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On a Contemporary Drawing of the Burning of Brighton in the time of Henry VIII

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

James Gairdner
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Extract

There are two different dates in the reign of Henry VIII. at which historians relate, on the authority of early chronicles, that the French landed at Brighton, then called Bright-hampstead or Brighthelmstone, and burned the town. The first was in the spring of 1514, the sixth year of the reign, and the second was in July 1545, the thirty-seventh year of the reign. The contemporary picture-map, of which a copy stands before you, would seem, by an inscription upon it, to be a representation of the latter event. But the inscription, I may say at once, does not appear to be in a handwriting quite of Henry VIII.'s time, and it is one object of this paper to show that the conflagration depicted is the one of 1514. Further, I may say that it appears to me very questionable whether the burning in 1545 was an actual fact at all.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 1 , December 1907 , pp. 19 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1907

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References

page 19 note 1 The original is in the Cottonian Library, Augustus I. vol. i. No. 18.

page 20 note 1 Letters and Papers, vol. xx. pt. i. No. 1235.Google Scholar

page 22 note 1 Erredge, 's History of Brighthelmstone, p. 17.Google Scholar

page 23 note 1 Our Secretary Mr. Malden has called my attention to a statement by Lower that Lewes priory had a cell at Brighton which was burnt by the French in 1513 (1514 really), 6 Hen. VIII. (see History of Sussex, i. 78, 79).Google Scholar One of the houses on fire on the beach looks not unlike a chapel or church without a spire.

page 24 note 1 In his Peregrination at the end of Hearne, 's Benedictus Abbas, p. 776.Google Scholar

page 25 note 1 Letters and Papers, Hen. VIII. vol. xix. pt. ii. No. 82.Google Scholar

page 25 note 2 Dasent, 's Acts of Privy Council, i. 484Google Scholar; ii. 98.

page 25 note 3 Erredge, 's History of Brighthelmstone, p. 63.Google Scholar

page 25 note 4 Dasent, , vii. 287.Google Scholar

page 27 note 1 See Letters and Papers, vol. xx. pt. i. Nos. 1247, 1288.Google Scholar

page 29 note 1 This burning of the Carraquon, or Great Carrack, is stated to have taken place on the 15th, and the sailing of the fleet on the 17th, in a letter written by St. Mauris to Covos on the 27th. Hume, 's Calendar of State Papers, England and Spain, vol. viii. pp. 197–8.Google Scholar