Grissell Boughton

Brian Tuke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Brian Tuke portrait by Hans Holbein c 1527 Sir Brian Tuke (died 1545), was the secretary of Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey. He became treasurer of the household.[1]

He may have been son of Richard Tuke (died 1498?) and Agnes his wife, daughter of John Bland of Nottinghamshire. The family was settled in Kent, and Sir Brian's father or grandfather, also named Richard, is said to have been tutor to Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk. Possibly through Norfolk's influence, Brian Tuke was introduced at court; in 1508 he was appointed king's bailiff of Sandwich, Kent, and in 1509 he was clerk of the signet. On 28 October 1509 he was appointed clerk of the council at Calais. He accompanied Henry VIII at Tournai in September 1513, and his correspondence with Richard Pace, Wolsey's secretary relates valuable information on the Battle of Flodden.[2]

In 1516 he was made a knight of the king's body, and in 1517 governor of the king's posts. For some time Tuke was secretary to Cardinal Wolsey, and in 1522 he was promoted to be French secretary to the king; much correspondence passed through his hands, and there are more than six hundred references to him in the fourth volume alone of Brewer's Letters and Papers of Henry VIII.

On 17 April 1523 Tuke was granted the clerkship of parliament surrendered by John Taylor. In 1528 he was one of the commissioners appointed to treat for peace with France, and in the same year was made treasurer of the household. In February 1530-1 Edward North was associated with him in the clerkship of parliaments, and in 1533 Tuke served as High Sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire. Among the numerous grants with which his services were rewarded Tuke received the manors of Southweald, Layer Marney, Thorpe, and East Lee in Essex. He performed his official duties to the king's satisfaction, avoided all pretence to political independence, and retained his posts until his death at Layer Marney on 26 October 1545. He was buried with his wife in St. Margaret's, Lothbury ...

Tuke married Grissell, daughter of Nicholas Boughton of Woolwich, and by her, who died on 28 December 1538, had issue three sons and three daughters. The eldest son, Maximilian, predeceased him; the second, Charles, died soon after him, and the property devolved on the third, George Tuke, who was sheriff of Essex in 1567. Of the daughters, the eldest, Elizabeth, married George Tuchet, 9th Baron Audley; and the second, Mary, married Sir Reginald Scott of Scott's Hall, Kent. ...[from whom many living persons are descended.] Six portraits of Tuke are ascribed to Holbein, whose salary it was Tuke's business to pay. Tuke was a patron of learning as well as of art; John Leland speaks of his eloquence, and celebrates his praises in nine Latin poems in Encomia. He wrote the preface to William Thynne's edition of Chaucer published in 1532. He is said to have written against Polydore Vergil, and to have been one of the authors from whom Raphael Holinshed derived his facts (which may refer to Tuke's numerous letters and state papers.)

[edit]References

^ "Tuke, Brian". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. ^ Calendar State Papers Milan, vol. 1 (1912), 404-408. Attribution

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Tuke, Brian". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.