Although Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger is only known to history for a failed rebellion his father (also Sir Thomas) left a more enduring legacy as a pioneering poet. Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42) is credited with introducing the sonnet to England, which would later be made famous by William Shakespeare, and his poems reveal a sensitive, cultured man who depicted his romantic entanglements at the English court. His works cover courtly life and poignantly portray love, loyalty, betrayal and rejection. In his poem They Flee From Me he discussed his unrequited loves: “They flee from me that sometime did me seek/With naked foot stalking in my chamber… It was no dream, I lay broad waking/But all is turned thorough in my gentleness/Into a strange fashion of forsaking.”
Most famously, Wyatt is rumoured to have fallen in love with Anne Boleyn. Their precise relationship is uncertain but Boleyn may have rejected his overtures because Henry VIII was courting her. In Whoso List To Hunt this thwarted love is possibly alluded to: “Graven in diamonds with letters plain/There is written her fair neck about/‘Noli me tangere (Touch me not), Caesar’s, I am.’”