The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-03-10 00:00:00

THE DUKEDOM OF NORFOLK.

On the 28th of next June the Dukedom of Norfolk
will complete its fourth century. According to
"Burke," John, Lord Howard, was in 1483 made
Duke of Norfolk and Earl Marshal of England,
his eldest son Thomas being also created Earl of
Surrey. The Duke attended the coronation of Richard,
not only as Earl Marshal, but as High Steward of
England, and he was subsequently made Lord Admiral
of England and ;Ireland. His Grace did not long
enjoy these honours, for,in the following year he was
slain at 'Bosworth Field in leading the van of
Richard's army. It is probable that the 400th anni-
versary of the creation of the title will not be allowed
to pass by quite unnoticed at Arundel and Sheffield.
Reath rs of gossiping Sir Nathaniel William Writxall
will remember how the then Duke, just 100 years ago,
intended to give at his Castle of Arundel a grand
entertainment to all the lineal descendants of the body
of "Jockey of Norfolk," but was deterred by finding
that in all probability some hundreds of persons
would put in a claim to appear, and the contemplated
festival was abandoned.— Monday's Times.

Commenting upon the history of the Dukedom of
Norfolk, The Times has the following leader:—

On the 28th of June in the present year the Dukedom
of Norfolk will be four centuries old. The occurrence
of such an anniversary cannot but awaken the his-
torical associations which cluster in such profusion
around the name of Howard. There were Dukes of
Norfolk, it is true, before the title was conferred upon
the Howa.rds, and the Howards themselves were famous
before they acquired the dukedom. But the title con-
ferred on Sir John Howard, the "Jockey of Norfolk,"
has remained in the game family, and has descended or
been revived exclusively in the male line, ever since
Richard 111. bestowed it on his great supporter,
the maternal grandson of the last of the Mu wbrays
who had held the earlier dukedom. There are few
faroilie..: in England which can exhibit an older title or
boast of a more eventful history. The Duke of Norfolk
is the premier Duke of England, and 'ranks among
hereditary Peers immediately after the Princes of the
Blood. One earldom alone, that of Shrewsbury, and
not more than a dozen baronies can boast of an earlier
creation, so that apart from his ducal rank the head of
the Howards is entitled to rank by mere length of
descent as one of the first noble' ifs tile land. Nor
is the family less remarkable for its historical
eminence than it is for its length of descent
and the variety of the branches in which its
name has been enobled. The first Duke of
Norfolk of the present line was the descendant and
the ancestor of sovereigns. The stem of his family
may be traced with certainty in the male line to Sir
William Howard, who was Chief Justice of the Com-
mon Pleas in the reign of Edward 1., and though the
cautious Dugdale declines to carry the line further
back, there is, nevertheless, good ground for believin4
that it may he traced to Hereward, the exile, who
was banished by William the Conqueror. The
mother of Sir John Howard, the "Jockey of
Norfolk," was of even more illustrious descent. Her
father was Thomas Mowbray, the last Duke of Nor-
folk of the earlier creation, and her mother was the
daughter of Richard, Earl of Arundel and Surrey,
the descendant and representative of William de
Warrenne, Earl of Surrey, who married Gundred,
daughter of William the Conqueror. When Sir John
Howard was created Duke of Norfolk in 1483, his son,
Thomas Howard, received at the same time the title
of Earl of Surrey. The earldom of Arundel remained
for some genebations independent, but it was even-
tually absorbed into the family of Howard by the
marriage of the fourth Duke, Thomas, with Mary, the
daughter and heir of Henry Fitz-Alan, Earl of
Arundel, whose only son by this marriage became
Earl of Arundel in right of his mother after the
attainder of his father.

Such is the earlier ,genealogical history of the great
Howard stock, which soon spread out into so many
illustrious branches that Pope could speak in his day
of "all the blood of all the Howards" as symbolical
of the very quintessence of English nobility. The first
, Duke of the line was slain at Besworth fighting on
the side of Richard 111. The Duke was attainted by
Parliament after his death, and all the honours of his
house were forfeited. His only son, Thomas, was
thrown into the Tower, where he remained in prison
for three years. On his release his title of Earl of
Surrey was restored to him, and in 1513'the dukedom,
which had been lost at Bosworth, was recovered at
Flodden, where the Earl of Surrey commanded
the English troops. In 1514 the revived title of
Duke of Norfolk was granted to him as the reward of
his brilliant victory. From this time forward for
oearly a century the vicissitudes of the house of
Howard and its relations to that of Tudor form no
inconsiderable part of the history of the kingdom.
The sons of the second Duke were rem:awned in war by
land and sea, two of his granddaughters became
Queens of England, and his grandson, Lord Howard
or Effingham, the second holder of that title, com-
manded the British fleet which withstood and van-
qnished the Armada. Catherine Howard, the wife of
Henry VIII., was the daughter of Edmund Howard,
who was Marshal of the Horse under his father at
Flodden. Edward Howard, another son of the second
Duke, was a sailor of renown, who was made Admiral
of the Fleet by Henry VIII, and Blain in action off
Brest in 1513. Elizabeth, the Duke's daughter,
married Thomas Boleyn, and her daughter, Anne
Boleyn, became the mother of Queen Elizabeth. In
spite of the services of his father and brothers—per-
haps, indeed, in consequence of them—the third Duke,
Thomas, with his renowned son, Henry Howard, Earl
of Surrey, fell under the displeasure of the imperious
Monarch of whom S,r Walter Raleigh said that he
spared neither WOMall in his lust nor man in his pride.
The accomplished Earl of Surrey, equally celebrated
as soldier, scholar, and poet, was accused with his
father of Popish intrigues, and both were thrown into
prison on a charge of high treason. "The gallant and
unfortunate Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey," says
Sir Walter Scott, " was unquestionably the most
accomplished cavalier of his time, and his sonnets
display beauties which would do honour to a more
polished age. He was beheaded on Tower Hill in
1546—a victim to the mean jealousy of Henry VIII.,
who could not bear so brilliant a character near his
throne. _The principal charge against him was that he
had quartered the arms of Edward the Confessor on
his escutcheon, and though this was amply justified by
heraldic authority, it cost the unfortunate Surrey his
life. The Duke himself escaped ; the warrant for his
execution was signed on the very day of Henry's
death, but it was never carried out, and the third
Duke of Norfolk was subsequently restored to his
honours and titles. He was succeeded by Surrey's
son, who was destined to undergo the same fate at
the hands of Queen Elizabeth as his father had
suffered under Henry VIII. The Duke's grandfather
and the Queen's grandmother were brother and sister,
and before her accession he had been regarded as a
possible suitor for Elizabeth's hand. He married,
however, in 1556, his first wife being that daughter of
the Earl dif Arundel who, as we have already said,
brought the title and estates of Arundel back into the
family of Howard. His second wife was a daughter
of Lord Audley of Walden, and from two of her eons
are descended the present Earls of Suffolk and
Carlisle. It was after the death of his third Duchess,
a sister of Lord Dacre of Gilsland, that the Duke
fell under the displeasure of Elizabeth on account
of his intrigues with Mary Queen of Scots. He
was placed on his trial at Westminster on a charge
of having intrigued with envoys of the Pope and
conspired to aid Mary, to wham he was alleged to
have made overtures of marriage. The latter charge
is substantiated by his own confession, but, as the
witnesses against him are known to have been
examined on the rack, it must always be doubtful
whether he was really guilty of any capital offence.
He was found guilty by his judges, however, and was
executed in 1572. The title of Duke of Norfolk was
extinguished by his attainder, but was revived in 1664,
when his great-grandson, Thomas, Earl of Arundel,
was again created Duke of Norfolk, with the
precedence of the original title. It is a singular
illustration of the ruthless politics of the time that
one of the Duke's judges at his trial in Westminster
Hall was his great uncle, WiW.iam, first Lord Howard
of Effingham, the father of the famous Admiral.
With the death and attainder of the fourth Duke,
the ducal title of Norfolk was extinguished, but not
the fame of the Howards. The name and title of
Arundel, which descended to Philip, the eldest son of
the fourth Duke, by right of his mother, the Duke's
first wife, was destined to be as illustrious in letters
and learning as that of Norfolk itself was under the
Tudor sovereigns in politics and arms. The name of
Howard was destined to be ennobled in three earl-
doms—those of Effingham, Suffolk, and Carlisle—and
to be borne without a title by the ancient territorial
families the Howards of Corby and the Howards of
Greystoke. Elizabeth's Admiral, the second Lord
Howard of Effingharn,was created Earl of Nottingham:
but that title expired with his second son, and the Earl-
dom of _Effingham has twice been conferred for distin-
guiahed military services on two of his later descend-
ants. The first Howard Earl of Suffolk was the eldest
son of the fourth Duke's second wife. Her second
son, William, "Belted Will Howard "of the Lay of
the Last Minstrel, is thus described by Sir Walter
Scott in his notes to that poem :—" Lord William
Howard, third son of Thomas, Duke of Norfolk,
succeedel to Naworth Castle, mad a large domain
annexed to it, in right of his wife, Elizabeth, sister
of George, Lord Doers, who died without heirs-male
in the 11th of Queen Elizabeth. He was warden
of the Western Marshes; and from the rigour with
which he repressed the Border excesses, the
name of Belted Will Howard is still famous in 1
our traditions." The Earls of Carlisle are the
direct descendants of Belted,Will, while the Howards
of Corby are descended from his second son, Francis.
The Howards of Greystoke belong to the elder line,
being descended from a grandson of Philip Howard,
who became Earl of Arundel on the attainder of his
father, the fourth Duke. A memoir of this Philip
Howard, who also married a Dacre, like his younger
halabrother, Belted Will, and Buffered attainder like
so many of his forefathers, was edited in the present
century from contemporary documents by the then
holder of the Ducal title of Norfolk. His son,
Thomas, Earl of Arundel, the renowned scholar and
antiquary, and the friend of Bacon, who died in his
house at Highgate, was the collector of the cele-
brated Arundel marbles, now in the possession of the
University of Oxford. He died at Padua in 1646
having quitted England at the beginning of the Parlia-
mentary war. " Discerning," says Dugdale, "the
flames of war (occasioned by the prevalent party in the
Long rarliamept) more and move to increase, his age
being also such as rendered hop not fit for further
military employments, he obtained leave from the
King to travel." A brief account of his life was pub-
lished in the last century, together with some anec-
dotes of other members of the Howard famofilyN.obryfotihk;
I. to restore the
eleventh Duke of Norfolk. His grandson also
called Thomas, Earl of Arundel, was the first Of tha
oel ixfnti6ei_nrigununidws
hohieodhseabdyb ephEeatllll.ittbnheeetdht,ict‘lhevaarsolee s
title, but though he was created Earl of Norfolk
in virtPe of his lineal descent from Thomas do
Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk, a
_younger son
of Edward I. and was appointed a.rl Marshal,
like so many of his ancestors—the office has since
become hereditary in the family—the Ducal title itself

was withhebl. Ms grandson recovered it, however, in
1664, and hecAele fifth Duke of Norfolk of the'hoe
!of the Howatels. This Duke, like his grandfather,
was a scholar and a patron of learning. "The
Duke of Norfolk," says James Theobald in
a memorandum published in the eleventh Duke's
"Anecdotes," " after the establishment of the
Royal Society gave that worthy society permission
to bola their meedngs in Arundel House, but now,
as it was to be pulled down, they removed to
Gresham College ; and as he had made the Royal
Society a present of his noble library, that WaB also
removed thither." The revived title remained in the
direct line until the death of the ninth Duke, who
was succeeded in the Ducal title by the eldest repro•
sentstive of the house of Howard of Greystoke,
Charles Howard, at that time.proprietor of Deepriene,
near Dorking, a property of historicsl interest, whose
glories were celebrated by Aubrey. Deepdeoe was
ultimately sold by the Norfolk family, and passed
into the h:aies of the Hones, in whose possession it
has again a-Allele a,,sociations of surpassing interest
It is unnecessary on the prEs.i.nt occasion to pursue
further the history of the house of Howard. In A
few months it will reach the four hundredth anniver•
Entry of the day when the great ancestor of the race
was ennobled, and no one who reflects on the varied
and eventful history of the family during those four
hundred years can doubt that the anniversary will be
full of profound interest for all whose imagination is
lively enough to be touched by the romance of English
history and the renown of noble names.