"I understand that one Browne, a preacher, is by your lordship and others of the Ecclesiastical Commission committed to the custody of the Sheriff of Norfolk, where he remains a prisoner, for some matters of offence uttered by him by way of preaching; wherein I perceive, by sight of some letters, written by certain godly preachers in your lordship's diocese, he hath been dealt with, and by them dissuaded from that course he hath taken. Forasmuch as he is my kinsman, if he be son to him whom I take him to be, and that his error seemeth to proceed of zeal, rather than of malice, I do therefore wish he were charitably conferred with and reformed; which course I pray your lordship may be taken with him, either by your lordship, or such as your lordship shall assign for that purpose. And in case there shall not follow thereof such success as may be to your liking, that then you would be content to permit him to repair hither to London, to be further dealt with, as I shall take order for, upon his coming; for which purpose I have written a letter to the sheriff, if your lordship shall like thereof."[438] [Sidenote: _Congregationalism--Robert Browne._] Sir Robert Jermyn, in a letter to Burleigh (1581), alludes to Browne as a man who "had many things that were godly and reasonable, and, as he thought, to be wished and prayed for, but with the same there were other things strange and unheard." He further begged the Lord Treasurer to advise Browne to be more careful in his conduct, and to threaten him with sharp censure as an example to others, since he was but a mere youth in age and experience. The Bishop of Norwich, also, writing to the Lord Treasurer about this troublesome clergyman, observed "that Mr. Browne's late coming into his diocese, and teaching strange and dangerous doctrine in all disordered manner, had greatly troubled the whole country, and brought many to great disobedience of all law and magistrates--that yet, by the good aid and help of the Lord Chief Justice, and Master Justice Anderson, his associate, the chiefest of such factions were so bridled, and the rest of their followers so greatly dismayed, as he verily hoped of much good and quietness to have thereof ensued, had not the said Browne returned again contrary to his expectation, and greatly prejudiced those their good proceedings, and having private meetings in such close and secret manner that he knew not possibly how to suppress the same."[439] Browne, at length, through the influence of his illustrious relative, succumbed to the ecclesiastical authority which before he had daringly resisted, and became master of St. Olave's Grammar-school, in Southwark. His subsequent career covered him with disgrace. He had a wife with whom for many years he never lived, a church in which he never preached, and the circumstances of his death, like the scenes of his life, were stormy and turbulent.[440] Whatever sympathy with some of Browne's