fulfilling his will. In the tenth year of the king he had a grant for life of the Isle of Wight, castle of Carisbrook, and the manors of Swainston, Brixton, Thorley, and Welow in that isle, at the rent of 308l. 6s. 8d. (Rymer, xii. 480). In October 1494 he was made high steward of the university of Oxford, and he is believed to have also held the same office in the university of Cambridge. In 11 Henry VII he was in the parliament then summoned, but, the returns being lost, it is not known for what place he served.
In June 1497 he was at the battle of Blackheath when Lord Audley, who had joined the Cornish rebels, was taken prisoner. On this occasion Bray was made a knight banneret (Holinshed, Chronicles, iii. 1254), and after the execution and attainder of Lord Audley, that nobleman's manor of Shire, with Vacherie and Cranley in Surrey, and a large estate there, was given to Sir Reginald. On the marriage of Prince Arthur he was associated with persons of high rank in the church and state as a trustee for the dower assigned to the Princess Catherine of Arragon.
The chapel of St. George at Windsor, and that of his royal master King Henry VII at Westminster, are standing monuments of his liberality and of his skill in architecture. To the former of these he was a considerable benefactor as well by his attention in conducting the improvements made upon that structure by the king, as by his contributions to the support of it after his death. He built also, at his own expense, in the middle of the south aisle, a chapel which still bears his name, and in various parts of which, as well as on the ceiling of the church, his arms, crest, and the initial letters of his name may still be seen, as may also a device of his frequently repeated both on the outer and inner side of the cornice dividing this chapel from the south aisle of the church, representing an instrument used by the manufacturers of hemp, and called a hemp-bray. The design of Henry VII's chapel at Westminster is supposed to have been his; and the first stone was laid by him, in conjunction with the Abbot Islip and others, on 24 Jan. 1502-3. Sir Reginald did not live to see the completion of the edifice, for on 5 Aug. 1503 he died, and was interred in the chapel of his own foundation at Windsor. On opening a vault in this place for the interment of Dr. Waterland in 1740, a leaden coffin of an ancient form was discovered which was supposed to be Sir Reginald's, and by order of the dean it was immediately arched over. Sir Reginald is said to have been the architect of the nave and aisles of St. Mary's, Oxford, and it has been conjectured that he also designed St. Mary's Tower at Taunton. He was a munificent benefactor to churches, monasteries, and colleges.
Bray married Catharine, daughter of Nicholas Husee, a descendant of the ancient barons of that name in the reign of Edward III. He had no issue, and his elder brother John having only one daughter, married to Sir William Sandes, afterwards Lord Sandes of the Vine, he left the bulk of his fortune to Edmund, eldest son of his younger brother John (for he had two brothers of that name). This Edmund was summoned to parliament in 1530, as Baron of Eaton-Bray; but his son John, lord Bray, dying without issue in 1557, the estate was divided among six daughters of Edmund. Sir Reginald left very considerable estates to Edward and Reginald, younger brothers of Edmund.
His portrait was in a window of the Priory church of Great Malvern in Worcestershire, and is engraved in Strutt's 'View of the Manners, Customs, &c. of the Inhabitants of England,' ii. pi. 60, and more accurately in Carter's 'Ancient Sculpture and Painting.'
Bray is represented as being 'a very father of his country, a sage and a graue person, and a feruent louer of iustice. In so muche that if any thinge had bene done against good law or equitie, he would, after an humble fassion, plainly reprehende the king, and geue him good aduertisement how to reforme that offence, and to be more circumspect in another lyke case' (Hall, Vnion of the two famelies of Lancastre and Yorke, ed. 1548, Hen. VII, fol. 55). Bacon says of him, however, 'that he was noted to have had with the king the greatest freedom of any counsellor, but it was but a freedom the better to set off flattery.'
In the library at Westminster are many original letters addressed to Bray by Smyth, bishop of Lincoln, and other prelates and noblemen, and many other letters relating to his own private business.
