taliated by writing to Cromwell (from Blois, 2 Sept. 1538) that Wyatt was engaged in traitorous correspondence with Reginald Pole, lived loosely, and used disrespectful language to the king (cf. Inner Temple Petyt MS. No. 47, f. 9; printed in Gent. Mag. 1850, i. 563–70). Cromwell, a staunch friend of Wyatt, ignored the accusation, and on 27 Nov. 1538 wrote to him in terms of confidence. Wyatt was recalled to England in April 1539.
In the following December he was despatched to Flanders to interview the emperor, who was on the point of paying a visit to the king of France in Paris. Thither Wyatt followed the emperor. In January 1540 Wyatt was especially requested to procure from the French court the arrest of a Welshman named Brancetor, an ally of Cardinal Pole, who had taken service in the household of the emperor, and was with him in Paris. Wyatt failed to secure the arrest of the man, who appealed to the emperor and to the French government for protection. Wyatt pressed the matter in an audience of the emperor, but he proved unconciliatory. Henry VIII, on hearing from Wyatt of his difficulties, instructed him to remain firm. Wyatt followed the emperor to Brussels and boldly renewed his entreaties without result. Wyatt's inability to improve the relations between Henry VIII and the emperor were in part responsible for Cromwell's fall. In 1540 he returned from the Low Countries.
After Cromwell's execution Bonner and Heynes renewed their old attack upon Wyatt. Their charges were now treated seriously, and Wyatt was sent to the Tower at the same time as another innocent ally of Cromwell, Sir John Wallop [q. v.] Wyatt was privately informed of the accusation, and sent an elaborate paper of explanations, denying with much spirit that any treasonable intent could be deduced from any reports of his conversation (cf. Harl. MS. 78, arts. 6, 7; first printed by Horace Walpole in Miscellaneous Antiquities, 1772, ii. 21–54, from a transcript made by the poet Gray). But according to a letter sent by the lords of the council to Sir William Howard on 26 March 1541, Wyatt ‘confessed uppon his examination, all the thinges objected unto him, in a like lamentable and pitifull sorte as Wallop did, whiche surely were grevous, delyvering his submission in writing, declaring thole history of his offences, but with a like protestation, that the same proceeded from him in his rage and folishe vaynglorios fantazie without spott of malice; yelding himself only to his majesties marcy, without the whiche he sawe he might and must needes be justely condempned. And the contemplation of which submission, and at the greate and contynual sute of the Quenes Majestie, His Highnes, being of his owne most godly nature enclyned to pitie and mercy, hathe given him his pardon in as large and ample sorte as his grace gave thother to Sir John Wallop, whiche pardons be delyvered, and they sent for to come hither to Highnes at Dover.’ Thenceforth the king's favour was secure. He had added the estate of Boxley to his large Kentish property, and now received grants of land at Lambeth and elsewhere, exchanging some of his land in Kent for other estates in Dorset and Somerset. He was made high steward of the manor of Maidstone, and early in 1542 he was returned to parliament as knight of the shire for Kent. In the summer of 1542 he was sent to Falmouth to conduct the imperial ambassador to London. The heat of the weather and the fatigue of the journey brought on a violent fever, which compelled him to halt at Sherborne in Dorset. There Wyatt died, and on 11 Oct. 1542 he was buried in the great church of Sherborne. The register describes him as ‘vir venerabilis.’ The ‘inquisitio post mortem,’ dated 8 Jan. 1542–3, enumerates vast estates in Kent (34 Hen. VIII, Kent, m. 90).
Sir Thomas Wyatt's (bust) portrait (with flowing black beard and bald head) on panel is in the picture gallery at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The Earl of Romney (at his London residence) owns a portrait (small bust) on panel by Lucas Cornelisz. Two other similar portraits were exhibited at South Kensington in 1866. Two drawings by Holbein are in the Royal Library at Windsor; one was engraved for Leland's tract in 1542, and is said to have been drawn on wood by Holbein. A painting after one of Holbein's sketches is in the National Portrait Gallery, London. According to Vertue, a full-length portrait was at Ditchley, the present seat of Viscount Dillon; it has long been missing. The Bodleian portrait has often been engraved (cf. Dr. Nott's edition of Wyatt's ‘Works,’ frontispiece).
Wyatt married about 1520 Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Brooke, lord Cobham, and had by her an only surviving son, Sir Thomas Wyatt [q. v.] His widow married Sir Edward Warner [q. v.]
Wyatt's unexpected death was widely mourned. John Leland, the antiquary, published in 1542 a Latin elegy of much merit, ‘Nænia in mortem Thomæ Viati equitis incomparabilis,’ which was dedicated to the Earl of Surrey (with woodcut of Wyatt).
