THE HOWARDS.—(SECOND PERIOD.)
ON the 2nd of August, 1514, the Duke of Norfolk was appointed one of the Commissioners to conclude treaties of peace, free trade, and alliance with Louis XII. of France, and also a mar- riage treaty between that aged King and the Princess Mary, Henry's younger sister. He was one of those present at the mar- riage by proxy at Greenwich on the 13th August, and the bride was entrusted by the King and Queen to his care at Dover, from which place on the 2nd of October (accompanied by his son the Earl of Surrey and the Marquis of Dorset) he conveyed her through a great storm safely to Boulogne. The Duke found it so ex- pensive to live constantly at Court that in the 7th Henry V711. he withdrew for a time, but his presence was soon again rendered necessary by the insurrection of the London tradesmen and apprentices caused by the underselling of foreigners, May 1, 1517, commonly called Evil May-Day. He was assisted in quelling the riot by his son Surrey and the Earl of Shrewsbury. On the 13th May, 1521, the Duke acted as High Steward on the trial of the Duke of Buckingham, and was moved to tears while passing sentence on him. The next year he made humble suit to the King that he might, in respect of his great age, resign the Lord Treasurer's staff. Henry was very unwilling to accept the resignation, but at last receiving the staff said he would de- liver it where he should think it best bestowed, and calling the Earl of Surrey, who was at bowls on Richmond Green, gave it to him, December 4, 1522. Such were the acts by which the Tudors won the affections of their subjects. In the same year the King made a grant in special tail to the Duke and his son Surrey of the manors of Wells, Shyringham-Stafford, Barryngham, \Varham, and Weveton, in Suffolk, with the advowsons of the churches, part of the possessions of the late Duke of Buckingham. The Duke died May 21, 1524, at his castle of Framlingham, aged 80. By his first wife, Elizabeth Tylney, he had eight sons, five of whom died without issue, and before him. Thomas Earl of Surrey succeeded him as third Duke of Norfolk. Lord Edward was Standardbearer to the King in the 1st Henry VIII., and Lord Admiral in 1512. He was a very distinguished commander both by sea and land, particularly in the French wars, but perished April 25, 1513, in a daring attempt to destroy some French galleys which were in Conquet Bay under cover of land batteries, the main fleet of the French being at the same time blocked up by him in Brest harbour. Sir Edward leapt on board one of the enemy's galleys, but his own getting cut adrift, he was left in the midst of his enemies, when taking off his symbol of rank as Admiral—a whistle, and throwing it into the sea, he fought for his life, and when last seen was pressed against the side of the vessel by his enemies' pikes, and it is sup- posed he was borne overboard into the sea. The story that he was driven to this attempt on the French by an angry letter of the King's can be disproved by satisfactory evidence. Henry greatly lamented his death, and immediately gave the office of Lord Admiral to his elder brother Thomas, who bore that title at Flodden. Lord Edward was married, but left no issue. Lord Edmund Howard, the third son of the Flodden Duke who grew to maturity, was Marshal of the Host and leader of the right wing at Flodden, and was one of the challengers at the meeting of Henry and Francis at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. By his first wife, a Culpeper, of Hollingbourn, Kent, he was father of the un- fortunate Queen Catherine Howard. From her .elder sister, Margaret, is descended the Lord Arundell of Wardour. Lord Edmund's sister, Elizabeth, married Sir Thomas Boleyn, and became the mother of another of King Henry's wives, Queen Anne Boleyn.
The second wife of Thomas second Duke of Norfolk was Agnes, daughter of Sir Hugh Tylney, and sister and heiress of Sir Philip Tylney, of Boston. Their eldest son, Lord William Howard, was created Baron Howard of Effingham, and was the father of the Armada hero and ancestor of the present Earl of Effingham. The second son, Lord Thomas Howard, got into great trouble by a marriage without the King's consent to Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter of King Henry's elder sister, Margaret, Queen of Scot- land, by her marriage with the Earl of Angus. Lord Thomas was attainted and died a prisoner in the Tower, November 1, 1537, after which his wife was released from the same prison-house.
Thomas third Duke of Norfolk has been already mentioned several times as Earl of Surrey in connection with his father. He was made a Knight of the Garter in the 2nd Henry VIII., and the next year commanded one of the ships which fought with and took the famous Scotch rover Sir Andrew Barton. He also accom- panied the Marquis of Dorset to Spain, and during his sojourn there commanded the English contingent intended to co-operate in an invasion of Guienne. He became as we have seen Lord Admiral in succession to his brother Edward, and co-operated by sea and land with his father in the Flodden campaign. In the 12th Henry VIII., being then Earl of Surrey, he was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland. Mr. Froude thus describes his conduct in this posi- tion :—" In 1520 the Earl of Kildare was deprived of his office, and sent for to England. His place was taken by the Earl of Surrey, who of all living Englishmen combined in the highest degree the necessary qualities of soldier and statesman. It seemed as if the old weak forbearance was to last no longer, and as if Ire- land was now finally to learn the needful lesson of obedience." But King Henry was unwilling at first to have recourse to coercion for this purpose. " He would first try persuasion, and have recourse to extremity only if persuasion failed. His directions to the Earl of Surrey therefore were that at the earliest opportunity he should call an assembly of so many of the Irish chiefs as he could induce to come to him, and to discourse to them upon the elementary principles of social order and government. If Surrey were san- guine of any good result he was soon undeceived. He had no sooner landed than the whole country was in arms against him. O'Neile, O'Carroll, O'Connor, O'Brien, and Desmond, broke into
a divorce from Catherine of Arragon. In October, 1532, he Surrey was the most accomplished young man of the age, high- attended the King to his meeting with Francis at Boulogne, and spirited and gallant to rashness, and a scholar as well as a soldier.
had the order of knighthood of St. Michael conferred on him by But he was also wayward and fanciful, full of extravagance both the latter. In 1533, on the surrender of Charles Brandon Duke of thought and act, haughty and arrogant in respect of his birth of Suffolk, he was constituted Earl Marshal of England. As such beyond any man of the time, a warm-hearted and affectionate he presided at the trial of Lord Dacre for correspondence with the husband to his wife, Lady Frances Vere, daughter of the Scots. In the 27th Henry VIII. he was again sent on a mission to Earl of Oxford, but yet given to brawls and riotous excesses France respecting the divorce, and the next year, being President which we should now consider incompatible with the character of of the North, marched into Yorkshire to aid in suppressing the a gentleman. Romance has gathered its fabulous mist around his
Pilgrimage of Grace. In 31st Henry VIII., having purchased from early life. He is made the hero of a tournament at Florence the abbot and convent of Sibton, Suffolk, the site of that religious when it would appear that he never visited Italy, and his supposed
house and all the lands thereto belonging, he procured a special love for the fair Geraldine is reduced to a mythical character when Act of Parliament that the purchase should not be prejudicial we find that she was a child of only ten years old when his sonnets to him (in view no doubt of the Kings intended confiscation of were composed, and only eighteen at the time of his death. The the remaining convent lands). On January 29, 32nd Henry VIII., Howards had fallen into disfavour ever since the charges against he was constituted Lieutenant-General of the King's forces Catherine Howard, which disclosed much of the home life of the beyond the Trent, and soon after sent ambassador again to France family little creditable to its morality, and was a severe blow to with reference to the Duchy of Milan. On September 1, 1542, he the Catholic party of which they were the leaders. The Duke, was made Captain-General of the King's forces in the North, and weary at his loss of power and the rising influence of the upstart simultaneous rebellion, acting, as was proved by intercepted letters, in October and November invaded and wasted Scotland with an under instructions which Kildare had sent from England. Surrey army of 20,000 men. In the 36th Henry VIII. he was sent in informed Wolsey briefly of the state of the country, and advised command to France to lay siege to Montreuil, and led the vanguard that unless the King was prepared for extreme measures he should of the King's army in the advance to Boulogne.
not waste money in partial effort. Writing subsequently to But a cloud now overcast the fortunes of the Duke. and of the Henry himself, be said that the work to be done was a repetition House of Howard. The character of the third Duke, distinguished
of the conquest of Wales by Edward I., and it would prove at as he was in the council and the field, was not of the highest or least as tedious and as expensive. Nevertheless if the King could noblest cast ; his private life was far from respectable, and his make up his mind to desire it there was no insuperable difficulty. domestic relations had assumed a most unhappy complexion. He would undertake the work himself with six thousand men. Although really a sincere adherent of the Roman Catholic Church, The difficulty would be then, however, but half overcome— he lent himself pliantly to all the proceedings of the King, not only the habits of the people were incurable. Strong castles must in the divorce of Catherine of Arragon but in the subsequent separ- be built up and down the island like those at Conway and ation from Rome. He was considered, it is true, as the leader of the Carnarvon, and a large immigration of English colonists would Catholic party at the Royal Council-board, but although he fos- be necessary. Either as much as this should be done, he tered every anti-Protestant tendency in the King, he never made thought, or nothing. Half-measures only made bad into worse, any stand against Henry when he struck at the Church of Rome and a policy of repression, if not consistently maintained, was or took further steps in the Reformation. He also lent himself unjust and pernicious. It encouraged the better affected of the tamely to all Henry's acts of tyranny, public and private, and the inhabitants to show their good-will to the Government, and when servility of his language on these occasions is unsurpassed even the Irish were again in power these persons were marked for in that age. The King's domestic relation with two members of vengeance. Practical experience was laid against Henry's philo- the Howard family in succession exhibited the Duke in a most sophy, and it would have been well if the King could have discerned painful and discreditable light. He gladly aided in the rise of his clearly on which side the truth was likely to lie. For the mis- niece Anne Boleyn and the downfall of Wolsey, though these fortune of Ireland this was not the case. It was inconvenient at events involved the schism from Rome, but when Henry's passion the moment to undertake a costly conquest. Surrey was main- for Anne cooled, when Jane Seymour's influence was in the tained with a short retinue, and from want of power could only ascendant, and the accusations whether entirely unfounded or not enter upon a few partial expeditions. Ile inflicted a heavy defeat against the Queeu came before the Council, the Duke behaved upon O'Neile, he stormed a castle of O'Connor's, and showed with in such a manner that Anne complained to Sir William Kingston the small means at his disposal what he might have done with far that she was cruelly handled by the King's Council, "and that less support than he had required. He went where he pleased the Duke of Norfolk in answer to her defence had said Tut, through the country. But his course was ' as the way of a ship tut, tut ! ' shaking his head three or four times." He through the sea, or as the way of a bird through the air.' The presided at her trial, and passed sentence on her and her elements yielded without resistance and closed in behind him, and brother Lord Rochford, being, it is said, " moved to tears" after eighteen months of manful exertion feeling the uselessness of in the former instance. But he was an eager agent in the further enterprises conducted on so small a scale, to the sorrow and whole affair against her, and he also deserted his other hapless alarm of the Irish Council he desired and obtained his recall." niece, Catherine, in the hour of her danger, and could find no Surrey then returned to his post of Admiral, and ravaged the coasts sympathy in either case except for the merciless King. But re- of France, and in 1552, in prospect of a new Scotch invasion, the tribution was preparing for him in his own family. His first Earl of Shrewsbury was removed from his office of Lord-Lieu- wife had been Lady Anne Plantagenet, third daughter of Edward tenant of the North, and Surrey put in his place as a more able man. 1V., according to one story betrothed to him in the reign of In this position he played a busy part both in war and negotia- Richard III., but whom he married on the 4th February, 1495, tions for many years, invading and pillaging Scotland several Henry VII. himself giving her away. Ile seems to have lived times, and compelling the Regent Albany to retreat before happily with her for sixteen years, and had four sons who him in a very disgraceful manner. On the death of his died in infancy. But a few months after her death he married father and his succession to the Dukedom he continued Elizabeth Stafford, eldest daughter of Edward Duke of Bucking- in his office in the North, and in the 17th Henry VIII. ham. They had several children, the eldest of whom was Henry, obtained a grant in reversion of the castle, honour, and the poet Earl of Surrey. There was also a daughter, Mary, who manor of Folkingham, in Lincolnshire, and also of several was married when about fourteen or fifteen to Henry Fitzroy, other manors. Ile was next appointed to treat for a peace with Duke of Richmond, natural son of Henry VIII., a boy of fourteen, France, and was sent with the Duke of Suffolk against the insur- who died two or three years afterwards. The remaining child of gents of Suffolk, who had risen against illegal taxation. He was the Duke of Norfolk's second marriage who lived to maturity was sent also to demand the Great Seal from Wolsey, and after the Thomas, afterwards created by Elizabeth, January 13, 1559, Cardinal's fall threatened him through Cromwell, on his re- Viscount Howard of Bindon, Dorset (which title became extinct fusing to remove to York so as to be at a distance from the King, in 1610). Bitter altercations arose between the Duke of Norfolk that "if he got not away he would tear him with his teeth." Ile and his second wife, a woman of violent spirit, whose letters on was also one of the Lords who subscribed the articles against him. the subject seem to bear a tinge of insanity. She accused the And on the consequent failure of Wolsey's project for founding Duke of keeping a mistress in the house, one Elizabeth Holland, colleges at Oxford and Ipswich out of the funds of the monastery whom she in one place calls a laundrymaid, in another a relation of Felixton (or Filcheston), in Suffolk, dissolved by the Pope's of Lord Hussey's. Her elder son and daughter took the side of authority, the Duke obtained a grant in fee of that religious house their father, and she is equally violent in her abuse of them. with all belonging thereto, April 7, 22nd Henry VIII. He was She separated from the Duke. Such had been the household in one of the Peers who subscribed the letter to the Pope in favour of which young Catherine Howard had been brought up. Seymours, engaged in dangerous intrigues and secret meetings with the French Ambassador and other agents of the foreign Catho- lics to secure the re-ascendancy of the Catholic party in England. Surrey, more ambitious and imprudent, speculated on the possi- bilities of his father becoming Regent or Protector after the death of the King, and allowed his followers to talk of him as a Prince, grounding much on his Royal descent from Edward I. In January, 1543, some of this vague talk came to the knowledge of the Council, in consequence of a discreditable riot in the Borough in which Lord Surrey and his noble young associates had engaged. Surrey was admonished and committed to a short restraint. But as the health of the King declined the hopes and fears of the Howards grew higher, and Surrey became more and more imprudent. He and his sister, the Duchess of Richmond, had now quarrelled. She had adopted Protestant opinions, and Surrey though he did not scruple to eat meat in Lent was -violent against the Protestant party, if not against the Protestant faith. He did not conceal his scorn of the "new men" (this probably was the key to his Catholic bias), and when after a military failure in France Hertford superseded him and retrieved the lost laurels of England, Surrey's mortification was intense, and he loudly threatened that one day the Seymours should smart for it. The Seymours were not gentle, meek-spirited men, and Surrey was soon made to feel this The King seems to have had an idea of reconciling the two greatest families in the realm by marrying the Duchess of Richmond to one of the Seymours, brother to Hertford. The lady was probably not averse to the match, but Surrey opposed it, and according to his sister's statement, first to Sir Gawin Carew and afterwards to the Council at her brother's trial, advised her to return evasive answers to the King, and by obtaining repeated interviews with him on the subject gain his love, and so rule him and the kingdom as his mistress. According to her account she rejected the idea with indignation ; but the charge (not so impossible in itself, considering the times) must be left to rest on her unsupported evidence. But this graver charge was not pre- ferred until after another proceeding of Surrey's had brought down upon him the jealous anger of the King. Towards the close of November, 1516, as is asserted, Surrey made a change in the armorial bearings on his shield. By grant of Richard II. to the Mowbrays they, and consequently the Howards as their representa- tives, were entitled to bear the arms of England in the second quarter as collaterals of the Royal House of Plantagenet. This they had frequently but not constantly done. It is said, however, that Surrey now assumed the quarterings which belonged especially and only to the heir apparent to the throne. (But the shield given as that for which he was attainted does not support this.) It was stated by one of the heralds that the Earl had shown him the new quarterings he was about to assume, and on being told he had no right to them had declared that he had taken them from an old shield, and absolutely refused to desist from his project. In consequence he was served with a formal inhibition. Matters were then further inquired into by the Court, and several witnesses appeared to depose to the reckless conversation and views of the Earl, and his father's intrigues with the foreign powers. The question as to whether Surrey had assumed arms to which he had no right is involved in great doubt and contradiction, but in a broader view of the matter there seems little doubt that Surrey and his father at this time were playing a dangerous game, not aiming indeedprobably atthe Crown itself, but at theexclusive management of the State and the restoration of the Roman Catholic religion, whatever might be the wishes of the young King and his relatives. The Duchess of Richmond in her examination endeavoured to shift the blame off her father's shoulders as much as possible, and throw it all on her brother ; but Norfolk, by himself admitting in his letters to the King and Council that he had been guilty of a treasonable act by bearing the arms, cut off any chance, however slight, of his or his son being judicially acquitted. On the 13thJanuary, 1547, Surrey was tried before a special commission at the Guildhall, and after a spirited defence of himself was found guilty, sentenced, and executed January 21, in the twenty-ninth year of his age. The Duke of Norfolk was proceeded against in Parliament by bill of attainder; it was pressed forward through the Houses by an urgent message from the Crown, Henry's enemies say because he was dying and wished to sate his vengeance on Norfolk first, his friends because he was about to have his successor crowned before he died, and it was necessary to degrade Norfolk from the right of assisting at the coronation. Probably Henry or those about him wished to secure the new Government by putting Norfolk out of their way by a Parliamentary attainder. The Royal assent was given to the bill of attainder January 27, but the next day King Henry himself was no more. The Duke's life was not sought by the Protector Seymour, but he remained a close prisoner in the Tower all the reign of Edward VI. On the triumphant entry of Queen Mary into London, August 3, 1553, he was released from the Tower, and at once and before the formal repeal of his attainder in the first Parliament of Mary was treated as Duke of Norfolk, and had his lands restored. On the 18th of the month he presided as High Steward on the trial of Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. On Wyat's insurrection in 1554 the Duke raised 200 horse and 600 foot, and although more than eighty years of age marched at their head to Rochester. He succeeded in defeating a party of the insurgents on the road, but his army being wrought upon deserted him afterwards, and he had to escape as he beet could leaving the metropolis open to Wyat. After the suppression of the rising— thanks to Queen Mary's firmness—the Duke retired from public life to his seat of Kenninghall in Norfolk, where he made his will, and died a month afterwards, August 25, 1554. By the inquisition taken after his death he possessed the following manors and lord- ships in the county of Norfolk:—The manors of Hameworth Parva, Framlingham, Syslond, Dykesborough, Hopham, and the hundred of Laundish ; the manors of West Walton, Walpole-Hitcham, West Rudham, Castleacre, West Barsham, Systerno, Kempston, Narmanborough, Hellgaye, Bagthorpe, Heringsale, Great Massing- ham, Lodden, and the advowson of the church of Welles ; the manors of Fleringham, Stafford, Barringham, Warham, Byston, East Rudham, West Rudham, Barncet, Talterford, Tatterset, Tittesale, Thorp Market, Rolle, Wroxhana, and Rec- tory ; the rectories of Hallvergate, Salown, and Kenninghall ; the manors of Farsfield, Garboldisham, and the site of the monas- tery of Thetford; the rectories of Great Framlingham, Parring- lond, St. Mary's Hill, Walton, Hokham, and Wistecl ; the rectory and advowsons of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Nicholas in Thetford, and the advowsons of the vicarages of the said churches ; the manors of St. Mary's Hill, Tottington, Galesthorp, and 40s. 4d. rent out of the manor of Bodney, and the advowson of the vicarages thereof ; the manors of Halwyke, Norwyke, Sain- ton, Lynford, Langford, Croxton, Walton alias Monk's-Wyke-in- Walton, Kilverston, Aslacton, and their several rectories and advowsons of the vicarages ; the manors of Kenninghall, Ersham, Formset, Southfield, Shelfanger, Fryers, Sherwords, Visadelewes, site of the monastery of Boylands, site of the college of Rushworth, with the manor and rectory of Rushworth ; the manors of Shad- wele, Wynfarthinge, Haywoods, and lands called Howard's lands in Tylney ; the hundred of Gyllerosse, and half the hundred of Ersham ; the rectories of Rowton, Castleacre, Walpole, Sonthweke, Wyggenhall, Methwold, Slewsham, East Barsham, Ilitcham, New- ton, and Toftrea. These lands, which the Duke calla " good and stately gear," that wily statesman on his attainder petitioned the King to have settled on the Prince of Wales, to prevent of course their being irrecoverably scattered among other families. He regained most of them when the attainder was removed, and died one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest, noble in England.
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