The fall of Thomas Cromwell in June 1540 has traditionally been viewed by historians as a watershed in George Browne's episcopate. It is thought to have closed the active phase in his career as a reformer, and to have marked the beginning of a period of quiescence that would last until at least the end of Henry VIII's reign. On first sight this judgement seems plausible for, in the aftermath of his master's demise, the archbishop not only desisted from the aggressive enforcement campaigns that he had previously waged against his clergy in support of the Henrician Reformation, but his voice was also silenced in the historical record because he was left without an influential English patron with which to correspond. The Browne of the 1540s was certainly a less vocal and controversial figure than the ardent activist of the 1530s.

Yet the case for the quiescent Browne has generally been overstated. The prevailing image of the archbishop that it has given rise to – that of a ‘spent force’ who, bereft of Cromwell's protection, was left exposed to the forces of a gathering conservative religious reaction, or who was cast into the political wilderness because his brand of authoritarian religious reform did not fit in with the ‘liberal’ approach favoured by the new lord deputy, Sir Anthony St Leger – has tended to obscure the reality of his public life after 1540.