Thomas Vaux, 2nd Baron Vaux of Harrowden KB (25 April 1509 – October 1556), English poet, was the eldest son of Nicholas Vaux, 1st Baron Vaux and his second wife, Anne Green, daughter of

Sir Thomas Green Sir Thomas Green (1461/2 – 9 November 1506) was a member of the English gentry who died in the Tower of London, where he had been imprisoned for treason. He is best known as the grandfather of Katherine Parr, last wife of King Henry VIII. Famil ...

, Lord of Nortons Green, and

Joan Fogge Joan (or Jane) Fogge, Lady Green (c.1469 – c.1490/94 bef. 1506) was an English noblewoman. She was the mother of Maud Green, and therefore the maternal grandmother of Katherine Parr the sixth wife of King Henry VIII of England. Birth and par ...

.Douglas Richardson, ''Plantagenet Ancestry'', pp. 326, 561–562 and 566. He was educated at Cambridge University. His mother was the maternal aunt of Queen Consort

Katherine Parr Catherine Parr ( – 5 September 1548) was Queen of England and Ireland as the last of the six wives of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 12 July 1543 until Henry's death on 28 January 1547. Catherine was the final queen consort o ...

, while his wife, Elizabeth Cheney, was her paternal cousin through Katherine's father's sister, Anne Parr.

Life

In 1527, he accompanied

Cardinal Wolsey Thomas Wolsey ( ; – 29 November 1530) was an English statesman and Catholic cardinal. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the king's almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered and by 1514 he had become the controlling f ...

on his embassy in France. Vaux privately disapproved of King

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...

's divorce from his first wife,

Katherine of Aragon Catherine of Aragon (also spelt as Katherine, historical Spanish: , now: ; 16 December 1485 – 7 January 1536) was Queen of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 11 June 1509 until its annulment on 23 May ...

. In 1531, he took his seat in the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

. In 1532, he attended

Calais Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a French port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Calais is the largest city in Pas-de-Calais. The population of the city proper is 67,544; that of the urban area is 144,6 ...

and

Boulogne Boulogne-sur-Mer (; ; ; or ''Bononia''), often called just Boulogne (, ), is a coastal city in Hauts-de-France, Northern France. It is a Subprefectures in France, sub-prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Pas-de-Calais. Boul ...

and was made

Knight of the Bath The Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by King George I of Great Britain, George I on 18 May 1725. Recipients of the Order are usually senior British Armed Forces, military officers or senior Civil Service ...

at the coronation of

Anne Boleyn Anne Boleyn (; 1501 or 1507 – 19 May 1536) was List of English royal consorts, Queen of England from 1533 to 1536, as the Wives of Henry VIII, second wife of King Henry VIII. The circumstances of her marriage and execution, by beheading ...

. He was

Lieutenant Governor of Jersey The lieutenant governor of Jersey (Jèrriais:, "Governor of Jersey"), properly styled the lieutenant-governor of Jersey (), is the representative of the British monarch in the Bailiwick of Jersey, a dependency of the British Crown. Presentl ...

in 1536. Schism from

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

caused him to sell his offices; he did not attend Parliament between 1534 and 1554.John Saward, John Morrill, Michael Tomko. ''Firmly I Believe and Truly: The Spiritual Tradition of Catholic England,'' Oxford University Press, 15 November 2011. p. 92. Instead, Vaux retired to his country seat until the accession of

Mary I Mary I (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558), also known as Mary Tudor, was Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 and Queen of Spain as the wife of King Philip II from January 1556 until her death in 1558. She made vigorous a ...

, when he returned to London for her coronation. Vaux was the friend of other court poets such as

Sir Thomas Wyatt Sir Thomas Wyatt (150311 October 1542) was a 16th-century English politician, ambassador, and lyric poetry, lyric poet credited with introducing the sonnet to English literature. He was born at Allington Castle near Maidstone in Kent, though hi ...

and

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, KG (1516/1517–19 January 1547) was an English nobleman, politician and poet. He was one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry and was the last known person to have been executed at the insistence of King ...

Family and issue

Thomas's father,

Nicholas Nicholas is a male name, the Anglophone version of an ancient Greek name in use since antiquity, and cognate with the modern Greek , . It originally derived from a combination of two Ancient Greek, Greek words meaning 'victory' and 'people'. In ...

, had been previously married to

Elizabeth FitzHugh Elizabeth FitzHugh (1455/65 – before 10 July 1507) also known as Lady Elizabeth Parr. She was an English noblewoman and lady-in-waiting to her cousin, Anne Neville, Queen Consort of King Richard III. She was grandmother of Katherine Parr, the ...

, daughter of Henry FitzHugh, 5th Lord FitzHugh of Ravensworth Castle and Lady Alice Neville, as her second husband. From that marriage, Vaux had three older paternal half-sisters; Katherine Throckmorton; Alice Sapcote; and Anne Le Strange. By Elizabeth's first marriage to Sir William Parr, she was the mother of Anne Parr, the mother of Thomas' wife, Elizabeth Cheney. Elizabeth FitzHugh was also the mother to

Sir Thomas Parr Sir Thomas Parr (1478 – 11 November 1517) of Kendal in Westmorland (now Cumbria), England, was a courtier and is best known as the father of Queen Catherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of King Henry VIII. Early life and family Thoma ...

, thus making her the paternal grandmother of Queen

. After the death of Elizabeth in about 1507, his father married secondly to Anne Green, who was the older sister of

Maud Green Maud Green, Lady Parr (6 April 1490/92 – 1 December 1531) was an English courtier. She was the mother of Catherine Parr, the sixth wife of King Henry VIII of England. She was a close friend and lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon. She was ...

who had married

; thus making Vaux a first cousin to Queen

Katherine Katherine (), also spelled Catherine and Catherina, other variations, is a feminine given name. The name and its variants are popular in countries where large Christian populations exist, because of its associations with one of the earliest Ch ...

. On 6 May 1511, Sir Thomas, aged two, was contracted to marry Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter of Sir Thomas Cheyne of Irthlingborough (d. 1514) and Anne Parr. Thomas married Elizabeth between 25 April 1523 and 10 November 1523. They had three children. *

William Vaux, 3rd Baron Vaux of Harrowden William is a masculine given name of Germanic languages, Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman Conquest, Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle ...

(born 1535) *Nicholas Vaux *Anne Vaux, who married Reginald Bray of Stene, nephew of

Edmund Braye, 1st Baron Braye Edmund Braye, 1st Baron Braye (or Bray; c. 1484 – 18 October 1539), of Eaton Bray in Bedfordshire, was an England, English Peerage, peer. Origins He was the son of John Braye lord of the manor of Eaton Bray in Bedfordshire; his younger br ...

Thomas Vaux died in October 1556. Sketches of Vaux and his wife by

Holbein Holbein may refer to: *Holbein (surname) *Holbein, Saskatchewan, a small village in Canada *Holbein carpet, a type of Ottoman carpet *Holbein stitch, a type of embroidery stitch * Holbein (crater), a crater on Mercury {{Disambig ...

are held at

Windsor Castle Windsor Castle is a List of British royal residences, royal residence at Windsor, Berkshire, Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, about west of central London. It is strongly associated with the Kingdom of England, English and succee ...

and a finished portrait of Lady Vaux at

Hampton Court Hampton Court Palace is a Listed building, Grade I listed royal palace in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, southwest and upstream of central London on the River Thames. Opened to the public, the palace is managed by Historic Royal ...

Works

Two of his poems were included in the ''Songes and Sonettes of Surrey'' (''

Tottel's Miscellany ''Songes and Sonettes'', usually called ''Tottel's Miscellany'', was the first printed anthology of English poetry. First published by Richard Tottel in 1557 in London, it ran to many editions in the sixteenth century. Richard Tottel Richard T ...

''), published in 1557: "The assault of Cupid upon the fort where the lover's hart lay wounded, and how he was taken," and the "Dittye ... representinge the Image of Deathe," which the gravedigger in

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

's ''

Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

'' misquotes. Thirteen pieces in the ''Paradise of Dainty Devices'', published in 1576, are signed by him. These are reprinted in

Alexander Grosart Alexander Balloch Grosart (18 June 182716 March 1899) was a Scottish clergyman and literary editor. He is chiefly remembered for reprinting much rare Elizabethan literature, a work which he undertook because of his interest in Puritan theolog ...

's ''Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies Library'' (vol. iv, 1872).

References

Sources

* * * *''This article contains text from ''A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerages of England, Ireland, and Scotland: Extinct, Dormant, and in Abeyance'', Vol. VIII, by John Burke, 1831, now in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

External links

Index entry for Thomas, Lord Vaux at Poets' Corner
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vaux of Harrowden, Thomas Vaux, 2nd Baron 1509 births 1556 deaths 16th-century English poets 16th-century English male writers 16th-century English knights Barons Vaux of Harrowden Governors of Jersey Knights of the Bath

Thomas Thomas may refer to: People * List of people with given name Thomas * Thomas (name) * Thomas (surname) * Saint Thomas (disambiguation) * Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church * Thomas the A ...