Browne, ROBERT

Browne, ROBERT, founder of the Brownists, was born about 1550 at Tolethorpe, Rutlandshire, and after graduating at Cambridge in 1572, was a schoolmaster in London, and an open-air preacher. In 1580 he began to attack the order and discipline of the Established Church, and soon after formed a distinct church on congregational principles at Norwich. Committed by Bishop Freake to the custody of the sheriff, he was released through the influence of his kinsman, Lord Burghley; but in 1581, with his followers, was obliged to take refuge at Middelburg, in Holland. In 1584 he returned, via Scotland, to England, and reconciling himself to the Established Church, in 1586 became master of Stamford grammar-school, in 1591 rector of Achurch, Northamptonshire. Of a very violent temper, he was, when eighty years old, sent to Northampton jail for an assault on a constable, and in jail he died about 1633. The Brownists continued, notwithstanding their leader's defection, to subsist as a separate sect for some time both in Holland (among the English there) and in England. From Holland many of them sailed for America in 1670, the rest being absorbed in the Presbyterian Church in 1701; in England, they may be said to have given birth to the Independents or Congregationalists.