Henry Guildford

Eleven of them impersonated Robin Hood and his men, and with a woman representing Maid Marian surprised the queen in her chamber with their dancing and mummery.

Next year, on Twelfth Night, he was the designer of the pageant with which the Christmas revelries concluded: a mountain which moved towards the king and opened, and out of which came morris-dancers.

[4] Immediately afterwards he went with Lord Darcy's expedition to Spain against the Moors, where the English generally met with such a cool reception; but he and Sir Wistan Browne remained a while after their countrymen had returned home, and were dubbed knights by Ferdinand at Burgos on 15 September 1511.

In 1513, he embarked at Southampton with the army that invaded France, and was one of the commanders of "the middle ward", having been appointed on 28 May the king's standard-bearer in the room of Sir Edward Howard, the admiral, who was drowned.

In the same year he became an executor of Sir Thomas Cheney of Irthlingborough, Northamptonshire, and before Christmas was writing to a minstrel in the Low Countries named Hans Nagel, to allure him over to England as a spy who could make reports about the fugitive, Richard De la Pole.

In the autumn of 1521 he accompanied Thomas Wolsey to the Calais conferences, but on 21 September Richard Pace wrote to the cardinal to send him and Francis Brian home, as the king had few to attend him in his privy chamber.

In the spring of 1528 there were seditious rumours in some parts of Kent about demanding repayment of the loan which the people had been forced to contribute to the king; and some even proposed to break into gentlemen's houses, among others that of Guildford's half-brother, Sir Edward, and steal their weapons.

In the same year he made an exchange of lands with the priory of Leeds in Kent, and appointed Lord De la Warr and others trustees for the execution of his will.

In the parliament of 1529 he was knight of the shire for Kent, and it was he who gave point to the complaints of the commons against the spiritualty with regard to probates of wills by the statement that he had paid to Wolsey and Archbishop Warham a thousand marks as executor to Sir William Compton.

On 13 July he signed the letter of the lords and councillors of England to the pope, urging him to comply with the king's wishes as regards the divorce.

On this subject he spoke his thoughts freely to Eustace Chapuys and even in court he could not disguise his views; so that Anne Boleyn, looking upon him as an enemy, warned him that when she was queen she would deprive him of his office of comptroller of the household.

The king told him he should not trouble himself about what women said, and twice insisted on his taking back his baton of office; but for a time Guildford retired from court.

Portrait of Sir Henry Guildford from 1527, by Hans Holbein the Younger . He wears the Collar of the Garter
Arms of Sir Henry Guildford, KG
Christchurch Gate, Canterbury Cathedral , Kent, built 1517, displaying (far left) the arms of Sir Henry Guldeford (d.1532). Quarterly of 4: 1&4: Or, a saltire between four martlets sable ; 2&3: Argent, a chief sable overall a bend engrailed gules (Halden). He distinguished himself in the Spanish wars against the Moors, and particularly upon the reduction of Grenada; in consequence of which the canton with the pomegranate was placed as an augmentation to his family arms ; the pomegranate being the arms of that kingdom. Henry the Eighth, in the sixteenth year of his reign, granted to him the manor of Hadloe, in this county. [ 1 ]
Mary, Sir Henry's second wife, portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger .