'The Confession of Richard Brandon, the Hangman,' 1649; 'A Dialogue, or a Dispute between the Late Hangman and Death,' 1649. Other persons who have been credited with executing Charles I are the Earl of Stair (Hone, Sixty Curious Narratives, pp. 138-140), Lieutenant-colonel Joyce (Lilly, Life and Times), and Henry Porter (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 29 April 1663; Lords' Journal, xi. 104), but all the evidence points to Brandon as the real culprit. Very many references to Brandon and his father are met with in contemporary dramatic and popular literature.
[Cat. of Satirical Prints in Brit. Mus., Div. I; Ellis's Orig. Letters, 2nd ser. iii. 340-41; Notes and Queries, 1st ser. ii. v. vi., 2nd ser. ix. xi., 3rd ser. vii. s 4th ser. iii., oth ser. v.]
BRANDON, SAMUEL (16th cent.), is the author of 'The Tragi-comœdi of the Virtuous Octavia,' 1598, 12mo. Concerning his life no particulars whatever are preserved. His solitary play is a work of some merit and of considerable value and rarity. The plot, taken from the life of Augustus by Suetonius, and that of Mark Antony by Plutarch, follows to some extent classical models. Its scene is Rome, and its catastrophe the death of Mark Antony. The fact that at the close the heroine, who oscillates between love for her husband and jealousy of Cleopatra, is still alive, is the excuse for calling it a tragi-comedy. Weak in structure and deficient in interest, the 'Virtuous Octavia' has claims to attention as poetry. It is written in decasyllabic verse with rhymes to alternate lines, and includes choruses lyrical in form and fairly spirited. Two epistles between Octavia and Mark Antony, 'in imitation of Ovid's style, but writ in long Alexandrins' (Langbaine, p. 30, ed. 1691), are added. These epistles 'are dedicated to the honourable, virtuous, and excellent Mrs. Mary Thin' (ib.) The play itself is dedicated to Lady Lucia Audelay. At the close of the work are the Italian words: 'L'acqua non temo dell' eterno oblio.'
[Langbaine's Dramatic Poets; Baker, Reed, and Jones's Biographia Dramatica; Collier's History of English Dramatic Poetry, 1879; Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual.]
BRANDON, Sir THOMAS (d. 1509), diplomatist, was the son of William Brandon and Elizabeth Wynfyld, and uncle to the celebrated Charles Brandon [q.v.], duke of Suffolk. His family were staunch supporters of the Lancastrian cause. His brother, William, was slain at the battle of Bosworth gallantly defending the standard of Henry VII. A contemporary manuscript speaks of Sir Thomas as having 'greatly favoured and followed the party of Henry, earl of Richmond.' He married Anne, daughter of John Fiennes, Lord Dacre, and widow of the Marquis of Berkeley. She died in 1497 without issue. He was appointed to the embassy charged with concluding peace with France in 1492, and again in 1500 he formed one of the suite which accompanied Henry VII to Calais to meet the Archduke Philip of Austria. In 1503, together with Nicholas West, subsequently bishop of Ely, he was entrusted with the important mission of concluding a treaty with the Emperor Maximilian at Antwerp. The principal object of this treaty was to induce Maximilian to withdraw his support from Edmund de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, and banish him and the other English rebels from his dominions. Other points touched upon were the treatment of Milan and the question of Maximilian receiving the garter. Maximilian, according to his custom, behaved with much indecision, and, after solemnly ratifying the treaty, allowed the English ambassadors to leave, 'marvailing of this soden defection seyng divers matters as undetermyned.' On his return to England, Brandon was treated with much consideration by Henry VII, and we find him holding such offices as those of master of the king's horse, keeper of Freemantill Park, and marshal of the King's Bench. He was noted for his prowess as a knight and skill in military affairs. In the records of a tournament held in 1494 to celebrate the creation of the king's second son as knight of the Bath and Duke of York, Thomas Brandon is mentioned as having distinguished himself. For his prowess in arms he was made a knight of the Garter. In October 1507 he was sent to meet Sir Balthasar de Castiglione, ambassador to the Duke of Urbino, who came to England to receive the order of the Garter in his master's name. Brandon died in 1509.
[Add. MS. 6298; The Order of the Garter (Ashmole), 1672; Anstis's Order of the Garter, 1724; Rymer's Fœdera, xiii. 35; Gairdner's Letters and Papers illustrative of the reigns of Rich. III and Henry VII; Collins's Peerage of England, 1812; Brewer's Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII.]
BRANDRETH, JEREMIAH, otherwise styled Jeremiah Coker (d. 1817), leader of an attempted rising against the government in the midland counties, was, according to three several accounts, a native of Ireland, of Exeter, and the most probable of Wilford, Nottingham, but nothing is known regarding his parentage and very little regarding his
