Sir Henry Bromley (1560 – 15 May 1615) was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1584 and 1604. He was imprisoned twice due to his political activities, with the more serious incident occurring after the Essex Rebellion. Later, during the Jacobean period, he regained favour and played an active role in suppressing the Gunpowder Plot.
Background
Bromley was the eldest son of Thomas Bromley, who served as Lord Chancellor, and Elizabeth Fortescue, the daughter of Sir Adrian Fortescue of Shirburn, Oxfordshire.Grazebrook and Rylands, p.78 He matriculated at Hart Hall, Oxford on 17 December 1576 aged 16 He was one of a group of four students admitted freely at the instance of his father, the Lord Chancellor, by the parliament of the Inner Temple on 7 February 1580.Inderwick, p.303
Political career
Early parliamentary career and succession question
In 1584, Bromley was elected Member of Parliament for Plymouth, along with Christopher Harris. Plymouth was a great port, closely involved in the Anglo-Spanish War, with a tendency to support "godly" Protestants. Other MPs of the period included Arthur Champernowne, Francis Drake, Humphrey Gilbert, and John Hawkins. The MPs were elected by a "privy council," consisting of the mayor and 12 aldermen, but Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford had great influence in the town.Hasler: Plymouth – Author: M.R.P. He was a close ally of Bromley's father, the Lord Chancellor. Harris was one of his employees, so clearly he dominated the elections on this occasion. Bedford died in 1585 but Bromley was re-elected MP for Plymouth in 1586, along with Hugh Vaughan, the earl's secretary and a relative by marriage of Hawkins.Hasler: VAUGHAN, Hugh (d.1607), of Bedford House, Exeter and Barton, near Tavistock, Devon – Author: P. W. Hasler Bedford's influence was largely backed by the powerful Champernowne and Hawkins trading dynasties, who probably approved of Bromley because of his father's close connectionJonesHasler: BROMLEY, Thomas (1530–87), of Rodd Castle and Hodnet, nr. Oswestry, Salop. – Author: W.J.J. to the faction of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. The first two parliaments in which Henry Bromley sat were preoccupied with the trial and execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, in which Thomas Bromley played a central role. Henry Bromley was appointed to a committee which consulted with the queen on the issue on 11 November 1586.
From about 1591 to 1601 he was JP for Worcestershire and was High Sheriff of Worcestershire from 1591 to 1592. He was knighted in 1592. In August 1594 he travelled to Stirling Castle as an attendant of the Earl of Sussex, representing Queen Elizabeth at the baptism of Prince Henry.Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 418.
In 1593 Bromley was elected MP for Worcestershire, his own county, along with William Walsh, a member of a long-established Worcestershire gentry family.Hasler: WALSH, William (c.1561–1622), of Abberley, Worcs. – Author: S. M. Thorpe The MPs were almost always chosen from the county gentry and in this period, the Protestant Russell family, who claimed kinship with the Earls of Bedford were the leading political dynasty.Hasler: Worcestershire – Author: M.A.P. Both Bromley and Walsh were known to be Protestants by conviction.
Bromley and Walsh were soon recruited by Richard Stephens, another Puritan MP, to support the proposal of Peter Wentworth to bring the question of succession before the House of Commons. Wentworth, then MP for Northampton,WENTWORTH, Peter (1524–97), of Lillingstone Lovell, Oxon. had a long history of defending free speech in the chamber of the House of Commons and of promoting Puritanism, and had previously been imprisoned in the Tower of London. A book he had written on the succession came to the authorities'notice in 1591 and he had written to Burleigh that "neither church nor commonwealth can possibly overlive Her Majesty's days, without settling the succession of the Crown."Green, p.107 Wentworth wished Burleigh a long life, as he feared "the State will be greatly weakened when his Lordship is called away." At this point Wentworth favoured recognition of James VI of Scotland as Elizabeth I's successor. The Cecil faction were trying to keep the question open for as long as possible to prevent erosion of Elizabeth's personal authority. A small group of MPs met at Lincoln's Inn on 21 February to consider Wentworth's plan. While they hesitated, they were betrayed to the Privy Council and arrested the following afternoon. Bromley, Stephens and Walsh spent most of the session in the Fleet Prison, and were not released until late April, after the end of Parliament.Hasler: BROMLEY, Henry (c.1560–1615), of Holt Castle, Worcs. and Shrawardine Castle, Salop. – Author: W.J.J. Wentworth refused to apologise or give pledges of good behaviour and died in the Tower in November 1596. Meanwhile, Bromley reinforced his commitment to the cause of James VI by making direct contacts in Edinburgh.Thrush and Ferris: BROMLEY, Sir Henry (c.1560–1615), of Holt Castle, Worcs., Shrawardine Castle, Salop and St. Lawrence Pountney, London; later of Westminster. – Author: Ben Coates
In 1597 Bromley was elected MP for Shropshire, and thus became one of the few MPs to be Knight of the Shire for two counties. Shropshire was gentry-dominated and the main external influence came from the Council in the Marches of Wales, which represented central government in the border counties. Sir Henry had land in Shropshire and his uncle Sir George Bromley and his cousin Francis Bromley had previously represented the county. The president of the council was a political ally, Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, son-in-law of the previous president, Sir Henry Sidney.
He was JP for Shropshire from about 1598 and was collector for the loan in 1598. He was active in campaigns against recusancy. In 1598 he helped search for the escaped Jesuit priest John Gerard and in the following year served on a commission with his brother-in-law, the Warwickshire MP Edward Greville, to search out recusants' goods and lands. In 1600 he was assessed, as of Shropshire, to furnish one horse for service in Ireland. This was for the expedition of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.
Essex rebellion
At least by the time of his imprisonment, Bromley had been closely associated with Essex, offering to "do him service" in a letter he wrote jointly with his brother-in-law, Sir John Scott. The more collegial political arrangement of the previous two decades had been superseded by intense factional struggle,Hammer, p.3-4 between Essex and Robert Cecil, with the queen herself increasingly indecisive and remote.Guy, p. 439 It was a struggle to control royal policy between the queen's favourite and her most trusted minister, in which the latter had the major political and institutional advantages,Guy, p. 440 including continuous direct access to Elizabeth and use of the powerful government intelligence network. Essex inherited the following of many individuals and families who had supported Leicester, including the SidneysGuy, p.441 and regional Puritan politicians like Bromley. By promoting his image as a Protestant hero and patronising Puritan clergy,Guy, p. 449 as well as taking up the cause of James VI,Guy, p. 444 he hoped to appeal to wide circles of support in London and in Parliament. However, as recent evaluations make clear, Essex also had a strong cultural appeal for men like Bromley: more than a mere playboy,Hammer, p. 5 he projected himself as a cultivated nobleman, with a following that was strongly focussed on classical learning and martial honour.Hammer, p. 6 In July 1600, Bromley wrote to Henry Cuff, one of the militant, classically educated men in the earl's household, expressing his whole-hearted commitment, in a letter that was intercepted and copied for Cecil: "My dear Brother, I may not omit this opportunity to urge you to let me hear what is done or what hope there is of doing good for our lord. If nothing be done yet, my hope will be very small that it will be very shortly. It were good in my poor opinion that an end of his expectations were urged. The summer is half done, time is precious, opportunity may be lost; I am and will be as I have promised. I expect but direction, for I am wholly his that you are. Let us not lose the start that we have gotten, but bethink of some means either to be winners or savers. I doubt of the forbearing hand by former experience, for vile natures will ascribe that patience to pusillanimity that the noble would to contempt. For my part I am ready to undergo what he doth, and none that have been most tied to him by benefits are or shall be more tied in affection. Let this suffice, and lose I pray you no time to perform those offices that you have undertaken and I have promised. – From my house at Holt Castle, 29 July."
Bromley was also tied to Essex also through family and regional networks. His brother-in-law John Lyttelton was MP for Worcestershire and allied to his distant relative Edward Littleton, who managed political matters for Essex in neighbouring Staffordshire,Hasler: Staffordshire which he regarded as his "own country",Hammer, p. 194 and had his seat at Chartley Castle. However, Lyttelton was well known to have Catholic sympathies. An important part of the cement holding the Littletons of both counties in the alliance around Essex was a shared antipathy to Edward Sutton, 5th Baron Dudley, a reprobate regional magnate, also of Catholic sympathies, who attempted to disrupt the election of MPs loyal to Essex.
Although Bromley did not take part in the Essex Rebellion of 8 February 1601, he was sent to the Tower of London on 21 February 1601, and examined on 5 May. In June his name appeared on a list of "those that are fined and reserved to her Majesty's use," but significantly without specifying the sum involved. Later in the month he wrote to Cecil from the Tower, complaining that he had made some sort of admission when short of sleep, and hoping "that he may rely on Cecil for satisfying her Majesty of his loyalty, and for his entire liberty in time convenient." A month later, with apparently little progress made, he wrote again, thanking Cecil for accepting his earlier letter, but pointing out he needed to be released if he were to provide further satisfaction – presumably a fine or bribe, the two being not entirely distinguishable – and that "without Cecil's charitable consideration, he, his wife and children will be ruined." On 14 November, still in the Tower, his tone was still more desperate: "Join with the other lords in intercession to her Majesty for my enlargement. I am ready to redeem her favour with the last drop of my dearest blood. In the meantime I pray God to send you your heart's desire."
On 9 February 1602 he again implored Cecil from the Tower: "I beseech you to have my miseries in remembrance, and procure my deliverance from this captivity, drawing with it the ruin of my poor wife and children. Be the means of my enlargement with such convenient speed as may give some life to my languishing estate."