Sir Richard Browne was a merchant and MP from London who became a Major general in the Parliamentarian army during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. A moderate Presbyterian, after victory in the First English Civil War Browne supported a negotiated settlement in which Charles I retained his throne. As a result, he fell out with radicals such as Oliver Cromwell, and was excluded from Parliament by Pride's Purge in December 1648.

Pride's Purge is the name commonly given to an event that took place on 6 December 1648, when soldiers prevented members of Parliament considered hostile to the New Model Army from entering the House of Commons of England.