Question from Harry - Illegitimate children of Charles Brandon
I read on Wikipedia that Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, had at least 3 illegitimate children. Is this true and if so, were any of them during his last two marriages?
In the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry on Brandon, S. J. Gunn writes, "Early in 1508 he secretly married Anne Browne in Stepney church, later repeating the ceremony publicly in St Michael Cornhill. At some point between 1506 and 1509 they had a daughter, Anne, whose legitimacy was later questioned, depending as it did upon the exact sequence of events. In the summer of 1510 their second, indisputably legitimate, daughter, Mary, was born. Her mother died shortly afterwards. At this time or later Brandon also fathered three bastards, Charles, later Sir Charles Brandon of Sigston (d. 1551), Mary, who married Robert Ball of Scottow, and Frances, who married successively the Lincolnshire gentlemen William Sandon and Andrew Bilsby."
It is true. (Wikipedia gives a reference for them btw, you can see it by clicking on the little blue footnote number) In Steven S. Gunn's book, which is sort of a biography of Charles Brandon, they are mentioned too and there are some additional facts there to what he said about them in the Oxford Dictionary:
Charles took his bastard son Charles with him to France in the war of 1544 and knighted him there that same year and he also used his influence to grant to him the stewardship of Sherriff Hutton.
He doesn't say anything more about the girls though.
2 comments:
In the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry on Brandon, S. J. Gunn writes, "Early in 1508 he secretly married Anne Browne in Stepney church, later repeating the ceremony publicly in St Michael Cornhill. At some point between 1506 and 1509 they had a daughter, Anne, whose legitimacy was later questioned, depending as it did upon the exact sequence of events. In the summer of 1510 their second, indisputably legitimate, daughter, Mary, was born. Her mother died shortly afterwards. At this time or later Brandon also fathered three bastards, Charles, later Sir Charles Brandon of Sigston (d. 1551), Mary, who married Robert Ball of Scottow, and Frances, who married successively the Lincolnshire gentlemen William Sandon and Andrew Bilsby."
It is true. (Wikipedia gives a reference for them btw, you can see it by clicking on the little blue footnote number) In Steven S. Gunn's book, which is sort of a biography of Charles Brandon, they are mentioned too and there are some additional facts there to what he said about them in the Oxford Dictionary:
Charles took his bastard son Charles with him to France in the war of 1544 and knighted him there that same year and he also used his influence to grant to him the stewardship of Sherriff Hutton.
He doesn't say anything more about the girls though.
Post a Comment