Valentine Browne

Sir Valentine Browne, of Crofts, Lincolnshire, (later of Ross Castle, Killarney) was an English politician. He was appointed Surveyor General of Ireland in 1559 by Queen Elizabeth I of England, later being appointed Auditor General.

Browne was an MP (1568) and a member of the Privy Council during Queen Elizabeth's reign. A key figure in the plantation of Munster, he is also the ancestor of the Earls of Kenmare.

In July of 1584, the English government commissioned a survey of the lands of Munster, following the Desmond Rebellions. Sir Valentine Browne was appointed this task which was to facilitate the plantation of Munster.

In a letter dated 10 October 1584, from Sir Valentine Browne to Lord Burleigh, he stated that "the work was so difficult as to have extended over three years." This knight then wrote from Askeaton that he had "travailed hard in superintending the survey, passing through bogs and woods, scaling mountains, and crossing many bridgeless rivers and dangerous waters," waters in which he lost some of his horses, and was twice nearly lost himself; that his son had broken his arm, and that "the service was so severe that many of the men had fallen sick." He described the towns and villages as ruined, and that but one of thirty people was left alive. Desmond's lands, thus void of inhabitants, were, however, "replenished with wood, rivers, and fishings". Sir Valentine's companion, Henry Wallop, expressed more optimism for English prospects in the region.

Browne’s survey resulted in the rebel lands being divided into 35 lots; he himself was granted convert|6500|acre|km2 of land in County Kerry alone, in addition to earlier grants in Hospital, County Limerick. He erected a castle nearby, which was called Kenmare Castle.

The sons of his second marriage became landed proprietors in Munster while the son of his first marriage became High Sheriff of Lincolnshire in 1593. However, unlike most of the English settlers since the Reformation, the Brownes soon reverted to the Catholic faith, and though they can hardly be said to have become Gaelicised they were at least sufficiently identified with the old Gaelic aristocracy to be coupled with the great Irish families in a 17th-century Irish poem eulogising the old order. On 28 June 1588 he purchased the family's vast estates, including the Lakes of Killarney, from the estate of Donald Maccarty, 1st Earl of Clancare.

He died in 1589 and is probably interred in the vaults of St. Michan's Church in Dublin where his descendants also lie.

Bibliography

*Black, J. B. (1936). "The Reign of Elizabeth". Oxford: Clarendon Press.
*Brydges, Egerton (1817). "A Biographical Peerage of the Empire of Great Britain". London.
*Curtis, W. E. (1909). "One Irish Summer". New York: Duffield.
*Piese, A. J., ed. (2001). "Sixteenth Century Identities". Manchester: Manchester University Press.