Black and white dress.
BEHEADED 1539.
By Holbein.
THE Carews came of an ancient family in Devonshire, but the branch to which Sir Nicholas belonged had settled at Beddington, in Surrey, an estate that had come into their possession by marriage.
Nicholas was the eldest son of Sir Richard Carew, Knight-Banneret, by Magdalen, daughter of Sir Thomas Oxenbridge, Bart., of Ford, in Sussex. When Sir Richard died, and his son succeeded, the landed property was very extensive, and it was said the owner might start from his own house, and ride in any direction straight on end for ten miles at least on his own land. When still a youth Nicholas went to Paris, where, we are told, he became so enamoured of French manners, customs, and fashions, that on his return to England he could speak and boast of nothing else. Handsome, well-born, and accomplished, he soon attracted the notice of Henry the Eighth, who welcomed him at Court, and appointed him a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, a place which was then of much higher standing than in later days. But Carew did not make himself popular in the royal household. The constant comparisons which he daily drew between the French and English Courts, to the great disparagement of the latter, offended his colleagues in the highest degree, and were not calculated to gratify the King. Henry resolved to give the young man a lesson. If he were so devoted to France, to France he should go, and that without delay. At the same time, unwilling to dismiss him without some ostensible reason, he appointed Sir Nicholas governor of a fortress in Picardy, which was in the hands of the English. A castle in a provincial town did not offer the charms which Carew had found in the splendid capital of France, and it may easily be believed the office did not suit his taste. He doubtless petitioned the King; at all events, he was recalled, forgiven, and taken back into favour. He now became Henry’s almost inseparable companion, and was foremost in all the jousts, tournaments, maskings, and all kinds of Court revelry, in which they both excelled and delighted. Carew was, moreover, appointed Master of the Horse, at that period one of the highest offices in the realm, and Knight of the Garter.
The favour of Henry the Eighth was as easily lost as won, and Fuller tells us that a tradition in the family reported that Carew’s downfall proceeded, in the first instance, from a quarrel between him and his master at bowls, ‘when his Grace, who was no good fellow, and would always rather give than take in repartee,’ so exasperated his Master of the Horse, ‘that his answer was rather true than discreet, consulting his own animosity rather than his allegiance, whereat the King was so offended that Sir Nicholas fell from the top of his favour to the bottom of his displeasure, and was bruised to death.’ ‘This’—we quote Fuller all the time—‘was the true cause of his execution. He was charged with high treason, as accomplice with the Marquis of Exeter, Lord Montague, Sir Edward Neville, and others, in a plot to depose King Henry the Eighth, and place Cardinal Pole on the throne. They were all found guilty, and sentenced to death, with the exception of the Cardinal’s brother, who saved his own life by betraying his confederates. The evidence against Sir Nicholas appears to have been slight, but he was out of favour, and everything was turned to his prejudice. He was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1539.’ Holinshed said ‘he made a godly confession of his fault, and his superstitious faith.’ He was a Roman Catholic. Sir Nicholas Carew married Elizabeth, daughter and afterwards sole heir of Sir Thomas Bryan, Master of Common Pleas, by whom he had one son and three or four daughters.
The son, Sir Francis Carew, never married, but having regained a considerable portion of the estates forfeited on his father’s attainder, during the reign of Elizabeth, he bequeathed his property to his sister’s son, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, on condition that he assumed the name and arms of Carew.