Sir John Browne, Lord Mayor of London

Sir John Browne, Mercer

Sheriff 1472-3. Mayor 1480-1. Knighted 6 Jan 1487; Auditor 1475-7; Master Mercers 1472, 1477, 1485, 1492. Died 1 Jan 1498; Will (PCC 18 Horne) 3 Nov 1497; proved 25 Jan 1498.

He was father of William Browne (Mayor 1513-4), and uncle of William Browne (Mayor 1507-8). It is a curious coincidence that both William Brownes died in their respective years of office as Mayor. John Browne was ancestor of the Earls of Pomfret, the Lords Petre and the Cave-Browne-Cave Baronets.

Source: The Aldermen of the City of London

Lord Mayor of London in 1480, Sir John Browne was ancestor of the Brownes of Walcot. Arms: Azure, a chevron between three escallops, within a bordure engrailed, or [C.B., L.L.D., Ulster King of Arms Sir John Bernard Burke, compiler, The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales (Baltimore, MD: reprint 1967 by Genealogical Publishing Company, 1884), pg. 135]

He was a Mercer in London, England [Rev. Alfred B. Beaven, compiler, The Aldermen of the City of London (London: Eden Fisher & Co., Ltd., 1913].

He was born circa 1440?. He married Alice Swineshed, daughter of William Swineshed; His 1st [Sir John Bernard Burke, compiler, A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England, Ireland, and Scotland (Baltimore, MD: reprint 1977 by Genealogical Publishing Company, 2nd edition), pg. 89].

He was charged with the ward between 1470 and 1488 in Farringdon Within, London, England [Rev. Alfred B. Beaven, compiler, The Aldermen of the City of London (London: Eden Fisher & Co., Ltd., 1913)].

Lord Mayor of London, England, 1480/81[C.B., L.L.D., Ulster King of Arms Sir John Bernard Burke, compiler, The General Armory of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales (Baltimore, MD: reprint 1967 by Genealogical Publishing Company, 1884), pg. 135 and Sir John Bernard Burke, compiler, A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England, Ireland, and Scotland (Baltimore, MD: reprint 1977 by Genealogical Publishing Company, 2nd edition), pg. 89 and Rev. Alfred B. Beaven, compiler, The Aldermen of the City of London (London: Eden Fisher & Co., Ltd., 1913), Mayor 1480-1].

He was knighted on 6 January 1487 [Rev. Alfred B. Beaven, compiler, The Aldermen of the City of London (London: Eden Fisher & Co., Ltd., 1913)].

Info. on place of Burial of Sir John Browne, Lord Mayor of London:

• 1.) http://cybergata.com/roots/3310.htm
• 2.) http://cybrary.uwinnipeg.ca/people/dobson/genealogy/ff/mainwaring/B...

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Sir John Browne, of London, Mayor of London in 1481-82, apparently of unknown parentage, b. say 1440, d. 1 Jan. 1499 (13 Hen. VII), his inquisition post mortem being dated 8 Feb. following, and buried in the parish church of St. Mary Mary Magdalene, Milkstreet, London. In 1478 he is mentioned as “my trewe lover [i.e. friend] John Browne, Alderman of London” in the will of Sir Ralph Verney, mercer and alderman, and sometime mayor, of London. According to Yeatman, “It is stated in Metcalf’s Knights that Sir John Browne was knighted in 1483 by King Richard III, before his coronation, when the arms assigned to him were azure and chev. between three escallops or with a bordeur engrailed gules. These arms were borne by him and by his descendants, and are carved on the outside of Cubley Church in commemoration of the marriage of his grandson, John Browne, the Master of the Mint, with the coheiress of Montgomery, and most of the Derbyshire families have used these arms; but the date assigned by Metcalf for the knighthood is clearly a mistake, for he was already a Knight in 21 Edward IV.” In a writ dated 9 Feb. 1489 (3 Hen. VII) is given a recitation of a deed, dated 20 May 1476 (15 Edw. IV), which refers — perhaps prematurely so far as his knighthood is concerned — to “John Broun, knt., citizen, mercer, and alderman of London,” who in company with others “demised the … manor of Milton [near Canterbury, in Kent] to George Broun, knt., and … Elizabeth, then his wife, for their lives in survivorship.” This George Browne, who was ancestor of the Brownes of Bechworth Castle, was however probably not a kinsman of John Browne, for Yeatman remarks that the arms of the two men were “quite different.” John Browne’s i.p.m. mentions his son, William Browne senior, and the latter’s wife Catherine.

He m. Anne Belwood, whose will was dated 12 Jan. 1503 and proved 4 March 1504, sister of Thomas Belwood, of Belton, Lincolnshire. She is doubtless the “Dame Anne Browne” mentioned among a group of persons asked to pray for his soul in the 1487 will of her son William’s father-in-law, Edmund Shaa. In the 1501 will of her son Thomas she is called “my singuler good Lady and moder Dame Anne Browne,” and 20 shillings are left to “Sr Henry Beaw my moders chapeleynd, to pray for my soule.” In her own will, in which she refers to herself as “Anne Browne, widow, late the wife of Sr John Brown Knyght, citizen … and alderman of London,” she mentions “the p’sshe church off Belton in the countie of Lincoln wher I was christened,” and refers to her son Thomas Browne, her son William Browne, her “wellbeloved brother Thomas Belwoode,” of Belton, his children Thomas,[10] John, Elizabeth Lounde, and Kateryne Belwood, her “wellbeloved sister Isabell Bellenap,” her “cosyn Margaret Haydok, widowe,” her “cosyn Dame Agneys Haydok, nonne [nun],” and her “cosyn Dame Jane Malet, nonne, of Ormesby in the Countie of Lincoln.”

Source: http://cybrary.uwinnipeg.ca/people/dobson/genealogy/ff/mainwaring/B...