Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk

Charles Brandon was the second but only surviving son of Sir William Brandon, Henry Tudor's standard-bearer at the Battle of Bosworth Field, where he was slain by Richard III. His mother, Elizabeth Bruyn (d. March 1494), was daughter and co-heiress of Sir Henry Bruyn (died 1461).

Charles Brandon was brought up at the court of Henry VII. He is described by Dugdale as "a person comely of stature, high of courage and conformity of disposition to King Henry VIII, with whom he became a great favourite". Brandon held a succession of offices in the royal household, becoming Master of the Horse in 1513, and received many valuable grants of land. On 15 May 1513, he was created Viscount Lisle, having entered into a marriage contract with his ward, Elizabeth Grey, suo jure Viscountess Lisle. The contract was ended and the title was forfeited as a result of Brandon's marriage to Mary Tudor in 1515.

He distinguished himself at the sieges of Thérouanne and Tournai in the French campaign of 1513. One of the agents of Margaret of Savoy, governor of the Netherlands, writing from before Thérouanne, reminded her that Lord Lisle was a "second king" and advised her to write him a kind letter.

At this time, Henry VIII was secretly urging Margaret to marry Lisle, whom he created Duke of Suffolk, although he was careful to disclaim (on 4 March 1514) any complicity in the project to her father, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor.

After his marriage to Mary, Suffolk lived for some years in retirement, but he was present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. In 1523 he was sent to Calais to command the English troops there. He invaded France in company with Floris d'Egmont, Count of Buren, who was at the head of the Flemish troops, and laid waste the north of France, but disbanded his troops at the approach of winter.

After Wolsey's disgrace, Suffolk's influence increased daily. He was sent with Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, to demand the Great Seal from Wolsey; the same noblemen conveyed the news of Anne Boleyn's marriage to King Henry, after the divorce from Queen Catherine; and Suffolk acted as High Steward at the new queen's coronation. He was one of the commissioners appointed by Henry to dismiss Catherine's household, a task he found distasteful.

His family had a residence on the west side of Borough High Street, London, for at least half a century prior to his building of Suffolk Place at the site.

Suffolk supported Henry's ecclesiastical policy, receiving a large share of the lands after the dissolution of the monasteries. In 1544, he was for the second time in command of an English army for the invasion of France. He died at Guildford, Surrey, on 24 August in the following year. At Henry VIII's expense he was buried at Windsor in St George's Chapel.

Marriage to Mary Tudor

Suffolk took part in the jousts which celebrated the marriage of Mary Tudor, Henry's sister, with Louis XII of France. He was accredited to negotiate various matters with Louis, and on Louis' death was sent to congratulate the new King, Francis I, and to negotiate Mary's return to England.

Love between Suffolk and the young Dowager Queen Mary had existed before her marriage, and Francis roundly charged him with an intention to marry her. Francis, perhaps in the hope of Queen Claude's death, had himself been one of her suitors in the first week of her widowhood, and Mary asserted that she had given him her confidence to avoid his importunities.

Francis and Henry both professed a friendly attitude towards the marriage of the lovers, but Suffolk had many political enemies, and Mary feared that she might again be sacrificed to political considerations. The truth was that Henry was anxious to obtain from Francis the gold plate and jewels which had been given or promised to the Queen by Louis in addition to the reimbursement of the expenses of her marriage with the King; and he practically made his acquiescence in Suffolk's suit dependent on his obtaining them. The pair cut short the difficulties by a private marriage on 5 March 1515. Suffolk announced this to Thomas Wolsey, who had been their fast friend.

Suffolk was saved from Henry's anger only by Wolsey, and the pair eventually agreed to pay to Henry £24,000 in yearly instalments of £1000, and the whole of Mary's dowry from Louis of £200,000, together with her plate and jewels. They were openly married at Greenwich Hall on 13 May. The Duke had been twice married already, to Margaret Neville (the widow of John Mortimer) and to Anne Browne, to whom he had been betrothed before his marriage with Margaret Mortimer. Anne Browne died in 1511, but Margaret Mortimer, from whom he had obtained a declaration of nullity on the ground of consanguinity, was still living. He secured in 1528 a bull from Pope Clement VII assuring the legitimacy of his marriage with Mary Tudor and of the daughters of Anne Browne, one of whom, Anne, was sent to the court of Margaret of Savoy.

Mary Tudor died on 25 June 1533, and in September of the same year Suffolk married his ward, 14-year-old Catherine Willoughby (1519–1580), suo jure Baroness Willoughby de Eresby. She had been betrothed to his son Henry Brandon, Earl of Lincoln, but the boy was too young to marry; Suffolk did not wish to risk losing Catherine's lands, so he married her himself. By Catherine Willoughby he had two sons who showed great promise, Henry (1535–1551) and Charles (c. 1537–1551), Dukes of Suffolk. They died of the sweating sickness within an hour of each other.

Before 7 February 1507 he married Margaret Neville (born 1466), widow of Sir John Mortimer (d. before 12 November 1504), and daughter of John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu, slain at the Battle of Barnet, by Isabel Ingaldesthorpe, daughter and heiress of Sir Edmund Ingaldsthorpe, by whom he had no issue. The marriage was declared void about 1507 by the Archdeaconry Court of London, and later by papal bull dated 12 May 1528. Margaret (née Neville) subsequently married Robert Downes, gentleman.

In early 1508 in a secret ceremony at Stepney, and later publicly at St Michael's, Cornhill, he married Margaret Neville's niece, Anne Browne (d. 1511), daughter of Sir Anthony Browne, Standard Bearer of England 1485, by his first wife, Eleanor Ughtred, the daughter of Sir Robert Ughtred (c. 1428 – c. 1487) of Kexby, North Yorkshire and Katherine Eure, daughter of Sir William Eure of Stokesley, Yorkshire, by whom he had two daughters:

• Anne Brandon (1507–1557), who married firstly Edward Grey, 4th Baron Grey of Powys, and after the dissolution of this union, Randal Harworth.
• Mary Brandon (1510 – c. 1542), who married Thomas Stanley, 2nd Baron Monteagle.

He contracted to marry Elizabeth Grey, 5th Baroness Lisle (1505–1519). He was thus created 1st Viscount Lisle of the third creation in 1513, but the contract was annulled, and he surrendered the title before 1519 or in 1523.

In May 1515 he married Mary Tudor, Queen Dowager of France (18 March 1496 – 25 June 1533), by whom he had two sons who died young, and two daughters:

• Lord Henry Brandon (11 March 1516 – 1522).
• Lady Frances Brandon (16 July 1517 – 20 November 1559), who married Henry Grey, Marquess of Dorset, by whom she was the mother of Lady Jane Grey.
• Lady Eleanor Brandon (1519 – 27 September 1547), who married Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland.
• Henry Brandon, 1st Earl of Lincoln (c. 1523 – 1 March 1534).

On 7 September 1533 he married Catherine Willoughby, 12th Baroness Willoughby de Eresby (1 April 1520 – 19 September 1580), by whom he had two sons, both of whom died young of the sweating sickness:

• Henry Brandon, 2nd Duke of Suffolk (18 September 1535 – 14 July 1551).
• Charles Brandon, 3rd Duke of Suffolk (1537 – 14 July 1551).

After Brandon's death his widow married Richard Bertie.

He had a number of illegitimate children:

• Sir Charles Brandon; married Elizabeth Pigot, widow of Sir James Strangways.
• Frances Brandon; married firstly William Sandon, and secondly Andrew Bilsby.
• Mary Brandon; married Robert Ball of Scottow, Norfolk.

• The romance between Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon is fictionalised in When Knighthood Was in Flower, by American author Charles Major writing under the pseudonym Edwin Caskoden. It was first published by The Bobbs-Merrill Company in 1898 and proved an enormous success.
• At least three movies have been based on this novel. A 1908 motion picture of the same name or under the title When Knights Were Bold was directed by Wallace McCutcheon. This is considered a lost film. He is portrayed by Forrest Stanley in the 1922 film adaptation When Knighthood Was in Flower, directed by Robert G. Vignola, and by Richard Todd in The Sword and the Rose, an account of his romance with Mary Tudor in 1515.
• The Reluctant Queen by Molly Costain Haycraft presents another fictionalised version of the relationship between Brandon and Mary Tudor.
• Brandon is briefly fictionalised in the historical novel The Last Boleyn by author Karen Harper.
• Brandon is portrayed by actor Henry Cavill in the Showtime series The Tudors. He serves as a confidant to best friend Henry VIII and therefore a number of Brandon’s storylines are fictionalised for dramatic purposes. For example, he is married twice and is estranged from second wife Catherine Willoughby Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk (Rebekah Wainwright). He takes on an official mistress, a French expatriate (played by Selma Brook), who cares for him up until his death. Also, he only has one son here, Henry (Michael Winder), presumably a representation of Henry Brandon, 2nd Duke of Suffolk.
• He is a character in the novel Mary, Queen of France by author Jean Plaidy.
• He appears as a character in the novel The Lady in the Tower by author Jean Plaidy.
• He is also a character in the novel "The Shadow of the Pomegranate " by Jean Plaidy
• He appears as a character in the Man Booker Prize winning novel Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, and in its sequel, Bring Up the Bodies.
• He is portrayed by actor Richard Dillane in the BBC drama Wolf Hall, based on Mantel's book.
• He is portrayed as an attempted rapist in the novel Dear Heart, How Like You This? based on the life of Sir Thomas Wyatt
• In the novel The Serpent Garden by Judith Merkle Riley, Brandon is portrayed as an immensely strong but rather dimwitted noble with a poor sense of spelling.
• Brian Blessed portrayed Suffolk in the movie Henry VIII and His Six Wives (1972).