68 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. for a son, whowould not own the church of England for his mother."u After travelling up and down the country, preachingagainst the laws and ceremonies of the church, he went to reside at Northampton. Here his preaching soon gave offence, and he was cited before Bishop Lindsell of Peterborough, who, upon his refusing to appear, publicly excommunicated him for contempt. The solemnity of this censure made such an impression upon Brown, that he re- nounced his principles of separation, and having obtained absolution, he was, about the year 1592, preferred to the rectory of Achurch, near Oundle in Northamptonshire.÷ Upon his promise of a general compliance with the church. of England, improved by the countenance of his patron and kinsman, the Earl of Exeter prevailed upon the archbishop toprocure him this favour. Mr. Brown having obtained a settled and permanent abode, allowed a salary for another person to discharge his cure ; and though, according to our author, be opposed his parishioners injudgment, yet agreed in taking their tithes. Ile was a person of good parts and some learning, but his temper was imperious and uncontrollable ; and so far was he from the sabbatarian strictness espoused by his followers, that he seemed rather a libertine than otherwise. " In a word," continues our historian, " he had a wife with whom he never lived, a church in which he never preached, and as all the other scenes of his life were stormy and turbulent, so was his end." For being poor and proud, and very passion- ate, he struck the constable of his parish for demanding the payment of certain rates; and being beloved bynobody, the officer summoned him before Sir Rowland St. John, a neighbouring justice, in whose presence he behaved with so much insolence, that he was committed to Northampton gaol. The decrepid old man not being able to walk, was carried thither upon a feather bed in a cart ; where, not long after, he sickened and died, in1630, aged upwards ofeighty years, boasting, "that he had been committed to thirty-two prisons, in some of which he could not see his hand at noon day."t Such was the unhappy life and tragical end of Robert Brown, founder of the famous sect, from him called BROWNISTS. He lived in a little thatched house at Thorp Waterville which was still subsisting in the year 1791, and Fuller's Church Hist. b. ix. g. 167. + Collier's Eccl. Hist. vol. ii. p. 582. 1: Fuller's Church Hist. b. ix. p. 163, 169.
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