Nicholas Carew KG MP (bef. 1496 - 1539)

Born before 1496 in Beddington, Surrey, England

Ancestors

Husband of Elizabeth (Bryan) Carew — married Dec 1514 in England

Descendants

Died 8 Mar 1539 after age 43 in London, England

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Biography

Birth and Parents

Nicholas was the son and heir of Richard Carew and Malyn/Magdalene/Maud Oxenbridge.^[1][2] He was born before 1496, possibly at Beddington, Surrey where his father had his main residence.^[3][4]

Marriage and Children

Nicholas married Elizabeth Bryan, daughter of Thomas Bryan^[1][2] (she is named in her father's 1508 Will^[5]) and Margaret Bourchier, in December 1514,^[6] when there is a record of a small royal gift of money at the marriage.^[7] They had the following children:

• Francis^[1][2][3][4]
• Mary, who married Arthur Darcy^{[1][2][3][4][8]}
• Anne, who married Nicholas Throckmorton^[1][2] and Adrian Stokes^[3][4]
• Isabel, who married Nicholas Saunders^[1][3][4] (called Mabel in the Carew pedigree in the Harleian Society edition of Surrey Visitations^[2] but Isabel in the Saunders pedigree^[9])
• Elizabeth, who married someone with the last name Hall^{[2][3][4][10]}

Life

While still a minor, Nicholas was appointed a Groom of Henry VIII's chamber in 1511.^[11] In 1514 the first of what were to be a succession of grants of land was made to him by Henry VIII. The next year he was made a "cipherer" - a royal cupbearer. He was a proficient jouster, taking part in tournaments arranged for the royal court.^[6]

From 1513 to 1520 Nicholas held the joint lieutenancy of Calais, alongside his father. In 1518 he was made a Groom of the Privy Chamber, and a series of other appointments followed, along with further grants of land.^[11]

His path as a courtier was not always smooth. There is a reference in a letter by Richard Pace to Nicholas and his wife being restored to royal favour in 1518. There is a story that, when he was a member of an embassy to France, he rode through Paris in disguise, throwing eggs and stones at the populace. The following year, the royal Council summoned Nicholas and others for being over-familiar with Henry VIII, "not regarding his estate or degree", and giving rise to gossip that they "governed" the king "after their appetite". Against his inclination, he was briefly exiled to be lieutenant of Rysbank Tower, which guarded the entrance to the harbour at Calais. He seems soon to have been back in favour, and in 1519 he was present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold and was in Henry VIII's entourage when he met the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. He went on to take a leading role in other diplomatic missions in the 1520s and 1530s.^[11][12]

Nicholas was Sheriff of Surrey and Sussex in 1518-19. An indication of the extent to which he was in favour is the cancellation in 1520 of a debt to the Exchequer of some £725 from his time as Sheriff. He appears to have been appointed Sheriff again in November 1528, but did not render accounts and his duties were performed by Richard Bellingham.^[6][11][13]

In 1522 Nicholas took part in a raid on Picardy.^[6] That year he became Master of the Horse, a senior member of the royal household.^[14] He hosted Henry VIII at Beddington, Surrey on several occasions.^[11]

In 1529 Nicholas was a Knight of the Shire for Surrey, representing the county in Parliament, but a diplomatic mission to Italy limited his participation in proceedings.^[11]

In the 1530s Nicholas sought to do a difficult balancing act between his loyalty to Henry VIII and his sympathies with Catherine of Aragon and her daughter the future Mary I, who fell into royal disfavour.^[6][11]

On 23 April 1536 Nicholas was made a Knight of the Garter: he was formally installed on 21 May 1536.^[15][16]

Downfall and Death

Nicholas had Catholic leanings. In 1538 there was a story of a Catholic plot to replace Henry VIII on the throne with Henry Courtenay, Marquess of Exeter. Nicholas was implicated in the plot, and was arrested on 31 December 1538. The evidence against him was relatively weak, but he was attainted for high treason^[3][4] and stripped of the rank of a Knight of the Garter.^[17] Arrangements had been put in place for others to succeed to the official positions he held.^[11] He was described in official papers as "one of the chief of that faction", that is of those involved in the plot, and tried and found guilty on 14 February 1539. The evidence included reports of him and his wife roundly criticising the previous trial of Henry Courtenay and the burning of incriminating correspondence.^[18] His attainder for high treason meant that his lands and property were confiscated.^[6][11][19]

One tradition is that Nicholas's downfall was partly prompted by an exchange with Henry VIII during a game of bowls: it was said that the king half-jestingly insulted Nicholas, whose retort caused substantial royal affront.^[6][11]

Nicholas appears to have made a near-deathbed conversion to protestantism while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. It was reported that "as he was led to execution, he exhorted all to study the evangelical books, as he had fallen by hatred to the Gospel [by being of Catholic sympathies]".^[20]

He was beheaded at Tower Hill, London on 8 March 1539.^[6][11] (Douglas Richardson incorrectly gives the day as 3 March 1539/40:^[3][4] but the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII make clear he was tried in February 1539,^[18] a letter of March 1539 records his being executed,^[20] and his widow lodged a petition on 11 March that year.^[21]) He was buried initially at St Peter ad Vincula, the church of the Tower of London;^[11] his remains must have subsequently been moved to St Botolph's, Aldgate, London: John Stow's Survey of London (1598, 2nd edition 1603) records them there.^[6]

Nicholas's widow was allowed the manor of Wallington, Surrey together with property in Sussex,^[3][4] following a petition she made to Henry VIII's chief minister Thomas Cromwell on 11 March 1539, within days of her husband's death.^[21]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5} Frederic Thomas Colby (ed.). The Visitation of the County of Devon in the year 1564, W Pollard, 1881, p. 38, Google Books
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6} W Bruce Bannerman (ed.). The Visitations of Surrey, 1530, 1572 and 1623, Harleian Society, 1899, p. 17, Internet Archive
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8} Douglas Richardson. Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 4 vols, ed. Kimball G. Everingham, 2nd edition (Salt Lake City: the author, 2011), Vol. I, pp. 194-195,BEVILLE 12, Google Books
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8} Douglas Richardson. Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 5 vols, ed. Kimball G. Everingham (Salt Lake City: the author, 2013), Vol. I, pp. 260-361, BEVILLE 18
5. ↑ The National Archives, ref. PROB 11/19/33, Discovery Centre catalogue entry
6. ↑ ^{6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8} Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry by Stanford Lehmberg for ’ Carew, Sir Nicholas', print and online 2004, revised online 2007
7. ↑ 'The King's Book of Payments, 1514', in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 2, 1515-1518, ed. J S Brewer (London, 1864), pp. 1463-1466, British History Online, accessed 11 November 2022
8. ↑ Monumental Inscription for Mary's son Thomas Darcy, transcript in W H Hamilton Rogers, The Ancient Sepulchral Effigies and Monumental and Memorial Sculpture of Devon, William Pollard, 1877, p. 78, Internet Archive
9. ↑ W Bruce Bannerman (ed.). The Visitations of Surrey, 1530, 1572 and 1623, p. 69, Internet Archive
10. ↑ Will of Francis Carew, the National Archives, ref. PROB 11/117/529, Discovery Centre catalogue entry, transcript here
11. ↑ ^{11.00 11.01 11.02 11.03 11.04 11.05 11.06 11.07 11.08 11.09 11.10 11.11} History of Parliament Online, entry for CAREW, Sir Nicholas (by 1496-1539), of Beddington, Surr.
12. ↑ Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, British History Online search results (search undertaken 11 November 2022)
13. ↑ List of Sheriffs for England and Wales from the Earliest Times to A.D. 1831, Public Record Office Lists and Indexes IX, HMSO, 1898 (Kraus Reprint Corporation 1963), p. 137, Internet Archive
14. ↑ 'Henry VIII: July 1522', in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 3, 1519-1523, ed. J S Brewer (London, 1867), pp. 1001-1020, British History Online, accessed 11 November 2022
15. ↑ W A Shaw. The Knights of England, Vol. I, Sherratt and Hughes, 1906, p. 22, Internet Archive
16. ↑ George Frederick Beltz. Memorials of the most noble Order of the Garter, William Pickering, 1841, p. clxxxiii, Internet Archive
17. ↑ François R. Velde. 'List of the Knights of the Garter', entry 298, web, accessed 11 November 2022
18. ↑ ^{18.0 18.1} 'Letters and Papers: February 1539, 11-15', in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 14 Part 1, January-July 1539, ed. James Gairdner and R H Brodie (London, 1894), pp. 107-117, British History Online, accessed 11 November 2022
19. ↑ 'Parishes: Beddington', in A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 4, ed. H E Malden (London, 1912), pp. 168-178, British History Online, accessed 11 November 2022
20. ↑ ^{20.0 20.1} 'Letters and Papers: March 1539, 6-10', in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 14 Part 1, January-July 1539, ed. James Gairdner and R H Brodie (London, 1894), pp. 177-195, British History Online (entry 466), accessed 11 November 2022
21. ↑ ^{21.0 21.1} 'Letters and Papers: March 1539, 11-15', in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 14 Part 1, January-July 1539, ed. James Gairdner and R H Brodie (London, 1894), pp. 195-206. British History Online (entry 498), accessed 11 November 2022

See also:

• Wikipedia: Nicholas Carew (courtier)
• Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Vol. 9, pp. 56-59, entry for 'CAREW, Sir NICHOLAS (d. 1539)', Wikisource

Acknowledgements

Magna Carta Project

This profile was re-reviewed for the Magna Carta project by Michael Cayley on 11 November 2022.

Nicholas Carew KG MP appears in Magna Carta Ancestry in a Richardson-documented trail from Gateway Ancestor Essex Beville to Magna Carta Surety Baron Geoffrey de Say (vol. I, pages 192-196 BEVILLE). This profile is also in another trail from Beville-27 to Richard de Clare that was identified by the Magna Carta Project. Both trails were project-approved/badged in November 2015 by Noland-165 and are outlined in the Magna Carta Trails section of the Gateway's profile.

See Base Camp for more information about Magna Carta trails. See the project's glossary for project-specific terms, such as a "badged trail".