PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY

Part 2: The Braye Manuscripts from the House of Lords Record Office

INTRODUCTION

(1) John Browne (c 1608-1691). John Browne, who was responsible for the accumulation of the Braye Manuscripts, was the only child of Thomas Browne, a citizen and grocer of London by his wife Joan (? Wilson) and belonged to a family which came originally from Bury St Edmunds.(1) On his father’s death in 1621 he was adopted by his rich uncle John Browne, a merchant tailor, from whom he inherited the substantial fortune of £14,000.(2) His uncle’s legacy enabled John Browne to study law at the Middle Temple and also to acquire a considerable amount of property in Northamptonshire and elsewhere. Browne was admitted a student by the Middle Temple on 28 October 1628 but was not subsequently called to the bar. Henry Elsynge junior, the future Clerk of the Commons (1639-48) was admitted to the Middle Temple in the same autumn, so that the two young men must have known each other well. Browne presumably then met the whole Elsynge family including Henry Elsynge, senior (Clerk Assistant 1610-21 and Clerk of the Parliaments 1621-35).

The Browne family’s previous links with Northamptonshire probably led to young John’s decision to acquire property in the county as soon as he inherited money. Thus in 1629 Browne bought the rectory of Fotheringhay in Northamptonshire(3) and in 1631, with Edward Bagshawe of the Middle Temple and Thomas Maunsell of London, vintner, he purchased tenements in Haselbeech in the same county.(4) At some time between 1629 and 1634 Browne acquired from Erasmus Copee, Cope’s manor’ at Eydon(5) in Northamptonshire (8m SSW of Daventry) where he was to live on and off for the rest of his life and where he died in 1691. In January 1638 Browne bought the manor and rectory of Radstone(6) (about 3m north of Brackley) and he also acquired property at Moreton Pinkney and Canons Ashby, villages close to Eydon. At sometime before 25 January 1636, Browne purchased a large house at Twickenham(7) – it was a common practice for successful gentlemen working in the City of Westminster to acquire a country place in one of the pleasant villages upstream. This house was one of the largest in Twickenham having 16 heaths taxable in 1664. By 1640 Browne as a JP for Middlesex. The Registers and Vestry Books of St Mary’s, Twickenham, contain many entries relating to him.

Probably at or about the time he came of age and bought his first property in Northamptonshire, Browne married Temperance, third daughter of Sir Thomas Crewe, Speaker of the Commons in 1623 and 1625.(8) She died on 22 September 1634, aged 25, leaving no issue. Browne’s second wife, whom he married on 28 January 1636, was Elizabeth, daughter of John Packer of Shillingford, Berkshire. Packer, a strong puritan, had been Clerk of the Privy Seal under James I and secretary to the Duke of Buckingham. He had been a favourite at Court under the patronage of Dorset, Buckingham and others but his property was sequestered when he joined the parliamentary side.(9) Only two of John and Elizabeth Browne’s six known children survived infancy. The first, Elizabeth, married ‘Tobiit’ Chauncey Esq, of Edgcote in Northamptonshire in 1666.(10) She died in 1667, as did her only child, William, in 1668. The second, Martha, married Sir Roger Cave of Stanford Hall, Northamptonshire in 1676.(11)

On 13 March 1638 John Browne received a grant for life of the office of Clerk of the Parliaments at a yearly salary of £40 plus fees. Robert Packer, his second wife’s brother, was granted the reversion of the Clerkship on the same date but died before Browne.(12) Parliament was at that time dissolved so that Browne did not enter fully upon his duties as Clerk of the House of Lords until the assembly of the Short Parliament in April 1640. It was at this time presumably that he took up residence in his official lodgings in Old Palace Yard.

Browne was a firm adherent of the parliamentary cause and, following the final break between the king and parliament in Browne was a firm adherent of the parliamentary cause and, following the final break between the king and parliament in 1642, he remained at Westminster to serve the House of Lords there. In religion Browne was a puritan and the comments which he wrote upon pamphlets by Peter Heylyn and William Prynne reveal where his sympathies lay.(13) Heylyn twice refers angrily to Browne’s anti-episcopal spirit.(14) Browne, however, appears to have made a more impartial record of Archbishop Laud’s trial than did Prynne.(15)

Probably as a protest against Browne’s puritanism, his lands in Twickenham were broken into by “some lewd, disorderly and unruly people” who cut and carried away his timber. On 11 February 1645 the House of Lords ordered that “the Dwelling-house, Household-stuff, and Furniture, Out-houses, Woods and Pales, of and belonging tot he said Mr Browne, in Twickenham … are protected … from the Violence, Ruin or Destruction of all Persons whatsoever”.(16) When Browne later received an anonymous letter threatening his life, the House, on 26 October 1648, ordered the Judges to take special care for “the Safety and Preservation of the Person “of Browne who was “so much intrusted in the Affairs of the Kingdom”.(17)

The abolition of the House of Lords on 19 March 1649 deprived Browne of his Clerkship until the Restoration. Henry Scobell, already Clerk of the Commons, was made “Clerk of the Parliament” by an Act passed on 14 May 1649 and on 25 June 1650 Browne was ordered by the Commons to deliver to him “all the Records, late belonging to the late House of Peers, and this House"(18) At the time of Scobell’s appointment, the Commons ordered a committee “to consider what satisfaction is fit to be given to Mr Browne” since he had been “a great Sufferer in his Estate, for adhering to the Parliament”.(19) The Co9uncil of State found Browne employment in a variety of capacities such as a commissioner to enquire into local affairs in Hampton in 1653.(20)

On 30 May 1660 Browne made a declaration of loyalty to Charles II(21) to obtain benefit of the general pardon promised in the Declaration of Breda and resumed the office of Clerk of the Parliaments. It seems likely that he had in fact functioned as Clerk from 25 April 1660, the first day of the Convention Parliament. On that day Scobell was ordered by the restored House of Lords to deliver up the records of the House and the Jewel Tower and official residence to Browne.(22) Thus Browne resumed his work as Clerk, making minutes, drawing of orders, signing protections, registering proxies and performing the other varied tasks connected with the Office.

At the Restoration Browne enlisted the help of his cousin, John Walker, in the Parliament Office. Walker was Reading Clerk from 1660-1664 and Clerk Assistant from 1664 until his death in 1682.(23) Thus in 1667 Walker wrote from the Parliament Office to Browne concerning parliamentary business and about attending the Queen Mother’s Council on Browne’s behalf.(24) Again, in 1670, Walker wrote to Browne at Eydon giving news of the proceedings of the Commissioners for a Union with Scotland and that he, Walker, was to be their clerk.(25) Walker’s son, also John, was Clerk Assistant from 1682 until his death in 1715. On 21 May 1683, Browne wrote to Walker from Eydon complaining about his cough and the pain in his head. The letter also contains invaluable information on the history of the Lords’ records.(26)

Browne seems gradually to have become less regular in his attendance at the Parliament Office but he continued, with Walker’s help, to conduct the business of the office from Eydon. On 13 February 1689, Walker, in the absence of Browne through illness and old age, was sent by the Lords to the Prince and Princess of Orange in the Palace of Whitehall. There he read to them the Declaration of Rights and offered to them jointly the Crown of England. On 16 March 1691 Walker wrote to Browne, then staying with Mrs Mary Walker at Colham Green, near Hillingdon, with news of the siege of Mons.(27)

John Browne died three months later and was buried on 8 June in Eydon church.(28) His wife, Elizabeth, survived him a few days only, being buried beside him on 13 June 1691. All their children had predeceased them, and Browne’s lands, personal property and papers alike passed to the Cave family and thence into the family of the Lords Braye.

(2) Bowyer, Elsynge, Browne and the formation of the Brays Manuscripts.
Browne had no experience of Parliament when he became Clerk in 1638 and he was not a record keeper by training. He had, however, the example of his two scholarly predecessors, Robert Bowyer and Henry Elsynge, to follow and he kept many of their papers at Eydon. Some of the surviving Braye Manuscripts date from the sixteenth century, even before Bowyer.(29)

As MP for Evesham, Bowyer kept a detailed diary of proceedings in the Commons, two volumes of which have survived amongst the Braye Manuscripts (nos 59 and 60). Bowyer particularly noted points of procedure and Browne appears to have copied these into his own book of precedents, “Fragmenta Parliamentaria”.(30) a collection of precedents from the Elizabethan Commons was also compiled by Bowyer.(31) As Clerk of the Parliaments, Bowyer appears to have begun the practice of keeping “Scribbled Books”, full accounts of proceedings, including debates (unlike the Manuscript Minutes and Draft Journals) which were later used for preparing the Journals and for other purposes.(32) The earliest surviving book of Committee Appointments also dates from Bowyer’s period of office.(33) Under Bowyer the papers laid on the Table of the House (“Main Papers”) were preserved more carefully than they had been previously.(34)

Henry Elsynge attended the House of Lords from 1610 as assistant to Bowyer and was trained by him in the keeping of records. Elsynge continued Bowyer’s practicee of keeping “Scribbled Books” but in less detail than the latter, and the originals have survived elsewhere than in the official records or in the Braye Manuscripts.(35) Elsynge’s assistants also took notes(36) in the House and from these, and the “Scribbled Books”, for Elsynge compiled the Draft Journals. Those which survive for1621-1628 are all Elsynge’s work(37). Like Bowyer, Elsynge omitted from the Draft Journals votes in the House and the details of debate which are to be found in the “Scribbled Books”. Both the “Scribbled Books” and Draft Journals were regularly examined by a committee of Lords.(38) The final stage was the Manuscript Journal copied by an assistant from the corrected Draft Journal and, from 1621 to May 1640, engrossed on parchment by order of the House.(39) Elsynge’s Manuscript Journals follow the Draft Journals closely and, in addition, contain some orders, petitions and reports which had not been entered in the Draft although space had been left for them.(40)

Elsynge continued Bowyer’s practice of carefully preserving the “Main Papers” and in 1621 made a signal contribution towards this end by acquiring one floor of the Jewe; Tower of the Old Palace of Westminster as a repository for the papers, Journals, Acts and other official records. Here the records continued to accumulate until their transfer to the Victoria Tower in 1864.(41)

Whilst Elsynge in his own day was best known as Clerk of the Parliaments and keeper of the records, he is remembered today as an antiquarian and author of The Manner of Holding Parliaments in England. In this latter, unfinished, treatise, Elsynge sought to record and explain parliamentary practice, both ancient and modern, thus superseding the fourteenth century "modus tenendi Parliamentum apud Anglos”.42 Elsynge was also, almost certainly, the author of a treatise on the judicature of the House of Lords which has often been ascribed to John Selden.(43)

When he first sat at the clerk’s table during the Short Parliament of 1640, John Browne kept a full “Scribbled Book” in the manner of Bowyer and Elsynge, although in a rathr garbled form due to his inexperience.(44) An assistant clerk continued taking notes in the House in the Minute Books, including lists of Lords present.(45) Browne also wrote a Draft Journal (examined by the Lords’ Sub-Committee) which followed Elsynge’s pattern and from this a fair copy was engrossed on parchment.(46) From the beginning of the Long Parliament the record gradually changed. The “Scribbled Books” ceased in 1642 and were replaced by sheets of notes which are to be found in the Main Papers and Braye Manuscripts.(47) Browne continued to compile a Draft Journal, written rapidly and unrevised, with marks in the margin indicating where an assistant should enter documents in full.(48) He probably intended to make a finished Manuscript Journal from the Draft, but by 1643 Browne appears to have realized that he would not be able to do so and from September of that year he began to include lists of Lords present in the Draft, where they appear fairly regularly until 1649. (49)

After the Restoration, Browne resumed the compilation of the Draft Journals and these continue until 1690, almost the end of his period of office.(50) The series of finished Original Journals was revived, although these were now written on paper not parchment.(51) the Manuscript Minute Books survive again from 1661 and to these Browne added two further, historically valuable, series, the Committee Minute Books in which the proceedings in Select Committees were recorded and Minute Books of the Committee for Privileges.(52)

Browne brought order and regularity to the procedure of the House of Lords. He was diligent in accumulating Orders and other original documents such as letters, drafts and notes, resulting in a great expansion of the “Main Papers” series.(53) Unfortunately, however, his conception of official custody of the records did not extend beyond the central series of the Original Acts, Journals, Minutes and Committee Books. This resulted in the dispersal of important sections of the records which were in his care. Firstly, at some time before 1682, Browne allowed Dr John Nalson, Antiquary and Canon of Ely, to borrow almost any official papers he pleased for the purpose of compiling his Impartial Collection of the Great Affairs of State from the beginning of the Scotch Rebellion in the year 1639 to the Murder of King Charles I (1682-3). In 1864 Browne wrote to Nalson asking for a list of the papers, but does not appear to have received a reply and the papers eventually came into the possession of the Dukes of Portland and have now been deposited in the Bodleian Library. They comprise invaluable State Papers of the period, many of them communications from other European powers to Parliament.(54)

Secondly, as already mentioned, Browne kept a mass of original papers, Minutes (such as the account of the Trial of Archbishop Laud), Draft Journals and other records at his country home at Eydon in Northamptonshire and these descended through his daughter, Martha Cave, to the Lords Braye. Many of the papers, such as Original Petitions laid on the Table of the House, would now be regarded as records of the house which should never have left its custody. Some pre-date Browne’s period of office and were perhaps kept by him for their procedural importance.(55) In many cases papers relating to a particular matter are divided between Main Papers and the Braye Manuscripts in a seemingly arbitrary fashion.(56) The papers include many copies of documents and minutes and transcripts of royal and other speeches for entry in the Journal.(57) Increasingly in later years, Browne kept at Eydon the drafts of Orders of the House which were issued under his signature and entered in the Journal.(58)

Whilst Browne was not noted as an antiquarian nor as the author of an important treatise on the procedure of the House as Elsynge had been, he nevertheless took care to copy and to preserve the procedural work of his predecessors.(59) Browne also compiled procedural treatises and precedent books of his own.(60) In his Commonplace Book, Browne copied a wide range of parliamentary or other documents dating between 1536 and 1688.(61)

Browne’s work as Clerk in organizing the business of the House: which Bills could be read, which committees were ready to report, the hearing of Appeals and what other business might be introduced, is revealed in his diary sheets which have survived for 1641-2 and 1670-3.(62) Further light on the working of the Parliament Office is thrown by lists of fees and bills for office supplies for Browne and his predecessors, which survive amongst the Braye papers.(63)

Lastly, mixed with official records are a certain number of Browne’s family papers to which reference has been made in section (1) above.

(3) The Braye Manuscripts after John Browne.
On 26 March 1676 John Browne’s only surviving daughter, Martha, married Sir Roger Cave Bt of Stanford Hall, Northamptonshire (now in Leicestershire). Martha predeceased her father who, in his will, bequeathed his property in Eydon and elsewhere in Northamptonshire firstly to his wife Elizabeth and then to his son-in-law Sir Roger Cave.(64) Since Elizabeth died only a few days after John Browne, Eydon soon passed to Sir Roger Cave and Browne’s (later the Braye Manuscripts) were transferred at a date unknown from Eydon to Cave’s residence of Stanford Hall. Sir Roger’s son, Thomas married Margaret Verney, a descendant of one of the six sisters of the 2nd Baron Braye. The Barony of Braye had fallen into abeyance in 1557 on the death of the 2nd Baron. The abeyance was terminated in 1839 in favour of Sarah Cave, sister and sole heir of Sir Thomas Cave, 7th Bt and one of the five co-heirs to the Barony.

The Braye Manuscripts were brought to light when Sir Henry Maxwell Lyte visited Stanford Hall (then the home of the 5th Lord Braye) in the 1880s in order to calendar the family muniments for the Historical Manuscripts Commission. Maxwell Lyte’s Report, published in 1887, shows that there were then four archive groups at Stanford Hall (the Browne Manuscripts, the Cave Manuscripts, the Peck Manuscripts and the Stuart Manuscripts) of which the Browne Manuscripts formed the most important part.(65) The whole collection, as Maxwell Lyte records, had been found “at different times within the last few years stowed away in no order in one of the lumber rooms at Stanford Hall”. Lyte continues, “since my first visit to his house, Lord Braye has caused many of them to be arranged and bound in volumes”.(66) Many of the Braye Manuscripts were not calendared by Maxwell Lyte and, in fact, do not appear to have been discovered at Stanford Hall until shortly before the Second World War. From time to time between 1887 and 1947 (the year of the first sale of the Braye Manuscripts) scholars were allowed to consult particular documents at Stanford Hall.

In 1935 the 6th Baron Braye began depositing some of the manuscripts in the House of Lords Library with a view to their being examined for their historical value. Eventually some thirteen cases of documents and five volumes were brought to the Library. these included eleven cases of Elsynge’s and Browne’s Draft Journals and the greater part of the other volumes in the Braye Manuscripts. The Librarian, Sir Charles Clay, asked Professor (later Sir) John Neale to examine and report on the manuscripts.(67) Neale made a thorough study of the manuscripts, including a comparison of the “Scribbled Books” and Draft Journals with the Original Journals. He concluded that “no study of the Journals can be made without these drafts” and that, for example, the Draft Journal for 1621 (Braye MS 11) “is much fuller and contains matter which is left out of the Lords Journal”. He also considered Browne’s notes on the trial of Archbishop Laud (Braye MS 8) to be “exceedingly important”(68) and a volume entitled “Extracts James I” which included Bowyer’s Diary and the “Scribbled Book” of 1609-10 (Braye MSS 59-76) to be of similar significance; adding that although Bowyer’s Diary had been printed, it was very important to have the original. Other manuscripts which Neale singled out for special mention included a volume entitled “Westminster Assembly of Divines 1644-46” which contained the famous Westminster Confession(69) and a “Schedule of Fees payable to the Clerk of the Parliaments and other Officers of the House of Lords” (Braye MS 55/86). Neale hoped that the manuscripts would find a permanent home in the House of Lords Library, a hope which was shared by the Librarian and the Clerk of the Parliaments, Sir Henry (later Lord) Badeley. In 1937, however, Lord Braye took four or five cases of manuscripts, plus those deposited in the Lords’ Library, to Sotheby’s “to obtain an idea of their financial value”. Some months later, in February 1938, Charles Clay reported that he had seen Lord Braye who “told me that Sotheby’s thought his MSS had scarcely any financial value. He is keeping them himself. NB. All our trouble for nothing!”, Clay commented.(70)

In 1947, the 6th Lord Braye began the piecemeal disposal of his manuscripts, a process which was to continue until 1987. On 19 February 1947 a bound volume of “Letters and State Papers, 1642-1647” was broken up and sold at Sotheby’s (for about £150) in some twenty lots.(71) In April 1952 the 7th Lord Braye, who had succeeded to the title on the death of his father in February of that year, wrote to Sir Robert Overbury, Clerk of the Parliaments, to say that Stanford Hall had been let to a school for some years and that everything of value had been put away. He, Lord Braye, had only recently been able to go through the books and manuscripts and had at last found the Lords Draft Journals (about which Maurice Bond, Clerk of the Records, had written to him). The Draft Journals were in excellent condition. Lord Braye then brought some of the Journals to the House of Lords Record Office for microfilming and Maurice Bond submitted to him a list of other manuscripts which he would like to have photocopied for the office.(72) In conversation with Sir Robert Overbury, Lord Braye said that he had not yet decided to sell anything and that, in any case, he would contact the Record Office before so doing, but he subsequently revealed that an expert from Sotheby’s had visited Stanford Hall and been told to take any documents of interest to London for sale. A number of Braye Manuscripts were offered for sale at Sotheby’s on 23 June 1952 and the House of Lords successfully bid for three important volumes of “Letters and State Papers, 1572-1710” (including Fulk Onslow’s personal Commons Journal of 1572) (Braye MSS 1-3) and four other miscellaneous items (Braye MSS 4-7).(73) A total of £484 was paid for the manuscripts and the purchase was financed by the Pilgrim Trust and the Friends of the National libraries.(74)

Bond had for long been anxious to acquire for the Record Office the record of the Proceedings against Strafford and Laud, the latter being of “outstanding historical interest” (Braye MS 8). In May 1953 he succeeded in purchasing this volume directly from Lord Braye together with 43 volumes of Draft Journals and “Scribbled Books” dating between 1621 and 1690 (Braye MSS 11-21, 24-35, 41-4). The price of £650 was, again, generously met by the Pilgrim Trust, one of the Trustees, expressing the hope that this would be “positively the last instalment” of Braye Manuscripts. In reply, the Clerk of the Parliaments assured the Secretary of the Trust that the manuscripts purchased “do constitute, as you say, the final instalment of the Braye Parliamentary Papers – the original calendaring of the Braye MSS by Sir Henry Maxwell-Lyte makes this absolutely certain”. In a report to the House of Lords Offices Committee, the Clerk of the Parliaments stated that “now that the entire range of Lord Braye’s House of Lords papers had been acquired, only one series remains in private ownership: those deposited on loan from Welbeck Abbey in the Bodleian Library by the Duke of Portland” and these had now been photocopied for the Record Office.(75)

This confident statement was soon to be disproved. On 23 June 1954 a further five volumes of Braye Manuscripts were offered for sale at Christie’s. one of these was John Browne’s Commonplace Book and the remainder were miscellaneous volumes of parliamentary and personal papers which had not been calendared by Maxwell-Lyte.(76) On this occasion the Pilgrim Trust felt that they could not contribute towards the cost of purchase, but Christie’s agreed that the House of Lords should be allowed to microfilm the four miscellaneous volumes after the sale.(77) The five volumes were purchased by Mr James M Osborn, a literary historian at Yale University from 1938 to 1972, to form part of the James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University.(78)

In 1956 Messrs Maggs Bros purchased a further nine volumes from Lord Braye, consisting of seven unbound Draft Journals 1672-9 and two volumes to sell these to James Osborn but the House of Lords acquired the volumes with a matching bid of £365.(79)

In 1958 the Keeper of Archives at Leicester Museum reported that Lord Braye had recently deposited 50 boxes of family documents in the museum and that they were in such bad condition “that it took several months merely to dry them out and many have perished beyond recall”. The remainder were now being fumigated and would eventually be listed and indexed. The majority of Lord Braye’s more important documents, however, were still in the library at Stanford Hall. The Hall had recently been opened to the public and there had been a certain amount of examination of the documents, leading to the discovery of a Commons’ Diary of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries (Braye MSS 98).(80)

Lord Braye sent further documents to Sotheby’s for sale in 1960. This prompted the Clerk of the Parliaments to write to him deploring the piecemeal disposal of the manuscripts and asking permission for Maurice Bond to visit Stafford Hall with a view to the House of Lords making an offer for any parliamentary records which he found there, as well as those already at Sotheby’s. Bond paid two visits to Stanford Hall and identified eight items which he said gave “vital information about the running of Parliament in the formative years of the seventeenth century, especially during the period of the Civil War”. He therefore recommended that they be acquired as quickly as possible. The first item was a volume bound c. 1885 and lettered “James I Extracts”. This contained, amongst other items, Robert Bowyer’s Parliamentary Diary 1606-7, the earliest surviving “Scribbled Book” and Committee Appointment Book, 1610, Henry Elsynge’s first Draft Journal, 12 March 1620/1 and a Commons Journal, 12-25 February 1623/4 (Braye MSS 59-76). The second and third items were two box files labelled “Stanford MSS” containing, amongst other documents, two Draft Lords Journals 1679-80, a volume of Elizabethan Transcripts”, a Chronological List of Private Acts, 150-1589 and a volume of Commons Petitions of Grievances, 1606-10 (Braye MSS 77-86). Item 4 was a vellum-covered volume containing Precedents and extracts from a Journal of the Short Parliament (Braye MSS 87-8). The remaining items consisted of a volume of Commons Speeches, 1628 (Braye MS 89), two “Scribbled Books”, 1641-2 (Braye MSS 90, 103) and a version of the 1593 “anonymous” diary of the Commons and of Hayward Townshend’s Commons Journal of 1601 (Braye MS 98). Lord Braye said that he wished to keep the “Elizabethan Transcripts”, the Chronological List of Acts, one of the ”Scribbled Books” and the Commons Diary and Journal 1593 and 1601, fir display, but he consented that they should be microfilmed for the Records Office (Braye MSS 23, 79, 80, 91). It was agreed that the remainder should be sold to the House of Lords for £300, with the addition of a volume entitled “Some Parliament Passages. Annis 1621 et 1625” (Braye MS 92) which contained a medieval version of the Modus Tenendi Parliamentum and speeches, most of which were also transcribed in John Browne’s Commonplace Book (Braye MS 96).(81)

In March 1962 Lord Braye brought two more volumes into the Record Office which he had “just found in a box at Stanford, both in John Browne’s hand”. One was a list of tracts which presumably had been in Browne’s library (Braye MS 104) which Bond did not recommend for purchase. The other he described as a “nice little notebook ‘Fragmenta Parlamentaria’ kept by Browne, 1638-45 or so, with some stuff not in LJ” (Braye MS 93).(82) Shortly after this, Maurice Bond ascertained from James Osborn that the latter, at some time in the 1950s, had purchased directly from Lord Braye two volumes entitled “Extracts, Edward I to Elizabeth” and “Parliamentary 1599-1641”. Osborn arranged for the Record Office to be supplied with microfilm copies of the volumes (Braye MSS 94-5). In return, permission was given for all the Braye Manuscripts in the House of Lords Record Office to be microfilmed for Yale University Library.(83) The University of London Library, in 1973, provided a photocopy of an East India Company report which it had purchased in 1947 (Braye MS 105).(84) In 1975, Yale University Library supplied the House of Lords Record Office with a microfilm of John Browne’s Commonplace Book (Braye MS 96).(85)

On the death of the 7th Lord Braye in 1985, his widow Dorothea, Lady Braye gave the House of Lords Record Office first option on the purchase of the remaining manuscripts of parliamentary interest at Stanford Hall. The eight volumes included House of Commons’ Diaries of 1593 and 1601, a Chronological List of Private Acts, 1510-1589 and a House of Lords’ “Scribbled Book” of 1642 (Braye MSS 97-104). The House of Lords agreed in 1987 to purchase the volumes for a total sum of £12,500.(86) This would appear to have been the conclusion of the long process, extending over some forty years, of the acquisition of the Braye Manuscripts by the House of Lords Record Office.

NOTES

1 The biographical information concerning Browne is largely derived from notes compiled by Miss Mary Edmond on the Brownes, Elsyngs, Knyvetts, Bowyers and Walkers, one copy of which is held in the House of Lords Record Office. There is also Maurice Bond’s correspondence and notes concerning Browne. (HLRO Historical Collection No 238.)

2 The uncle died in 1627 but John Browne did not finally come into the money until 1629 (Edmond, p 62). For a list of persons receiving cloaks etc, at his uncle’s funeral, see Braye MS 1, ff 57-8.

3 For an early seventeenth century survey of Fotheringhay College, see Braye MS 49/88.

4 Browne sold Fotheringhay in 1634 to the Earl of Newport and Haselbeech in 1657 to Sir Justinian Isham (Edmond pp 62-3).

5 For papers concerning Eydon see Braye MS 3, f 81.

6 For papers concerning the purchase of Radstone see Braye MS 2, ff 44-5. In 1676 Browne settled this property on his daughter Martha.

7 For references to Twickenham see Braye MSS 2, ff 39-43; 3, ff 33, 71; 48, f 70; 55, f 82; 95, ff 161-2.

8 For references to the Crewe family see Braye MSS ,ff 44-5; 48, f 64.

9 See a biography and a narrative of the life of John Packer, 1572-1648. Braye, MSS 3, ff 31-2; 96, p 472.

10 See draft of Marriage Agreement made by Browne, 12 Jan 1665/6. Braye MS 55/111.

11 For references to the Cave family see Braye MSS 2, ff 1-2; 3, ff 138-9 and HLRO Office File 144/23 for the Cave family’s inheritance of the Barony of Braye.

12 PRO C.66/3767, 3500. A copy of the Letters Patent is in Braye MS 48/66.

13 Braye MS 49/91.

14 He was said to have turned his back on the bishops as he read Bills in the House so that they could not hear clearly “as if their consenting or dissenting to the point in question had been judged unnecessary” (W M Lamont, Marginal Prynne 1660-1669 (1963), 120).

15 Ibid loc cit. Braye MS 8.

16 LJ, VII, 187. Browne complained that his property had been despoiled because he was said to be ‘a Roundhead’ (HLRO Main Papers, 11 February 1644-5). In the same year the House made an Order to assist Browne to recover a debt of £500 (ibid 665).

17 Ibid, X, 565.

18 M F Bond, “Clerks of the Parliament, 1509-1953”, English Historical Review, vol LXXIII (1958), 84.

19 C J, VI, 209.

20 M F Bond, “The Formation of the Archives of Parliament, 1497-1691”, Journal of the Society of Archivists, vol 1, No 6 (1957), 156.

21 Braye MS 3, 55 51-2.

22 LJ, XI, 3.

23 From 5 March 1661/2 one of Browne’s brothers-in-law, Philip Packer, a member of the Middle Temple and an original FRS, deputised for Walker for a short time. It is not clear if he was a Clerk. For a letter from Packer to Browne in 1666 see Braye MS 3, ff 66-7.

24 Braye MS 3, ff 72-3; H M C B, 180.

25 The Commissioners were said to have replied that they did not want any more Lords’ Clerks, for there was one who could not read. (Braye MS 3, ff 84-5; H M C B, 180-1.)

26 For this reason the letter was inserted at the front of the first volume of the Original Lords’ Journals when they were rebound in 1718. The letter is printed in the Report of the Commissioners respecting Public Records (1827), 77.

27 Braye MS 3, ff 136-7.

28 M F Bond, “Clerks of the Parliaments”, op cit, 84.

29 eg Onslow’s Commons Journal of 1572 (Braye MS 1, ff 1-10) and a Chronological List of Private Acts, 1510-1589 (Braye MS 97). It seems likely that many records of the Lower House and of its clerks came into Brown’s hands because of the close connection between Bowyer and Elsynge and the Commons and the custody of the records of both Houses by Scobell during the Commonwealth ((H L MSS, XI, xxvi n).

30 Braye MS 93; E R Foster (ed) Proceedings in Parliament 1610 (Yale University Press, 1966), I, xxii.

31 Braye MS 94, ff 131-5. See also Bowyer’s notes on Magna Carta and other Statutes (Braye MS 48, f 47) and on the formulae to be written on Bills (Braye MS 53/2).

32 The earliest surviving is for February-May 1610 (Braye MS 610); Foster, op cit, xxv-vi.

33 Braye MS 62.

34 Foster, op cit, xxvii-viii.

35 E R Foster, “The Painful Labour of Mr Elsyng”, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society”, vol 62, pt 8 (1972), 21.

36 They survive for 1621-9, HLRO Manuscript Minutes vols 1-5.

37 Braye MSS 11-15. Foster, “The Painful Labour of Mr Elsyng”, op cit, 25.

38 E R Foster, The House of Lords 1603-1649, (University of Nnorth Carolina Press, 1983), 53. Only a few pages of the Bowyer’s Draft Journal survive (Foster, op cit, 247, b 60).

39 LJ III, 74.

40 Foster, “The Painful Labour of Mr Elsyng”, op cit, 28-9.

41 Bond, “The Formation of the Archives of Parliament”, op cit, 156.

42 Foster, “The Painful Labour of Mr Elsyng”, op cit, 35, 50; Bond, “The Formation of the Archives of Parliament”, op cit, 155-6. A draft of chapter 1 of Book One and lists of the contents of book One and the uncompleted Book Two are in Braye MS 52, p 330-416.

43 Foster, “The Painful Labour of Mr Elsyng”, op cit, 42-5. A later-seventeenth century copy of this treatise is to be found in Braye MS 6, ff 1-59.

44 Foster, The House of Lords 1603-1649, op cit, 54. The “Scribbled Books” for 1640- 2 are Braye MSS 16-20, 22-5, 90, 103.

45 HLRO Manuscript Minutes, vols 7-12.

46 Foster, loc cit. The Draft Journal is HLRO Manuscript Minutes, vol 6 and the Original Journal is vol 14.

47 See Notes of Proceedings 1641-89 in Braye MS 53/3-32. These, in particular, contain detailed notes of Appeal Cases. E R Foster, “The Journal of the House of Lords for the Long Parliament” in B C Malament (ed) After the Reformation (Manchester University Press, 1980), 129-46.

48 The “Draft Journals” are the Original Journals, vols 15-47.

49 Foster, The House of Lords 1603-1649, op cit, 54-5.. Previously the “presents” had been entered only in the Manuscript Minutes and the Original Journals.

50 Braye MSS 9, ff 1-12; 26-44.

51 HLRO Original Journals, vol 48-62.

52 Bond, “The Formation of the Archives of Parliament”, op cit, 157.

53 Foster, The House of Lords 1603-1649, op cit, 63; Bond, “The Formation of the Archives of Parliament”, op cit 157.

54 Calendared in “The Manuscripts of the Duke of Portland”, H M C, 13th Rpt, Appendix, pt 1. There is a complete set of photocopies in HLRO Historical Collection No 121.

55 eg papers concerning the Earl of Bristol’s Case, 1626. Brayee MS 1, ff 27-54.

56 eg papers relating to John Durie’s mission, 1632-6. Braye MS 1, ff 96-167; HMC 3rd Report, App 2 and 4th Report, pt 1, App 159-63.

57 eg 1671-3 minutes of speeches by the King, Lord Keeper and Speaker or the Commons. Braye MS 9, ff 60-72.

58 eg Draft Orders, HL 1679-89. Braye MS 9, ff 103-324. There are also some origina, signed Orders, eg for 1642, Braye MS 45/7, 8.

59 eg Selden’s “Baronage” and Ralph Starkey’s “Discourse”, Bray MS 5; “Judication in Parliament” and “Observations, Rles and Orders”, Braye MS 6; a version of the “Modus Tenendi Parliamentum”, Bray MS 92, ff 1-9; “Customs and Priviledges of the neither House of Parliament”, 1571-86, Braye MS 94, ff 131-5; “Observacons of the House of Commons of Parliament” (a version of William Lambarde’s “Notes”), Braye MS 94, ff 154-71; House of Commons’ Diaries, 1593 and 1601, copied in Browne’s hand, Braye MS 98; “Extracts out of Exact Abridgement of Records, 1330-1483”, in Browne’s hand, Braye MS 100; “Notes Concerning Parliament, 1327-1483”, Braye MS 101; “Precedent Book of extracts from the Rolls of Parliament, the Journals and other records, Edward III-James I”, Braye MS 102.

60 eg Braye MS 10, ff 147-86; John Browne’s Book of Procedure, Braye MS 65; “Fragmenta Parliamentaria. Priviledges and Rights of Parliament and Orders”, Braye MS 93.

61 Braye MS 96.

62 Brays MSS 9, ff 56-7; 10, ff 1-2, 103-16; Foster, the House of Lords 1603-1649, op cit, 47.

63 eg 1603-24, 1640 and 1677, Braye MSS 9, ff 80-1; 52, pp 260-6; 54/33-41, 86.

64 Northants Wills, Third Series, f 111. A copy appears in Miss Edmond’s “Notes”, pp 76-80.

65 HMC 10th Report, Appendix, pt vi, 104-252. The Cave family and estate papers have been deposited in the Leicestershire Record Office, see Heather E Broughton, Family and Estates Records in the Leicestershire Record Office (Leicester Museums Pbliciations, No 57, 1984), 8-9.

66 ibid, 104. Braye MSS 1-3 and 8 are in this binding. The order of arrangement in these volumes is not always strictly chronological.

67 Neale’s notes on the manuscripts are in HLRO Office File 1.

68 “These notes undoubtedly contain a great deal of matter which is not in the ‘State Trials’ where there is practically nothing beyond Laud’s own account or in the Lords’ Journals where there is very little or in Rushworth’s Historical Collections… It may well be that Browne#s notes contain matter of very great importance indeed” (HLRO Office File 1/33).

69 HMCB, 119. This volume was sold c 1947. It is not in HLRO.

70 HLRO Office File 1/13.

71 HMCB, 145-67. HLRO did not bid on this occasion. One of the purchasers, Sir William Teeling MP, allowed HLRO to photograph his acquisitions and, in 1968, sold the originals to the Office (Braye MSS 57-8). One lot, a “Paper presented by the East India Company to the House of Lords, 8 February 1646/7” was purchased by the University of London Library (MS 260). A photocopy is in Braye MS 105. An original examination of Lord Conway, 5 June 1644 and copies, in Browne’s hand, of five letters from Charles I to Henrietta Maria, 1645 (HMCB, 152, 157), were purchased for the Osborn Collection, Yale University Library. the remaining lots were widely dispersed (PHLRO Office File 144/60).

72 HLRO Office File 144/7-9, 11, 18, 100. Only the 1661 Draft Journals were photographed since it was hoped to purchase the rest for HLRO.

73 Sotheby’s sale 23.6.1952, lots 120-2, 125-6, 128, 130. Also in the sale was an important manuscript collection of the music of John Dowland, showing John Browne’s strong musical interests (lot 131, HMCB, 108. It was purchased by Yale University Library.

74 HLRO Office File 144/22, 32-50; 263.

75 Ibid, 178/43.

76 Lots 108-12. The contents of the Commonplace Book are listed in HMCB, 119-24.

77 The photographs are Braye MSS 45-55. The Commonplace Book was not microfilmed at this time as its contents were not considered of sufficient importance. A microfilm was subsequently supplied by Yale University Library Braye MS 96).

78 Osborn also acquired in England over many years a number of important literary and music manuscripts. He died in 1976. For a copy of his obituary in the New York Times, see HLRO Office File 697/523.

79 Braye MSS 9, 10, 36-40. HLRO Office File 219.

80 HLRO Office File 309/31.

81 HLRO Office File 373/1-18. See M F Bond, “An Acquisition of Parliamentary Records, “Times Literary Supplement”, 12 May 1961 (HLRO Office File 373/24). In the course of the transaction a number of manuscripts were temporarily “lost” by Lord Braye but “found” again when Bond visited Stanford Hall (HLRO Office File 373/15).

82 This was purchased for £10 (HLRO Office File 373/28).

83 HLRO Office File 373/29-51. Osborn thought he had paid about £500 for the two volumes.

84 HLRO Office File 650/98; HMCB, 166-7.

85 HLRO Office File 682/231. This had been purchased by James Osborn at Christie’s in 1954.

86 HLRO Office File 875/11. One indication of the rise in valuation of the manuscripts is that, in 1990, a letter from Charles I to the Earl of Warwick, 1642 (HMCB, 146), one of those sold at Sotheby’s in 1947, was offered to the Record Office for £1,250. (HLRO Office File, 922/3.)

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