Thomas Howard, Third Duke of Norfolk by Hans Holbein the Younger
I’ve been researching our connections with other great families to see where paths, activities and relationships crossed in time.
Elizabeth Brooke, wife of Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder and our great grandmother (many times over), descended from:
• The Boleyns via her maternal grandmother, Lady Elizabeth Boleyn, daughter of Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, Lord Mayor of London.
• The powerful Howards through her paternal great grandmother; her grandmother Margaret deNeville was the daughter of Lady Katherine Howard, sister of the first Duke of Norfolk.
Result: We are related to the Duke of Norfolk and two of Henry’s wives – Anne Boleyn, second wife, as well as Catherine Howard, fifth wife, “the rose without a thorn.”
Here’s a link to the Norfolk family tree; it shows how the Boleyns and Howards are related:
How do the Wyatts fit into this picture???
Sir Tom appears to have loved Anne; and Catherine Howard must have cared for him because she convinced Henry to release him from his second stay at the tower. He wasn’t a relative except through marriage to E. Brooke.
Sir Thomas Wyatt’s godfather was Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk and all-around ruthless guy!
How did the Wyatts, Boleyns and Howards come together as friends BEFORE Sir Tom was born? What was the connection? Hopefully I’ll find out.
Henry Wyatt went to school (Eton and Oxford if memory serves me) with Henry VII and Thomas Boleyn and was guardian to Young Henry Tudor. So naturally Henry VIII was friendly with Thomas Wyatt and the Boleyns.
I ran across the Eton thing also, but doubt it since Henry Tudor was still very young when his uncle Jasper had to take him away to a safe place.
Henry Wyatt was a guardian of young Henry VIII … I don’t remember seeing Thomas Boleyn listed as such. It could have been. I thought he rose to prominence another way. (I have to go back over my notes.) I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to the Boleyns.
Henry Wyatt and Thomas Boleyn both served Henry VIII and were also “neighbors” (Allington Castle & Hever Castle) and their children knew each other. Which would explain the fact that both Sir Thomas and his sister were very close to Anne Boleyn. (And many of Anne and George’s friends.)
Micki LeCronier Writer/Editor 810-278-2705 http://www.mickisuzanne.com
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If you read about court life in Tudor times you can see how everyone knew everyone, they all went to the same schools and colleges. Remember the population of England in those days was less than two million, and so there was few nobility in comparison to Royals today. There might be perhaps a few thousand people at court. They’d have all known one another well.
My grand parents are both Howard and Wyatts