friend of Henry VIII—to whom his royal master gave the Abbey of Battle, with all its extensive rights and possessions, and whose monument[1] is among the objects of Archæological interest in Battle Church,—is taken from Dodsworth's MSS. in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. The MSS. of this indefatigable antiquary, a fellow-labourer with Dugdale, occupy 162 folio volumes, given to the University of Oxford, by H. Fairfax, dean of Norwich, in 1673. Unluckily the MSS. got so wet in their removal, that it took A. Wood a month to dry them on the leads of the school tower, and they are in some parts illegible. It appears to have emanated from the Heralds' College,—and is a fair specimen of the ostentatious pomp and display with which the funeral ceremonies of the higher ranks were conducted at the period in which he died. A list of the different appointments held by Sir Anthony under the king (who, as a mark of his regard, left him at his death a legacy of £300) will be found in Vol. V. p. 183, of the Sussex Archæological Collections.
"He endyd his lyfe"—says the continuation of the inscription there given, (which is taken from his portrait by Isaac Oliver, once at Cowdry—but now in the possession of Charles Browne Mostyn, Esq. at his seat, Kiddington, Oxfordshire,) "the 6th of May, in the second year of King Edward VI, 1548—at Byfleet House in Surrey, by him buylded, and lyeth buried at Battle in Sussex, by Dame Alyce, his first wyfe; where he began a stately edifice, since proceeded in by his sonne and heyre, Anthony, Viscount Montague," &c.
- ↑ A full description of this monument will be found in Blore's Monumental Remains.
