Nicholas Breton

Nicholas Breton (also Britton or Brittaine) (c. 1545/53 – c. 1625/6) was a poet and prose writer of the English Renaissance.

Nicholas belonged to an old family settled at Layer Breton, Essex. His father, William Breton, a London merchant who had made a considerable fortune, died in 1559, and his widow Elizabeth (née Bacon) married the poet George Gascoigne before her sons had attained their majority. Nicholas was probably born at the "capitall mansion house" in Red Cross Street, in the parish of St Giles without Cripplegate, mentioned in his father's will.

There is no official record of his residence at the university, but the diary of the Rev. Richard Madox tells us that he was at Antwerp in 1583 and was "once of Oriel College." Breton was paid for carrying letters to The Hague for Francis Walsingham.