more recent sources do not speculate. He was not a young man by the standards of the time: his namesake and cousin, the chief justice, died probably at a slightly earlier age. Family Bromley's married, by 1560 at latest, Elizabeth Fortescue, daughter of Sir Adrian Fortescue, a Hertfordshire landowner. Sir Adrian was executed on 9 July 1539 under an act of attainder that was mainly directed at the Pole family, including the Countess of Salisbury. However Fortescue's offence was unspecified, the clause relating to him mentioning "diverse and sundrie detestable and abhomynable treasons." In the 17th century Sir Adrian was to be venerated as a Catholic martyr and he was beatified in 1895. However, the real reasons for his execution remain mysterious and it is not at all clear that he was a religious conservative: in fact, his earlier period in favour had been because of his kinship to Anne Boleyn but he seems to have been on poor terms with Thomas Cromwell. So he may have been attached to the attainder as an act of political or personal spite among Protestants. Elizabeth Fortescue was one of the offspring of Sir Adrian's second marriage, to Anne Rede. One of her brothers was John Fortescue of Salden, who had been in Princess Elizabeth's service during the reign of her Catholic sister, Mary I, and proved a pillar of the Elizabethan regime and a persistent parliamentarian, later becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer. Her brother Anthony Fortescue, on the other hand, actually was a Catholic conspirator, closely involved with the Pole family. Another brother, Thomas, seems to have negotiated Elizabeth's marriage with Bromley, purchasing part of the manor of Holt from Anthony Bourne to settle on her in 1578. Bromley and Elizabeth had four sons and four daughters. Of these: Sir Henry Bromley, the eldest son and heir, and a politician of at least regional importance, married Elizabeth Pelham. Their son, Thomas Bromley, was an MP of the early 17th century. Elizabeth Bromley married Oliver Cromwell, uncle of the Lord Protector Anne Bromley married Richard Corbet, son of Reginald Corbet, a distinguished judge. Their son, Sir John Corbet, 1st Baronet, of Stoke upon Tern, known as "the Patriot," was a determined opponent of absolute monarchy and an important Parliamentarian and Presbyterian leader regionally during the English Civil War. Meriel Bromley married John Lyttelton. They were the ancestors of the Lyttelton Baronets and Barons