of affinity; secondly, that his wife and the lady to whom he was first betrothed (Anne Browne) were within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity—i.e. aunt and niece; thirdly, that he was cousin once removed to his wife’s former husband. After these proceedings, he married, or rather re-married, in 1508/11, in “full court,” and in the presence of a great gathering of relations and friends—and not secretly, as usually stated—the aforesaid Anne Browne, by whom he had two daughters, the eldest being born so soon after wedlock as to give rise to unpleasant gossip, probably started by Lady Mortimer. Anne, Lady Brandon, did not long survive her marriage, for she died in 1511/12; and in the following year (1513) her widower made a third attempt at matrimony, by a contract with his ward, the Lady Elizabeth Grey, _suo jure_ Baroness Lisle, who, born in 1503/4, was only ten years of age; but the negotiations failed, though Brandon had been granted the viscounty of Lisle, which title he assumed (May 15, 1513). As this lady absolutely refused him, he surrendered the patent of the title of Lisle in favour of Arthur Plantagenet, illegitimate son of Edward IV and husband of Lady Elizabeth Lisle, the aunt and co-heiress of the young lady he had wished to make his bride, and who, being free, gave her hand to Courtenay, Earl of Devon, who presently became Marquis of Exeter. This above-mentioned aunt, the other Lady Elizabeth, had married, in 1495, Edmund Dudley, the notorious minister of Henry VII, and became, about 1502, mother of that John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who proved so fatal to Lady Jane Grey and her family. Whilst he was still plodding through the labyrinth of his matrimonial difficulties, early in 1513, Charles Brandon was entrusted with a diplomatic mission to Flanders, to negotiate a marriage between Mary Tudor, the king’s youngest sister, and the young Archduke Charles of Austria, Infante of Spain, the most powerful and richest prince in Europe. On this occasion he displayed his majestic and graceful figure to such advantage in the tilt-yard, that the demonstrative expressions of admiration which escaped the proposed bridegroom’s aunt, Drayton’s “blooming duchess,” the most high and mighty Princess Margaret, Archduchess of Austria, dowager Duchess of Savoy, and daughter of the Emperor Maximilian, evoked sarcastic comment from the illustrious company.