Thomas Vaux, 2nd Baron Vaux of Harrowden KB (25 April 1509 – October 1556), English poet, was the eldest son of Nicholas Vaux, 1st Baron Vaux and his second wife, Anne Green, daughter of

Sir Thomas Green Sir Thomas Green (c.1461 – 9 November 1506) was a member of the English gentry who died in the Tower of London, where he had been imprisoned for treason. He is best known as the grandfather of Catherine Parr, last wife of King Henry VIII of En ...

, Lord of Nortons Green, and Joan Fogge.Douglas Richardson, ''Plantagenet Ancestry'', pp. 326, 561–562 and 566. He was educated at Cambridge University.Dominic Head. ''The Cambridge Guide To Literature in English,'' Cambridge University Press, 26 January 2006. p. 1151. His mother was the maternal aunt of queen consort

Catherine Parr Catherine Parr (sometimes alternatively spelled Katherine, Katheryn, Kateryn, or Katharine; 1512 – 5 September 1548) was Queen of England and Ireland as the last of the six wives of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 12 July 1543 until ...

, while his wife, Elizabeth Cheney, was her paternal cousin through Catherine's father's sister, Anne Parr.

Life

In 1527, he accompanied

Cardinal Wolsey Thomas Wolsey ( – 29 November 1530) was an English statesman and Catholic bishop. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the king's almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered and by 1514 he had become the controlling figur ...

on his embassy in France. Vaux privately disapproved of King

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...

's divorce from his first wife,

Catherine of Aragon Catherine of Aragon (also spelt as Katherine, ; 16 December 1485 – 7 January 1536) was Queen of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII from their marriage on 11 June 1509 until their annulment on 23 May 1533. She was previously ...

. In 1531, he took his seat in the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

. In 1532, he attended

Calais Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's prefecture is its third-largest city of Arras. Th ...

and Boulogne-sur-Mer, Boulogne and was made Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Anne Boleyn. He was Lieutenant Governor of Jersey in 1536. Schism from Rome, Italy, Rome caused him to sell his offices; he did not attend Parliament between 1534 and 1554.John Saward, John Morrill, Michael Tomko. ''Firmly I Believe and Truly: The Spiritual Tradition of Catholic England,'' Oxford University Press, 15 November 2011. p. 92. Instead, Vaux retired to his country seat until the accession of Mary I of England, Mary I, when he returned to London for her coronation. Vaux was the friend of other court poets such as Thomas Wyatt (poet), Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey.

Family and issue

Elizabeth, Lady Vaux, by Hans Holbein the Younger

Thomas's father, Nicholas Vaux, 1st Baron Vaux of Harrowden, Nicholas, had been previously married to Elizabeth FitzHugh, daughter of Baron FitzHugh, Henry FitzHugh, 5th Lord FitzHugh of Ravensworth Castle (North Yorkshire), Ravensworth Castle and Alice Neville, Lady Alice Neville, as her second husband. From that marriage, Vaux had three older paternal half-sisters; George Throckmorton, Katherine Throckmorton; Alice Sapcote; and Anne Strange. By Elizabeth's first marriage to Sir William Parr, 1st Baron Parr of Kendal, William Parr, she was the mother of Anne Parr, the mother of Thomas' wife, Elizabeth Cheney. Elizabeth FitzHugh was also the mother to Sir Thomas Parr, thus making her the paternal grandmother of Queen

. After the death of Elizabeth in about 1507, his father married secondly to Anne Green, who was the older sister of Maud Green who had married Sir Thomas Parr; thus making Vaux a first cousin to queen Catherine Parr, Catherine. On 6 May 1511, Sir Thomas, aged two, was contracted to marry Elizabeth Cheney. Thomas married Elizabeth between 25 April 1523 and 10 November 1523. They had three children. *William Vaux, 3rd Baron Vaux of Harrowden (born 1535) *Nicholas Vaux *Anne Vaux, who married Reginald Bray of Stene, nephew of Edmund Braye, 1st Baron Braye Thomas Vaux died in October 1556. Sketches of Vaux and his wife by Hans Holbein the Younger, Holbein are held at Windsor Castle and a finished portrait of Lady Vaux at Hampton Court.

Works

Two of his poems were included in the ''Songes and Sonettes of Surrey'' (''Tottel's Miscellany''), published 1557 in poetry, in 1557: "The assault of Cupid upon the fort where the lover's hart lay wounded, and how he was taken," and the "Dittye ... representinge the Image of Deathe," which the gravedigger in Shakespeare's ''Hamlet'' misquotes. Thirteen pieces in the ''Paradise of Dainty Devices'', published 1576 in poetry, in 1576, are signed by him. These are reprinted in Alexander Grosart's ''Miscellanies of the Fuller Worthies Library'' (vol. iv, 1872).

References

Sources

* * * *''This article contains text from ''A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerages of England, Ireland, and Scotland: Extinct, Dormant, and in Abeyance'', Vol. VIII, by John Burke, 1831, now in the public domain''

External links