by Thomas Wyatt
THE LIFE OF SIR THOMAS WYATT by Charles Cowden Clarke
SIR THOMAS WYATT ranks with Henry, Earl of Surrey, as one of the best of our early poets; and with Surrey, Byron, Walpole, and some others, as one of the comparatively few of our aristocracy who have contributed much of value to the stores of English literature. He was descended from an ancient and noble family, which had been settled for several successive generations at Southange, in the county of York. His father, Sir Henry, had been faithful to the cause of the House of Lancaster during its darkest days; had been imprisoned in the Tower by Richard III., and even, it is said, tortured in the Usurper’s presence. It is stated by tradition, and is inscribed on his monument in Kent, that, during his imprisonment, a cat brought him daily a pigeon from a neighbouring dove-cot, which served amply to supply his wants! When the sun began to shine on the Lancastrian side of the hedge, Henry VII. did not forget the loyalty of the able, prudent, and wise Sir Henry Wyatt, but appointed him one of his Privy Councillors, and afterwards one of the executors to his will. In the year 1493, we find him rich enough to purchase the estate of Allington, near Maidstone, in Kent, which became the residence of the family; and about the same time he also bought from the Marquis of Dorset the estate and mansion of Mole, lying a little to the east of Maidstone, and which fell afterwards into the possession of the Earl of Romney. After Henry VII’s death, Wyatt was nominated by the Countess of Richmond one of the council for managing public affairs till the young king Was of age; and he continued under Henry VIII. to enjoy many marks of royal distinction. At his coronation on the 23d of July 1509, Wyatt was created a Knight of the Bath; and having greatly distinguished himself at the battle of Spurs in August 1513, he was made Knight Banneret on the spot: besides afterwards acting at one time as Knight Marshall; at another, as Keeper of the King’s Jewels; and at a third, as Ewerer to His Majesty. In 1502 he married Anne, daughter of John Skinner, of Reigate, in Surrey, and by her had three children — Thomas, the elder Sir Thomas Wyatt, as he is usually denominated, Henry, and Margaret.
The year 1503 was the time, and Allington Castle the place, signalised by the birth of our poet. As to the first twelve years of his life, biography is silent; but it seems probable that he enjoyed the instructions of a private tutor. In 1515 he was entered of St John’s, Cambridge. He took his degree of B.A. in 1518, and that of A.M. in 1520. In the same year, when only seventeen, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Brooke, Lord Cobham. In 1525 he took part in a grand feat of arms which was performed at Greenwich at Christmas. Wyatt was one of sixteen challengers; and the enterprise began the day after St John the Evangelist’s day, and lasted till the 8th of February, when “every man having journeyed as his course came, and many a sword being broken, and many a good stripe given, and every man having stricken his full number of twelve strokes, the combatants were severed and disarmed, and the achievement closed.” Those who have the opportunity of consulting Hall’s Chronicles, will find there a full and glowing picture of this splendid passage of arms, which the graceful and gallant courtesy of the combatants, the quaint titles and devices, the presence of the most beautiful and illustrious ladies, whose eyes
“Rain influence, and decide the prize the gorgeous costumes, and the mazy dances, which alternated with the mock fights, must have rendered enchanting — reminding us, in some points, of the “gentle and joyous passage of arms” at Ashby, in Ivanhoe, and exciting a renewal of the old sigh of Burke, because the “age of chivalry is gone.”
In the absence of distinct information, various pleasant myths have been invented about this period of Wyatt’s life, some supposing that he completed his education at Oxford, and others tracing him in imaginary tours to Paris and Italy, The fact, however, seems to be, that as Dr Nott well remarks, “at the period when Wood supposes him to have been advancing himself in learning by hearing the cardinal’s lectures at Oxford, he must have been dividing his time between his attendance at Court, and the society of his wife Elizabeth in the ‘classic’ bowers of Allington, on the peaceful and romantic shores of the winding Medway.”
The first authentic glimpse we get of him after the birth of his eldest son, in 1521, is at Anne Boleyn’s marriage, in July 1533, where Wyatt officiated as ewerer, in room of his father. He had undoubtedly, in the mean time, been cultivating his mind in his study, perhaps serving in the army, and certainly shining in the Court. He possessed almost all the qualifications which go to constitute a consummate courtier. He had a noble appearance, a form where, according to Surrey, “force and beauty met,” a face of perfect symmetry, eyes of dazzling lustre, a mouth of singular sweetness, and a carriage distinguished alike by dignity and ease — the dignity of the oak and the yielding grace of the willow. His accomplishments, too, were extensive, and yet hung elegantly about him, waving to his outline freely like the toga — not sternly girded around him like the tunic. He spoke French, Italian, and Spanish, like English, besides being thoroughly acquainted with the classical languages. He sang, too, and played skilfully on the lute; excelled in the arts of conversation, particularly in wit and repartee; was already celebrated as a poet, and formed altogether an unequalled specimen of the high-born cavalier of the period — of the soldier and the scholar, the gentleman and the genius. Through his various accomplishments he ingratiated himself greatly with the king, but is said to have used his influence more in favour of others than of himself, so that it became a proverb when any one received unexpected advancement— “He has been in Wyatt’s closet.” That our young wit and poet passed through the ordeal of such a Court as Bluff King Hal’s quite scatheless, is far from probable; but there is no evidence that he was ever dissolute or abandoned to pleasure. He accuses himself, indeed, to his son of past folly and unthriftiness; but it is not certain whether the folly ever amounted to guilt, or the unthriftiness to dissipation. His gay qualities, however, contributed, with other circumstances, to bring him into serious dangers, and nearly to premature death.
Our readers are all familiar with the character of the “Bluebeard among Monarchs;” the wife-killing king, Henry VIII., and with the tragic fate of (if we may use the somewhat paradoxical term) the “English Mary Queen of Scots,” poor unfortunate Anne Boleyn. We must not judge of King Henry as a monster. There are few, if any, monsters in the history of mankind. He was merely a man of strong passions, developed by power and popularity into a selfish and ungovernable despot — a despot who would have been incomparably more tyrannical to his people, had not his fury found a safety-valve in his cruel treatment of his wives. The whole history of his marriages has almost a phantasmagorial effect on the imagination. His wives come like shadows, and like shadows depart — each diverse in aspect as in destiny — the gentle, dignified, and pious Catharine of Arragon, dying after writing a last letter to her husband, full of a tenderness and pathos which melted even his rough nature to tears, and leaving the “Bloody Mary” as her sad and terrible legacy to England — the gay and beautiful Anne Boleyn, appearing to imagination like that pale fair girl in Faust, with
“A single blood-red line,
Not larger than the sharp end of a knife,
Around her lovely neck,”
and from whose blood sprang Elizabeth, the Lioness of the Protestant faith — Jane Seymour, the beloved Rachel among the throng, and the mother of the boy-king Edward VI., although, alas! like the Princess Charlotte in later days, perishing in parturition, and being, like her, the “consort of a year,” although not the “parent of the dead” — the coarse Anne of Cleves, the voluptuous and unhappy Catherine Howard — and the learned, sensible, and religious Catherine Parr, who was fortunate enough to outlive her capricious and sensual lord, and whose “Prayers and Meditations, wherein the mind is stirred patiently to suffer all afflictions here, and to set at nought the vaine prosperitie of this worlde, and, also, to long for the everlasting felicitie,” still survive to praise her in the gates. It was Anne Boleyn, the second in this strange procession, whose name has been associated wit
h that of Wyatt, and the vortex of whose fate had very nearly engulphed our accomplished and brilliant bard. It will be remembered that she accompanied Mary, sister of Henry, on her marriage with Louis XII., to France, as maid of honour, and that, afterwards, she entered the service, first of Queen Claude, wife of Francis I., and then of his sister, the Duchess of Alençon. Her youth, beauty, (That, however, was far from perfect. She had six fingers on her right hand, and her complexion was too yellow. Her eyes, however, were fine, and her carriage majestic.) wit, and the fascination of her manners, rendered her a great favourite in the French Court, where it is supposed Wyatt first met and became enamoured of her. On her return to England, she was appointed lady of honour to Queen Catharine, and attracted the notice of the king, who straightway moved heaven and earth, first, in an attempt to seduce her, which was unsuccessful, and then to obtain her as his wife. They were privately married, on November 14, 1532, but soon, her pregnancy revealing the secret, Cranmer declared the first marriage void, and celebrated a second, after which Anne was crowned Queen at Westminster, amidst circumstances of unequalled splendour. Her triumph proved as brief as her rise had been sudden. Henry speedily tired of her, transferring his affections to Jane Seymour, her maid of honour, and pretending to entertain suspicions of the Queen’s virtue. In 1535, two years after she had given birth to Elizabeth, she was imprisoned, accused, brought to trial before a jury of peers, and, on the testimony of one Smeatoun, a musician, who confessed himself her paramour, was condemned to death by twenty-six judges. The sentence was executed on the the 19th May. She died with great firmness and dignity, sending a message to request forgiveness from the Princess Mary, the daughter of Catharine, for the injuries she had done to her and her mother, and another to the king, thanking him, that he had “uniformly continued his endeavours for her advancement — from a private gentlewoman having made her first a marchioness, then a queen — and as he could raise her no higher in this world, now sending her to be a saint in heaven.” There is something in the mock humility and subacid bitterness of this message, as well as in her accomplishments, her early connexion with the Court of France, her grace and gaiety, her undoubted imprudence, surmised infidelity, and melancholy doom, to confirm the statement of the resemblance we have already mentioned between Anne Boleyn — the mother of Queen Elizabeth — and Mary of Scots, her great rival and victim.
Much obscurity rests on the nature of the connexion between Anne Boleyn and Wyatt. That they were acquainted is certain; that they were mutually attracted is probable; that, in the language of a modern historian, speaking of Barbaroux and Madame Roland, “they did look into each others eyes, and felt that to each other they were all too lovely,” is a pleasant enough fancy. Here and there, besides, occur allusions in Wyatt’s poetry, which serve to corroborate the suspicion. His mistress’ name is “Anna.” He speaks of his wealth, and even life, having been in great danger in May, the month when Anne Boleyn was tried and executed. He says again —
“And now I follow the coals that be quent, From Dover to Calais against my mind;”
lines which are supposed to refer to Anne Boleyn’s excursion to France, as Marchioness of Pembroke, in 1532, a little before her marriage, and to imply that Wyatt reluctantly attended thither, his quenched or quenching flame. Yet his name does not occur in the list of the persons noticed in the account of the expenses of that voyage. He says, too, in preference to a lady —
“Graven with diamonds in letters plain,
There is written her fair neck round about,
Noli me tangere, Caesar’s, I am;”
words which can hardly be explained, except on the supposition, that the object of his passion had come into the power of a royal lover. Anne was attended by the poet’s sister Margaret, on the scaffold, and, with a smile of farewell tenderness, gave to her a little prayer-book, set in gold, enamelled black, which she long preserved as a precious relic. A tradition, too, of the attachment is said to exist in the Wyatt family. And there is reason to believe, from a half burnt passage of a letter in the Cotton collection, that Anne Boleyn, during her confinement in the Tower, read and admired Wyatt’s songs and poems. Still, of criminal intimacy there is not the slightest evidence; and, whatever Platonic affection there might be between the parties, it seems to have faded away, before, in an evil hour, the “Anna” of Wyatt’s muse became the shortlived Queen of England.
The suspicion our poet underwent, and which, by his own account, had nearly proved fatal to his prospects, soon subsided, and on Easter day, 16th April 1536 or 1537, we find him created a knight, although, not long after, on account of some quarrel with the Duke of Suffolk, he was committed to the Tower. There he continued for only a short time, and was then appointed to a post in the army of the Duke of Norfolk, who was employed in subduing a rebellion in Lincolnshire. Before Wyatt, however, reached the scene of action, the rebels were routed. In token of the king’s confidence, he was the next year made Sheriff of Kent, and shortly after was despatched to the Continent, to make up the dispute between Henry and the Emperor, who was naturally indignant at the treatment of Catharine of Arragon, and interested in promoting the claims of her daughter Mary. In going, whether from carelessness or from haste, Wyatt left his affairs in a state of confusion, and, as Thomas Cromwell tells him, “rawness,” exceedingly characteristic of a poet. By April 1537, he had reached Spain, and continued there for more than two years, conducting the necessary negotiations with much skill and judgment, although considerably embarrassed, partly through the complexity of the affairs, and partly through the duplicity of the Emperor and his Counsellors. In the end of 1539, he returned to England, where he met a gratifying reception from Henry, and then hastened to the country to spend some quiet months in his own home.
The end of this year the Emperor proceeded through France to the Low Countries, and Wyatt was despatched to Paris as English ambassador, with a view to watch his motions. Having first had an interview with the French king at Blois, he joined the emperor at Chateaureault, and thence attended him to Paris, to Brussels, and to Ghent. His letters home are clear and sagacious, but testify to his intense disgust at his avocations, and his eagerness to return to his own country. At length, about the middle of May 1540, his wish was gratified, and he was again welcomed by the king with the most flattering tokens of approbation. During one of his visits to the Continent, at the dissolution of the monasteries, he had requested, and through Cromwell’s influence obtained, the friary of Arlesford in Kent, which adjoined his family estate at Allington.
Wyatt had undoubtedly performed good service on the Continent, particularly by detecting and baffling the schemes of Cardinal Pole, who had been sent from Rome to Spain for the purpose of uniting the emperor and Francis in a league against England; but who, through Wyatt’s interference, was so coldly received at Madrid, that he retired in chagrin to Avignon. Yet our poet had scarcely reached home, till he found his conduct cruelly misrepresented by his enemies. Bonner, afterwards infamous for his treatment of the Protestants, and surnamed the “Bloody Bonner,” had been united with Wyatt in the continental embassy, and had formed a bitter enmity against him; encouraged by the fall of Lord Thomas Cromwell, who had been Wyatt’s patron, he accused him of holding a treasonable correspondence with Cardinal Pole, and of having treated the king with disrespect while ambassador in 1538 and 1539. Through his insinuations, Henry’s wrath was roused against the poet, and he threw him into the Tower. There he was treated with great severity. This we infer from his lines in prison to Bryan: —
“Sighs are my food, my drink they are my tears,
Clinking of fetters such music would crave;
Stink and close air away my life wears,
Innocency is all the hope I have.
Rain, wind, and weather I judge by my ears,
Malice assaults that righteousness should have,
Sure I am, Bryan, this wound shall heal again,
But yet, alas! the scar shall still remain.”
; After he had been for some time in the Tower, the Privy Council desired him to state what the causes of his offence at the emperor’s court were; and he replied, in a letter subjoined to this memoir. Shortly after, he was tried, and delivered the memorable defence, which we have also subjoined. It still richly deserves perusal, is manly in spirit, ingenious in its course of argument, and sparkles with wit and sarcasm. Not contented with defending himself, he retorts on his opponents, and makes Bonner especially look very contemptible. He was triumphantly acquitted, and Henry, the same year, bestowed on him certain lands in Lambeth, and the year after appointed him high steward of the Manor of Maidstone, and gave him estates in Dorsetshire and Somersetshire, in exchange for others of less value in Kent.
To this crisis in Wyatt’s life, Surrey alludes in one of his poems of the “Death of Sir Thomas Wyatt —
“Divers thy death, so diversely bemoan
Some that in presence of thy livelihed
Lurked, whose breasts envy with hate had swollen,
Yield Cæsar’s tears upon Pompeius’ head.
Some that watched with the murderer’s knife,
With eager thirst to shed thy guiltless blood,
Whose practice brake by happy end of life,
With envious tears to hear thy fame so good.”
Wyatt now retired to Allington, and amused himself by writing his Satires, addressed to his friend John Pointz, in which he gives a decided and eloquent preference to a country over a town life — the result, doubtless, of his own individual experience, since all his happy days had been passed at his ancestral seat, and all his miseries arose from his connexion with the Court. The winter of 1541, and the spring and summer of 1512, passed pleasantly with our poet Besides the Satires, he wrote his version of the Seven Penitential Psalms, and occupied his leisure in improving his estate, and superintending the education of his nephew Henry Lee.