Norwich but at Bury St. Edmunds that Browne had produced this effect, and it is probable that he had been led to move into Suffolk by finding that at Norwich the power of the bishop was too strong for him, or that the clergy of the city, then deeply affected with Genevan proclivities and as a body very zealous in their ministerial duties, were by no means willing to befriend or co-operate with a sectary who began by assuming that they were all in the bonds of iniquity. Lord Burghley returned a prompt reply to the bishop's letter of complaint, but as promptly sent back his kinsman to Bury with a kindly excuse for him, and a suggestion that his indiscretions proceeded ‘of zeal rather than malice.’ Browne was no sooner released than he returned to the old course, and the bishop every day received some fresh complaint and became more and more irritated. In the following August he again wrote a strong letter to the lord treasurer, in which he said that his duty ‘enforced him most earnestly to crave his lordship's help in suppressing’ this disturber of his diocese. Again Burghley stood his friend, and when, a little after, Browne was brought before the archbishop, even the primate could not keep his prisoner, and he was set at liberty only to return to his followers with his influence over them increased tenfold. The truth is that the time was hardly favourable for exercising exceptional severity against a zealot of this character, who was for ever declaiming against papistry and Roman errors. The Jesuit mission to England had only just collapsed by the apprehension of Campion on 10 July. Parsons was still at large, and the rack was being employed pretty freely in the Tower upon the wretched men who, if they had succeeded in nothing else, had succeeded in rousing the anti-papal feelings of the masses and the alarm of such statesmen as looked with apprehension upon a revival of catholic sentiment. Nevertheless it became evident that the little congregation, the ‘church’ which prized above all things human the privilege of having their ‘pastor’ present with them, could hardly continue its assembly if Browne were to be continually worried by citations and imprisonment at the will of one after another of the stiff sticklers for uniformity; and when they had sought about for some time for a retreat where they might enjoy liberty of worship unmolested, they emigrated at last in a body to Middleburg in the autumn of 1581. Cartwright and Dudley Fenner were the accredited ministers of the English puritan colony at Middleburg, but Browne and his exclusive congregation were in no mood to ally themselves with their fellow-exiles. All other professing Christians might come to him, he certainly would not go to them. To the amazement and grief of Cartwright he found in the newcomers no friends but aggressive opponents, and a paper war was carried on, Browne writing diligently and printing what he wrote as fast as the funds could be found. Harrison too rushed into print, and the books of the two men were sent over to England and circulated by their followers so sedulously—for not all the Norwich congregation had emigrated—that a royal proclamation was actually issued against them in 1583, and two men were hanged for dispersing the books and one for the crime of binding them!
Meanwhile the violent and imperious character of Browne led him into acts and words which were not favourable to harmony even in his own little company of devoted followers, and that which any outsider who watched the movement must have foreseen to be inevitable happened at last; the Middleburg ‘church’ broke up, and Browne towards the close of 1583 turned his back upon Harrison and the rest, and set sail for Scotland accompanied by ‘four or five Englishmen with their wives and families,’ so much already had the ‘church’ shrunk from its earlier proportions.
Arrived in Scotland Browne began in the old way, denouncing everything and everybody concerned in matters religious or ecclesiastical, and he had scarcely been a month in the country before he was cited to appear before the kirk of Edinburgh, and on his behaving himself with his usual arrogance and treating the court with an insolent defiance he was thrown into the common gaol till time should be given to two theologians who were appointed to examine and report upon his books. Meanwhile some secret influences had been brought to bear in his favour, and just when it was confidently expected that this mischievous troubler would be condemned and silenced, to the surprise of all he was set at liberty, why, none could explain. Browne appears to have remained some months or even longer in Scotland, but he made no way, left no mark, and gained no converts. In disgust at his reception he delivered his testimony against the Scotch in no measured terms, shook off the dust of his feet against them, and setting his face southwards was once more printing and publishing books in the summer of 1584. Once more he was thrown into prison and kept there for some months, and once more Burghley interposed, became security for his good conduct, effected his
