Francis Bryan

Courtier

Sir Francis Bryan (1490 – ) is an English courtier and diplomat.

Week 9: Arrange Your Face (Part 2)

Francis Bryan is Anne Boleyn’s cousin. He lost an eye in a joust and is known for his drinking. The Vicar of Hell, they call him. He is with Thomas Wyatt on New Year’s Day, 1532, when Cromwell comes to pay the turnkey and get them out of jail.

He jokes that Cromwell is sleeping with all the city’s wives.

“Wyatt, get him to cover himself, or his parts will be frostbitten. Bad enough to be without an eye.”

Week 10: 'Alas, What Shall I Do For Love?' (Part 1)

The one-eyed Vicar of Hell is having a hoot of a time riding with Cromwell to see a furious Anne Boleyn. “My lady is enraged,” he says. “She says Harry Percy will spoil everything for her. She cannot decide between striking him dead with one blow of a sword or teasing him apart over forty days of public torture, like they do in Italy.”

One blow of a sword? Hold that thought.

Week 23: The Black Book (Part 2)

He, Cromwell, gets Sir Francis drunk. He wants to find out more about the Boleyns, who Bryan has fallen out with. But the only name the Vicar of Hell can give Crumb is the one he does not want to hear. ‘Of course,’ he says. ‘Wyatt’s had her.’

Week 24: The Black Book (Part 3)

At Cromwell’s imaginary banquet, Bryan ‘reels in, already a bottle to the good,’ singing Pastime with good company.

Week 27: Master of Phantoms (3/5)

The one-eyed Vicar of Hell has ‘a small winking emerald’ over his path. His other eye is red with drink. Cromwell invites him to supper, which Bryan considers a bit of a threat. He calls Anne a ‘hot minx’ and seems prepared to support Cromwell with knowledge and evidence where it is required. Master Secretary tells him to deliver to Lord Morley the news of his son-in-law’s arrest. And tell Nicholas Carew to give off his back. ‘I must have a free hand to deal,’ says Cromwell. ‘I am not their waiting boy.’

Week 29: The Book of Phantoms (Part 5/5) / Spoils

Francis Bryan plays messenger for the Seymours. He waits at the door and is away as soon as the queen’s sentence is read. At the execution, he does the same.

Week 30: Wreckage (I)

We see Francis Bryan hurry away again to deliver the news of Anne’s death to Jane Seymour. He is a cousin of the dead queen, but he has remembered he is also a cousin of the new queen.

Week 32: Salvage (Part 2/3)

Francis Bryan is over from France to ‘check up on’ Cromwell. He tells him what Gardiner is saying and thinks about him. Bryan says he expects to go blind and jokes he will beg for alms, and ‘kind Bishop Gardiner will lead me.’

Week 33: Salvage (Part 3/3)

Francis Bryan has been put in the Tower, for his own safety. Cromwell visits him. He needs Francis to exert his influence on his in-laws, the Carews. Sir Nicholas must write to Lady Mary to make it clear that neither he nor the old families will help her now. Their support would kill her.

Week 42: The Image of the King (Part 2/2) / Broken on the Body

The king recalls Francis Bryan from France, his mission to get Reginald Pole considered a failure. He appears at the christening of Henry’s son, from his eye-patch, ‘a lewd green wink.’

Week 44: Corpus Christi (Part 1/2)

Wyatt commends Francis Bryan to Cromwell. ‘He plays for high stakes with the chancellors of great men, their familiar creatures, and he sleeps with their women. I could not prosper without him. I would learn nothing.’

   Francis Bryan has crawled back to England sick enough to die. The king has kicked him out of the privy chamger, though Bryan swears all his excesses have been in England's service. His people take him off to the country, and write to Lord Cromwell begging for a kind word. 'You know you would miss him sorely,' Richard Cromwell says. 'Anytime you don't know what to do, you say, "Arrest Sir Francis Bryan!"'
   He hhas nothing against Francis, personally. It is only out of a sort of affection that he calls him the Vicar of Hell. And it nettles him, that men are applying for his offices even before he is dead.