Henry Brandon, 1st Earl of Lincoln

Henry Brandon, 1st Earl of Lincoln (German Earl of Lincoln ) (* 1523 - † March 1, 1534 ) was an English nobleman . He was the second son of Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk and his third wife Mary Tudor , Queen Dowager of France and sister of King Henry VIII of England . During his lifetime, Henry, who died at the age of ten, was his only English-born nephew, who was far ahead in the line of succession, especially since the king himself had no sons.

He and his older brother of the same name, Henry Brandon (born 1516), are often mistakenly mistaken for the same person because of the similarity of names and since they both died as children. He is also not to be confused with his younger half-brother of the same name, Henry Brandon, 2nd Duke of Suffolk .

Life

Henry Brandon was born to his parents' fourth child and second son. Since it was not uncommon for children to be named after deceased siblings, Henry may have been named after his older brother, who died as a baby or toddler before he was born. It is more likely, however, that his uncle Henry VIII (English Henry VIII) was his godfather and named him after himself, as he usually did with his baptized children. Henry had two older sisters, Frances Brandon , (who later became the mother of the Nine Day Queen Jane Gray ) and Eleanor Brandon , but as the only son he was his father's sole heir to the Duke of Suffolk title .

On June 18, 1525, the king also raised the boy to Earl of Lincoln , on the same day that he raised his illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy to Duke of Richmond . Henry Brandon was the youngest peer to receive a title that day at just two years old , and as the chronicler reports "so young that Sir John Vere was called to carry him in his arms before the King" during the ceremony.

In the following year, Henry's parents obtained guardianship for the seven-year-old Katherine Willoughby, 12th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby , daughter and heiress of the late William Willoughby, 11th Baron Willoughby de Eresby , and María de Salinas, and it was decided that the rich heiress would be with Henry to get engaged.

The young Earl grew up with his sisters and his fiancee under the care of his mother in the estate Westhorpe and was there from tutors taught. His French tutor, Pierre Valence (or Peter Valens) wrote a textbook on learning the French language for his protégé, entitled An Introduction to French for Henry, the young Earl of Lincoln, child of great hope, son of the noble and serene Princess Mary, Queen of France by the grace of God .

Henry's mother died on June 25, 1533, and his father decided to marry Henry's fiancée Katherine himself. Henry was possibly already ailing, in any case he was ten years old and not of marriageable age anyway and his father did not want to lose Katherine's inheritance.

Henry only survived his mother by just under nine months, he died on the morning of March 1, 1534, some contemporaries claimed of a broken heart. It is not known where the young earl found his final resting place.

There are no known portraits of Henry Brandon, but there is a sculpture of him in Wingfield College in East Anglia.

Role in the line of succession

Henry VIII had no legitimate male heir during Henry's lifetime, because his daughter Mary was his only child and after numerous miscarriages it seemed unlikely that Queen Catherine of Aragon would have any more children. This brought the children of his two sisters closer to the line of succession. However, the sons of his older sister Margaret and James IV of Scotland were foreigners as princes of Scotland; their place in the line of succession to the throne of England was therefore controversial. Henry VIII then excluded them from the line of succession in the 2nd Act of Succession in 1536 . Henry Brandon, on the other hand, was English as the son of Henry's younger sister Mary and an English nobleman. So there was no small chance that one day he could become King of England. Observers from Edinburgh to Rome saw the young Earl of Lincoln as a very likely contender for the throne. Almost twenty years after his death, his sister Frances would try to claim the English throne for her daughter Jane Gray , who was queen for only nine days , before Henry's daughter Mary .

literature

• Gunn, Steven J .: Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, C. 1484-1545 Blackwell Publishing, Williston 1988, ISBN 0-631-15781-6 (about his father)
• Perry, Maria: The Sisters of Henry VIII: The Tumultuous Lives of Margaret of Scotland and Mary of France , Da Capo Press Edition, 2000, ISBN 978-0-306-80989-7 (via his mother)
• Starkey, David (Ed.): Rivals in Power: Lives and Letters of the Great Tudor Dynasties Macmillan, London 1990, ISBN 0-333-51452-1 .

Web links

Image of a sculpture by Henry Brandon on the Wingfield College homepage

Individual evidence

1. ^ Family tree of the Brandons In: Starkey, David (ed.): Rivals in Power: Lives and Letters of the Great Tudor Dynasties Macmillan, London 1990, p. 39
2. ↑ Perry, Maria: The Sisters of Henry VIII: The Tumultuous Lives of Margaret of Scotland and Mary of France , Da Capo Press Edition, 2000, pp. 136/154
3. ↑ [1] "... the lorde Henry Brandon, sonne to the duke of Suffolke and the Frenche Quene the kynges sister, a childe of twoo yere old, was greated Erle of Lincoln ..." In: Hall's chronicle: containing the history of England, during the reign of Henry the Fourth, and the succeeding monarchs, to the end of the reign of Henry the Eighth, in which are particularly described the manners and customs of those periods. Carefully collated with the editions of 1548 and 1550 , London 1809, p. 703
4. ↑ [2] "... The King's nephew, Henry [...] was so young that Sir John Vere was appointed to carry him ..." In: William S. Childe-Pemberton: Elizabeth Blount and Henry the Eighth, with some account of her surroundings , 1913, p. 138
5. ↑ Barbara J. Harris: English Aristocratic Women 1450-1550. Marriage and Family, Property and Careers . 2002 Oxford University Press, p. 261 Original title: "Introduction in Frensche for Henry the young erl of Lyncoln childe of greate esperaunce sonne of the most noble and excellent princess Mary (by the grace of God queen of France)"
6. ^ [3] "On Sunday next the duke of Suffolk will be married to the daughter of a Spanish lady named lady Willoughby. She was promised to his son, but he is only ten years old ... “Letter from the Imperial Ambassador Chapuys to Emperor Charles V. In: 'Henry VIII: September 1533, 1-10', Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 6: 1533 (1882)
7. ↑ "... what Lincoln sickly [...] and Suffolk did not wish to gamble on his son's survival and risk losing Catherine's lands. So he married her himself. “In:" Starkey, David (ed.): Rivals in Power: Lives and Letters of the Great Tudor Dynasties Macmillan, London 1990, p. 178
8. ↑ [4] "Yesterday morning died the earl of Lincoln ..." Letter of March 2, 1534, William Lord Dacre to Lady Dacre In: 'Henry VIII: March 1534, 1-5', Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic , Henry VIII, Volume 7: 1534 (1883)
9. ^ Gunn, Steven J .: Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, C. 1484-1545 Blackwell Publishing, Williston 1988, p. 118

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Earl of Lincoln 1525-1534	Title expired