BRADY, ROBERT, a physician and historian of the seventeenth century, was born in the county of Norfolk, and admitted into Caius College, Cambridge, in 1643. He took his degree of bachelor of physic in 1653, was created doctor in that faculty in 1660, and the same year elected master of his college in pursuance of the king's mandate to that effect. In 1685 he received the appointment of keeper of the records in the Tower of London, and soon after was chosen regius professor of physic in the University of Cambridge. In 1679 he wrote a letter to Dr Sydenham on the influence of air, which was published among the works of that learned person. But his largest and most considerable performance was An Introduction to the old English History, and A Complete History of England from the first entrance of the Romans unto the end of the reign of King Richard II., in three volumes folio, usually bound in two. In his Introduction Dr Brady maintains, first, that the representatives of the Commons in parliament, knights, citizens, and burgesses, were not introduced until the forty-ninth of Henry III.; secondly, that William Duke of Normandy made an absolute conquest of the nation; and, thirdly, that the succession to the crown of England is hereditary, descending to the nearest blood, and not elective;—principles which were afterwards adopted by Hume as the basis of his History. In the year 1681 Brady was chosen one of the represen-
tatives for the university of Cambridge, in the parliament which met at Oxford; and again, 1685, in the parliament of James II., to whom he afterwards became physician in ordinary. But the Revolution put a stop to his public career, and he died in August 1700, immediately after the publication of his History. Dr Brady's other productions were, 1. An Answer to Mr Pety's Book on Parliaments, London, 1681, 8vo; and, 2. An Historical Treatise of Cities and Burghs or Boroughs, ibid. 1690, folio, reprinted in 1704.