Henry Brandon, 1st Earl of Lincoln

Henry Brandon, 1st Earl of Lincoln (English 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, the deceased by the age of ten Henry stood as the only English -born nephew far forward in line of succession, especially since the king himself had no sons.

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

Life

Henry Brandon was born as the fourth child and second son of his parents. Since it was not uncommon to give the name of deceased siblings, it may be that Henry was named after his elder brother, who had died before he was born as a baby or toddler. More likely, however, that his uncle Henry VIII (English Henry VIII ) was his godfather and named it after himself, as he usually did with his Taufkindern. Henry had two older sisters, Frances Brandon, (later the mother of the Nine Days Queen Jane Grey ) and Eleanor Brandon, however, the only son, he was the sole heir of his father for the title of Duke of Suffolk.

On June 18, 1525 King also raised the boy to the Earl of Lincoln, the same day on which he raised his illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy, the Duke of Richmond. Henry Brandon was with only two years of recent peer, who received a title on this day, and as the chronicler, " so young that Sir John Vere was destined to carry him in his arms before the King " during the ceremony.

The following year, Henry's parents obtained custody of 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 the rich heiress with Henry to betroth.

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

Henry's mother died on 25 June 1533 and his father then decided to marry Henry's fiancée Katherine itself. Maybe Henry was already sickly, in any case he was ten years old anyway not yet of marriageable age and his father wanted Katherines not lose heritage.

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

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

Role in the succession

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