Nicholas Breton

Nicholas Breton (also Britton or Brittaine) (c. 1545/53 – c. 1625/6) was a poet and prose writer of the English Renaissance. Life Nicholas belonged to an old family settled at Layer Breton, Essex. His father, William Breton, a London merchant who had made a considerable fortune, died in 1559, and his widow Elizabeth (née Bacon) married the poet George Gascoigne before her sons had attained their majority. Nicholas was probably born at the "capitall mansion house" in Red Cross Street, in the parish of St Giles without Cripplegate, mentioned in his father's will. There is no official record of his residence at the university, but the diary of the Rev. Richard Madox tells us that he was at Antwerp in 1583 and was "once of Oriel College." He may have been the poet named "Mr Breton" who visited the court of James VI of Scotland in 1588 and received a gift of £160 Scots. He married Ann Sutton in 1593, and had a family. He is supposed to have died shortly after the publication of his last work, Fantastickes (1626). Breton found a patron in Mary, countess of Pembroke, and wrote much in her honour until 1601, when she seems to have withdrawn her favour. Some of the letters signed N.B. in A Poste with a Packet of Mad Letters (1603, enlarged 1637) may contain autobiographical details; the nineteenth letter of the second part contains a general complaint of many griefs, and proceeds as follows: Hath another been wounded in the warres, fared hard, lain in a cold bed many a bitter storme, and beene at many a hard banquet? all these have I; another imprisoned? so have I; another long been sicke? so have I; another plagued with an unquiet life? so have I; another indebted to his hearts griefe, and faine would pay and cannot? so am I.