Isabel Sharpe

Family/Spouse: Robert Browne. Robert was born before 1440 in of Walcot, Northamptonshire, England; died in 1506. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Margaret Browne was born in of Walcot, Northamptonshire, England.
2. Olive Browne was born between 1490 and 1494 in Bernake, Northamptonshire, England; died between 19 Dec 1545 and 7 Jun 1546.

Notes:

"Christopher Sharpe, esq., was Receiver of the Duchy of Lancaster for Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire from 1460-1496 -- no doubt a position procured by the influence of his elder brother. He may be the same Christopher Sharpe who was escheator of Yorkshire from 1468 to 1472. He held land in Coggeshall, Essex, and was father by Anne of a large family of three sons and six daughters." ["Sharp Practice" by Rosie Bevan, citation details below]

In 2020 Rosie Bevan showed that the ancestry attributed to him by David H. Kelley, Don C. Stone, and David C. Dearborn in "Among the Royal Servants: Welby, Browne, Quarles and Related Families" (Foundations 3:303, July 2010) was based on portions of the Sharpe pedigree in the 1558 Visitation of Essex which can be shown to have been fraudulent. His identity, and his sibling relationship to Nicholas Sharpe (d. 1473), Thomas Sharpe (d. aft. 1477), Robert Sharpe (d. 1488), Stephen Sharpe, clerk, and Olive Sharpe who married Nicholas Foster (d. 1519), can all be proved from IPMs, but the identity of his and their parents is unknown.

Christopher married Anne. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

According to Rosie Bevan (citation details below), she may have been a sister of the chronicler Robert Fabian (d. 1513), and thus a daughter of Agnes Bonefey (d. 9 Sep 1484) by her first husband, John Fabyan, citizen and draper of London, who died in the mid-1450s. Agnes's second husband was Christopher Sharpe's older brother Nicholas Sharpe (d. 1473).

John Fabyan was a son of Stephen Fabyan, cordwainer of Coggeshall, Essex, and his wife Joan. Agnes Bonefey was a daughter of Walter Bonefey, merchant of Colchester, bailiff there 1435-36, 1437-38, 1439-20, and MP for Colchester in 1437. His wife, first name unknown, was a daughter of John Olney (d. abt. 1457-58), whom Bevan (citation details below) describes as "an influential citizen, mercer and Alderman of London, and Merchant of the Staple of Calais. Olney was sheriff of London in 1432, mayor in 1446, Warden of the Mercer’s Company in 1419, 1426, 1432, 1437, 1442 and 1454. He was a principal customer of the Borromei Bank having a turnover value in 1438-39 of £408 5s., and typically borrowed in branches in Middelburg, Antwerp and London where he dealt in wool, linen and other fabrics. Olney also acted as a host to the Italians and reported on goods imported, bought and sold to the exchequer. This was probably carried out at his mansion in Milk Street, which descended to Walter Bonefey’s daughters and eventual heirs; Agnes, wife, first, of John Fabian and secondly Nicholas Sharpe; and Alice, wife, first, of John Pashley (d.1468) and secondly Richard Nanseglos."