Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk

Early life

Thomas was the son of Sir Thomas Howard, later 2nd Duke of Norfolk, with his first wife, Elizabeth Tilney, the daughter of Sir Frederick Tilney and widow of Sir Humphrey Bourchier, and the grandson of John Howard, 1st Baron Howard, later 1st Duke of Norfolk. Through his great-grandmother Margaret Mowbray, Howard was a descendant of Thomas of Brotherton, 1st Earl of Norfolk, the sixth son of King Edward I of England. Through his great-grandfather Sir Robert Howard, of Tendring Hall, Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk, Howard was descended from Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall, the second son of King John, who had an illegitimate son, named Richard (died 1296), whose daughter, Joan of Cornwall, married Sir John Howard (d. shortly July 1331). Likewise, through his ancestor Isabel d'Aubigny, wife of John Fitzalan, 3rd Lord of Clun and Oswestry, Howard was descended from Roger Bigod, the first Lord of Norfolk after the Norman Conquest. In 1483, his father and grandfather were created Earl of Surrey and Duke of Norfolk respectively in reward for their loyalty to the Duke of Gloucester, who became King Richard III after usurping the throne from his nephews, the sons of Edward IV, and in 1485 the Howards fought on the side of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth, where the 1st Duke lost his life and the Earl of Surrey was badly wounded. As the battle resulted in the accession of Henry VII Tudor, the Howards' loyalty to the losing side resulted in the forfeiture of their titles and most of their properties. Nevertheless, they soon began to be rehabilitated, and in 1489 Thomas' father was restored as Earl of Surrey.

In April 1497 his mother died, and in August of that year, by papal dispensation, his father married for the second time Agnes Tilney, Thomas' mother's cousin.

Howard was an able soldier, and was often employed in military operations. In 1497, he served in a campaign against the Scots under the command of his father, who knighted him on 30 September 1497. He was made a Knight of the Garter after the accession of his nephew by marriage, King Henry VIII, and became the King's close companion, with lodgings at court. His first wife, Anne of York, daughter of Edward IV and thereby Henry's aunt, died in November 1511, and early in 1513, Howard married Elizabeth Stafford, the daughter of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Eleanor Percy, and the granddaughter of Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland. Through his mother Katherine Woodville, Elizabeth's father was a first cousin to Howard's first wife. On 4 May 1513, he was appointed Lord High Admiral, a position previously held by his brother, Edward Howard, who had died on 25 April, to combat the French navy. Surrey and his sons Thomas and Edmund had hoped to lead the English expedition against France, but were left behind when the King departed for Calais at the end of June. Shortly thereafter King James IV of Scotland launched an invasion into England (despite being married to Princess Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII) in fulfilment of his alliance with France, and Thomas along with his brother Edmund, joined their father and the barons Dacre and Monteagle in leading the army, which despite their numerical inferiority, managed to decisively crush the Scottish forces at the Battle of Flodden, near Branxton, Northumberland, on 9 September. The Scots lost thousands of men, and James IV lost his life in the battle.

Rise to power

On 10 March 1520 Howard was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland. By July 1520, he entered upon the thankless task of endeavouring to keep Ireland in order. His letters contain accounts of attempts to pacify the rival factions of Gerald FitzGerald, 9th Earl of Kildare and Piers Butler, 8th Earl of Ormonde, and are full of demands for more money and troops.

At the end of 1521 Surrey was recalled from Ireland to take command of the English fleet in naval operations against France. His ships were ill-provisioned, and his attack consisted of a series of raids near the French coast for the purpose of inflicting as much damage as possible on the French navy. Howard's ships besieged the strategic port of Brest but when he abandoned the siege, he left Vice-Admiral William FitzWilliam on station to blockade the port. The English navy patrolled the Brittany coast for the next three months, but was unable to gain a decisive victory even with their Spanish allies. In July 1522, the forces commanded by Surrey burned Morlaix, and over the next few months razed everything around Boulogne, until the winter caused the fleet to withdraw to England. The sea patrol was abandoned with little achieved.

On 4 December 1522, Howard was made Lord High Treasurer upon his father's resignation of the office, and on 21 May 1524, he succeeded his father as Duke of Norfolk. His liking for war brought him into conflict with Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, who preferred diplomacy in the conduct of foreign affairs. In 1523, Wolsey had secured to Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk the reversion of the office of Earl Marshal by Howard's father, and in 1525, he was replaced as Lord Admiral by Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond, the King's illegitimate but acknowledged son, who a few years later became Norfolk's son-in-law. Finding himself pushed aside, Howard spent considerable time away from court between 1525 and 1527–28.

In the mid-1520s, Howard's niece, Anne Boleyn, had caught the eye of King Henry VIII, thereby reviving his political fortunes with his involvement in the King's attempt to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. By 1529, matters of state were being increasingly handled by Norfolk, his brother-in-law Thomas Boleyn, and the Duke of Suffolk, who pressed King Henry VIII to remove Cardinal Wolsey. In October, the King sent Howard and the Duke of Suffolk to obtain the great seal from the Cardinal.

Later career

Assisting the King in the annulment of his first marriage, added to his extensive loyalty and services to the Crown, brought Howard extensive rewards in the form of monastic lands in Norfolk and Suffolk, employment on diplomatic missions, and being named a knight of the French Order of St Michael in 1532 and Earl Marshal of England on 28 May 1533. In November of that same year, his daughter Mary was married to the Duke of Richmond, Henry FitzRoy, a union that was politically advantageous to Norfolk. Given that Henry VIII did not yet have a legitimate male heir and Princess Mary had been removed from the line of succession, Richmond was seen by many as a potential heir to the throne. The marriage was never consummated by order of the King due to the youth of the couple, and it was then cut short by FitzRoy's death in 1536.

Thomas Howard's marriage to his second wife, Lady Elizabeth Stafford, which had apparently been mutually affectionate at first, deteriorated in 1527 when he took a mistress, Elizabeth Holland (died 1547/8), whom he installed in the Howard household. Lady Elizabeth formally separated from her husband in the 1530s. She claimed that in March 1534, the Duke of Norfolk 'locked me up in a chamber, [and] took away my jewels and apparel'. Howard then moved her to Redbourn, Hertfordshire, where she lived as a virtual prisoner with a modest annual allowance of only £200. She also claimed to have been physically maltreated by Howard and his household servants.

On 10 March 1536, the Earl of Surrey's eldest son Thomas was born. On 2 May of the same year, Anne Boleyn and her brother George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford were arrested by order of the King. They were tried in the great hall of the Tower of London. Norfolk presided over the trial as Lord High Steward. The Boleyn siblings were sentenced to death; Rochford was executed on 17 May, and Anne two days later. Following his niece's fall from grace, Howard's power and influence at court waned for a time.

In July, the Duke of Richmond, Norfolk's only son-in-law, died at the age of 17 and was buried at Thetford Priory, one of the Howard properties.

When the Pilgrimage of Grace broke out in Lincolnshire and the northern counties in October 1536 in response to the suppression of monasteries across England, Norfolk and his eldest son, the Earl of Surrey shared command of the King's forces with George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury. The Howards and Talbot opened negotiations with the main leader of the insurgents, Robert Aske at Scawsby Leys, near Doncaster, where Aske had assembled between 30,000 and 40,000 people. The 24 Articles to the King, also called "The Commons' Petition", was given to Norfolk to present to the King. The Duke promised to do so, and also promised a general pardon for the rebels, that Parliament would meet in York in a year, and another pardon, this time directed at the abbeys until the Parliament had met. Jesse Childs (a biographer of the Earl of Surrey, Norfolk's son) specifically notes that Henry VIII did not authorise Norfolk to grant remedies for the grievances. The Duke's enemies had told the King that the Howards could put down a rebellion of peasants if they wanted to, suggesting that Norfolk, being Catholic, sympathised with the Pilgrimage. Howard and Shrewsbury were outnumbered: they had between 5,000 and 7,000 men but there were more than 40,000 rebels. Upon seeing their numbers, Norfolk negotiated and made promises to avoid being massacred by insurgent forces. However, the promises of both the King and Parliament were never fulfilled and in January 1537 Bigod's rebellion broke out. In response to this, forces led by Norfolk headed to the north of England, where they carried out a policy of brutal repression on behalf of the King, despite the fact that the Duke himself was a Catholic.

Imprisonment and release

During the last years of the reign of Henry VIII, the Seymour family, and the King's last wife, Catherine Parr, supporters of the Reformation were gaining greater power and influence at court, while conservative Norfolk was left politically isolated. Howard attempted to form an alliance with the Seymours by marrying his widowed daughter, Mary to Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley. The King gave his approval for the match, but her brother, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, objected strongly, as did the Duchess herself and the marriage did not take place. Howard's eldest son and heir, Henry, Earl of Surrey, was repeatedly imprisoned for rash behaviour and was accused of assuming the royal arms of Edward the Confessor as part of his personal heraldry. Surrey was entitled to bear Edward the Confessor's arms, but doing so was an act of pride, and provocative in the eyes of the Crown. On 12 December 1546 both Norfolk and his son were arrested and sent to the Tower.

In the early morning of 14 December, Howard's residence in Kenninghall was raided by Richard Southwell, John Gates and Wymond Carew, looking for evidence of Surrey's treason. Arriving at the house, the men found the Duke's daughter, Mary, his daughter-in-law Frances, who was pregnant with their fifth child, and Norfolk's mistress, Bess Holland, alone in the home. Southwell and his companions arrived, placed men at all the doors and sent for the Duchess of Richmond and Bess Holland, 'who were only just risen', Southwell reported.

The fate of Norfolk's personal property is well documented, for the inventories drawn up at the time of his arrest were annotated, as goods were sold or given away.

On 24 December, the elder Howard acknowledged that he had "concealed high treason, in keeping secret the false acts of my son, Henry Earl of Surrey, in using the arms of St. Edward the Confessor, which pertain only to kings", and offered his lands to the King.

There were also religious motives behind Surrey's fall from grace and Norfolk's imprisonment. The Duke was the premier Catholic nobleman of England and his son was also a Catholic, although he had reformist leanings. Henry VIII, possibly influenced by the Seymours, supporters of Protestantism, believed that Norfolk and Surrey were going to usurp the Crown from his son, the future Edward VI, to reverse the Reformation and thus return the English Church to papal jurisdiction. Norfolk's family, including his estranged wife, his daughter Mary, and his mistress, Elizabeth Holland, all gave evidence against him. His son was convicted of treason and executed on 19 January 1547, and on 27 January 1547, the Howards, father and son, were attainted by statute. The dying King gave his assent to the Duke's death through royal commissioners, and it was rumoured that he would be executed on the following day. Norfolk was saved by the King's death, in the early morning of 28 January, and the council's decision not to inaugurate the new reign with bloodshed, but remained a prisoner in the Tower of London. His estates fell prey to the ruling clique in the reign of Edward VI, for which he was later partly compensated by lands worth £1,626 a year from the Catholic Queen Mary I.

Death and burial

The Duke died at his Kenninghall residence on 25 August 1554 after several weeks in which his health gradually declined. Norfolk was buried in the Church of St Michael the Archangel, Framlingham, Suffolk, where his spectacular tomb, richly decorated with religious iconography and with heraldic lions that hold the coats of arms of both the Howard family and the House of York, because Anne of York, the Duke's first wife, was buried in the same tomb.

The religious representations on Howard's tomb are of the twelve Apostles and some of the oldest Christian saints. On the south side are St Matthew the Evangelist, St James the Great, St James the Less and St Andrew; on the west St Peter, the Prophet Aaron and St Paul; on the north St Matthias, St Jude Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot (also known as Simon the Canaanite) and St Philip; and on the east St John the Evangelist, Simeon of Jerusalem and St Thomas.

Parts of the tomb are believed to be parts of the 2nd Duke's tomb, which was located at Thetford and was destroyed when the Priory was closed. The remains of two other men in the tomb are likely the first and second Dukes.

The effigy of Howard is to the left of that of his first wife, rather than the usual right, due to the latter's royal lineage. He was succeeded as Duke and as Earl Marshal by his grandson, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk.

Marriage and progeny

Thomas Howard married twice:

First he married the Princess Anne of York (1475–1511), the fifth daughter of King Edward IV of England and Elizabeth Woodville, and the sister-in-law of King Henry VII. Anne had previously been betrothed to the Habsburg prince Philip the Handsome, son of the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, later Holy Roman Emperor, but the marriage negotiations were cancelled in 1483, after the death of Edward IV. Thomas and the Princess were distantly related, as both were descendants of King Edward I. Howard was descended from Thomas of Brotherton, the fourth son of Edward I, while Anne was descended from King Edward II, Brotherton's half-brother. Arrangements for the marriage between the Princess and Thomas began in March 1484, shortly after she and her six sisters were reinstated at the court of their uncle, Richard III, by an agreement between the King and his sister-in-law, and mother of the girls, the Dowager Queen Elizabeth. The monarch, at that time, promised that his nieces would not be imprisoned in the Tower or any other prison and that they would be placed "in respectable places of good name and reputation", and later be married to "men of noble birth" and given dowry lands with an annual income of 200 marks each.

Shortly after the deal was sealed and the princesses arrived at court, the King began searching for suitable husbands for his nieces: for Anne he chose Thomas Howard. By choosing the son and heir of the Earl of Surrey and second-in-line to the Dukedom of Norfolk, he showed his favour to the Howard family. This was a politically advantageous match on both sides. The following year, in 1485, and when Anne and Thomas were still children, Richard III and the Earl of Surrey agreed to the marriage contract, but the King did not have time to formalize the marriage due to the invasion from Wales of the Lancastrian claimant to the throne, Henry Tudor, and then marriage negotiations were suspended following the monarch's death at the Battle of Bosworth. A few years later, Elizabeth of York, eldest sister of the Princess and now wife of the new King Henry VII, resumed negotiations for Anne to marry Thomas. The princess and her future husband had known each other since childhood as both Howard's father and grandfather served at the court of Edward IV. The queen took into account the opinion of her sister and considered that the Howard family were noble enough to qualify for a high marriage, and therefore on 4 February 1495 (according to other sources in 1494) the wedding of Anne and Thomas Howard was celebrated. The wedding took place in Westminster Abbey, and the marriage celebrations took place at the Palace of Placentia. The royal family attended the wedding, and the king also attended a festive mass, but the dowry of 10,000 marks, assigned to Anne by her father was not received by the newlyweds. By order of the queen, the couple were assigned annuity payments in the amount of £120 per year, which were to be made throughout Anne's life or until the death of her mother-in-law: this amount included provision for the maintenance of Anne herself, as well as her servants and seven horses. This pension was granted because the queen did not want to leave Anne dependent on her husband, who due to his circumstances, could not provide the princess with a comfortable existence suitable to her royal rank.

Fictional portrayals

Shakespeare

Henry VIII by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher(1613); Thomas Howard appears as the Earl of Surrey whilst his father appears as the Duke of Norfolk. The playwrights conflate the actual dates of father and son so that both may appear as important characters in the play.

Books

Norfolk is an important character in:

The Philippa Gregory novels The Other Boleyn Girl and The Boleyn Inheritance

The Man on a Donkey by H.F.M. Prescott

The Fifth Queen by Ford Madox Ford

Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, and The Mirror & the Light

Films and television

In The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) he was played by Frederick Culley.

In The Prince and the Pauper (1937) he was played by Henry Stephenson.

In A Man for All Seasons (1966), he was played by Nigel Davenport.

In Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), Peter Jeffrey took the role. He went on to reprise the role in a 1996 BBC adaptation of Mark Twain's 1881 novel The Prince and the Pauper.

In the 1970 BBC TV series The Six Wives of Henry VIII, the role was played by Patrick Troughton.

In the 1972 film The Six Wives of Henry VIII, based on the TV series, he was played by Michael Gough.

Sir Rex Harrison portrayed him in the 1977 adaptation of the Mark Twain novel, The Prince and the Pauper.

Mark Strong portrayed Norfolk in the 2003 ITV feature Henry VIII.

In the 2003 BBC adaptation of The Other Boleyn Girl, he was played by John Woodvine.

In the Showtime series The Tudors (2007), he was played by Henry Czerny.

David Morrissey played the Duke in the 2008 film The Other Boleyn Girl.

Bernard Hill played the Duke in the 2015 BBC adaptation of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. Timothy Spall plays him in the second series, Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light.

Peter Firth played Norfolk, in the 2024 series Shardlake, an adaptation of the series of books of the same name by C. J. Sansom.