THE HOWARDS.—(TEURD PERIOD.) 111HE third Duke was succeeded by his
grandson, Thomas, eldest son of the beheaded Earl of Surrey. Surrey had also another son, Henry, who was restored in blood in the 1st year of Elizabeth, adhered to the Cecils, was a parasite of Carr, was created Earl of Northampton, was mixed up in the Overbury murder, and died June 15, 1614, just in time to escape the sub- sequent investigation. He was an accomplished scholar. Whether he was as bad a man as he is described by many writers may be doubted, but he was a fawning courtier of the bad Stuart school. Thomas Howard, the elder brother of the Earl of Northampton, who succeeded his grandfather as fourth Duke of Norfolk, on the death of his father, the Earl of Surrey, was taken with his brother and sisters from the care of their mother, and committed to that of their aunt, the Duchess of Richmond. There seems to have been a design to educate them all strictly as Protestants, and the Duchess with this view placed them under the tuition of Foxe, "Book of Martyrs" renown. Their mother a few years after- wards re-married and had a family by her second husband. On the accession of Queen Mary the children were taken from Foxe's care and placed under that of White, the Catholic Bishop of Lincoln. The effect of this mixed religious training on Surrey's children was that the young Duke became a Protestant, and his brother Henry (privately) a Catholic. The Duke succeeded to a diminished paternal estate, parts of the Howard real estate having been granted away, and all the personalty having been similarly disposed of. He was already, however, married to the Lady Mary Fitzalan, daughter and heiress of Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, a family to which the Howards were already related through the Mowbray match. By this great heiress he had a son, Philip, born in 1557, King Philip of Spain being one of his godfathers, thus as it were marking him out for a champion of the Romish faith. But the birth of his heir was purchased by the death of his wife (at Arundel House in the Strand) at the early age of sixteen, but already with the reputation of "a very learned lady." He next married Margaret Audley, daughter and heiress of Thomas Lord Audley, of Walden, in Essex, Chancellor of England, by whom he had two sons, who lived to maturity, Thome, after- wards Earl of Suffolk and ancestor of the Suffolk branch of the Howards, and Lord William Howard, who obtained with his wife, Elizabeth Dacre, Naworth in Cumberland, dec., and is the "Belted Will" of Scott, but known in tradition as " Bauld Wylie," the ancestor of the present Earl of Carlisle and the Howards of Corby. His second Duchess died after the birth of Lord Wil- liam, and the Duke married a third time, but had no issue by this third wife, who also died before him in 1567, leaving the Duke a widower of 37 years of age. On the accession of Elizabeth he had been received into great favour by that Queen, and in the first year of her reign was elected a Knight of the Garter. He had the nominal commaud given him the next year of the forces sent to expel the French from Scotland, but remained at Berwick to secure it while Lord Grey of Wilton entered Scotland. He arrived, however, at the leaguer before Leith April 28, 1560, and remained till its surrender and the conclusion of peace in July following. The next year he was constituted Lieutenant-General of the North. But the death of his third wife in 1567 opened to him a new and fatal field of ambition. Mary of Scotland had con- sented to submit her guilt or innocence in the matter of Darnley's death to a commission to be held at York, and in September, 1568, and Norfolk was appointed Chief Commissioner. He was certainly at that time fully convinced of Mary's guilt ;—he had never seen her, but he lent an ear to the insinuations of Maitland of Lethington, said to proceed from the Regent Murray, of the desirability of a marriage between the Duke and the Royal captive, her release, her restoration to the Crown of Scotland, and her public recognition as successor to that of England. Maitland is said as a persuasive to have assured the Duke that Mary was innocent. It is not easy to tell what object either Maitland or Murray had in this proposal for Maitland is always Machiavellian and inscrutable beyond any other man of the age. It is conjectured by Dr. Liugard that Murray's object was a merely temporary one. His return to Scotland from the conferences was threatened to be intercepted by gatherings of Mary's friends in Scotland on the borders and in the northern counties of England, and he wished to procure (as he did) a letter from Mary to her friends to offer no obstruction to his journey. In default of positive evidence this may be accepted as a not improbable solution. In January, 1569, Murray himself saw the Duke on the subject, and sent Sir Robert Melville to Mary. But neither party seems to have entirely consented when the sudden removal of the conferences to Westminster might have served as a warning to Norfolk that Elizabeth had her eye on the game.
On his return Norfolk was received ungraciously at Court, and an- ticipating the accusation he assured Elizabeth that no project of mar- riage between the Queen of Scots and himself had originated with him. The Queen then put the following question to him :—" But would you not marry the Scottish Queen if you knew that it would tend to fhe tranquillity of the realm and the safety of my person ?" To which the Duke replied," Madam, that woman shall never be my wife who has been your competitor, and whose husband cannot sleep in security on his pillow." Elizabeth seemed to be satisfied with this answer, and to all outward appearance dismissed all suspicion of Norfolk and renewed her former cordiality towards him. But the Duke's evil genius did not allow him to desist after this first warning. In the spring of the same year he entered into a cabal with the Earls of Arundel and Pembroke, which Leicester also joined, to remove Cecil from the counsels of the Queen. They began by absenting themselves from the Council, and when Elizabeth inquired the cause Leicester made a violent attack on Cecil. Elizabeth, however, as. warmly defended him ; but Cecil bent to the storm so far as to confine himself for the present more strictly to, his administrative duties. Finding, however, the Queen resolved to retain him, the confederate Lords conceived a more dangerous plan. They revived the idea of a marriage between Norfolk and the Queen of Scots, and her release, hoping thus to get all the power of the Government into their hands and to be able to dictate to Elizabeth. Norfolk affected at first to dis- like the idea, and then proposed instead first Leicester himself and then his own brother Henry as a husband for Mary, but at last he consented to come forward himself. A meeting was then held with Mary's agent and the envoy of Murray, and a joint letter written to the Scottish Queen in the names of the four English peers, proposing that she should be restored to her throne and receive a confirmation of her claim to the succession in England on the following conditions :—That she should never impugn the right of Elizabeth or of the heirs of her body ; should conclude a perpetual league, offensive and defensive, with England ; should allow the Protestant religion to be established in Scotland ; should receive her disobedient subjects to favour ; should procure from the Duke of Anjou a renunciation of all claims she might have ceded to him ; and lastly, should consent to a marriage with the Duke of Norfolk. Mary agreed to the first five conditions, and to the last also provided the consent of Elizabeth to the marriage were obtained. The four Lords proposed all the articles except the mar- riage with Norfolk in the English Council, they were assented to, and agents were sent to Scotland to secure the agreement of the two parties there. Maitland was to come to London and break the Norfolk match to Elizabeth. But Norfolk did not wait for this to enter into a regular correspondence with Mary, and to pledge himself to her deeply. A divorce was to be obtained from Bothwell, who had formally consented thereto. Cecil had been made acquainted with the plan, and replied that if Elizabeth would ap- prove the marriage might succeed, "But I wish," he says, "myself as free from the consideration thereof as I have been from the intelligence of devising thereof." Elizabeth, however, doubtless already knew of the whole plan, as it is certain that Murray's agent had disclosed it before leaving for Scotland. The consent of the French and Spanish Courts had been obtained. But the Scotch Parliament, to whom the first five English articles were sub- mitted by Murray with a recommendation of them, at once rejected them, as also a motion respecting a divorce from Both- well, with such indignation that Maitland thought it advisable to take refuge among the clansmen of Athol. A report of the proceedings in Parliament reached Elizabeth at Farnham. She invited Norfolk to dinner, and as she rose from table advised him to beware on what pillow he should rest his head. Leicester, alarmed at this ominous remark, affected a severe illness. Elizabeth hastened to his bedside, and then with sighs and tears the Earl confessed b her his disloyalty in having without her knowledge attempted to marry her rival to one of her subjects. Leicester kept himself ill three days, and then was forgiven and recovered. Norfolk was severely reprimanded, and forbidden on his allegiance ever to entertain the project. He assented with an appearance of cheerfulness, but soon observed that whenever he came into the Royal presence Elizabeth met his eye with looks of disdain and anger, that the courtiers avoided his company, and that Leicester treated him in public as an enemy. He retired from Court, promising to return within a week. From Kenninghall he wrote to Elisabeth expressing his fear that if he remained at Court he should be thrown into prison. The Queen sent him a peremptory order to return at once, new Commis- sioners with an armed force were ordered to secure the person of the Queen of Scots, and her apartments were searched for documents. Mary's friends afterwards said that if Norfolk had only remained a few days longer at Kenninghall he would have been joined by all the ancient nobility, and Elizabeth would have been compelled to come to terms- His friends advised him to stay, but his heart failed him, and he began his journey towards the Court. But meanwhile Murray, alarmed at the attitude of the Scotch Par- liament, had sent to Elizabeth his correspondence with Nor- folk, and thrown all the blame of originating the match on the Duke, asserting that he himself assented to it for his own safety. So when Norfolk was within three miles of the Court he was arrested and committed to the Tower on the 9th of October. On hearing of this arrest the Northern Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland in the middle of November unfurled the banners of rebellion, and issued a proclamation in which the captivity of the Duke of Norfolk was the first alleged grievance, and on the 28th November they began a second pro- claination with these words :—" It bath been faithfully and deli- berately considered and devised by the high and mighty Prince Thomas Duke of Norfolk, Henry Earl of Arundel, William Earl of Pembroke, and the said Earls of Northumberland and Westmore- land, &c., &c., to make known the true succession of the Crown, &c." On this the Duke wrote in December from the Tower to Elizabeth, solemnly denying any complicity in the rebellion, and protested that he never meant to proceed in his marriage with Queen Mary, and notwithstanding the presumptions against his innocence he was re- leased from the Tower in the following year, on giving a solemn promise not to correspond any more with7the Queen of Scots. But in 1570 and 1571 he did renew his correspondence with her, pledged his faith to her, endeavoured to plan her escape from prison, sent sup- plies down to her friends in Scotland, and negotiated with foreign powers to land forces,—his friends say only in Scotland, but most probably wherever they would be most useful. Some of the corres-
pondence fell into Elizabeth's hands, the Duke was again sent to the Tower in September, 1571, arraigned on charges of treason
in January, 1572, and condemned, but not executed till the 2nd of June, Elizabeth refusing to sign the warrant till Cecil obtained a solemn address from Parliament to her to do so. After all this the great Queen can hardly be held open to much censure for this execution.
Philip Howard, eldest son of the beheaded Duke, who succeeded him in such estates as were entailed, was born in June, 1557, and
soon after his father's death, when about fifteen, was sent with his two brothers to Cambridge, and when eighteen resorted to Court, where (according to his Catholic biographer) he led a very dissi- pated and expensive life, neglected altogether his young wife, Anne, daughter and coheiress Of Thomas the last Lord Deere of Gilsland, to whom he had been married in the latter part of 1571, and his grandfather, the Earl of Arundel, and that Earl's other daughter, Lady Lumley, by which conduct he not only forfeited a great portion of the estates which he would have inherited from both these families, but involved himself in considerable debt. But one of the greatest grievances against him at this time with the Catholics was his courting assiduously the favour of Queen Elizabeth. This conduct produced some effect on the Queen, for on the death of his grandfather in 1580, by which event he inherited Arundel Castle and a part of the Fitzadan estates, he was summoned to Parliament as Earl of Arundel and restored in blood. But the Catholics had their eye on him, and in 1581 he began to waver in his Protestantism, and about two years. afterwards became a Catholic. He is now said (by the same biographer) to have entirely altered his course of life, to have become an attached and constant husband, and, as it appears, a reli- gious enthusiast and ascetic of the deepest dye,—in fact he fell wholly into the hands of the extreme Catholic and Jesuit party, Cardinal Allen and Father Southweil being his intimate correspon- dents and advisers. He is said to have brought over his brother "Belted Will" to similar opinions, and they resolved to leave England secretly in order to enjoy their new opinions more freely ; but the Queen getting information of the plan, it was frustrated, and she invited herself to a banquet at Arundel Ifonee. After it was over Elizabeth gave the Earl many thanks for the entertain- ment, and informed him that he was a prisoner in his _own house. His brother Lord William was also arrested, but after an exami- nation they were shortly both set at liberty. Again, however, the Earl resolved to execute his plan of leaving England secretly. He accordingly set sail from Littlehampton with two attendants, but Walsingham had obtained information of his intention, he was intercepted at sea, and on April 25, 1585, by order of the Privy Council committed to the Tower. A charge was brought against. him in the Star Chamber that he had supported Romish priests contrary to law, and had held correspondence with Cardinal Allen and Parsons the Jesuit, the Queen's enemies, that he had publicly in writing questioned the justice of the kingdom, and that he had intentions of departing the realm without licence. He acknow- ledged the alleged correspondence, but asserted it was not treason- able, but of a wholly spiritual character,—for the rest he. pleaded ignorance of the laws. He was fined 10,000/. an& sentenced to be imprisoned during the Queen's pleasure. The- invasion of the Spanish Armada proved fatal to the noble prisoner. He caused a mass to the Holy Ghost to be said,, and a course of devotions to be used for twenty-four homy together. According to his own subsequent account these exer- cises were caused by a report that had reached him that there was to be a general massacre of the Catholics : according to his enemies they were prayers for the success of the Armada. Wit- nesses were induced to come forward who asserted that the Ear/ had openly expressed his joy at the news of the invasion, and ordered the religious devotions in accordance with that feeling. Whether this was true or not, it is certain from the account given by his Catholic biographer that Arundel when cross-examined be- fore the Council fenced like a dexterous Jesuit where an innocent man would have given plain answers. Whether the charges, how. ever, were brought home to him is quite another matter, and pro- bably to be answered in the negative. He was brought from the Tower and publicly arraigned in Westminster Hall on the 14th April, 1589, was condemned for high treason, andsentencepronounce& upon him. Elizabeth, however, did not execute him, but kept him- close prisoner in the Tower (his wife and friends being refused ad-, mittance to him) till his death, October 19, 1595.
He left an only son, Thomas, born in 1585, who together with his sister, about two years older, was brought up by his mother, the widowed Countess, a Roman Catholic enthusiast entirelyinthehands of the Jesuits, who spared no attention to secure them both in her own faith. The girl died at sixteen in a consumption, as devout es Catholic as her mother could desire, but the son, though he re- mained a Catholic for a few years after his marriage and emanci- pation from his mother's control, gradually abandoned those opinions, to the great grief of his mother, who survived till 1630, leaving letters addressed to him and to her eldest surviving grand- son entreating them both to embrace Catholicism. She, or rather the priests of a Jesuit establishment she had set up at Ghent, had converted the eldest grandson Lord Maltravers in 1624 on his deathbed. Queen Elizabeth made no attempt to take young Thomas Howard from the care of his mother, though it was some- times talked of, and he was much countenanced by her favourite the Earl of Essex, who predicted well for his future career.
On the accession of James I. he was not only restored in blood by Act of Parliament, but also to all such titles of honour and precedence as his father had lost by his attainder ; and also to the honour, state, and dignity of Earl of Surrey, and to such dignity of baronies as Thomas his grandfather, fourth Duke of Norfolk, lost by his attainder. In 1606 he married Lady Alethea Talbot, third daughter and coheiress of Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury, who on the death of her two sisters without issue brought large possessions to her hus- band. In 1607 he was sworn of the Privy Council, and in the same year James I. stood godfather to his eldest son James. His health had been always sickly, and in 1609 he set out on his travels to Italy to endeavour to recruit it. During his absence his cousin Thomas, Viscount Howard of Bindon, to whom he was heir, died, but the grestest part of the Viscount's possessions were transferred to Arundel's uncle, the Earl of Suffolk, and his children. On Arundel's return from abroad in May, 1611, he was installed as a Knight of the Garter. He and his wife accompanied the Elector Palatine and his bride as far as Heidelberg on their marriage in 1613. He then repaired again to Italy, where he devoted himself to the fine arts,—sculpture, design, painting, and architecture, with which pursuits his name will be always associated in history. He returned in November, 1614. He then sent his two eldest sons on their travels to Italy, but the elder, James, as we have said, died on his return at Ghent. The Earl inherited the family pride of his ancestor Surrey, and exhibited it in a quarrel of ceremonial with the French Ambassador, the brother of the French favourite De Luynes, whom he bad been appointed to attend, and in 1621 he had the sharp words about their ancestors with Lord Spencer already related which led to his being sent to the Tower ; but he was released on making submission. He was one of three Commissioners who had temporary charge of the Great Seal on the fall of Bacon, and on August 29, 1621, was constituted Earl NI arshal for life, with a pension of 2,000/ per annum, and revived the Earl Marshal's Court, a very arbitrary and unconstitutional tribunal ; and Lord Arundel's haughty temper was held to aggravate the grievance. On December 22, 1625, he had a grant of the wardship of the body and lease of the lands of Henry Lord Stafford, the descen- dant of the Duke of Buckingham, during his minority, together with Lord Stafford's fine in the Court of Wards of 500 marks. This young nobleman died under age in 1637, and Lord Arundel having made a match between Mary Stafford the sister of his ward and his own fifth son William Howard, they were on the 20th Sep- tember, 1640, created Baron and Baroness of Stafford, and, appa- rently to prevent dispute as to the precedency of the barony, William Howard was further created November 11, 1640, Viscount Stafford. This is the unfortunate nobleman who was imprisoned as a Catholic peer in the reign of Charles IL, attainted in 1678, and executed for alleged complicity in the Popish plot, December 29, 1680. His son was made Earl Stafford in 1688, but the title became extinct in 1762. In 1824 the attainder of 1678 was reversed, and the barony of Stafford revived in the Jerningham family, who represent the attainted nobleman through heiresses.
About a year after obtaining the wardship of Lord Stafford, the Earl of Arundel fell into disgrace at Court by contriving themarriage of his eldest surviving son Henry Frederick Lord Maltravers with the Lady Elizabeth Stuart, eldest daughter of Esmd, Duke of Lennox, without the knowledge of the King, who had designed her as a Royal ward for Archibald, Lord Lorne, afterwards the celebrated Marquis of Argyll. The Earl and Countess of Arundel were first placed in restraint at their house at Horsley, Surrey, and afterwards committed to the Tower, and the Lord Maltravers and his young bride were put under the custody of Abbot, Archbishop of 'Canterbury. The Earl was also heavily fined, but the House of Lords resented his arrest as a breach of privilege, and Charles had to release him. He gradually regained the King's favour, and served on several commissions, attending the Ring to Scotland to his coronation, and in his plain but affectedly antique dress and stately bearing throwing into the shade all the glittering courtiers. Hay Farl of Carlisle used to say, "Here comes the Earl. of Arundel in his plain stuff and trunk hose, and his beard in his teeth, that looks more like a nobleman than any of us." In 1627 he was by Act of Parliament created Baron Fitzalan, Lord of Clun and Oswaldestre and Maltravers, which two baronies of Fitzalan and Maltravers were then annexed to the title and dignity of Earl of Arundel, and settled upon him and the heirs male of his body, with remainder to the heirs of his body, remainder to his uncle Lord William Howard and the heirs male of his body, with remainder to himself and his heirs for ever. He received the appointment of Chief Justice of the Forests North of Trent. He was also sent to condole with Elizabeth of Bohemia on the death of her husband, and seems to have formed &particular
attachment to this family, being sent in 1636 as an ambassador to endeavour to procure the restitution of the Palatinate by the Emperor, and on his return he had Treasury warrants for nearly 20,000/. spent by him over and above his allowance of 61. per diem. On the breaking out of the Scotch disturbances the King appointed Arundel General of the forces against them, as Clarendon says, for the negative qualification of not loving either Scots or Puritans, but he adds,—neither did he love any one else. Clarendon, it is to be observed, was prejudiced against the Earl, and in the Long Parliament was the chief mover against his Marshal's Court. Arundel, however, did not like his position, and contrived to be ill, his dislike to Wentsvorth throwing his bias at this time towards the popular party. He presided at the trial of Strafford, and on June 29, 1641, presented a remonstrance and petition to be restored to the Dukedom of Norfolk, which had no immediate effect. Not loving either party in the struggle which he saw impending the Earl resolved to quit England, and in July, 1641, was appointed to conduct the Queen Mother of France abroad. He was accompanied by his wife, from whom he parted (as it proved finally) at Antwerp, and repaired again to his beloved Italy in company with his grandsons. Here he formed the celebrated collections of antiquities still known by his name. But this visit to Italy was an unhappy one to him in two respects. His eldest grandson Thomas became permanently affected in the brain, and his third grandson Philip going from him to Milan was there converted to Catholicism by a Dominican friar, and joined that order, to the great distress of his grandfather, becoming ulti- mately Cardinal Howard. The Earl's sole hopes then centred in his second grandson, Henry. Arundel kept on excellent terms with both parties in the Civil Wars in England, recognized the authority and was absent by leave of the Parliament, and yet was created by the King June 6, 1644, Earl of Norfolk. He died October 4, 1644, at Padua, as he was preparing to return to Eng- land, his son Lord Mowbray and his grandson being present.
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