Henry Bromley (died 1615)

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 twice imprisoned for his political activities, the second and most serious occasion in the aftermath of the Essex Rebellion. Restored to favour in the Jacobean period, he was vigorous in suppressing the Gunpowder Plot.

Bromley was the eldest son of Thomas Bromley, Lord Chancellor and his wife Elizabeth Fortescue, daughter of Sir Adrian Fortescue of Shirburn, Oxfordshire.

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.

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 (1585–1604), with a tendency to support “godly” Protestants. Other MPs of the period include such luminaries as 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. 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. 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 connection 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.

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