Henry Brett (colonel)

Last updated July 20, 2021

Henry Brett (died 1724) was an English man about town, an army officer and Tory politician. He was involved in the theatrical world, and an associate of the playwrights Joseph Addison and Richard Steele.

Life

He was the eldest son of Henry Brett of Cowley, Gloucestershire. Colley Cibber, who was a close friend, says that the young Brett was sent to Oxford and entered at the Temple, but was an idler about town in 1700, when he married Anne, the divorced wife of Charles Gerard, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield,^[1] who succeeded to the title in 1693. She was daughter of Sir Richard Mason, knight, of Sutton, Surrey, and married the Earl of Macclesfield, then Lord Brandon, in 1683, but separated from him soon after. She had two illegitimate children, one of whom, by Richard Savage, 4th Earl Rivers, was possibly the poet Richard Savage. The countess was divorced in 1698, when her fortune was returned to her, and two years later she married Henry Brett. He was very handsome, and the lady's sympathy is said to have been evoked by an assault committed on him by bailiffs opposite her windows.^[2]

After his marriage Henry Brett was for a short time Member of Parliament for the borough of Bishop's Castle, in Shropshire. He also obtained in 1705 the lieutenant-colonelcy of a regiment of foot newly raised by Sir Charles Hotham, but parted with it soon after.^[2]

Brett was a well-known member of the little circle of which Addison was the head, and which held its social gatherings at Will's and afterwards at Button's. He is supposed to be the Colonel Rambler of The Tatler (No. 7). He rebuilt Sandywell Park, which he sold to Lord Conway, and at one time had a share in the patent of Drury Lane Theatre (Cibber, Apology, p. 212). He survived his friend Addison, and died, rather suddenly, in 1724.^[2]

Family

After her father's death, Brett's daughter, Anna Margharetta Brett, who appears to have been the sole issue of the marriage,^[3] and who is described as a dark, Spanish-looking beauty, became the recognised mistress - the first English one - of George I of Great Britain, then in his sixty-fifth year, by whom she is believed to have had no children. The young lady's ambition and prospects of a coronet were disappointed through the death of the king in 1727, and she subsequently married Sir William Leman, 2nd baronet, of Northaw or Northall, Hertfordshire, and died without issue in 1743.^[2]

Mrs. Brett lived to the age of eighty. She died at her residence in Old Bond Street, London, on 11 October 1753. She is said to have been a woman of literary tastes, and Colley Cibber is said to have submitted to her revision the manuscript of his best play, The Careless Husband , which was first put on the boards in 1704.^[2]

Colonel Arthur Brett (whose daughter married Thomas Carte, the historian) is sometimes confused with Henry Brett.

Related Research Articles

Anne Oldfield was an English actress and one of the highest paid actresses of her time.

Richard Savage was an English poet. He is best known as the subject of Samuel Johnson's Life of Savage, originally published anonymously in 1744, on which is based one of the most elaborate of Johnson's Lives of the English Poets.

Richard Savage, 4th Earl Rivers PC was the second son of Thomas, 3rd Earl and his first wife Elizabeth Scrope. After the death about 1680 of his elder brother Thomas, styled Viscount Colchester, he was designated by that title until he succeeded to the peerage.

Charles Gerard, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield was an English peer, soldier and MP.

Theophilus Cibber was an English actor, playwright, author, and son of the actor-manager Colley Cibber.

Thomas Manners, 1st Earl of Rutland, 12th Baron de Ros of Helmsley, KG, of Belvoir Castle, Rutland, was created Earl of Rutland by King Henry VIII in 1525.

Charlotte Charke was an English actress, playwright, novelist, autobiographer, and noted transvestite. She acted on the stage from the age of 17, mainly in breeches roles, and took to wearing male clothing off the stage. She assumed the name "Charles Brown" and called her daughter "Mrs. Brown." She suffered a series of failures in her business affairs after working in a variety of trades commonly associated with men, from valet, to sausage maker, farmer, pastry chef, and tavern owner, but finally achieved success under her own name as a writer, ending her life as a novelist and memoirist.

Frances Burke, Countess of Clanricarde and Dowager Countess of Essex was an English noblewoman. The daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I's Secretary of State, she became the wife of Sir Philip Sidney at age 16. Her second husband was Queen Elizabeth's favourite, Robert Devereaux Earl of Essex, with whom she had five children. Two years after his execution in 1601, she married Richard Burke, Earl of Clanricarde, and went to live with him in Ireland.

Robert Wilks was a British actor and theatrical manager who was one of the leading managers of Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in its heyday of the 1710s. He was, with Colley Cibber and Thomas Doggett, one of the "triumvirate" of actor-managers that was denounced by Alexander Pope and caricatured by William Hogarth as leaders of the decline in theatrical standards and degradation of the stage's literary tradition.

John Brownlow, 1st Viscount Tyrconnel, KB, known as Sir John Brownlow, 5th Baronet, from 1701 to 1718, of Belton House near Grantham in Lincolnshire, was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1713 to 1741.

Sir Richard Mason was an English Member of Parliament and Courtier.

Elizabeth Wriothesley, Countess of Southampton was one of the chief ladies-in-waiting to Elizabeth I of England in the later years of her reign.

Elizabeth de Vere, Countess of Oxford was an English noblewoman. As a young child she became a royal ward.

Sir Gilbert Gerard was a prominent lawyer, politician, and landowner of the Tudor period. He was returned six times as a member of the English parliament for four different constituencies. He was Attorney-General for more than twenty years during the reign of Elizabeth I, as well as vice-chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and later served as Master of the Rolls. He acquired large estates, mainly in Lancashire and Staffordshire.

Louisa, Countess of Craven, originally Louisa Brunton (1785?–1860) was an English actress.

Thomas Savage, 1st Viscount Savage, was an English peer and courtier in the reign of Charles I.

Catherine Cibber, born Katherine Shore, was a British singer and actor.

Anne Brett or Anne Mason; Anne Gerard, Countess of Macclesfield was a Kingdom of Great Britain courtier. She had a scandalous divorce.

John Mills (c.1670–1736) was a British stage actor. A long-standing part of the Drury Lane company from 1695 until his death, he appeared in both comedies and tragedies. His wife Margaret Mills was an actress, and his son William Mills also became an actor at Drury Lane.

Jane Cibber (1706-1733) was a British stage actress.

References

↑ "Brett [née Mason], Anne [other married name Anne Gerard, countess of Macclesfield] (1667/8–1753), courtier | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/70843.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
1 2 3 4 5 "Brett, Henry" . Dictionary of National Biography . London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
↑ Burke, John; Burke, Sir Bernard; Burke, Bernard (1841). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England, Ireland and Scotland. Scott, Webster, and Geary.

Attribution

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : "Brett, Henry". Dictionary of National Biography . London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

External links

Hutchinson, John (1902). "Brett, Henry" . A catalogue of notable Middle Templars, with brief biographical notices (1 ed.). Canterbury: the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple. p. 30.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] "Brett [née Mason], Anne [other married name Anne Gerard, countess of Macclesfield] (1667/8–1753), courtier | Oxford Dictionary of National Biography" . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/70843.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

[thisone-2] 1 2 3 4 5 "Brett, Henry" . Dictionary of National Biography . London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

[3] Burke, John; Burke, Sir Bernard; Burke, Bernard (1841). A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England, Ireland and Scotland. Scott, Webster, and Geary.

[1]

[2]

[3]