Sir Henry Guildford, KG (1489–1532) was an English courtier of the reign of King Henry VIII, master of the horse and comptroller of the royal household.
Early life
He was the son of Sir Richard Guildford by his second marriage to Joan, sister of Sir Nicholas Vaux, 1st Baron Vaux of Harrowden.
On the accession of Henry VIII, he was a young man of twenty, and a favourite with the new king. On 18 January 1510 he and his half-brother, Sir Edward, formed two of a company of twelve in a performance described by Hall, got up for the amusement of the queen. Eleven of them impersonated Robin Hood and his men, and with a woman representing Maid Marian surprised the queen in her chamber with their dancing and mummery. Next year, on Twelfth Night, he was the designer of the pageant with which the Christmas revelries concluded: a mountain which moved towards the king and opened, and out of which came morris-dancers.
At the tournament next month, held in honour of the birth of a prince, he signed the articles of challenge on the second day. Immediately afterwards he went with Lord Darcy's expedition to Spain against the Moors, where the English generally met with such a cool reception; but he and Sir Wistan Browne remained a while after their countrymen had returned home, and were dubbed knights by Ferdinand at Burgos on 15 September 1511. Early next year they had both returned, and received the same honour at the hands of their own king at the prorogation of the parliament on 30 March 1512. Hitherto he had been only squire of the body, a position he seems still to have retained along with the honour of knighthood. He was also a 'spear' in the king's service, and as of 29 March 1510 he had a grant of the wardship of Anne, daughter and heiress of Sir John Langforde.
Marriage
In May 1512, he married Margaret, daughter of Sir Thomas Bryan. The king's sister, Mary, at that time called Princess of Castile, made an offering of six shillings and eightpence at his marriage. On 6 June, the king granted to him and his wife the manors of Hampton-in-Arden (Warwickshire) and Byker, Swineshead (Lincolnshire).
On 3 December, he was appointed bailiff of Sutton Coldfield in Warwickshire, and keeper of Sutton Park; on the 24th constable and doorward of Leeds Castle, and keeper of the parks of Leeds and Langley in Kent.
Military service
In 1513, he embarked at Southampton with the army that invaded France, and was one of the commanders of 'the middle ward,’ having been appointed on 28 May the king's standard-bearer in the room of Sir Edward Howard, the admiral, who was drowned.
He commanded a hundred men when he passed out of Calais on 30 June. He and Sir Charles Brandon had five shillings a day each as joint captains of the Sovereign, in which posts they crossed the English Channel.
At the winning of Tournai he was created a knight-banneret, and as master of the revels he celebrated the victory by an interlude, in which he himself played before the king.
Courtier
On 6 November 1515, he was appointed Master of the Horse, with a salary of £40 a year, an appointment which he surrendered seven years later in favour of Sir Nicholas Carew. On the same day he had an annuity of fifty marks granted to him as squire of the body. In the same year he became an executor of Sir Thomas Cheney of Irthlingborough, Northamptonshire, and before Christmas was writing to a minstrel in the Low Countries named Hans Nagel, to allure him over to England as a spy who could make reports about the fugitive, Richard De la Pole.
In 1519, he received two letters from Erasmus in praise of the court of Henry VIII. Next year he attended the king as Master of the Horse to the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and also to the meeting with the Emperor Charles V at Gravelines. On 12 February 1521 he had a grant of the custody of the manor of Leeds in Kent, and of the lordship of Langley, near Maidstone, for forty years.
In May 1521, he was one of the justices both in Kent and in Surrey before whom indictments were found against Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham. Next year, on 24 April, the duke's manor of Hadlow in Kent was granted to him. In the autumn of 1521 he accompanied Thomas Wolsey to the Calais conferences, but on 21 September Richard Pace wrote to the cardinal to send him and Francis Brian home, as the king had few to attend him in his privy chamber.
In May 1522 he went again in Wolsey's train to meet the emperor at his landing at Dover. In 1522, after surrendering his post as master of the horse, he was appointed Comptroller of the Household.