James Basset

[7] James briefly moved to Calais with his mother and stepfather[8] but in 1534, aged eight, was being educated for a clerical career, as befitted a younger son of the gentry, at Reading Abbey.

[12] In 1547 at the start of the reign of King Edward VI (1547–1553) Gardiner was imprisoned first in the Fleet and remained in the Tower of London for six years until released on the accession of the Catholic Queen Mary I (1553–1558).

[18] On the accession of the Catholic Queen Mary in 1553, Bishop Gardiner was restored to the See of Winchester and appointed Lord Chancellor and Basset returned from his exile to continue serving him.

Following the exile in 1555 to the Venetian Republic of Edward Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon (c. 1527–1556), once a likely husband for Queen Mary, which match had been supported by Bishop Gardiner, Basset became one of the trustees of his extensive English possessions.

I know with the more expedition you arrive there the better it will be accepted and if you should long delay the time by the way it would be suspicious... During the reign of Queen Mary, her sister and heir apparent the Protestant Princess Elizabeth is said by John Foxe (died 1587) the Protestant martyrologist,[25] to have been the target of an assassination attempt by Basset, which has been dismissed by Byrne (1981) as "apocryphal":[26] Another time one of the privy chamber, a great man about the queen and chief darling of Stephen Gardiner named Master James Basset, came to Bladon Bridge, a mile from Woodstock, with 20 or 30 privy coats [soldiers wearing concealed chain-mail[27]] and sent for Sir Henry Benifield to come and speak with him.The princess's custodian between May 1554 to April 1555 was Sir Henry Bedingfield, who was away, but his brother met Basset at the bridge and "would suffer him in no case to approach in, who otherwise (as is supposed) was appointed violently to murder the innocent lady".

At some time between September 1553[28] and June 1556[29] James Basset married (as her second husband) Mary Roper (died 20 March 1572[30]), daughter of William Roper (1495/6-1578), of St Dunstan's, Canterbury, of Eltham, Kent and of Chelsea, Middlesex, several times an MP for various constituencies, by his wife Margaret More, daughter of Sir Thomas More (1478–1535), Lord Chancellor to King Henry VIII and opponent to the Protestant Reformation.

[32] She was a noted scholar of Greek and Latin and translated the Ecclesiastical History by Eusebius and the works of other of the early Church Fathers, as mentioned by Nicholas Harpsfield (died 1575) in his Life of More.

[51] A description of his funeral was made in the Diary of Henry Machyn as follows:[52]The 26th day of November was buried at the blackfriars in Smithfield Master Basset, squire, one of the Privy Chamber with Queen Mary; and he had two white branches [white candlesticks] and twelve torches and four great tapers and a herald ... a coat armour, a pennon of arms and two dozen of scutcheons.He was survived by his wife Mary Roper, then pregnant with his second child Charles.