Henry Noel

Henry Noel or Nowell (died 1597) was an English courtier and member of Parliament for Morpeth in the parliament of 1589 and Cricklade in 1593. He was a younger son of Andrew Noel of Dalby and Brooke and Elizabeth Hopton. His brother Andrew Noel (died 1607) was member of Parliament for Rutland. Henry Noel was a poet, a patron of the composer John Dowland, and said to be a gentleman pensioner to the queen. The lawyer John Manningham recorded in his diary that Walter Raleigh made a pun on his name "Noe - L" to criticise him as a spendthrift:The word of denial and the letter of fifty,Makes the gentleman's name that will never be thrifty. He died on 26 February 1597 from a fever after playing a ball game called baloune at court with an Italian opponent.