Robert Wingfield (''c''. 1513 - ''c''. 1561) was an English historian.

Early life

He was the son of Sir

Humphrey Wingfield Sir Humphrey Wingfield (died 1545) was an English lawyer and Speaker of the House of Commons of England between 1533 and 1536. Early life He was the twelfth son of Sir John Wingfield of Letheringham, Suffolk, by Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John ...

and his wife Anne (née Wiseman). He married Bridget Pargiter, daughter of Sir John Pargiter and they had a son, Humphrey.Diarmaid MacCulloch, �
Wingfield, Robert (c.1513–c.1561)
��, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, May 2005; online edn, Sept 2010, accessed 24 April 2015. Upon his father's death in 1545, he inherited lands in

Brantham Brantham is a village and civil parish in the Babergh district of Suffolk, England. It is located close to the River Stour and the border with Essex, around north of Manningtree, and around southwest of Ipswich. History The name Brantham is ...

and

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...

''Vita Mariae Angliae reginae''

A devout

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, from 24–26 July 1553 he played host at his Ipswich home to Queen Mary during her journey to London to claim the throne against

Lady Jane Grey Lady Jane Grey ( 1537 – 12 February 1554), later known as Lady Jane Dudley (after her marriage) and as the "Nine Days' Queen", was an English noblewoman who claimed the throne of England and Ireland from 10 July until 19 July 1553. Jane was ...

. Mary rewarded him with a £20 life annuity. He wrote a detailed account of Mary's ''coup d'état'' titled ''Vita Mariae Angliae reginae'', dedicated to Sir

Edward Waldegrave Sir Edward Waldegrave (c. 15161 September 1561) was an English courtier and Catholic recusant. Family Edward Waldegrave was the eldest son of John Waldegrave (died 1543) by Lora Rochester, daughter of Sir John Rochester of Essex, and sister of ...

. It was proof read by

Roger Ascham Roger Ascham (; c. 151530 December 1568)"Ascham, Roger" in ''The New Encyclopædia Britannica''. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 15th edn., 1992, Vol. 1, p. 617. was an English scholar and didactic writer, famous for his prose style, ...

, although Wingfield was dissatisfied with Ascham's shoddy editing. Wingfield composed the work in Latin and it covers the death of

Edward VI Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. Edward was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour and the first E ...

to summer 1554. It's written from a pro-Mary, pro-Catholic viewpoint and contains information on the ''coup'' in

East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...

that is not available anywhere else. It survived in a single MSS., which was translated, edited and published by

Diarmaid MacCulloch Diarmaid Ninian John MacCulloch (; born 31 October 1951) is an English academic and historian, specialising in ecclesiastical history and the history of Christianity. Since 1995, he has been a fellow of St Cross College, Oxford; he was former ...

in 1984.

Later life

Evidence for Wingfield's last years is lacking. Poverty necessitated the sale of Brantham to a local gentleman, Robert Bogas, in the early 1560s. He was buried at Brantham.

Works

*‘The ''Vita Mariae Angliae Reginae'' of Robert Wingfield of Brantham’, ed. and trans. D. MacCulloch, ''Camden miscellany, XXVIII'', CS, 4th ser., 29 (1984), pp. 181–301.

Early life

''Vita Mariae Angliae reginae''

Later life

Works

Notes

Further reading