Nicholas Brigham

To this Pits adds that he was no common poet and a good orator, and that in 1555 he built a tomb for the bones of Geoffrey Chaucer in Westminster Abbey.

Part of Sir Henry Dudley's conspiracy, for which many suffered death in 1556, was to seize the money of the exchequer in custody of Brigham.

From this it appears that Brigham died in December 1558, and that Margaret did not long survive him – her will, dated 2 June 1559, was proved on 12 October following.

Brigham wrote De Venationibus Rerum Memorabilium; Memoirs by way of a Diary and Miscellaneous Poems but none of these seem now to be extant.

In 1555, Brigham removed the poet's bones to a marble tomb he had built in the south transept, and on which there was a portrait of Chaucer taken from Thomas Hoccleve De Regimine Principis, with this epitaph: Qui fuit Anglorum vates ter maximus olim Annum si quæras Domini, si tempora vitæ, After which comes: N. Brigham hos fecit Musarum nomine sumptus.

and round the base: Si rogitas quis eram, forsan te fama docebit; Quod si fama negat, mundi quia gloria transit, This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Brigham, Nicholas".