Sir Henry Gibb, 1st Baronet (died 8 April 1650) was a Scottish courtier.

Family background Gibb was the son of John Gibb (or Gib) of Knock and Isobel Lyndsay. His grandfather Robert Gibb had been a servant of James V of Scotland.Andrea Thomas, Princelie Majestie: The Court of James V of Scotland (Edinburgh, 2005), p. 228.

Career

He became a Groom of the Bedchamber to Prince Henry by 1606.Thomas Birch, Life of Prince Henry (Dublin, 1760), p. 348.A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household (London, 1790), p. 327William Arthur Shaw, Letters of denization and acts of naturalization for aliens in England and Ireland (Lymington, 1911), p. 14. At the Prince's death in 1612, he was briefly suspected of disposing of the Prince's personal papers.Robert Folkestone Williams, Domestic Memoirs of the Royal Family and of the Court of England, 3 (London, 1860), p. 72. Despite this suspicion, he became a Gentleman of the bedchamber to James VI and I.George Duncan Gibb, Life and times of Robert Gib, Lord of Carriber, vol. 2 (London, 1874), pp. 42, 100.

In September 1613 he was commissioned by King James to conduct a special mission to the Low Countries. Henry Gibb and Mr May travelled to Veere and Sluis to prevent Henry Howard, a son of the Earl of Suffolk fighting a duel with the Earl of Essex over issues concerning his sister Frances Howard and the annulment of her marriage.William Shaw & G. Dyfnallt Owen, HMC 77 Viscount De L'Isle, Penshurst, vol. 5 (London, 1961), pp. 120-3.HMC Mar & Kellie, vol. 2 (London, 1930), p. 54.

Gibb and the Earl of Somerset Henry Gibb was a friend of the Scottish favourite, Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset. Somerset helped Henry Gibb obtain his position in the king's bedchamber. Somerset's former friend Thomas Overbury resented this.Timothy Wilks, 'Art Collecting at the English Court', Journal of the History of Collections, 9:1 (1997), pp. 36–37.

Gibb was involved in an incident in 1615 connected with the fall of the Earl of Somerset, who had married Frances Howard. Gibb passed a letter and message from a Scottish man called Lumsden to Anne of Denmark's servant, his kinswoman Elizabeth Schaw, Mrs Murray.Norman Egbert McClure, Letters of John Chamberlain, 1 (Philadelphia, 1939), p. 609. The letter misrepresented the trial of Weston, an officer at the Tower of London.John Nichols, Progresses of James the First, vol. 3 (London, 1828), p. 105. The letter caused some offence to Anne of Denmark and difficulties for Scottish courtiers including Schaw's husband John Murray of the Bedchamber. The Countess of Eglinton heard about the affair and she wrote to the Murrays about Somerset, who she described as an "errant liar", who "wret to you and message sent with that ungret fullich cousing of yours, Herie Gib".James Maidment, Letters and State Papers of James the Sixth (Edinburgh, 1838), pp. 289-91, now NLS Adv. MS 33.1.1 vol. 10 no. 120. Gibb lost his place at court for a while.Thomas Birch & Robert Folkestone Williams, Court and Times of James the First vol. 1 (London, 1848), p. 367

An early biographer of King James, Arthur Wilson, included a version of these events, saying the letter or message carried by Henry Gibb was intended for King James. The letter from Lumsden described the actions of Richard Weston, the keeper of the Tower of London, and was critical of the lawyer Edward Coke. Francis Bacon said it was a libel and slander.George Duncan Gibb, Life and times of Robert Gib, Lord of Carriber, vol. 2 (London, 1874), pp. 131-3: Arthur Wilson, The History of Great Britain: Being the Life and Reign of King James the First (London, 1653), pp. 81-88.

After the fall of Somerset, Gibb had custody of some of his tapestries and paintings including portraits of the Howard family of Norfolk.A. R. Braunmuller, 'Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, as Art Collector and Patron', Linda Levy Peck, The Mental World of the Jacobean Court (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 237, 342 fn.44. The schedule of these goods dated 1619, held by the Bedford Estate Office, is probably connected with a grant to Sir Thomas Howard, Robert Kerr, and Gibb, as executors of property forfeited by Somerset on his attainder on 24 June 1619.Foedera, 17 (London, 1727), pp. 164–166

Later years Gibb was at Theobalds during the final illness of King James in 1625. Mary Villiers, Countess of Buckingham and the Duke of Buckingham arranged some medical treatments for James, which caused controversy. Gibb criticised the Duke of Buckingham and was forced to leave court.Alastair James Bellany & Thomas Cogswell, The Murder of King James I (Yale, 2015), p. 215.

Gibb later served in the court of Charles I of England. In June 1634 Gibb was created a baronet, of Falkland and Carriber in the Baronetage of Nova Scotia.John Burke, Bernard Burke, 'Gibb' in A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England, Ireland and Scotland (1844), p.623.The Life and Times of Robert Gibb, Lord of Carribber (National Library of Scotland), p.vii (Retrieved 2 November 2022). His title became extinct or dormant upon his death in 1650.

Family Henry Gibb married Annie Gibbs, a daughter of Sir Ralph Gibbs of Honington and Gertrude, daughter of Sir Thomas Wroughton of Broad Hinton.Josiah Willard Gibbs, Memoir of the Gibbs Family of Warwickshire, p. 12.

References