Henry Noel was a poet, a patron of the composer John Dowland, and said to be a gentleman pensioner to the queen.
The lawyer John Manningham recorded in his diary that Walter Raleigh made a pun on his name "Noe - L" to criticise him as a spendthrift:The word of denial and the letter of fifty,Makes the gentleman's name that will never be thrifty.
[2]He died on 26 February 1597 from a fever after playing a ball game called baloune at court with an Italian opponent.
Few details are known of the game, which is said to have been played in a court with a heavy ball, and the players were equipped with wooden arm braces.
Queen Elizabeth was very angry and used "words and blows" against Brydges, and both women were suspended from their duties for three days.