Jason Powell 41
Notes and references
1. I wish to thank the Donald D. Harrington Foundation and Faculty Fellows
Program at the University of Texas at Austin for generous funding of the work
from which this essay proceeds, and Marjorie Curry Woods for her comments
on portions of this essay. See J. Powell (ed.) (forthcoming) The Complete Works
of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder (Oxford: Oxford University Press), edited from
British Library, Harley MS 282, fols 87v–89r. The letter dates from Paris on 7
January 1540. Also available in K. Muir (1964) Life and Letters of Sir Thomas
Wyatt (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press), pp. 117–18.
2. In 1529, Brancester was a merchant’s factor abroad when he encountered
the emperor’s ailing ambassador, Jean de Balbi, en route to Persia. On his
deathbed, de Balbi passed his commission to Brancester, whose successful
mission resulted in a Persian attack on the Turks at an opportune moment for
the emperor. Brancester returned on a Portuguese ship via the Cape of Good
Hope, possibly becoming the first Englishman to travel the route. A decade
later, he was considered a hanger-on by the emperor’s counselors and was
loaned as a servant by Charles to the attainted Catholic exile, Reginald Pole,
an association that led to his own attainder by Parliament in the summer of
1539. Little more is known about his life and activities. See P. de Gayangos
(ed.) Calendar of Letters, Despatches, and State Papers, Relating to the Negotiations
Between England and Spain (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1867–1954), vol.
IV:1 of XIII, pp. 455, 184, 543 and J.J. Scarisbrick (1961) ‘The First Englishman
Around the Cape of Good Hope?’, B.I.H.R. XXXIV, pp. 165–77; J. Gairdner
and R.H. Brodie (eds) (1862–1932) Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic,
of the Reign of Henry VIII (London), vol. IX of XXI 490; XIV:1 867(c.15) (here-
after cited as L&P with volume and item number). Brancester has sometimes
been erroneously confused with another attainted traitor, the Welshman,
James ap Gruffydd. On this confusion, see P. Marshall (2008) ‘The Greatest
Man in Wales and the International Opposition to Henry VIII,’ Sixteenth
Century Journal XXXIX, pp. 700–1. Wyatt’s involvement with Brancester has
been mentioned several times in studies on Wyatt. There are mentions of
the incident and its diplomatic aftermath in S. Greenblatt (1980) Renaissance
Self-Fashioning from More to Shakespeare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press),
pp. 144–5, and E. Heale (1998) Wyatt, Surrey and Early Tudor Poetry (London:
Longman), pp. 16–17. Different aspects of the diplomatic scenario are found
in J. Powell (2002) ‘Thomas Wyatt and the Emperor’s Bad Latin’, Notes and
Queries IL, pp. 207–9 and Powell (2005) ‘“For Caesar’s I am”: Henrician
Diplomacy and Representations of King and Country in Thomas Wyatt’s
Poetry’ The Sixteenth Century Journal XXXVI, pp. 415–31.
3. Powell (ed.) Complete Works of Wyatt; BL Harley MS 282, fols. 85v; Muir, Life
and Letters, p. 116. Wyatt also mentions them briefly in his Declaration and
Defence against treason charges that were lodged against him after his return
to England.
4. Aside from primary source calendars and nineteenth-century regional and
Reformation histories, I have found only one mention of either man, and
that in a footnote: A. Ryrie (2003) The Gospel and Henry VIII (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press), p. 269, ftn. 29. Ryrie mistakenly calls Swer-
der an ‘exile in Strassbourg’ (where Swerder was on some sort of business in
9780230239760_04_cha02.indd 419780230239760_04_cha02.indd 41 11/8/2010 1:00:26 PM11/8/2010 1:00:26 PM
10.1057/9780230298125 - Diplomacy and Early Modern Culture, Edited by Robyn Adams and Rosanna Cox
Copyright material from www.palgraveconnect.com - licensed to Universitetsbiblioteket i Tromso - PalgraveConnect - 2011-03-14