View source for Historical Profile of Henry Howard

<div class="WPC-editableContent"><table align="bottom" cellpadding="3" class="WPC-edit-style-grid1 WPC-edit-border-all WPC-edit-styleData-color1=%23191919&amp;color2=%23474747" width="750"><tr><td align="center" class="" width="33%">[[File:Elh4MloTdWXaIOsXlm7ckg55700.jpeg|245px|Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey as played by David O'Hara]]</td><td bgcolor="#b57609" class="WPC-edit-custom-bgColor" width="33%"><div align="center"><h3 align="center"><font color="#ffffff"><font size="4"><font color="#ffa500"><font color="#000000" size="6"><font><font><font><font><font><b><font><font><font><font><font face="harrington"><b>History <br/></b></font></font></font></font></font></b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></h3><h3 align="center"><font color="#000000" size="6"><font><font><font><font><font><b><font><font><font><font><font face="harrington"><b>of</b></font></font></font></font></font></b></font></font></font></font></font></font></h3><h3 align="center"><font size="6"><font><font><font><font><font><b><font><font><font><font><font color="#ffffff"><font face="harrington"><b><font color="#ffa500"><font color="#ffffff">[[Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey|Henry Howard, ]]</font></font></b></font></font></font></font></font></font></b></font></font></font></font></font></font></h3><h3 align="center"><font size="6"><font><font><font><font><font><b><font><font><font><font><font color="#ffffff"><font face="harrington"><b><font color="#ffa500"><font color="#ffffff">[[Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey|Earl of Surrey]]</font></font></b></font></font></font></font></font></font></b></font></font></font></font></font></font></h3><font color="#ffffff" size="3"><b><font color="#000000">1517 - 1547 <br/>(30 years old)</font></b><br/></font><h3 align="center"></h3><h3 align="center"><font color="#ffffff"><font size="4"><font color="#ffa500"><font color="#ffffff"><font size="4"><font color="#ffa500"><font size="6"><font><font><font><font><font><b><font><font><font><font><font color="#ffffff"><font face="harrington"><b><font color="#ffa500" size="7"><font color="#ffffff" size="5"><font color="#000000" size="6">'The Poet Earl'</font></font></font></b></font></font></font></font></font></font></b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></h3></div></td><td align="center" class="" width="33%">[[File:RF06ZIHhYuNtAX-WKvuqyA48051.jpeg|254px|Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey]]</td></tr></table><br/><table align="bottom" cellpadding="3" class="WPC-edit-style-grid1 WPC-edit-border-all WPC-edit-styleData-color1=%23191919&amp;color2=%23474747" width="750"><tr><td class="" width="50%"><font size="3"><b>INTERESTING FACTS:</b></font><br/><br/><ul><li>In his childhood, he found favour with [[King Henry VIII]] and formed a      deep friendship with [[Henry Fitzroy]], the Duke of Richmond, being approximately just 2 years younger than the illegitimate son. His sister <b>Mary Howard</b> would marry [[Henry Fitzroy]] but became his widow when he died at aged 17 a couple of months after [[Anne Boleyn]]'s execution.<br/></li></ul><br/><ul><li>His classical      education at the hands of scholars and his study of Virgil      later gave him a poetical talent two hundred years ahead of      his time. He is to this day referred to as <i>`The Poet Earl'. </i></li></ul><br/><ul><li>His ties with Sir [[Thomas Wyatt]], who was fifteen years his elder and of opposite politics, seem to  have been rather literary than personal. He appears to have entered into closer  relations with his son, <b>the younger <u>Wyatt</u></b>.  In company with whom, he  amused himself by breaking the windows of the citizens of London on 2 Feb 1543.  For this he was accused by the Privy Council, a second charge being that he had  eaten meat in Lent. In prison probably he wrote the satire on the city of London,  in which he explains his escapade by a desire to rouse Londoners to a sense of  their wickedness.</li></ul><ul><li>He inherited his father [[Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk]]'s military genius in a      tactical sense and distinguished himself at      Boulogne and Landrecy.</li></ul><ul><li>His pride of ancestry and his      foolhardiness in the dangerous days at the close of Henry      VIII's reign left him open to the intrigues of those who      plotted for the court supremacy which would come after the      King's death.</li></ul><ul><li>In 1546 his father petitioned for a second time for his sister<b>, Mary Fitzroy, Duchess of Richmond</b> (see below) to be married to <b>[[Thomas Seymour]]</b>. The King gave his approval for the match but Henry objected strongly, as did his sister the Duchess herself, and the marriage did not take place. <br/></li></ul><br/><ul><li>Surrey then suggested that the Duchess should seduce the aged King, her father-in-law, and become his mistress, to<i> "wield as much influence on him as Madam d'Etampes doth about the French King".</i> The Duchess, outraged, said she would "<i>cut her own throat" </i>rather than <i>"consent to such villainy"</i>. She and her brother fell out, and she later laid testimony against Surrey that helped lead to his trial and execution for treason.</li></ul><ul><li>He was tried for treason on      fabricated charges at Guildhall on l3th January 1547 and      executed on the 2lst.</li></ul><ul><li>According to the Chronicle of Anthony Anthony, an officer of the Ordnance of the Tower :<br/><br/>"The  said Henry Howard, submitting himself to the law, saying that he was  justly condemned by the law &amp; was come to die under the law &amp;  humbly desired God to forgive him his offences &amp; also requiring of  the King's Majesty to forgive him his trespasses &amp; so made his  position to God &amp; so he was beheaded".<br/><br/>The Spanish Chronicle,  on the other hand recorded that Surrey 'spoke a great deal' in his own  defence, until 'they would not let him talk anymore'.<br/><br/>Surrey's younger son Henry claimed a poem was 'the last thing that he wrote before his end' called :<br/><br/>Botum est mibi quod humiliasti me [It is good for me that you have humiliated me]<br/><br/>The storms are past, these clouds are overblown,<br/>And humble cheer great rigour hath repressed;<br/>For the default is set a pain foreknown,<br/>And patience graft in a determined breast.<br/>And in the heart where heaps of griefs were grown<br/>The sweet revenge hath planted mirth and rest;<br/>No company so pleasant as mine own<br/>[missing line]<br/>Thraldom at large hath made this prison free;<br/>Danger well past remembered works delight.<br/>Of lingring doubts such hope is sprung pardie,<br/>That nought I find displeasant in my sight.<br/>To think alas, such hap should granted be<br/>Unto a wretch that hath no heart to fight,<br/>To spill that blood that hath so oft been shed<br/>For Britain's sake, alas, and now is dead<br/><br/>Source:  Henry VIII's Last Victim by Jessie Childs (2008)</li></ul><br/><table align="bottom" cellpadding="3" class="WPC-edit-style-grid1 WPC-edit-border-all WPC-edit-styleData-color1=%23191919&amp;color2=%23474747" width="340"><tr><td class="" width="100%"><br/>" The crime that led to Surrey's death was the use of the arms of Edward the Confessor and the unusual nature of this transgression has led many to conclude that this was merely a pretext for judicial murder, that Henry was bent on bringing down the Howards, either for their aristocratic pretensions or for their religious conservatism, although in fact that conservatism is by no means proven. Instead we should look more closely at this heraldic misdemeanour, because <font color="#ffa500">to Henry the point of it was that he believed Surrey and his father aimed at the crown. Surrey certainly held the opinion that his father was the only fit person to serve as Protector to the young King Edward in the event of Henry VIII's death.</font> Surrey died and Norfolk very nearly did, because of the potential threat they posed to the balance of power in the next reign.<br/><br/>Henry was dying and he was afraid. His disquiet was behind much of the menace of these closing months of the reign. Just as the wound was suppurating in his leg, so the wound of religious division was weakening his nation. "<br/>- Lucy Wooding in her book "<i>Henry VIII" </i>(2009)</td></tr></table><br/><div align="center"></div></td><td align="center" class="" width="50%">[[File:KoWiEkCQekpIiBtHjKLd8w89826.jpeg|338px|Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey by Holbein]]<br/>[[Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey]]<br/>in his younger years, by [[Hans Holbein]]<br/><br/>"The Tudors were constantly on the watch that the Howards limit their ambitions to Tudor women and refrain from casting greedy eyes upon the Tudor crown. <b>Henry Howard,</b> first cousin to [[Katherine Howard|Katherine ]]<br/> and heir to the dukedom, was relieved of his head in <br/>1546 for having openly used, and traitorously caused to be depicted, mixed, and conjoined with his own arms and ensigns, the said arms and ensigns of the King . The heraldic pretensions of the Howard family were <font color="#ffa500">tantamount to an assertion that Howard blood was the equal of Tudor blood and that a Howard might yet succeed a Tudor upon the throne.</font> The folly of young Henry Howard was twofold, for not only did he arouse the most fundamental and predatory instincts of the Tudors but he also exposed <br/>himself and his family to the enmity of personal and dynastic hatred. The Howards were envied by those who coveted their dignity, intrigued against by those who feared their power, and detested by those who abhorred their policy. Once the artful and <br/>persuasive whisper of the opposing faction had inflamed the King's natural suspicions, Henry Howard's fate was sealed. Social status, political influence, and marriage to royalty were coveted <br/>dignities, but the price came high: the Howards found them selves surrounded by a host of rivals who were only too willing to replace them in the blissful and lucrative light of royal favour. " <font size="2"><br/>~ <i>A Tudor Tragedy</i> by Lacey Baldwin Smith</font><br/><br/><font color="#ffffff" size="4"><font size="4">[[File:EONaWNSt-dlhBbF6ac0tjw9158.jpeg|270px|Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey by Holbein]]<br/><font size="3">[[Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey]] by [[Hans Holbein]]</font></font></font><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><div align="center"><table align="bottom" cellpadding="3" class="WPC-edit-style-grid1 WPC-edit-border-all WPC-edit-styleData-color1=%23191919&amp;color2=%23474747" width="300"><tr><td class="" width="100%"><b>Scandals:</b><br/><br/><font face="Georgia" size="2">"</font>Several other persons whose names are eminent in the Literature of our country have at different times been prisoners in the Fleet. Among these may be mentioned "the darling of the Muses," <b>[[Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey]], </b>who about the year <b>1542</b> , when in the zenith of his fame as a poet and a soldier, <font color="#ffa500">was at two different times committed to this prison. </font>On the first of these occasions it was on account of a private quarrel on the second, for eating flesh in Lent and breaking the windows of the citizens of London with stones from his cross-bow the latter, as Mr. Campbell observes <i>"a strange misdemeanour indeed, for a hero and a man of letters".</i> His own excuse was that he acted from <font color="#ffa500">religious motives</font>. <i>"He perceived"</i> he said <i>"that the citizens were sinking into papacy and corrupt manners and he was desirous, by an unexpected chastisement, to demonstrate to them that Divine retribution was about to overtake them". </i>Lord Surrey describes the Fleet as <i>"a noisome place with a pestilent atmosphere".</i><br/><br/><div>Excerpt from :<i> London: It's Celebrated Characters and Remarkable Places</i> By J. Heneage Jesse - in the chapter on<font color="#ffa500"> Fleet Prison</font></div></td></tr></table></div></td></tr><tr><td class="" width="50%"><br/><div align="center">[[File:EXYtLKEWSI6uOPF G-tstg97019.jpeg|321px|Frances de Vere, Countess of Surrey]]<br/><font color="#FFA500">Henry's wife</font>, <b>Frances de Vere</b> by [[Hans Holbein]]<br/><br/><b>Frances de Vere</b> and Henry Howard were betrothed  when they were both 15. She does not appear to a large extent in the  history of the time, perhaps being overshadowed by the circumstances  revolving round the great family into which she had married. After  Surrey was executed she was `relieved' of the upbringing of her  children, their care being entrusted to the <b>Duchess of Richmond [Mary Howard - wife of [[Henry Fitzroy]]]. </b><br/><br/>They had five children, two sons, Thomas &amp; Henry<br/>and 3 daughters, Catherine, Margaret &amp; Jane.<br/><br/><br/><br/>During the reign of Edward VI, Frances married <br/>Thomas Steyning/Staynings of  Woodbridge <br/>and they lived at Earl Soham Lodge, <br/>in the neighbouring  village to Framlingham.<br/>She died at  Earl Soham in 1577 aged about 61<br/>and was buried at Framlingham.</div><div align="center"><font color="#ffffff" size="4"><font size="4"><br/></font></font></div></td><td class="" width="50%"><font color="#FFA500" size="4"><b>Subjects of his Poetry</b></font><b><br/>Surrey's</b> name has been long connected with the <i>'Fair Geraldine</i>',  to whom his love poems were supposed to be addressed. <i>'Geraldine</i>' was the  daughter of the <b>Earl of Kildare</b>, <b>Lady [[Elizabeth Fitzgerald]]</b>, who  was brought up at the English court in company with the [[Princess Elizabeth Tudor]]. She was ten  years old when in 1537 <b>Surrey</b> addressed to her the sonnet <i>'From Tuskane  came my ladies worthy tace'</i>, and nothing more than a passing admiration of the  child and an imaginative anticipation of her beauty can be attributed to <b> Surrey</b>. <br/><br/><br/>A 'Song'... to a lady that refused to dance with him, is addressed to <b>[[Anne Stanhope]], Lady Hertford</b>, wife of his bitter enemy ([[Edward Seymour]]); and the two poems are addressed to his wife, to whom, at any rate in his later years, he seems to have been sincerely attached.<br/><br/><br/>His poems, which were the occupation of the leisure moments  of his short and crowded life, were first printed in <b><i>'Songs and Sonettes written  by the ryght honorable Lorde Henry Howard late Earle of Surrey'</i></b>, and other (apud Richardum Tottel, f 557). A second edition followed in Jul 1557, and others in 1559, 1565, 1567, 5574, 1585 and 1587. <br/><br/><br/>Although <b>Surrey</b>s name, probably  because of his rank, stands first on the title-page, [[Thomas Wyatt]] was the earlier in point of time of <b>Henry</b>s courtly makers. <b>Surrey</b>, indeed, expressly acknowledges Wyatt as his master in poetry. As their poems appeared in one volume, long after the death of both, their names will always be closely associated. Wyatt possessed strong individuality, which found expression in rugged, forceful verse. <b>Surrey</b> contributions are distinguished by their impetuous  eloquence and sweetness.<br/><br/><b>[[Henry Howard's Poetry page|* See Henry Howard's Poetry page]]</b></td></tr><tr><td class="" width="50%"><br/>"...it is a disgusting fact that the <b>Duchess of Richmond </b>[Howard's sister pictured right] was <font color="#FFA500">one of the witnesses against her father and her brother</font>. ...<br/><br/>The Duchess of Richmond declared that he had spoken with asperity of Hertford [[[Edward Seymour]]], to whom he attributed his late imprisonment ; that he had shown dislike to the new nobility ; had complained that the King expressed displeasure for the defeat at Boulogne in the preceding year; that he had dissuaded her from reading too far in the scriptures ; and that he had erected an altar in a church at Boulogne : but in the conclusion of her deposition, she maliciously insinuated that the earl had surmounted his arms instead of with a coronet, with what seemed to her much like a close crown, and a cipher which she took to be the king's cipher...<br/><br/>[Source : The Aldine Edition of the British Poets; The Poems of [[Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey]]]<br/><br/>The Duchess never remarried and her presence at court dwindled not long  after Henry VIII died in January 1547. She, knowing how merciless her  family was about power, and perhaps not wanting to be involved in  another scandal, possibly chose to stay out of their plans in order to  live a quiet life. She died in late 1557 aged about 38.</td><td align="center" class="" width="50%">[[File:O8CDLi076AN5UDV79NhDJw112108.jpeg|336px|Mary Fitzroy, Duchess of Richmond]]<br/><b>Mary Howard</b>, <font color="#FFA500">Henry's older sister</font> who became wife to [[Henry Fitzroy]], Duke of Richmond, <br/>King's illegitimate son by [[Elizabeth Blount]]. <br/>- drawing by [[Hans Holbein]]</td></tr><tr><td class="" width="50%"><font color="#ffffff" size="2">[[File:-MHyy8 DEi4h4IG-6wZ9xg249367.jpeg|382px|Tomb of Henry Howard]]<br/><br/></font>Following his execution in 1547, the Earl of Surrey's remains were buried at All [[File:L5WvEIDK6IMUggR8se2tTw28794.jpeg|05howard01comp]]Hallows church in Tower Street , London . Before his own death in 1613 Henry Earl of Northampton , Surrey 's youngest son, made provision for his father's body to be removed to Framlingham and the present memorial erected in 1614. <br/><br/>The effigies at the foot of the tomb represent, at Surrey 's feet, his sons, <font color="#FFA500">Thomas</font> who became 4th Duke of Norfolk and at his side, <font color="#FFA500">Henry</font>, Earl of Northampton . At their parents' head are the daughters, <font color="#FFA500">Jane</font>, wearing a coronet, who became Countess of Westmoreland; in the centre <font color="#FFA500">Katherine</font>, who married Henry Lord Berkeley; and <font color="#FFA500">Margaret</font>, who married Henry Lord Scrope of Bolton .<br/><br/><div align="center">[[File:H49Xq65JTXV5t PtjmrsxA44610.jpeg|353px|Henry Howard's tomb]]<br/>note the coronet by the side of his effigy<br/>showing he was beheaded</div></td><td class="" width="50%"><font color="#ffffff" size="2"><br/></font><font color="#ffffff" size="2"><b><font size="3">LITERATURE:<br/><br/></font></b></font><div align="center">[[File:B6KhK6Y-9IVVBslcStCa1Q45296.jpeg|209px|Henry Howard; Henry VIII's last victim by Jessie Childs]]</div><br/><ul><li><font size="3"><i>Henry VIII's Last Victim: The Life and Times of [[Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey]] </i>by Jessie Childs</font></li><li><font size="3"><i>Henry Howard, the Poet Earl of Surrey: A Life</i> by W.A. Sessions and David Starkey</font></li><font color="#ffffff" size="3"><li><font face="Georgia"><font face="Arial">Neale, Elizabeth. <i>Wyatt, Surrey and Early Tudor Poetry </i>   London ; New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1998.</font></font></li><li><font face="Georgia"> <font face="Arial">Jentoft, Clyde W.<i> Sir [[Thomas Wyatt]] and Henry Howard of Surrey,A Reference Guide</i>, Boston: G. K. Hall, c1980</font><font face="Arial">.</font></font></li></font></ul></td></tr><tr><td class="" width="50%"><br/><div align="center"><font color="#ffffff" size="4">[[File:AxRmWWfxJkLMBc7LaQq-Kg58891.jpeg|321px|Sir Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk]]</font><br/><font color="#ffffff" size="4"><font size="3">Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk; <br/><font color="#FFA500">son of Henry</font>, Earl of Surrey and his wife. <br/>He was executed under his cousin, [[Princess Elizabeth Tudor|Elizabeth I]].</font></font></div></td><td align="center" class="" width="50%"><br/><font color="#ffffff" size="4"><font color="#ffffff" size="4">[[File:EVLR2bPIoDpSBHuH7QsBlA68002.jpeg|319px|Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton]]<br/><font size="3">Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton; <br/><font color="#FFA500">son of Henry</font>, Earl of Surrey and his wife.</font></font></font></td></tr></table><br/><br/></div>