Add MS 78204

EVELYN PAPERS. Vol. XXXVII (ff. 214). Miscellaneous official papers and documents relating to Browne’s period of residence in France; 1641-1665, n.d. Mostly copies. Partly Latin and French. Partly cipher. Browne was appointed agent to Charles I in France on 23 July 1641, following Leicester’s departure for Ireland, and continued in the same post until the Restoration. The material consists mostly of diplomatic instructions, sign-manual warrants, petitions for arrears, official accounts and orders for payment of expenses; for copies of some of these documents in the hand of John Nicholas, see Add. MS 15856, and for a copy of accounts submitted by Browne for his expenses over the period from Feb. 1645 to July 1647, see Add. MS 15856, f. 93. Also included are papers relating to his private Anglican chapel, cipher-keys, lists of books and manuscripts, and heraldic and genealogical notes partly relating to the grant of his baronetcy.

ff. 214.

1. ff. 1-101. Letters of credence, diplomatic instructions, privy seal warrants, with sign manual, of Charles I and II, commissions and passport, etc., issued to or on behalf of Browne; 1641-1643 and 1649-1654. Mostly copies. Partly Latin and French. Partly cipher. The letters of credence, which are in French, are addressed to the Prince of Orange, Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu, 1640-1641. A few documents derive from or passed through the hands of Sir Robert Long and Sir Edward Nicholas. For a (largely ciphered) letter from Charles I to Browne, 7 Nov. 1647, see Add. MS 34710, f. 3. Included are:-

(a) Charles I: Letters of credence for Browne as envoy to the Prince of Orange; 3 Feb. 1640/1. Copy.

(b) Charles I: ‘Copy of a Patent of Clerke of the Councell’; 23 Feb. 1640/1.

(c) Charles I: Letters of credence for Browne as Resident to Louis XIII following the recall of the Earl of Leicester; 13, 27 July 1641. Copy.

(d) Charles I: Instructions to Browne as Resident to Louis XIII; 23 Feb., 23 July 1641. Sign manual of Charles I, countersigned by Sir Henry Vane the elder.

(e) Charles I: Privy seal, etc., for payment of Browne’s salary as Resident, with a further sum for his recent journey to the Low Countries; 20 July 1641. Copies.

(f) Charles I: Privy seal letters to Browne, 19 July 1642 (French), 12 Sept. 1642 (with autograph revisions), 21 March 1642[/3] (cipher), 5 April 1643. For a further ciphered letter of 7 Nov. 1647, see Add. MS 34710, f. 3.

(g) Charles I: Credentials for Browne as Resident to Louis XIV and the Queen Regent, Anne of Austria; 20 June 1643. Copies. French.

(h) Account by Browne of his interview with Cardinal Mazarin announcing the arrival of George, Baron Goring (later 1^st Earl of Norwich) as Charles I’s ambassador extraordinary; 8 Dec. 1643. Autograph.

(i) Safe-conduct by Browne for his secretary Edward Messervy to travel in England ‘to eyther of their Ma^ties Courts’; Paris, June 1644. Drafts, partly autograph, signed.

(j) Request by Browne for an allowance for secret service; circa July 1644. Draft.

(k) Legal document relating to a sum of ‘tres mil cent cinquante livres’ and rehearsing a warrant, dated Oxford, 26 Dec. 1644, of Charles I to Browne as ‘barronet’, which mentions Henrietta Maria and [Thomas] Cantarini; n.d. French.

(l) Charles I: ‘Copy of His Majesties promise of the Ambassie of Constantinople to Sr R. Br:’; 28 Nov. 1645. Cipher. With ‘Copies and Praecedents concerning the Turkish Embassie’ of both Peter Wyche, circa Mar. 1627 or Jan. 1629, and of Sir Sackville Crowe, 9 Apr. 1634. See also Browne’s letters to Nicholas, 9 June and [?15] Dec. 1645, for his canvassing for the post, Add. MS 12185, ff. 47v, [94].

(m) Charles I: ‘Drauft of a Privie Seale for payment of my Arrears’ (Browne’s docket) in the hand of Long; n.d., before Jan. 1649.

(n) Charles II: Warrant under sign manual confirming Browne as his Resident in France at the same salary; 30 July 1649. With two copies, the first attested by Sir Edward Walker.

(o) Charles II: Letters of credence for Browne as his Resident to Louis XIV; Saint-Germain, 30 July 1649. Copy.

(p) Charles II: Privy seal warrant, etc., for grant to Browne, without fees, of the baronetcy for which a warrant had been drawn up by Charles I in [Feb.] 1643; 11 Aug. 1649. Two copies.

(q) Charles II: Form of a letter requesting the loan of £100; St. Germain, 20 Sept. 1649. Two copies, one with annotations by Browne.

(r) Charles II: Warrant to Luke Whittington, agent of the fleet at Dunkirk, for payment to Browne on his behalf; 18 Dec. 1649.

(s) Charles II: Grant for augmentation of Browne’s arms; Jersey, 8 Feb. 1649/50. Copy, endorsed by Evelyn. See Add. MS 37675, ff. 23v-24 for a copy, 1663, with rehearsal of original grant, and Add. MS 14294 for another version.

(t) Charles II: Commission to Browne for collection of his fifteenths on prizes, etc.; 30 Mar. 1650. Copy, with note by Nicholas and docketed by a Nicholas scribe as ‘renewed February 27^th 1660’. French.

(u) James, Duke of York: Letter of introduction to his uncle the Duc de Vendome on behalf of Browne; 10 Dec. 1650. Signed.

(v) Charles II: Warrant to Edmund Wyndham, agent for the English fleet at Dunkirk, for payment to Browne of the King’s fifteeenths of prizes, etc.; Perth, 22 Jan. 1651. With French transl. by Charles du Bosc, ‘Secretaire Interprete de sa Ma^té en la langue Angloise’.

(w) Charles II: Privy seal warrants for payments of Browne’s arrears out of the prize money; 6 June 1650-23 March 1652. Partly copies.

(x) Louis XIV: Passport for Mary, wife of John Evelyn to travel to England; Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 18 May 1652. Copy. French.

(y) Charles II: Letter to Browne enclosing warrant for payment to him of an (allowance from his pension from the French King; Louvre, 24, 26 June 1652.

(z) Charles II: Safe-conduct for Browne to travel to towns and ports in Brittany and Normandy, with his instructions; 31 Oct. 1652. Partly French.

(aa) Charles II: Warrant to Browne for allowance of sums formerly assigned to him; 9 July 1654. Copy, in Browne’s hand. Preceded by original autograph receipt signed by Charles II.

(bb) Browne: Receipt for a gift of 1000 livres from the Duke of York; 31 Aug. 1655. Autograph copy.

(cc) Charles II: Letter of revocation for Browne as English Resident in France; Brussels, 16 May 1657. French. Signed.

(dd) Louis XIV: Order to Henri Auguste de Loménie, Comte de Brienne, tresorier de l’Epargne, for payment of 4000 livres to Charles II; 5 May 1658. Copy. French.

(ee) Note that Browne had returned from France and kissed the King’s hand; 6 June 1660. Copy.

(ff) List by Browne of his bills for extraordinary allowances throughout his period of office in France; 5 June 1660. Autograph.

(gg) Privy seal warrant to Browne for payment of arrears of his salary as Resident; 30 May, 15 June 1662. Autograph draft and copy, attested by William Cooke, 29 Feb. 1723/4.

(hh) Notes by Browne of ‘what moneyes I haue Receiued uppon my French Employment’; 8 Sept. 1664. Autograph.

2. ff. 142-161. Ten cipher-keys of Browne; after June 1640-Dec. 1659, n.d. Partly drafts. Span dates with reference to the forms of names are in square brackets.

(a) Browne’s substitution-cipher with Charles I, docketed ‘My Character with his Majesty: during the Rebellion’; circa 1642-1649. For another copy, see Add. MS 15857, f. 151.

(b) Unattributed cipher-key in hand of Browne, docketed ‘Cifre &c.’; between 27 Nov. 1641 [Secretary Nicholas] and 2 Mar. 1643 [Marquess of Worcester].

(c) Cipher with Lord Percy [cr. 28 June 1643]; circa 28 Nov. 1644 [Lord George Goring]-16 Mar. 1648 [Sir Thomas Fairfax].

(d) Two ciphers with Nicholas; bef. 27 Oct. 1643 and 1644. See also Egerton MS 2550, f. 54. See also (g) below.

(e) Cipher with ‘Mr William Crafts [Crofts]’; circa 1644 [WMK see Nicholas 1644: between 27 Oct. 1643 [Marquess of Newcastle] and ?1645 [death of Grotius].

(f) Two ciphers written in the hand of Browne, the first consisting wholly of proper names, circa Oct. 1643 [Marquess of Ormonde]-Sept. 1646 [Sir Francis Windebank], and the second (‘Draught of a Cifre’) containing none, n.d. Draft. For the watermarks cf. Heawood, no. 652 (dated 1642 or after).

(g) ‘Cipher with Mr Secretary Nicholas’; n.d. [aft. 1645], with additions in the hand of Browne. See also (d) above.

(h) ‘Cypher with Mr. John Clotterbooke’; circa Jan. 1649. Text and docket ‘Cypher with’ in hand of John Nicholas, with identification in that of Browne.

(i) Browne’s cipher with his ‘Cousin Tuke’ [Sir Samuel Tuke], etc.; Dec. 1659.

3. Memorials, projects, articles, etc., relating to the agreement between Browne and the superintendants of posts in Paris for the establishment of courier services from via the Normandy ports to Weymouth; 1643-1644. Partly copies. French.

4. ff. 102-141. Papers relating to Browne’s chapel in Paris and to Anglican affairs in France, etc.; 1647-1657, n.d. Charles I’s instructions to Browne in 1641 included the maintainance of a chapel. See also Evelyn, Diary, III, pp. 21, n.3, 247-8, Add. MS 4200, f. 15v (newsletter of 1/11 May 1646), Evelyn, Diary and Correspondence, IV, p. 281 (Hyde to Browne, 30 July 1653), and an article in Notes and Queries, 24 Aug. 1935, p. 129, for Browne’s house and chapel in the Faubourg St Germain and the concern for the ordination of Anglican bishops there. The chapel was discontinued by order of Charles II in 1655 (Add. MS 34702, f. 219).

(a) Certificates, in Latin, by John Bramhall, as Bishop of Derry for the ordination as Anglican priests in Browne’s chapel of Philippe le Cousteur, al. Couteur, later Rector of St. Martin’s, Jersey, 4 Jan. 1647 (also dated in margin, 17 Sept. 1648), and of Joshua Ahior, al. Ahier, M.A of Oxford, 1, 2 July 1649. Copies. Latin. Interlined later above Bramhall and Ahior are the names of Thomas Sydserf and Daniel Brevint.

(b) Certificates of ordination in Browne’s chapel by Thomas Sydserf, Bishop of Galloway, for Ahior as deacon and priest; 1, 2 July 1649 O.S. Copies. Latin.

(c) Testimonial of the pastors and elders of the Anglican Church in Dieppe in favour of the ordination of Jacques le Francy, a Catholic convert, formerly Professor of Philosophy there; n.d. French, with English draft.

(d) Letter of Richard Steward, Dean-designate of St. Paul’s and Westminster, to M. des Fontaines (i.e. Daniel de Mazières, al. Maizières, physician to the Elector Palatine) rel. to a tract on the necessity of bishops, with epitome, composed by him; [Jersey,] 11 Feb. 1650. The tract, in French, is now Add. MS 78239 below.

(e) Epitome, as mentioned above (d), of the tract by M. des Fontaines on the episcopal government of the Church of England; Feb. 1650. French. Followed by a copy in Browne’s hand of a petition of ‘Daniel de Mazières Esq, [?Sieur] Des Fontaines’ (docket) to Charles II for the grant of a baronetcy or knighthood and offering assistance in the matter of the reformed churches; n.d. French.

(f) Certificate by John Cosin of the marriage of a French couple, Gedeon du Pré and Sara Barbier, in the chapel of Browne’s house; 13 Dec. 1650. Copy in Browne’s hand. Latin.

(g) Note of receipt by John Cosin of ‘all the furniture that belongeth to the Communion-Table & Pulpit in the King’s Chappell at his Residents House’; 1 Jan. 1657. Autograph, signed.

(h) ‘Of the Necessity and Antiquity of Auricular Confession. By Mr^{D[ean] C[osin]’; n.d. Copy in the same hand as (c) above.}

(i) Prayers read in Browne’s chapel; circa Jan. 1648. Viz.:- (i) ‘Forme of the Extraordinary Prayers for the Kinge’ (docket in hand of Browne), including lists of psalms for morning and evening prayer and collects for holy days, n.d., circa Jan. 1648; - (ii) Four copies of prayers for the king, taking the form of responses, one of them docketed by Browne ‘Aditionall Occassionall Prayers’, together with a variant version copied in two hands; n.d.; - (iii) Booklet comprising ‘Addt & Occas Prayers’. For the transcription of these, see Joseph Crowther to Browne from St. Germain, 4 Jan. 1648, Add. MS 78223: ‘I haue made my servant transcribe some copies of o^r present Occasionall Prayers for His Majesty ... to bee multiplyed also if yo^r present Sexton bee so much a Clerke’.

(j) Extract from the (?) Anglican liturgy in the hand of Browne; n.d.

(k) Brief discourse ‘Du pouvoir Sacerdotal & de la Confession auriculaire’, and recipe for a purgative; n.d. French.

5. ff. 162-178. Lists of books and manuscripts relating to English and continental diplomacy; 1575-1643; circa 1628-after Feb. 1663.

(a) ‘Note of Manuscripts’, 1575-1637; circa 1637. French. With mutilated leaf copied in same hand of tracts incl. some rel. to Henri IV, Jean Richardot. Pomponne de Bellièvre, and ‘la Serenissima Infanta’ Isabella. French. ff. 3.

(b) ‘Memoire de diuerses Instructions, Negociations, Traités, Histoires, relations et autres Manuscrits’; after May 1641. French. Docketed by Browne ‘Liste de Pieces escriptes a la Main’. ff. 2.

(c) ‘Liste de Pieces escrites a la Main’ (Browne’s docket), incorporating 33 political and diplomatic tracts, 19 ‘Eloges’ and 7 ‘Obsequies et Enterrements’; after June 1641. ff. 2.

(d) ‘Liste des Manuscrits’, comprising forty-three numbered items relating to French politics and diplomacy, with a final (unnumbered) note of a collection of forms of address used by the French royal family in official letters; after Feb. 1643. French. Titles from Browne’s dockets. ff. 4.

(e) ‘Note of such severall treaties and other instruments [1340-1618] contained in one great Paper booke kept in the Archiues at Whitehall’ (docket); n.d. In Browne’s autograph. Imperfect from damage to paper. The list relates in part to the Holy Roman Empire, Scotland, Portugal, the Hanse Towns and merchant adventurers. ff. 6.

(f) ‘Acknowledgement. From my Lord Hollis [Denzil, 1^st Baron Holles] what papers. His Lordship Receaued from me at his goinge Ambassador into France’; 30 June 1663 (docket of Browne).

6. ff. 179-188. Miscellaneous heraldic and genealogical papers of Browne, partly relating to his baronetcy and arms, etc.; 1643[?4]-after 1660. Partly French. ff. 10.

(a) Postscript from dispatch of George, Lord Digby, to Browne, announcing the King’s intention of conferring a baronetcy on him; 21 Feb. 1643[?/4]; n.d. Copy, in hand of Browne, with order of precedence, etc., taken from Thomas Milles’s Catalogue of Honour (1610). For the warrant see G.E.C., Complete Baronetage, III, p. 10, n.(c).

(b) Extracts in the hand of Browne from The Patents concerning ... Baronets (1617); n.d.

(c) Blazon of arms, with crest and motto, of Browne as baronet; n.d. [after 1660]. On the verso occur his autograph remarks, with a sketch of a helmet. Perhaps ‘The Escuchion’ mentioned as sent to him on 9 Jan. 1645: his bookplate with these quarterings, etc., engraved by P. Nolin, a Dutch artist working in the mid century, survives in a BL copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost (1668).

(d) Queries addressed from France by Browne to an unnamed herald, on behalf of three friends; n.d. Copy.

(e) Opinion ‘Concerninge praecedence of Knights Daughters. &tc.’, signed by ‘Lancaster & Clarencieux’; n.d. The name ‘John Taylor’ is written in contemporary red crayon on the verso of the second leaf.

(f) ‘Standards & Cornets’: Blazons of ten royalist banners, incorporating royal beasts and other devices including the thistle and the harp, all crowned, with accompanying pencil sketches; circa mid-17^th cent.

(g) Tabular pedigree of Ernest Bogislaus, Duc (1633-1684) de Croy; n.d., circa Oct. 1644-Jan. 1649. Autograph. French. Letters of Croy, 1644-1649, are in Add. MS 78197.

(h) ‘Genealogie de Messieurs Les Chausers’: relating to a claim for noble status by the family who took their origin from an Englishman, Thomas Chauser, who settled in France in 1501 and married into Breton families; n.d. [?1647]. Docket in Browne’s hand. Watermark: crown over Latin cross in shield and pendent ‘CA’, resembles that of Add. MS 15750, f. 29 (letter of Bendish from Constantinople, Nov. 1647).

(i) Sir Edward Walker, Garter King of Arms: ‘Drauft, in hand of Browne, of a patent for Arms’ for ‘le Sieur Henri Cletcher [son of Thomas, representative of an English noble family, who died at the Hague] a present habitué a Stockholm’; dated London, 26 April 1669. French. For copies of the grant, with attestation of arms by Paul Ferine, Groom of the Robes, see Add. MSS 14293, f. 72 (hand of Sir William Haward), 14294, f. 39, and 37675, f. 29.

(j) Fragment of paper bearing black wax signet seal of a coronet over two intertwined hearts.

(k) Charles II: Warrant ‘A tous qui...’; Brussels, 27 Feb. 1660. French. Subscribed ‘par ordre’ and countersigned by Nicholas. Vellum leaf, docketed by Evelyn ‘Packett: A. & belongs to num: XXI’, and dated in a contemporary hand. Largely illegible.