Robert Brown the Separatist.—Robert Brown the Separatist, from whom his followers were called "Brownists." Whom did he marry, and when? In the Biog. Brit. he is said to have been the son of Anthony Brown of Tolthorp, Rutland, Esq. (though born at Northampton, according to Mr. Collier), and grandson of Francis Brown, whom King Henry VIII., in the eighteenth year of his reign, privileged by charter to wear his
cap in the royal presence. He was nearly allied to the Lord Treasurer Cecil Lord Burleigh, who was his friend and powerful protector. Burleigh's aunt Joan, daughter of David Cyssel of Stamford (grandfather of the Lord Treasurer) by his second wife, married Edmund Brown. She was half-sister of Richard Cyssel of Burleigh, the Lord Treasurer's father. What connexion was there between Edmund Brown and Anthony Brown of Tolthorp?
Fuller (Ch. Hist., b. ix. p. 168.) says, he had a wife with whom he never lived, and a church in which he never preached. His church was in Northamptonshire, and he died in Northampton Gaol in 1630.
From 1589 to 1592 he was master of St. Olave's Grammar School in Southwark.
G. R. Corner.
Eltham.
Commissions issued by Charles I. at Oxford.—In Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, vol. ii. p. 604., it is stated that a commission was granted to Lord Keeper Littleton to raise a corps of volunteers for the royal service among the members of the legal profession, "and that the docquet of that commission remains among the instruments passed under the great seal of King Charles I. at Oxford." P. C. S. S. is very desirous to know where a list of these instruments can be consulted?
P. C. S. S.