BROWNE, John

A worthie speech spoken in the Honourable House of Commons Ianuarie the XVII. MDCXLI. By Mr. John Browne Esquire and Knight of the shire for the county of Dorset. Wherein, he explains and layes open to the said House, the manifold eminent dangers which are like to fall upon the county, by reason of Digbies escape, and assistance which is to be feared will joyn with him in his intentions, by reason divers and the most part of Sherborn, Evill, Brunswick, and other towns of which he is Lord over, for the most part consists of Papists, Recusants and other of his confederates. With the relation ...

      London. Printed for H. Homer. 1642 4to., (7) + 1pp. (verso of last leaf blank), title-page a littledustmarked, a good wide-margined copy with the exception of the second leaf which is a little cropped at head with partial loss of a few letters on verso, preserved in later plain wrappers with printed label on upper cover. First edition: rare. Wing B.5120. Thomason E 200(a). ESTC & OCLC together locate copies at 6 libraries in Brit. Isles + 8 elsewhere (i.e. all in US). Although this purports to be a speech actually delivered in the Commons by the Dorset M.P. John Browne (1580-1659), an annotation in the Thomason copy suggests that it was 'not spoken in ye House'. It is, in any event, a strongly worded warning to Parliament, little more than eight months before the commencement of the Civil War and barely two weeks after the attempted arrest of the five Members, that Dorset and particularly those elements in the Digby camp, was a potential powder keg, fully armed and ready to blow. Browne gives a particularly gloomy picture. Dorset was 'never in so much danger as now, never so dejected, nor ever so oppressed as at this present time'. He refers to the 'treacherous confederacy betwixt the Lord Digby and Lunsford' and warns that Digby was particularly dangerous because of 'the greatnesse of his authoritie with us, his larg revenues and multiplicity of tenants, who are for the most part Recusants, and impetuous resisters of the Protestant religion: and not only so, but also by their multiplicity of armor, muskets, and other ammunition every particular man exceeding, having greater and larger store, than any neighboring Protestant thereunto adjoyning, their being within ten miles distance of the said Lord Digbies house, at Sherborn, Evill, Brunswicke, Bedminster, and other villages within the compendium of his Lordships demeans, above seventy housholds of Roman Catholicks, weil provided to make resistance against any that shall oppose them ......'. Browne later concludes by suggesting that Digby's Dorset set should be 'disarmed of their store of pernicious provision' and 'those which are suspicious persons may have their houses searched, for fear of conspiracie'.