Thomas Wyatt

Thomas Wyatt: The Heart’s Forest is a 2012 biography of the Tudor poet by British academic Susan Brigden. The first poet to write a sonnet in English, Wyatt also led a glamorous and dangerous life. He was a favored courtier of Henry VIII, an ambassador to the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, twice imprisoned in the Tower of London, and rumored to have had an affair with Henry’s second wife Anne Boleyn. A historian by training, Brigden focuses on Wyatt’s political career,  offering historical rather than literary readings of his poems. Thomas Wyatt: The Heart’s Forest won the 2013 Wolfson History Prize.

Wyatt was born in 1503, the son of Sir Henry Wyatt, a high-ranking courtier and soldier famous for reputedly remaining loyal to Henry VIII’s father Henry Tudor despite torture and starvation at the hands of Richard III. Henry trained his son in the courtly skills of eloquence and chivalrous manners, and brought him to court at the age of thirteen. Wyatt quickly gained a reputation for prettiness, horsemanship, and intelligence. He raised a lion cub, and when the adult turned on him, he ran his rapier through its heart.

He studied law at the Inns of Court, where, like many young courtiers, he focused on developing his wit and poetry. It was a time of innovation in English vernacular verse, and Brigden credits Wyatt with introducing “the sonnet, the epigram, the Horatian verse epistle,” as well as making major contributions to the English development of ottava and terza rima.



As a young man, Wyatt married Elizabeth Brooke, the daughter of a baron. It is not known whether the couple was in love or maneuvering for courtly advantage, but the marriage failed among rumors of adultery on Elizabeth’s part.

By 1526, Wyatt had become an esquire of the king’s body and a diplomat. A year later, he put himself forward for the role of assistant to Sir John Russell on an important mission to Pope Clement VII. When Sir John broke his leg, Wyatt was left with the task of delivering the King’s message to the Pope. This message was met with hostility, and when war broke out in Italy, Wyatt was captured by imperial troops and ransomed for the enormous sum of three thousand ducats.

Having returned to England in some disgrace, Wyatt’s position worsened when, in 1534, he killed a London sergeant and was sent to the Fleet prison. Brigden points out the seeming contradiction: Wyatt was the translator of Latin philosophical texts, so senseless hooligan violence seems out of character. She speculates that possibly Wyatt’s conscience was suffering in the aftermath of Henry’s break with the Roman Church. In the end, however, she concludes that Wyatt’s murder is “one of the most unfathomable moments of his life.”



Brigden argues that, despite the contemporary rumors, Wyatt almost certainly did not have an affair with Anne Boleyn. There are, she suggests, “convincing reasons why Anne and Wyatt should never have been lovers.” First and foremost that it simply would have been too dangerous.

Nevertheless, Wyatt certainly was allied to the Boleyn faction at court, and in the aftermath of Anne’s imprisonment, he was sent to the Tower. In the end, he was not executed (unlike several others accused of adultery with Anne). Although he escaped death, Wyatt was left bitter and scarred by the experience. Some of his verse may suggest that he witnessed Anne’s death. Either way, he wrote, “These blodye Dayes have brokyn my hart.”

Restored to the King’s favor, Wyatt was given the dubious honor of serving as Henry’s ambassador to Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor. Brigden paints a portrait of the Imperial court: horrified by England’s mercurial king and constantly laying traps for his ambassador. Wyatt was out of his depth not just professionally but financially, as he had to entertain court figures at his own expense. When he asked Henry for more money, the King instead sent a spy, Edmund Bonner. Writing to Thomas Cromwell, Bonner accused Wyatt of a fantastic range of crimes, from being an ally of the Emperor’s to not allowing Bonner to ride his horse.



When Cromwell was executed, Bonner saw his opportunity and accused Wyatt of treason. Wyatt was once again sent to the tower, this time with an escort of twenty-four archers. In the Tower, he wrote his Defence, a plea for his innocence, which drew on all his political skill and linguistic virtuosity.

Wyatt was released at the request of Henry’s new Queen, Catherine. Less than a year later, she too was executed, along with a number of her allies. This time Wyatt escaped suspicion, but on a 1542 diplomatic mission to Cornwall, he contracted a fever. He took refuge at a friend’s house, where he died. Verses written to commemorate him make clear that Wyatt was already regarded as a great innovator in English poetry.