George Wyatt

Notes:

Birth:
Allington Castle, Maidstone, Kent, England

George married Jane Finch on 8 Oct 1582 in Caswell, Kent, England. Jane (daughter of Thomas Finch and Katherine Moyle) was born in 1555 in of Eastwell, Kent, England; died on 27 Mar 1644. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Francis Wyatt was born in 1592 in Boxley Manor, Maidstone, Kent, England; died in Virginia, USA; was buried on 24 Aug 1644 in Boxley Manor, Maidstone, Kent, England.
2. Haute Wyatt was born on 4 Jun 1594 in Boxley Manor, Maidstone, Kent, England; died on 31 Jul 1638 in Boxley Manor, Maidstone, Kent, England; was buried on 1 Aug 1638 in Boxley Manor, Maidstone, Kent, England.
3. Isabel Wyatt was born about 1595 in Bedfont Parish, Middlesex, England.
4. Eleanor Wyatt

Notes:

http://www.burgoyne.com/pages/bdespain/famhis/bio20530.htm

(1) David Michael Loades (University of Durham), Encyclopaedia Britannica (1972), vol. 23, p. 827

Introduction

Wyat, Sir Thomas, the Younger (c. 1521-1554), English soldier and conspirator who led one of the most serious rebellions of Tudor times, was the son of Sir Thomas Wyat (q.v.) the elder. On his father's death in 1542 he inherited extensive Kentish estates, including his principal seat, Allington Castle. At that stage he had a reputation for recklessness, and was briefly imprisoned in 1543 for taking part with Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, in a London street riot. Thereafter he served abroad, and traveled extensively in Germany, France, Italy, and Switzerland, acquiring an extensive knowledge of military matters and recognition as a skilful and daring captain.

Beginnings of Wyat's Rebellion

The date of his return is uncertain, but in the autumn of 1549 he submitted to Protector Somerset's council a timely project for a selective militia to provide a safeguard against civil disturbances. Somerset's fall soon afterward caused this plan to be abandoned, but Wyat seems to have used his position in Kent (he was sheriff in 1551) to create a rudimentary organization on his own initiative. On Edward VI's death (July 1553) he supported Mary I, and proclaimed her at Rochester, but by the end of the year rumours of the proposed marriage between mary and the future king Philip II of Spain had drawn Wyat into an extensive conspiracy. It was originally planned that Henry Grey, duke of suffolk, should raise his friends and dependents in Leicestershire, Sir James Crofts on the Welsh Marches, Wyat in Kent, and Edward Courtenay, earl of Devon, and Sir Peter Carew in the Southwest. The plot was detected and forced into premature action at the end of January 1554, with the result that Crofts did not stir, Devon turned informer, and suffolk and Carew could make only feeble gestures. Only Wyat succeeded, through his local organization and powers of leadership, in raising a force, and the whole burden of the action therfore fell upon him. The sheriff of Kent, Sir Robert Southwell, and Henry Neville, Lord Abergavenny, tried unsuccessfully to raise a force against him while the London trainbands, sent down under the command of the aged Thomas Howard, 3rd duke of Norfolk, deserted to him.

Uprising Collapses

Lack of confidence, and conflict within the council, resulted first in an offer to negotiate, and only belatedly in a resolute attempt to oppose him. On Feb. 3, at the head of about 3,000 men, he entered southwark unchallenged, but was unable to cross London Bridge. Success therafter depended upon a sympathetic rising in London, for which he had good reason to hope if he could take the city authorities by surprise. For this purpose he attempted a rapid night march by way of Kingston-upon-Thames, but found the royal forces under William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, awaiting him. The morale of both sides was extremely low, but that of the rebels disintegrated first, and they surrendered after a nominal engagement.

The Rebel's Fate

Wyat was tried on March 15, and executed on April 11, 1554, strenuous but unsuccessful efforts being made to the last to persuade him to implicate Princess Elizabeth (afterward Queen Elizabeth I) in his conspiracy. After his death he and his followers were widely regarded as martyrs to the cause of patriotism. His widow and five surviving children, rendered destitute by his attainder, were relieved by Queen Mary's generosity in 1557, but only in 1563 did his son George regain a part of his inheritance.

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(2) Sidney, Lee, in Leslie Stephan & Sidney Lee, ed., Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 1885-1901[reprint 1993]), v. 21, pp. 1102-1104

The Young Life of a Rebel

WYATT, SIR THOMAS (1521?-1554), the younger, conspirator, was the eldest and only surviving son of Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder [q.v.], by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Brooke, third lord Cobham. He was brought up as a catholic. He is described as 'twenty-one years and upwards' in the 'inquisition post mortem' of his father, which was dated 8 Jan. 1542/3. The Duke of Norfolk was one of his godfathers. In boyhood he is said to have accompanied his father on an embassy to Spain, where the elder sir Thomas Wyatt was threatened by the Inquisition. To this episode has been traced and irremovable detestation of the Spanish government, but the anecdote is probably apocryphal. All that is positively known of his relations with his father while the latter was in Spain is found in two letters which the elder Wyatt addressed from Spain to the younger, then fifteen years old. The letters give much sound moral advice. In 1537 young Wyatt married when barely sixteen. He succeeded on his father's death in 1542 to Allington Castle and Boxley Abbey in Kent, with much other property. But the estate was embarrassed, and he parted with some outlying lands on 30 Nov. 1543 to the king, receiving for them 3,669l. 8s. 2d. In 1542 he alienated, too, the estate of Tarrant in Dorset in favour of a natural son, Francis Wyatt, whose mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Edward Darrel of Littlecote. Wyatt was of somewhat wild and impulsive temperament. At an early age he had made the acquaintance of his father's disciple, Henry Howard, earl of surrey [q.v.], and during Lent 1543 he joined Surrey and other young men in breaking at night the windows of citizens' houses and of London churches. They were arrested and brought before the privy council on 1 April, and they were charged not merely with acts of violence, but with having eaten meat during Lent. Surrey explained that his efforts were directed to awakening the citizens of London to a sense of sin. Wyatt was inclined to deny the charges. He remained in the Tower till 3 May. In the autumn of 1543 Wyatt joined a regiment of volunteers which surrey raised at his own expense to take part in the siege of Landrecies. Wyatt distinguished himself in the military operations, and was highly commended by Thomas Churchyard, who was present (cf. CHURCHYARD, Pleasant Discourse of Court and of Wars, 1596). In 1544 Wyatt took part in the siege of Boulogne and was given responsible command next year. When Surrey became governor he joined the English council there (14 June 1545), Surrey, writing to Henry VIII, highly commended Wyatt's 'hardiness, painfulness, circumspection, and natural disposition to the war.' He seems to have remained abroad till the surrender of Boulogne in 1550. In November 1550 he was named a commissioner to delimit the English frontier in France, but owing to ill-health was unable to act. Subsequently he claimed to have served Queen Mary against the Duke of Northumberland when the duke attempted to secure the throne for his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey. but he took no well-defined part in public affairs at home until he learned of Queen Mary's resolve to marry Philip of Spain. He regarded the step as an outrage on the nation's honour, but, according to his own account, never thought of publicly protesting against it until he received an invitation from Edward Courtenay [q.v.], earl of Devonshire, to join in a general insurrection throughout the country for the purpose of preventing the accomplishment of the queen's plan. He cheerfully undertook to raise Kent. Help was vaguely promised him by the French ambassador.

Taking Steps

The official announcement of the marriage was published on 15 Jan. 1553/4. Seven days later Wyatt summoned his friends and neighbours to meet at Allington Castle to discuss means of resistance. He offered, if they would attempt an armed rebellion, to lead the insurgent force. Like endeavours made by Courtenay, the earl of Suffolk, Sir James Crofts, and Sir Peter Carew, to excite rebellion in other counties failed [see CAREW, SIR PETER]. The instigators elsewhere were all arrested before they had time to mature their designs. Wyatt was thus forced into the position of chief actor in the attack on the government of the queen. He straightway published a proclamation at Maidstone which was addressed 'unto the commons' of Kent. He stated that his course had been approved by 'divers of the best of the shire.' Neighbours and friends were urged to secure the advancement of 'liberty and commonwealth,' which were imperilled by 'the queen's determinate pleasure to marry with a stranger.'

Initiating the Rebellion

Wyatt showed himself worthy of his responsibilities and laid his plans with boldness. Noailles, the French ambassador, wrote that he was 'estimée par deçà homme vaillant et de bonne conduicte;' and M. d'Oysel, thehe French ambassador in Scotland, who was at the time in London, informed the French king, his master, that Wyatt was 'ung gentil chevallier et fort estimé parmy ceste nation' (Ambassades de Noailles, iii. 15, 46).. Fifteen hundred men were soon in arms under his command, while five thousand promised adherence later. He fixed his headquarters at the castle of Rochester. Some cannon and ammunition were secretly sent him up the Medway by agents in London; batteries were erected to command the passage of the bridge at Rochester and the opposite bank of the river. When the news of Wyatt's action reached the queen and government in London, a proclamation was issued offering pardon to such of his followers as should within twenty-four hours depart peaceably to their homes. Royal officers with their retainers were despatched to disperse small parties of Wyatt's associates while on their way to Rochester; Sir Robert Southwell broke up one band under an insurgent named Knevet; Lord Abergavenny defeated another reinforcement lead by a friend of Wyatt named Isley; the citizens of Canterbury rejected Wyatt's entreaties to join him, and derided his threats. Wyatt maintained the spirit of his followers by announcing that he daily expected succour from France, and circulated false reports of successful risings in other parts of the country. Some of his followers sent to the council offers to return to their duty, and at the end of January Wyatt's fortunes looked desperate. But the tide turned for a season in his favour when the government ordered the Duke of Norfolk to march form London upon Wyatt's main body, with a detachment of white-coated guards under the command of Sir Henry Jerningham. The manuvre gave Wyatt an unexpected advantage. The duke was followed immediately by five hundred Londoners, hastily collected by one Captain Bret, and was afterwards joined by the sheriff of Kent, who had called out the trained bands of the county. The force thus embodied by the government was inferior in number to Wyatt's, and it included many who were in sympathy with the rebels. As soon as they came within touch of Wyatt's forces at Rochester, the majority of them joined him, and the duke with his principal officers fled towards Gravesend.

Attacking London

Wyatt set out for London at the head of four thousand men. He found the road open. 'Through Dartford and Gravesend he marched to Blackheath, where he encamped on 29 Jan. 1553/4. The government acknowledged the seriousness of the situation, and sent Wyatt a message inviting him to formulate his demands, but his was only a means of gaining time. On 1 Feb. 1554 Mary proceeded to the Guildhall and addressed the citizens of London on the need of meeting the danger summarily. Wyatt was proclaimed a traitor. Next morning more than twenty thousand men enrolled their names for the protection of the city. Special precautions were taken for the security of the court and the Tower; many bridges over the Thames within a distance of fifteen miles were broken down; all peers in the neighbourhood of London received orders to raise their tenantry; and on 3 Feb. a reward of land of the annual value of one hundred pounds a year was offered the captor of Wyatt's person.

Captured & Tried For Treason

The same day Wyatt entered Southwark, but his followers were alarmed by the reports of the government's activity. Many deserted, and Wyatt found himself compelled by the batteries on the Tower to evacuate Southwark. Turning to the south he directed hes steps toward Kingston, where he arrived on 6 Feb. (Shrove Tuesday). The river was crossed without difficulty, and a plan was formed to surprise Ludgate. On the way Wyatt hoped to capture St. James's Palace, where Queen Mary had taken refuge. But his schemes were quickly betrayed to the government. A council of war decided to allow him to advance upon the city and then to press on him from every quarter. He proceeded on 7 Feb. through Kensington to Hyde Park, and had a sharp skirmish at Hyde Park Corner with a troop of infantry. Escaping with a diminished following, he made his way past St. James's Palace. Proceeding by Charing Cross along the Strand and Fleet Street he reached Ludgate at two o'clock in the morning of 8 feb. The gate was shut against him, and he was without the means or the spirit to carry it by assault. His numbers dwindled in the passage through London, and he retreated with very few followers to Temple Bar. There he was met by the Norroy herald, and, recognising that his cause was lost, he made a voluntary submission. After being taken to Whitehall, he was committed to the Tower, where the lieutenant, Sir John Brydges (afterwards first Lord Chandos), received him with opprobrious reproaches. On his arrest the French ambassador, De Noailles, paid a tribute to his valour and confidence. He wrote of him as 'le plus vaillant et asseuré de quoyee j'aye jamais ouy parler, qui a mis ladicte dame et seigneurs de son conseil en telle et si grande peur, qu'elle s'est veue par l'espace de huict jours en bransle de sa couronne' (Ambassades de Noailles, iii. 59). On 15 March he was arraigned at Westminster of high treason, was condemned, and sentenced to death (Fourth Rep. Deputy Keeper of Records, App. ii. pp. 244-5).

Executed on Tower Hill

On the day appointed for his execution (11 April) Wyatt requested Lord Chandos, the lieutenant of the Tower, to permit him to speak to a fellow-prisoner, Edward Courtenay 'to confess the truth of himself.' The interview lasted half an hour. It does not appear that he said anything to implicate Princess Elizabeth, but he seems to have reproached Courtenay with being the instigator of his crime (cf. FOXE, Acts and Monuments, iii. 41, and TYTLER, Hist. of Edward VI and Mary, ii. 320). Nevertheless, at the scaffold on Tower Hill he made a speech accepting full responsibility for his acts and exculpating alike Elizabeth and Courtenay (Chronicles of Queen Jane and Queen Mary, p. 73; BAYLEY, Hist. of the Tower, p. xlix). After he was beheaded, his body was subjected to all the barbarities that formed part of punishment for treason. Next day his head was hung to a gallows on 'Hay Hill beside Hyde Park,' and subsequently his limbs were distributed among gibbets in various quarters of the town (MACHYN, Diary, p. 60). His head was stolen on 17 April.

Family

Wyatt married in 1537 Jane, daughter of Sir William Hawte of Bishopsbourne, Kent. Through her he acquired the manor of Wavering. She bore him ten children, of whom three married and left issue. Of these a daughter Anna married Roger Twysden, grandfather fo Sir Roger Twysden [q.v.], and another Charles Scott of Egerton, Kent, of the family of Scott of Scotshall. The son George was restored to his estate of Boxley, Kent, by Queen Mary, and to that of Wavering by Queen Elizabeth in 1570. He collected materials for a life of Queen Anne Boleyn, the manuscript of which passed to his sister's grandson, Sir Roger Twysden. In 1817 there was privately printed by Robert Triphook from a copy of Wyatt's manuscript 'Extracts from the Life of Queen Anne Boleigne, by George Wyat. Written at the close of the XVIth century.' The full original manuscript in George Wyatt's autograph is among the Wyatt MSS., now the property of the Earl of Romney. Twysden also based on Wyatt's recollections his 'Account of Queen Anne Bullen,' which was first issued privately in 1808; it has little likeness to Wyatt's autograph 'Life.' The Wyatt MSS. contain letters and religious poems by George Wyatt, as well as a refutation of Nicholas Sanders's attacks on the characters of the two Sir Thomas Wyatts. George Wyatt, who died in 1623, was father of Sir Francis Wyatt [q.v.]

Portrait

A portrait of Sir Thomas Wyatt the younger in profile on panel belongs to the earl of Romney, and is now in his London residence, 4 Upper Belgrave Street.

Sources

[Dr. G. F. Nott's memoir (1816) prefixed to his edition of the Works of Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder (pp. lxxxix-xcviii) gives the main facts. An official account of Wyatt's rebellion was issued within a year of his execution, under the title of 'Historie of Wyate's rebellion, with the order and maner of resisting the same, etc., made and compyled by John Proctor [q.v.], Mense Januarii, anno 1555,' reprinted in the Antiquarian repertory, vol. iii. The account of the rebellion in Grafton's Chronicle is said to be from the pen of George Ferrers. Holinshed based his complete narrative of the rebellion in his Chronicle on Proctor's History, with a few hints from Grafton. A few particulars are added in Stowe's Annals. A full narrative with many documents form the Public Record Office is in R. P. Cruden's History of Gravesend, 1842, pp. 172 sq. See also Loseley MSS. edited by Kempe, 126-30; Diary of Henry Machyn, 1550-63 (Camden Soc.); Wriothesley's Chronicle (Camden Soc.); Lingard's Hist.; Froude's Hist.; Miscell. Genealogica et Heraldica, ii. 107 (new ser.); Bapst, Deux Gentilhommes-Poètes de la Cour de Henry VIII, pp. 2666 seq.; Cave Browne's History of Boxley Parish, Maidstone, 1892; Wyatt MSS. in the possession of the Earl of Romney; information kindly given by the Hon. R. Marsham-Townshend.]

Birth:
Allington Castle, Maidstone, Kent, England

Died:
beheaded

Thomas married of Kent de Brunne Jane Haute in 1537. Jane (daughter of William Haute and Mary Guildford) was born in 1522 in Bishopsbourne, Kent, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Married:
Allington Castle, Kent, England

Notes:

http://www.burgoyne.com/pages/bdespain/famhis/bio41060.htm

(1) Catherine Millsing (Oxford University), in Encyclopaedia Britanica (1972), v. 23, pp. 826f.

Introduction

Wyat, Sir Thomas (1503-1542), English poet and diplomatist, belonged to a family long settled with some distinction in the West Riding of Yorkshire. In the time of Henry VII the family moved to Kent and in 1493 the poet's father, Henry, bought the castle and estate of Allington near Maidstone, where ten years later his elder son Thomas was born to his wife, Anne, daughter of John Skinner of Reigate, Surrey. Henry Wyat maintained his family's standing; after being imprisoned and according to his son tortured by Richard III, he became a privy councilor to Henry VII, a knight of the Bath at the coronation of Henry VIII, knight banneret in 1513, and treasurer of the King's Chamber in 1523. Till his death in 1536 he showed a practical, affectionate, and trusting interest in his son's welfare, revealed in letters of 1536 to Thomas Cromwell; his character is movingly commemorated by the poet in letters to his son, Thomas the younger.

Career At Court of Henry VIII

Thomas the elder was entered at St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1515. In 1520 he married Elizabeth Brooke, daughter of Thomas Lord Cobham, apparently with unhappy results. He was introduced at court, where he held several social offices, and seems to have been popular and admired for his attractive appearance and skill in music, languages, and arms. He was one of the challengers in the royal tournament at Greenwich at Christmas 1525. In 1526 and 1527 he was sent on diplomatic missions to the French and papal courts, from 1528 to 1530 he was high marshal at Calais, and till 1536 he was regularly employed in diplomatic missions, to the satisfaction of Henry VIII. In that year, however, he was sent to the Tower, and it has been thought that this was part of the movement against the queen. Wyat's acquaintance with Anne Boleyn probably began when their families were neighbours in Kent; his admiration for her was known at court, but there is no certain evidence of any more intimate relation between them than loving friendship. The cause of his imprisonment was probably some mere folly, as his father's letters to Cromwell suggest, for he returned to full royal favour on his release after a month's imprisonment. He was knighted in 1537 and was sent on embassy to the emperor Charles V, where again his services were found satisfactory in spite of complaints by Edmund Bonner (archdeacon of Leicester and later bishop of London) who had been sent to join him.

Bonner's complaints were sent in a letter to Cromwell, who was too good a friend of Wyat to take any notice of them. On Cromwell's fall and death, however, Bonner's charges of disloyalty were renewed, and Wyat was also accused of treasonable relations with Cardinal Reginald Pole. He answered the charges in his remarkable Defence (first published in 1816) and was formally pardoned in March 1541. The pardon was almost immediately followed by grants of land from the king, and in 1542 he represented the king when the emperor's ambassadors arrived at Falmouth. He died at Sherborne on Oct. 6, 1542. Several elegies were written, of which Surrey's —"Wyatt resteth here, that quick could never rest" ??? is the most famous. It commemorates a personality that could draw out equally William Camden's phrase "splendide doctus" and Cromwell's "gentle frank heart." Among Wyat's worst follies seems to be that of leaving his own financial affairs in disorder when he went to serve the king. He speaks with simple shame of his own follies in his two noble and loving letters of advice to his son.

Personality

Any fuller impression of his personality must be drived from his poems, which are, in fact, unusual for their time in carrying a strong, though undetailed, sense of individuality. They consist of Certayne Psalmes . . . drawen into Engliyshe meter, published in 1549; three satires and a number of "Songes and Sonettes" published by Richard Tottel in 1557 (in Songes and Sonettes, written by the ryght honorable Lorde Henry Haward late Earle of Surrey, and other, usually known as Tottel's Miscellany); and other songs identified in manuscripts and printed in 19th- and 20th-century editions by Nott and Muir (see Bibliography). Variant readings between Tottel's printing and manuscript versions, sometimes in Wyat's autograph, have caused disagreements about Wyat's intentions and achievements as a metrist. Minor alterations in the most memorable poems serve to satisfy the ear both of Tottel's readers and of 20th century lovers of syncopated rhythms.

Achievements As a Poet

Historically, Wyat's greatest achievements may have been his translations, the first in English, of Italian sonnets, and his handling in the satires of terza rima with such free running over the rhymes as to point to the later unrhymed use of the heroic line in blank verse. Artistically, his finest achievement undoubtedly lies in his songs, where, though making occasional use of French forms such as the rondeau, he relies mainly on the English lyric tradition and his own skill as a lutenist. At his best, his sense of what is singable is exquisite; his failure to write immediately recognizable English sonnets may be due partly to his instinct for the singable. The English sonnet has outlined a weighty, concentrated structure with heavily marked rhymes; Wyat's sonnet translations tend to the floating unstressed endings to which singers can give value. "My galley charged with forgetfulness" is a poor sonnet; it is an attractive 14-line song.

Nearly all the songs, like the sonnets, are about love. Both songs and sonnets use the Petrarchan theme of love-service, and the sonnets use the Petrarchan imagery of fire-ice, love-sieges, and so on; but the general effect is markedly un-Petrarchan. Wyat's poetry is singularly lacking in colour-words, and his world is one of gray shadows and black-and-white; it may be this that seems to transport a Petrarchan storm at sea to the English Channel. His images are rarely richly decorative; sometimes they are of the kind usually ascribed to the Metaphysical poets: images of process and becoming, where it is often impossible to lay a finger on the dividing line between image and imaged. Many of the songs use no imagery; they make direct statements of feeling in bare and commonplace language. Emotional or argumentative point and power are communicated by grammatical means which look forward to Shakespeare's "had, having, and in quest to have," as in the poem beginning "Forget not yet the tried intent":

forget not this,

How long hath been, and is

The mind that never meant amiss,

Poetical force is given to this bare clarity by the pulse of a mastered rhythm. In the best songs the statement coincides magically with the repeated stanzaic form, and sometimes even refrains are integrated syntactically and emotionally into the statement. In the worst work, the bareness is baldness, and the form is flat.

The dramatic origin, in a real or imagined moment or act, of many of the poems has been seen as a foreshadowing of Donne, as has Wyat's awareness of the revulsions as well as the attractions of love. But Wyat's poetry allows his lady, however shadowy, more of independent existence than Donne's; he and she can have relationships other than the passionate. It is also less insistent on personal temperament, its formal structures merely indicating, rather than proclaiming, the personality. The songs in which the lute is referred to or addressed (e.g., "Blame not my Lute," "My Lute awake") clarify the relation of the poet to his hearers; the lute is genuinely addressed, being endowed with that semblance of personality which men give to an object loved through long association, and his talking to it may be overheard without intrusion, so that the poems are neither all-private nor all-public.

George Puttenham, in his Arte of English Poesie (1589), describes Sir Thomas Wyat as "deep-witted," and though this might seem to refer to his meditations in and on the Psalms, or to his musings on private and public life in the satires, it also applies to the grave vitality of some of the love poetry. By Surrey and others, Wyat was revered as an artistic innovator. For the modern reader, he is an original poet whose worst work, awkward or tedious or both, is outweighed by the fine balance between force and delicacy in his best.

Bibliography. — Wyat's Works were ed., with those of Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, by G. Sewell (1717) and G. F. Nott, 2 vol. (1815-16); with those of Surrey, Sackville, Grimald, and Lord Vaux, by R. Bell (1854); and by G. Gilfillan (1858), A. K. Foxwell, 2 vol. (1913), and K. Muir (1949); also in Unpublished Poems Edited from the Blage Manuscript, 1961). They are also included in G. Bullett, Silver Poets of the 16th Century (1947). See also R. Alscher, Sir T. Wyatt und seine Stellung in der Entwickelungsgeschichte (1886); H. B. Lathrop, "The Sonnet Forms in Wyatt and Surrey," in Modern Philology, vol. ii (1904); A. K. Foxwell, A Study of Sir Thomas Wyatt's Poems (1911); E. K. Chambers, Sir Thomas Wyatt and . . . Collected Studies (1933); C. M. Ing, Elizabethan Lyrics (1951); H. A. Mason, "Wyatt and the Psalms," in the Times Literary Supplement (Feb. 27 and March 6, 1953); K. Muir, Life and Letters of Sir Thomas Wyatt (1963); R. Southall, The Courtly Maker: an Essay on the Poetry of Wyatt and His Contemporaries (1964); P. Thomson, Sir Thomas Wyatt and His Background (1965).

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(2) Sidney Lee, in Leslie Stephan & Sidney Lee, ed., Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 1885-1901[reprint 1993]), v. 21, pp. 1098-1102

WYATT, SIR THOMAS (1503?–1542), poet, only son of Sir Henry Wyatt and Anne, daughter of John Skinner of Reigate, Surrey, was born about 1503, at his father's residence, Allington Castle, Kent. The 'inquisitio post mortem' of his father, dated 1537, inaccurately describes him as then aged 'twenty-eight years and upwards.'

A Sketch of Thomas' Father's Life

SIR HENRY WYATT (d. 1537), the father of the poet, resisted the pretensions of Richard III to the throne, and was in consequence arrested and imprisoned in the Tower for two years. According to his son's statement he was racked in Richard's presence, and vinegar and mustard were forced down his throat.

Henry's Fondness For Cats

There is an old tradition in the family that while in the Tower a cat brought him a pigeon every day from a neighbouring dovecot and thus saved him from starvation. There is no contemporary confirmation of the legend. The Earl of Romney, who is directly descended in the female line from the Wyatts, possesses a curious half-length portrait of Sir Henry seated in a prison cell with a cat drawing towards him a pigeon through the grating of a window. Lord Romney also possesses a second picture of 'The cat that fed Sir Henry Wyatt,' besides a small bust portrait of Sir Henry. The pictures, illustrating the tradition of the cat (now at Lord Romney's house, 4 Upper Belgrave Street, London), represent Sir Henry Wyatt in advanced years, and were obviously painted on hearsay evidence very long after the date of the alleged events they claim to depict. The Wyatt patters, drawn up in 1727, relate that Sir Henry on his release from the Tower 'would ever make much of cats, as other men will of their spaniels or hounds.'

Henry' Career At Court

On the accession of Henry VII Wyatt was not merely liberated but was admitted to the privy council, and remained high in the royal favour. He was one of Henry VII's executors, and one of Henry VIII's guardians. Henry VIII treated him with no less consideration than his father had shown him. He was admitted to the privy council of the new king in April 1509, and became a knight of the Bath on 23 July following. In 1511 he was made jointly with Sir Thomas Bolyn [q.v.] constable of Norwich castle (Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, i. No. 3008), and on 29 July of the same year was granted an estate called Maidencote, at Estgarstone in Berkshire. At the battle of the Spurs he served in the vanguard (16 Aug. 1513). He became treasurer to the king's chamber in 1524, but resigned that office to Sir Brian Tuke on 23 April 1528. He had purchased in 1492 the castle and estate of Allington near Maidstone in Kent, and made the place his principal residence. Henry VIII visited him there in 1527 to meet Wolsey on his return from the continent. Wyatt remained friendly with Sir Thomas Boleyn (the father of Queen Anne Boleyn), who had been his colleague at Norwich, and resided at Hever Castle in Kent.

Henry's Death

Sir Henry died on 10 Nov. 1537 (Inq. post mort. 28 Hen. VIII, m. 5), and, in accordance with the directions in his will, which was proved on 21 Feb. 1537/8 (Cromwell, f. 7), was buried at Milton, near Gravesend.

Thomas' Education

At twelve years of age the son Thomas was admitted of St. John's College, Cambridge. He graduated there B.A. in 1518, and M.A. in in 1520. There is a vague tradition that he also studied at Oxford. He married early — in 1520, when not more than seventeen — but as a boy he had made the acquaintance of Anne Boleyn, and long after the date of his marriage Wyatt was regarded as her lover. He soon sought official employment, and became esquire of the body to the king. In 1524 he was appointed clerk of the king's jewels, but the statement that he succeeded his father as treasurer to the king's chamber is an invention of J. P. Collier, who forged entries in official papers in support of it (Trevelyan Papers, Camd. Soc.; SIMONDS, Sir Thomas Wyatt and his Poems). At Christmas 1525 he distinguished himself at a court tournament. Next year he accompanied Sir Thomas Cheney on a diplomatic mission to France.

Thomas Travels in Europe

In January 1526/7 he accompanied Sir John Russell, the ambassador, to the papal court. The story is told that Russell in his journey down the Thames encountered Wyatt, and , 'after salutations, was demanded of him shither he went, and had answer, "To Italy, sent by the king." "And I," said Wyatt, "will, if you please, ask leave, get money, and go with you." "No man more welcome," answered the ambassador, So, this accordingly done, they passed in post together' (Wyatt MSS.) While abroad at this time, Wyatt visited Venice, Ferrara, Bologna, Florence, and Rome. Russell broke his leg at Rome, and Wyatt undertook to negotiate on his behalf with the Venetian republic. On his return journey towards Rome he was taken captive by the imperial forces under the constable Bourbon, and a ransom of three thousand ducats was damanded. Wyatt, however, escaped to Bologna.

Relations at Court

On settling again in England Wyatt refoined the court, but in 1529 and 1530 he chiefly spent his time at Calais, where he accepted the post of high-marshal. His relations with Anne Boleyn continued close until her favours were sought by Henry VIII. Then it is said that he frankly confessed to Henry the character of his intimacy with her (cf. HARPSFIELD, Pretended Divorce), and warned him against marrying a woman of blemished character. In 1533 he was sworn of the privy council, and at Anne's coronation on Whit Sunday of that year he acted as chief 'ewerer' in place of his father, and poured scented water over the queen's hands. The story of the Spanish chronicler that Henry afterwards banished Wyatt from court for two years is uncorroborated. In the spring of 1535 he was engaged in a heated controversy with Elizabeth Rede, abbess of West Malling, who declined to obey the orders of the government to admit Wyatt to confiscated property of the abbey. He was in attendance on the king early in 1536, but soon afterwards the discovery of Anne's post-nuptial infidelities created at court an atmosphere of suspicion, which threatened to overwhelm Wyatt. On 5 May 1536 he was committed to the Tower, but it was only intended to employ him as a witness against the queen. Cromwell wrote to Wyatt's father on 11 May that his life was to be spared. No legal proceedings were taken against him, and he was released on 14 June. His sister Mary attended Queen Anne on the scaffold. A miniature manuscript book of prayers on vellum bound in gold (enamelled black), which now belongs to Lord Romney, is said to have been given to the queen to a lady of Wyatt's family. (A very similar volume and binding is among the Ashburnham MSS. at the British Museum; cf. Archaeologia, xliv. 259-70).

Ambassador to the Emperor in Spain

Wyatt made allusion to the fatal month of May in one of his sonnets; but he had not forfeited the king's favour, and the minister Cromwell thenceforth treated him with marked confidence. In October 1536 he was given a command against the rebels in Lincolnshire, and he was knighted on 18 March 1536/7. In 1537 he became sheriff of Kent. In April of the same year he was appointed ambassador to the emperor, in succession to Richard Pate, and he remained abroad, mostly in Spain, till April 1539. The negotiations in which he was engaged were aimed at securing friendly relations between the emperor and Henry VIII. The diplomacy proved intricate, and although Wyatt displayed in its conduct sagacity and foresight, he achieved no substantial success. He found time in 1537 to send interesting letters of moral advice to his son (printed by Nott). In May 1538 Edmund Bonner [q.v.] and Simon Heynes [q.v.] were ordered under a special commission to Nice, where the emperor was staying, to join Wyatt in dissuading him from taking part in a general council convened by the pope at Vicenza. Wyatt entertained Bonner and his companion at Villa Franca, where the English embassy had secured apartments remote from the heat and crowd of Nice; but Wyatt resented the presence of coadjutors and treated them with apparent contempt. Bonner retaliated by writing to Cromwell (from Blois, 2 Sept. 1538) that Wyatt was engaged in traitorous correspondence with Reginald Pole, lived loosely, and used disrespectful language to the king (cf. Inner Temple Petyt MS. No. 47, f. 9; printed in Gent. Mag. 1850, i. 563-70). Cromwell, a staunch friend of Wyatt, ignored the accusation, and on 27 Nov. 1538 wrote to him in terms of confidence. Wyatt was recalled to England in April 1539.

Special Mission to the Emperor

In the following December he was despatched to Flanders to interview the emperor, who was on the point of paying a visit to the king of France in Paris. Thither Wyatt followed the emperor. In January 1540 Wyatt was especially requested to procure from the French court the arrest of a Welshman named Brancetor, an ally of Cardinal Pole, who had taken service in the household of the emperor, and was with him in Paris. Wyatt failed to secure the arrest of the man, who appealed to the emperor and to the French government for protection. Wyatt pressed the matter in an audience of the emperor, but he proved unconciliatory. Henry VIII, on hearing from Wyatt of his difficulties, instructed him to remain firm. Wyatt followed the emperor to Brussels and boldly renewed his entreaties without result. Wyatt's inability to improve the relations between Henry VIII and the emperor were in part responsible for Cromwell's fall. In 1540 he returned from the Low Countries.

Fallout from Cromwell's Loss, His Restoration & Death

After Cromwell's execution Bonner and Heynes renewed their old attack upon Wyatt. Their charges were now treated seriously, and Wyatt was sent to the Tower at the same time as another innocent ally of Cromwell, Sir John Wallop [q.v.] Wyatt was privately informed of the accusation, and sent an elaborate paper of explanations, denying with much spirit that any treasonable intent could be deduced from any reports of his conversation (cf. Harl. MS. 78, arts. 6, 7; first printed by Horace Walpole in Miscellaneous Antiquities, 1772, ii. 21-54, from a transcript made by the poet Gray). But according to a letter sent by the lords of the council to Sir William Howard on 26 Mar 1541, Wyatt 'confessed uppon his examination, all the thinges objected unto him, in a like lamentable and pitifull sorte as Wallop did, whiche surely were grevous, delyvering his submission in writing, declaring thole history of his offences, but with a like protestation, that the same proceeded from him in his rage and folishe vaynglorios fantazie without spott of malice; yelding himself only to his majesties marcy, without the whiche he sawe he might and must needes be justely condempned. And the contemplation of which submission, and at the greate and contynual sute of the Quenes Majestie, His Highnes, being of his owne most godly nature enclyned to pitie and mercy, hathe given him his pardon in as large and ample sorte as his grace gave thother to Sir John Wallop, whiche pardons be delyvered, and they sent for to come hither to Highnes at Dover.' Thenceforth the king's favour was secure. He had added the estate of Boxley to his large Kentish property, and now elsewhere, exchanging some of his land in Kent for other estates in Dorset and Somerset. He was made high steward of the manor of Maidstone, and early in 1542 he was returned to parliament as knight of the shire for Kent. In the summer of 1542 he was sent to Falmouth to conduct the imperial ambassador to London. The heat of the weather and the fatigue of the journey brought on a violent fever, which compelled him to halt at Sherborne in Dorset. There Wyatt died, and on 11 Oct. 1542 he was buried in the great church of Sherborne. The register describes him as 'vir venerabilis.' The 'inquisitio post mortem,' dated 8 Jan. 1542/3, enumerates vast estates in Kent (34 Hen. VIII, Kent, m. 90).

Likenesses

Sir Thomas Wyatt's (bust) portrait (with flowing black beard and bald head) on panel is in the picture gallery at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The Earl of Romney (at his London residence) owns a portrait (small bust) on panel by Lucas Cornelisz. Two other similar portraits were exhibited at South Kensington in 1866. Two drawings by Holbein are in the Royal Library at Windsor; one was engraved for Leland's tract in 1542, and is said to have been drawn on wood by Holbein. A painting after one of Holbein's sketches is in the National Portrait Gallery, London. According to Vertue, a full-length portrait was at Ditchley, the present seat of Viscount Dillon; it has long been missing. The Bodleian portrait has often been engraved (cf. Dr. Nott's edition of Wyatt's 'Works,' frontispiece).

Family

Wyatt married about 1520 Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Brooke, lord Cobham, and had by her an only surviving son, Sir Thomas Wyatt [q.v.] His widow married Sir Edward Warner [q.v.]

Tributes

Wyatt's unexpected death was widely mourned. John Leland, the antiquary, published in 1542 a Latin elegy of much merit, 'Naenia in mortem Thomae Viati equitis incomparabilis,' which was dedicated to the Earl of Surrey (with woodcut of Wyatt). There followed an interesting anonymous effort: "The Excellent Epitaffe of Syr Thomas Wyat, with two other compendious dytties, wherin are touchyd, and set furth the state of mannes lyfe. (Imprynted at London by John Herforde for Roberte Toye [1542],' 4to, 4 leaves): the portrait of Wyatt, in a circle, is reproduced from Leland's 'Naenia;' a partial reissue was entitled 'A compendious dittie, wherein the state of mans lyfe is briefely touched,' London, by Thomas Berthelet, 3 Jan. 1547/8. but the most interesting poetic tributes to Wyatt were paid by Surrey in two poems — one a sonnet and the other an elegy in forty-eight lines which were first published by Tottel in 'Songes and Sonettes' (1557).

Works of a Sacred Nature

Wyatt belonged to the cultivated circle of Henry VIII's court. He closely studied foreign literature, and acquired a high reputation as a writer of English verse. He ordinarily shares with Henry Howard, earl of Surrey [q.v.], the honour of having introduced the sonnet from Italy into this country. He is better entitled to be treated as the pioneer. Wyatt was Surrey's senior by fifteen years. At Wyatt's death Surrey was only twenty-four. When Wyatt first studied Petrarch's sonnets in Italy, Surrey was barely nine. Surrey may be fairly regarded as Wyatt's disciple. Wyatt wrote both sacred and secular verse, but none of his compositions were published in his lifetime. His sacred poems, in which he shows the influence of Dante and Alamanni, appeared in 1549 as 'Certayne Psalmes chosen out of the Psalter of Dauid commonly called the vij penytentiall Psalmes, drawen into Englyshe meter by Sir Thomas Wyat, knyght, whereunto is added a prologe of the auctore before every Psalma very pleasant and profettable to the godly reader. Imprinted at London by Thomas Raynald and John Harryngton, MDXLIX, 4to.' A sonnet in praise of the book by Surrey is prefixed, and is reprinted in Tottel's 'Songes and Sonettes' (ed. Arber, p. 28). The work is dedicated by the printer Harryngton to William Parr, marquis of Northampton.

Works of a Secular Nature

Many of Wyatt's secular poems were first printed in 1557, with those of Surrey and some anonymous contemporaries, by Richard Tottel, in the volume called 'Songes and Sonettes,' which is commonly quoted as 'Tottel's Miscellany.' Ninety-six poems are there assigned to Wyatt out of a total of 310. In Nott's edittion of the works of surrey and Wyatt (1815-16) important additions to the collection of Tottel were made from manuscript sources. The most historically interesting of Wyatt's surviving poems are thirty-one regular sonnets; of these ten are direct translations of Petrarch, and many others betray his influence. The metre is simplified from the Italian model, and the two concluding lines usually form a rhymed couplet. The rest of Wyatt's poems consist of rondeaus, epigrams, lyrics in various short metres, and satires in heroic couplets. His muse was largely imitative, and French and Spanish verse was laid under contribution as well as Italian. His epigrams often imitate the strabotti of Serafino dell'Aquila. His satires are inspired by a study of Horace of Persius. Wyatt's poetic efforts often lack grace, his versification is at times curiously uncouth, his sonnets are strained and artificial in style as well as in sentiment; but he knew the value of metrical rules and musical rhythm, as the 'Address to his Lute' amply attests. Despite his persistent imitation of foreign models, too, he displays at all points an individual energy of thought, which his disciple surrey never attained. As a whole his work evinces a robuster taste and intellect than Surrey's.

Popularity

'Tottel's Miscellany' was constantly reprinted [see HOWARD, HENRY, EARL OF SURREY; TOTTEL, RICHARD]. Wyatt's poems were separately reprinted from 'Tottel's Miscellany' twice in 1717; in Bell's 'Annotated Edition of English Poets' in 1854; by the Rev. George Gilfillan, Edinburgh, in 1858; and by James Yeowell in the 'Aldine Poets,' 1863.

The poetical works of Wyatt and Surrey have often been edited together, notably in 1815-16, by George Frederick Nott [q.v.], who printed many new poems by Wyatt for the first time from the Harington MSS. and the Duke of Devonshire's manuscript collections (2 vols. 4to), and again in 1831 by Sir Harris Nicolas.

Sources

[An elaborate memoir by Nott is prefixed to his edition of Wyatt's works (1816); a few additions are made by Nicolas and Yeowell in their respective editions of Wyatt's poems. John Bruce, in Gent. Mag. 1850, ii. 235 seq., gave a series of valuable extracts touching Sir Thomas's career from the Wyatt manuscripts, a remnant of a collection of family papers made in 1727 by a descendant, Richard Wyatt (1673-1753); in 1850, when Bruce used them, these papers were in the possession of the Rev. B. D. Hawkins of Rivenhall, Essex, but they were made over in 1872 to the earl of Romney, in whose ancestors' possession they had formerly been; they are now the property of the present earl (information kindly given by the Hon. R. Marsham-Townshend). Mr. Cave Browne in his History of Boxley Parish, Maidstone, 1892, pp. 134 seq., made some use of the Wyatt MSS. See also Arber's preface to his reprint of Tottel's Miscellany, 1870; Cooper's Athenae Cantabr.; Froude's History, Miss Strickland's Queens of England; Bapst's Deux Gentilhommes-Poetes de la Cour de Henry VIII, 1891; Thomas's Historical Notes; Miscell. geneal. et Heraldica, new ser. ii. 107; Brewer and Gairdner's Letters and Papers of Henry VIII; Cal. State Papers, Spanish, v.-vi.; Friedmann's Anne Boleyn; George Wyat's Account of Anne Boleigne, 1817; Brewer's Henry VIII; Warton's Hist. of English Poetry; Professor Courthope's Hist. of English Poetry, ii. 44-67 (an important critical study); Mr. Churton Collins in T. H. Ward's English Poets; Rudolf Alsher's Sir Thomas Wyatt und seine Stellung in der Entwickelungsgeschichte der englischen Literatur und Verskunst, Vienna, 1886 (chiefly dealing with Wyatt's metres); W. E. Simonds's Sir Thomas Wyatt and his Poems (Boston, 1889).]

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Since the painting has been painted over, it is not possible to determine for sure that the artist was Hans Holbein. This portrait comes from the collection of Louis XIV and is located in the Arundel Collection under the title "Il ritratto del Cavaglier Wyat." There are numerous copies in England. The copy in the National Gallery in Dublin is not as good as the picture in Paris. The person portrayed was formerly in error thought to be Thomas More. Syr Henry Wyat of Allington Castle was a counselor to and friend of Thomas More. We may confirm the identification by comparing it to ancient signed copies. It would date from its style to 1528.

Birth:
Allington Castle, Kent, England

Thomas married Elizabeth Brooke about 1521. Elizabeth (daughter of 8th Baron Cobham Thomas Brooke and Dorothy Hayden) was born in 1505 in Cobbham Hall, Kent, England; died about 1560 in England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

William married Mary Guildford. Mary (daughter of Richard Guildford and Anne de Pympe) was born in 1487. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

http://www.burgoyne.com/pages/bdespain/famhis/bio82120.htm

A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF Sir Henry Wiat (AD 1460--1537)
WRITTEN 1963 BY ERIC NORMAN SIMONS, Novelist and Writer, from The Queen and the Rebel: Mary Tudor and Wyatt the Younger, pp. 15ff., Chapter 1: The Men of Allington Castle

From Yorkshire to Allington Castle. The Great North Road, that bold Roman slash across the face of Britain, and down it, one fine day in 1492, a cavalcade, jingling and trotting towards the remote south! This cavalcade had come from the little village of Sothange (South Haigh or Upper Haigh) in the township of Kexbrough, near Darton, a trifle north-east of the Yorkshire town of Barnsley. At its head rode a remarkable man — Henry Wiat.

Two Years In Prison. He was remarkable because, though Yorkshire born, he supported the cause of Henry Tudor, the Lancastrian who claimed the throne of England. For this he had been jailed in Scotland in 'stocks and irons' for two years by Richard III, who is said to have watched him undergo torture. Among other things, he was forced to swallow mustard and vinegar, and was on the verge of death from starvation. Then, so the story went, he made a pet of and fondled a stray cat, whom he 'laid … on his bosom to warm him'. Puss grew so attached to him that each morning she deposited at his feet a pigeon pilfered from a neighbouring dovecote, which was later cooked for him by his compassionate jailer.

The family of Wyatt cherished for many years a half-length portrait of Henry in his cell. There in the picture, sure enough, is the cat, dragging through the grating of the cell a pigeon, which she is about to deliver to the prisoner. The painting is, however, not contemporary, having been produced long afterwards. It is, nevertheless, recorded that thereafter Henry Wiat 'would ever reck much of cats'. In fact, as a token of gratitude, he introduced to the dovecotes of Allington castle a strain of brown pigeons from Venice, which are as numerous there today as in his own time.

The basis for this story is a document preserved among the Romney Papers in the National Portrait Gallery, and if not true, it is certainly ben trovato.

Wiat Uprooted. The branch of the Wiat (or Wyatt) family of which Henry was the head sprang from Adam Wiat, whose spouse was the daughter of Wigen de Northwoods. Henry himself was the son of Richard Wiat and Margaret Bailiff, daughter and heiress of William Bailiff of Barnsley. He lived at Haigh Hall, the family seat, and both he and his family were Yorkshire through and through. At the time of this journey down the Great North Road he was 32. Henry VII had now been on the throne for about seven years, and the young man, his supporter, had high hopes of preferment at the King's hands. Strong in conviction and admirable in integrity, he had probably found life for the supporter of a man of the House of Lancaster (red rose) in the county of Yorkshire (white rose) far from being a bed of roses.

Learning one day that the great castle of Allington in Kent was for sale, he had bought it from its owner, Robert Brent, and was now on his way to take possession. Since Allington was within convenient riding distance of Westminster, he could now become a full-time courtier, and seek fortune at its proper source.

A Trusted Minister of Kings. It was not, indeed, many years before Henry Wiat became a man of influence and wealth, When Henry VII came to power, he granted Wiat by Letters Patent a 'parcel' of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1485, and the Yorkshire squire also bought from the marquis of Dorset an estate and mansion house known as 'The Mote', on the south side of Maidstone. In 1502 he married Anne Skinner, daughter of John Skinner of Reigate in Surrey. (One historian states that this young woman was a sister of the Earl of Surrey, but produces no evidence.)

In the following year, a son and heir was born at Allington, and was christened Thomas. He was to become famous. Henry Wiat continued to enjoy the favour of the King for many years and eventually became an executor of his will. When the boy of 9, Henry VIII, came to the throne, the Countess of Richmond nominated Henry Wiat a member of the Council for the management of affairs of State. This acted in the King's name until the youth was old enough to exercise full authority.

The new King Henry must have liked his guardian, for he granted to him the lands of Sir Richard Emson, namely the manor of, and right of appointing clergy to, Wooton. He also gave him some land at Quinton in Northamptonshire. Seneschal of Tickhill and Bradford, and of the lordship of Hatfield and Conisborough, Henry Wiat was also Constable of Lonestall and Armounderness. A seneschal was in effect a steward. A constable controlled the military forces of the King in the area concerned.

Henry Prospers. In 1507 he had the patronage of Barnes, which again gave him the right to present a suitable person to the benefice or office, and he was also the owner of several estates in Surrey, particularly at and near Camberwell. He was thus a man of enormous wealth and influence, and more important even than this — for the world in which he lived was one of great insecurity, and his posessions could all have been taken from him by a stroke of the pen — he was not only a close friend of the King, but also of his powerful Master Secretary, Thomas Cromwell [his son's namesake].

He had not gone without honours of a less material kind, for he had been made a Knight of the Bath at Henry VII's coronation, and because he fought skilfully and well at the Battle of Spurs in 1513, when the English in France won a notable victory, taking Tournai and Thérouanne,, he was made Knight Banneret. In 1521 he was appointed Keeper of the King's Jewels, a position of great trust and, in the following year, received a special licence from Henry VIII to 'disgavel' his lands in Kent. This meant that he was no longer compelled to divide them equally among any heirs he might have. In 1524, he was made Treasurer of the King's Chamber, an office he held till 1528.

Henry's Life Comes To an End. So this able man prospered until, in 1528, when he was rapidly becoming old, he gave up all his offices and retired to his castle, where he remained — accepting only in 1533 the nominal office of royal Sewerer--till his death in 1537. He was buried at Milton, near Gravesend. A monument is said to have been erected to his memory at Boxley, in Kent, and old inhabitants of that village are recorded as saying, 150 years ago, that they recalled the figure of a pigeon affixed to it, commemorative of his resuscitation by the cat; but sceptics have retorted that this bird was probably 'meant for an ostrich'. [Possibly a phoenix?]

Henry Wiat had a younger brother, who resided at Barking in Essex, and a sister who married a Drax of Woodhall. Haigh hall, his original home, passed into the hands of the Urtons, and so to a family of ironmasters named Cotton. Besides the celebrated Thomas Wyatt, he left two other children: Henry, who remained a private citizen, living in Kent; and Margaret, who married Sir Anthony Lee.

Birth:
Allington Castle, Kent, England

Died:
Allington Castle, Boxley, Kent, England

Henry married Anne Skinner about 1499. Anne (daughter of John Skinner) was born about 1475 in Reigate, Surry, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Thomas married Dorothy Hayden. Dorothy (daughter of Henry Hayden and Ann Elizabeth Boleyn) was born about 1465 in Baconthorpe, Norfolk, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Thomas married Isabel Frowicke about 1485. Isabel (daughter of Thomas de Frowick and Joan Sturgeon) was born about 1465 in of Gunnersbury, Middlesex., England; died after Jan 1517/18. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Richard married Anne de Pympe in 1470 in Oxfordshire, England. Anne (daughter of John de Pympe and Phillippa St. Ledger) was born about 1459 in Nettlestead, Kent, England; died in 1480 in Rolvenden, Kent, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]