Who Was the Real Charles Brandon?

By Nancy Bilyeau

English Princess Mary Tudor

The great humanist scholar Erasmus once said of Mary Tudor, "Nature never formed anything more beautiful." The pampered and adored younger sister of Henry VIII was married at 19 to Louis XII, king of France. After the princess arrived in Paris with her dowry of 400,000 crowns and hundreds of attendants, the French, disposed to find her a disappointment, admitted that she was, indeed, a "nymph from heaven."

King Louis, 52, crippled with gout, died less than three months after the wedding to the English princess, but not before showering her with jewels, including "the Mirror of Naples," a diamond pendant with a pearl "the size of a pigeon's egg." Everyone expected the widow of the French king to make another spectacular royal marriage.

Instead, while still in France, she secretly took as her second husband a 31-year-old Englishman, Charles Brandon, the newly elevated Duke of Suffolk, celebrated for his good looks, military valor and jousting skill. Before she sailed for France, Mary had told her brother she would only agree to wed the old French king if she could choose her second husband herself. Desperate for the diplomatic alliance, Henry VIII had agreed. But Mary feared that if she returned to England, her brother would force her into another arranged marriage. She persuaded Brandon, whom she had known for years and had probably fallen in love with in England before her marriage, to marry her.  They had no permission to do so and were in disgrace, with Brandon facing arrest, until Henry VIII forgave them. Charles Brandon was, after all, his best friend.

It was a highly romantic episode, inspiring a stream of novels over the centuries, most significantly When Knighthood Was in Flower in 1898, which sold so many copies it inspired a burst of similar historical novels and no less than three films, including one in 1922 financed by William Randolph Hearst and starring Hearst's mistress, Marion Davies.

Mary Tudor and her new husband, Charles Brandon

A booted Marion Davies in When Knighthood Was in Flower

"Margaret" Tudor (Gabrielle Anwar) and Charles Brandon (Henry Cavill) in the miniseries "The Tudors"

But the real Charles Brandon, while an impressive and charismatic man to his contemporaries, is not a one-dimensional figure of handsome chivalry. His record with women was notorious. He'd already been married twice when he wed Mary Tudor -- one of the wives was still alive and fighting the annulment --and had contracted to wed yet a third, a child heiress whose family title he was using. A year and a half before he married Mary, ambassadors gossiped that he was trying to seduce Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands and daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor. The root of his behavior was not womanizing--or at least not only womanizing--but a willingness to use women as a means of gaining fortune and, if possible, fame, a common policy in the Tudor and Stuart age. He had a powerful sexual appeal, and he monetized it.

Like many real people of Henry VIII's court, Brandon is made up of both light and shadow. He is a product of the man-on-the-make spirit of the early Tudor age, which itself was made possible by the violent chaos of the death of Plantagenet rule.

His life is buried in myth, and the first is that Charles Brandon was a favored royal ward, orphaned by the Battle of Bosworth when his father, Sir William Brandon, a heroic man of "pure Lancastrian heritage" bearing the standard of Henry Tudor, was personally slain by Richard III. Which is not true in every respect.

The Brandons were an old, respectable country family. They lived in a small West Suffolk town, drawing income from farms and cattle for at least three centuries. A Geoffrey Brandon, succeeding in trade in Norwich, sent his son, William, to London in the last half of the 15th century. Says one historian: "He was a pushing, shrewd, energetic and very unscrupulous knave, who soon acquired great influence in the city and amassed corresponding wealth. Finally he became sheriff and was knighted by Henry VI." Yet when Henry VI was no longer king, replaced by the Yorkist Edward IV, Sir William Brandon switched to that side, and he lent Edward IV "considerable sums of money."

Which Edward IV declined to pay back.

Ordinarily a rich man would have had no recourse to a King's reneging. But when King Edward died, and his brother Richard III displaced his nephews and took the throne, an opportunity arose for another switching sides. Henry Tudor, in exile in Brittany, was now the leader of the Lancastrians. Brandon threw his support to Tudor. Two of his sons, William and Thomas, joined the Duke of Buckingham's rebellion against Richard III and when it failed, they fled England to join Tudor's cause. William was married to a young widow with some money named Elizabeth Bruyn. In 1484, she gave birth to Charles, the future Duke of Suffolk, in either England or France, and died shortly after.

But before we travel to the heroics of Bosworth, a terrible fact must be disclosed about the young William Brandon, knighted by Henry Tudor before they invaded England. He was, by one historical document, a rapist. In 1478 he was "in ward" for raping an "old gentlewoman" and her daughter, according to Paston. One chronicler of the time thought he would hang for it, but for unknown reasons he went free. The veracity of this record is debated today.

Early 19th century depiction of the Battle of Bosworth

It was a period of sexual brutality. Edward IV tried to assault a beautiful young woman named Elizabeth Woodville but she turned a knife on her own throat, threatening to kill herself. Somehow this made the right kind of impression, and she became his wife and queen. They were the parents of Elizabeth of York, grandparents of Henry VIII, and the present royal family are descended from them. Edward IV had countless mistresses, passing them to his courtiers when he tired of them, often against their will.

But even within this context, standard bearer was a great honor, and William Brandon was a strange choice for it. He was not a close friend of Henry Tudor's, he lacked a distinguished battle record and he was no noble. Probably Tudor, who left England for foreign exile in 1471, did not know about the rapes. One theory is William Brandon was chosen to carry the standard and stand at the side of Tudor because he was tall and strong. Nonetheless, Richard III is said to have "cleaved" his skull in his desperate charge on Tudor. Brandon's death was the most notable loss on Tudor's side.

After Bosworth, the baby Charles Brandon was an orphan. But the romantic tradition that a grateful King raised the boy with his son Henry, sharing lessons, is simply not correct. There is no record of him living with the royal children. And Charles was seven years older than Henry (and two years older than Arthur). As an adult, he was obviously intelligent but knew scant French and exhibited no interest in scholarship; he lacked Henry VIII's knowledge of languages, history, theology, and literature. Instead, Charles Brandon seems to have spent his childhood in the care of his grandfather and uncles, possibly in the country. His later letters, the "worst spelled and written of his day," were "phonetically spelled, proved him to have spoken with a broad Suffolk accent."

When Charles' grandfather died, the family fortune passed to the oldest surviving uncle, Richard. Little Charles had nothing.

Thomas Brandon, another uncle, is an under-appreciated force in the life of Charles. He was an ambitious man of ability who managed to advance himself in the court of Henry VII, and he pulled his young nephew Charles along as best he could. After he became Master of Horse, he found a place for Charles in Arthur's household: he was a sewer, or waiter. A far from cry from the legendary status of chosen playmate to princes.

How then did Charles Brandon rise so high from such inauspicious beginnings, sewer to duke? Like Thomas Cromwell, he used his personal gifts and worked extremely hard. Cromwell was a brilliant lawyer. Brandon was an outstanding athlete, the best jouster in a highly competitive group of men fighting for the attention of first Prince, then King Henry. At the age of 17, he appeared in the lists honoring Arthur's wedding to Catherine of Aragon, and was noticed by all for his prowess when he rode in a tournament held in honor of Philip of Austria and his wife, Joanna of Castile, in 1506. At this time young Brandon was serving as Master of Horse for the Earl of Essex. That household is where he lived; he did not have lodgings at the royal court.

This is the time when Charles Brandon began his marital misadventures. He seduced Anne Brown, a gentlewoman of good family serving Queen Elizabeth, and according to her family, promised to marry her. She was pregnant by him in 1506. But then Brandon jilted Anne for her wealthy widowed aunt, Dame Margaret Mortimer, old enough to be his mother. They married and, once he got his hands on her property, he sold it all and kept the cash. An appalled Venetian ambassador wrote, "In this country, young men marry old ladies for their money."

In 1507, 23-year-old Charles Brandon had the brief marriage annulled and returned to Anne Brown, whom he married. They had two daughters before she died in 1511.

Mary Brandon, by Holbein. She was one of the daughters from his first marriage.

 Lady Mortimer bitterly opposed the annulment, and became a thorn in Brandon's side for 20 years, until he managed to get the pope himself to support the annulment in 1527. The mess of his early marriages was to haunt not just Brandon but his descendants. Decades later, Elizabeth I was supposed to have examined the legal documents of the Mortimer annulment to find a way to discredit Brandon's granddaughter, Catherine Grey, who many considered next in line to the throne but whom Elizabeth loathed.

After Henry VIII succeeded, Brandon rose higher and higher in his estimation, based mostly on his tournament prowess. He took over his uncle's position of Master of Horse. When England went to war with France, Brandon served with great bravery and distinction. Throughout his long life, he was to serve Henry VIII on the battlefield time and again. "He is like a second king," an awestruck advisor wrote Margaret of Austria.

Margaret of Austria

Back in England, Brandon was soon up to his old tricks. He signed a contract to marry his 10-year-old ward, Elizabeth Grey, a wealthy heiress, and was known as Lord Lisle, her family's title, until his best friend, King Henry VIII, made him Duke of Suffolk. "From a stableboy into a nobleman," commented Erasmus skeptically. Now he was one of only three dukes in England.

Brandon was still contracted to his ward when he flirted with Margaret of Austria, pretending to steal her ring while Henry VIII laughed in encouragement. There were rumors that she would marry him, until her father, the Holy Roman Emperor, grew furious. She backed away quickly.

Young Henry VIII

A 19th century historian wrote of Henry VIII and Charles Brandon:

"The two men were of the same towering height but Charles was, perhaps, the more powerful... both were exceedingly fair and had the same golden curly hair, the same steel gray eyes planted on either side of an aquiline nose.... owing to the brilliance of their complexions, they were universally considered extremely handsome."

This was the man Princess Mary fell in love with at the same time her brother was arranging her marriage to the King of France. There is no hint of impropriety between them at the English court; she was scrupulously chaperoned. Brandon did not escort her to France. So why did Henry VIII send his friend, infamous for his treatment of women, to escort a vulnerable Mary back to England after King Louis died? He is supposed to have made Brandon promise not to marry her in France. Brandon was always a loyal friend to Henry VIII...yet he did marry her. The French royal jewels that the couple smuggled out of the country and gave to Henry VIII--including the Mirror of Naples--mollified him.

Henry Cavill's portrayal of Brandon adds to his mythic appeal

Did Mary Tudor find happiness with the husband she chose for herself, who she risked her brother's wrath to marry? Was this a man who, despite his irresistible good looks and athletic prowess, could be a good husband, even in the 16th century? Perhaps. That is another question entirely, fit for another blog post.

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Nancy Bilyeau is the author of a trilogy of mystery novels set in the court of Henry VIII, published by Simon and Schuster. The main character, Joanna Stafford, is a Dominican novice. The Crown was an Oprah magazine pick in January 2012. The Tapestry, the third in the series, was published in 2015. For more information, go to www.nancybilyeau.com

Richard III v Henry VII Naughty or Nice?

I have always been intrigued by the mystery of the Princes in the Tower. Most people are aware that, on the sudden death of their father Edward IV, the two boys were ensconced in the Tower, as was tradition, to await the coronation of the eldest boy as Edward V. But, although preparations for his coronation were underway, it was suddenly claimed that Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville had been bigamous and, therefore, all their children illegitimate.

Since illegitimacy barred the young Edward from the throne, his uncle, Richard III, was, by a statute known as the Titulus Regius, proclaimed as the rightful king and crowned in his stead.

After his coronation in 1483 accounts of the boys’ whereabouts begin to dwindle from the historical record and many believe they never left the Tower alive but were murdered there; suffocated in their sleep with a pillow.

Richard reigned until August 1485 when Henry Tudor landed at Milford Haven to claim the throne for himself. After the Battle of Bosworth, Henry Tudor (and his subsequent heirs) did their best to damage Richard’s reputation and since that date it has been widely believed that Richard III was responsible for the boys’ deaths. Thomas More was the first to blacken his name and William Shakespeare, also writing for a Tudor monarch, twisted Richard’s character further. Consequently many later histories are based on a literary play rather on historical record. Most historians now agree that many of the heinous crimes attributed to Richard were, in fact, committed by others.

Tudor propaganda ensured that the surviving accounts of the years surrounding Bosworth are murky to say the least. Early in his reign Henry Tudor ordered all copies of the Titular Regius to be ‘utterly destroyed’ for reasons which may, or may not, appear obvious. You have to dig deep to find unbiased accounts but they do exist and there are several other candidates that fit the ‘murderer’ tag just as well as Richard.

Richard was crowned king in 1483 and would have been aware that his nephews provided a potential target for those wishing to supplant him. A prudent king would have removed them from the picture. Richard was by all accounts a religious man and killing his nephews would have been sinful, even in those days. It would also be disloyal to his brother to whom Richard had been devoted in life. The act would also be a Godsend to any enemy that wished to turn the kingdom against him and, therefore, foolish. Chronicles prove that Richard was neither imprudent, sinful or foolish. So why, when rumours of the death began circulating, did he not just produce the boys? A lot has been read into this and it does seem to suggest that he could not produce them but that doesn’t necessarily mean they were already dead, they could have been sent out of harm’s way.

Many believe Richard ordered that the boys be removed to safety but there are now so many conflicting accounts and theories as to where they may have been moved to, that it is difficult to sift the good from the bad. During Richard’s reign there was a royal nursery at his castle at Sheriff Hutton where his brother George of Clarence’s children, Margaret, and Edward of Warwick, resided, along with Richard’s legitimate son, also named Edward, and his two illegitimate children, John and Catherine. On Henry’s accession to the throne one of his first acts was to secure the persons of the children therein.

IF the boys were found there then, when you consider Henry’s treatment of other surviving Yorkists, then their fate seems sealed. Richard’s legitimate son, Edward died of natural causes during his father’s reign but the other children were still living at the time of Bosworth. Richard’s illegitimate daughter, Catherine, was no longer surviving as early as Elizabeth of York’s coronation in 1487 and her brother John’s fate is less clear but records show that a ‘base sone’ of Richard’s was executed by Henry in 1491. Clarence’s children were also both executed by Tudor monarchs, Warwick was immediately incarcerated in the tower where he remained until accused of plotting with Perkin Warbeck. He was executed in 1499, an act made worse by the fact that the boy appears to have suffered from learning difficulties. His sister Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, managed to survive Henry VII’s rule but under Henry VIII, at the age of approximately sixty-eight, she was executed. But I digress. I will leave that story for another day.

True or not, I like the idea that the princes escaped, not least because of the wonderful array of ‘survival’ theories that it has provoked. Such imaginings are a real gift to historical novelists whichever way they care to play it.

Henry Tudor’s claim to the throne was tenuous to say the least, based upon his descent from Edward III, but through his mother's illegitimate Beaufort line. His title was Lancastrian and the House of Lancaster had long been regarded as usurpers and the direct line extinguished. He could never have won the victory nor ascended to the throne as heir of the House of Lancaster if his promise to marry Elizabeth of York, the daughter of Edward IV, had not won him the support of a few disaffected Yorkists.

It was imperative that Elizabeth’s illegitimacy was reversed in order to bolster Henry’s position but in legitimising her, Henry also legitimised her brothers, thus placing them before himself in the line of succession. So, IF the boys were still living at this time, they would have been much more of an obstruction to Henry than they ever were to Richard, who already legitimately held the position of king. This, in my view, provides a motive.

Of course, it’s a big IF. In my opinion, a study of the characters of Richard and Henry, make the latter more likely to resort to infanticide. Not that he would have wielded the axe himself, or in this particular case, the pillow.

Far from being the personification of evil as depicted by Shakespeare, Richard did have some qualities that Henry lacked. While Richard, having fought on numerous battlefields since his teens, was an undisputed warrior, Henry was not. At Bosworth he waited on the sidelines and let others do his dirty work for him. While Richard’s life is, with the exception of the puzzling execution of William Hastings, full of loyalty and honour, Henry’s is not. If Richard had wanted the boys killed he would probably have done the deed openly, or wielded the ‘pillow’ himself. Underhanded infanticide does not seem to have been his style.

Henry’s character was far more secretive and underhand. Henry never felt secure on his stolen throne and his court is famous for its intrigue and spies and I believe his reign suffered more uprisings than any other. People just didn’t like Henry and it’s easy to see why.

The first vengeance that Henry Tudor took as monarch was upon the body of the late King. After the battle, in an unprecedented act, the body of Richard III, an anointed king, was slung naked over a horse, arms and legs dangling, a halter was tossed around his neck in symbolism of his defeat. In this indignity, he was taken to the Franciscan Priory church of the Greyfriars at Leicester where, for two days, his body was exhibited for all to see. He was buried at the friary with no ceremony. The church does not exist today – like so many others, when Henry's son ordered the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530’s, the building was destroyed and, rumour has it, Richard's grave was opened and the remains thrown out.

Henry’s next act as King was to date his reign from the day before Bosworth thus rendering as traitors all those who had loyally fought for King Richard, so that they could then be attainted for treason.

England lost much of its nobility during the battle, including men of great wealth like John Howard, the Duke of Norfolk. Henry appropriated their lands and kept the revenue for the crown. Some he executed for treason, among them William Bracher, Sir John Buck of Harthill and William Catesby of Ashby St Legers. Some, like Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey and Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, he imprisoned in the tower.

Those of Richard’s supporters that did survive the battle were attainted and their estates confiscated; this effectively disarmed them and kept them from raising arms against the king. Henry then forbid all nobles to retain their own armies to prevent them from being more powerful than himself and also to deter them from rebelling against him. It was an effective policy and, although Henry did not manage to subdue all opposition, it is a fact that the English nobility, already in decline during the Wars of the Roses, fell rapidly from influence under the Tudors. By the reign of Queen Elizabeth I England had just one remaining duke, that of Norfolk, and, after plotting to marry Mary Queen of Scots and restore Catholicism to England, he too was executed for treason in 1572.

It was not just the nobility that Henry targeted, indeed they seem to have been lower down on his list than those descended directly from the bloodline of Plantagenet. During the next three reigns the heirs of York were systematically wiped out.

I have tried to be objective in this brief overview but I guess I have failed. I cannot help it. Every time I consider this argument it seems to me that Richard was the guy with the nobler tendencies. While Henry spent his youth skulking around Europe, living off others, emptying gaols in order to come and steal a crown to which he had no right, Richard was aiding his brother, King Edward and proving almost unbelievably loyal despite disagreeing with his policies. In the short years that Richard was king he showed promise of becoming a just ruler, championing the rights of the poor against the rich (imagine that) and inspiring the loyalty in his subjects in the north, who knew him well. He may have been a violent man by our standards but he lived in violent times. Killing on the battlefield was honourable, off the field it was not. He abhorred disloyalty, as is made apparent by his reaction to Hastings’ betrayal, and, given the chance, I believe he would have made a better king than Henry who exploited rich and poor alike to bolster his own bulging coffers.

Throughout his life Henry resorted to devious methods. He lied and cheated his way to the throne and even once he had won it, his insecurities continued to dog him and his unscrupulous practices continued.

The Tudor regime may have put an end to the tumultuous years of the Wars of the Roses but the dying didn’t stop. In Henry VIII’s reign alone it has been estimated that 72,000 people were executed. In 1485 the honourable ferocity of the Plantagenets was replaced by the deceit of the Tudors who, although they brought security and wealth to Britain, did so dishonourably.

You can probably tell which banner I fight under but the subject is just as fascinating from the other side. The years surrounding The Battle of Bosworth have got to be the most intriguing in British History. If my rather biased view of the issues have inspired you to read more, there are countless books on the subject and you will find that historians just cannot remain impartial. There is something about the Wars of the Roses that, even today, forces you to take sides.

You can read more about the Vengeance of the Tudors on my webpage: http://www.juditharnopp.com/vengeanceofthetudors.htm

Pictures: White rose of York, Red Rose of Lancaster.

Right hand picture: Richard III

Left hand Picture: Henry VII