page_title: Philip Howard, 13th Earl of Arundel
section_title: Conversion and imprisonment
hierarchical_section_title: Philip Howard, 13th Earl of Arundel / Conversion and imprisonment
caption_attribution_description: Shrine of St Philip Howard, Arundel Cathedral, Sussex, England.
context_page_description: Saint Philip Howard, 13th Earl of Arundel was an English nobleman. He was canonised by Pope Paul VI in 1970, as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. He is variously numbered as 1st, 20th or 13th Earl of Arundel.
context_section_description: Arundel and much of his family remained Catholic recusants during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.  He himself was suspected of disloyalty and regarded by the discontented Roman Catholics as the centre of the plots against the Queen's government, even as a possible successor. His family also attempted to leave England without permission; while some might have been able to do this unobserved, Arundel was a second cousin (once removed) of the Queen. In 1583 he was suspected of complicity in the Throckmorton Plot and prepared to escape to Flanders but his plans were interrupted by a visit from Elizabeth at his house in London and her order that he confine himself there. In September 1584 he became a Roman Catholic, hiding his conversion and attempting next year once more to escape abroad. He was betrayed by a servant and arrested not long after his ship set sail from Littlehampton.
  Howard was committed to the Tower of London on 25 April 1585. He was charged before the Star Chamber with being a Roman Catholic, with quitting England without leave, sharing in Jesuit plots, and claiming the dukedom of Norfolk. He was sentenced to pay £10,000 and to be imprisoned during the queen's pleasure. In July 1586 his liberty was offered to him if he would carry the sword of state before the queen to church. In 1588 he was accused of praying, together with other Romanists, for the success of the Spanish Armada. He was tried for high treason on the 14th of April 1589, found guilty and condemned to death, but his sentence was not executed; Queen Elizabeth never signed the death warrant, but Howard was not told this. He was kept constantly in fear of execution, although comforted by the companionship of a dog, which served as a go-between by which Howard and other prisoners, most notably the priest Robert Southwell, could send messages to each other. Although these two men never met, Howard's dog helped them to deepen their friendship and exchange encouragement in each other's plight. Philip Howard loved his pet, who is remembered along with him in a statue at Arundel Cathedral.
  One day Howard scratched into a wall of his cell these words: Quanto plus afflictiones pro Christo in hoc saeculo, tanto plus gloriae cum Christo in futuro ("the more affliction [we endure] for Christ in this world, the more glory [we shall obtain] with Christ in the next") (cf. Rom 8).
  Howard spent ten years in the Tower, until his death from dysentery. He petitioned the Queen as he lay dying to allow him to see his wife and his son, who had been born after his imprisonment. The Queen responded that "If he will but once attend the Protestant Service, he shall not only see his wife and children, but be restored to his honors and estates with every mark of my royal favor." To this, Howard is supposed to have replied: "Tell Her Majesty if my religion be the cause for which I suffer, sorry I am that I have but one life to lose." He remained in the Tower, never seeing his wife or daughter again, and died alone on Sunday 19 October 1595. He was immediately acclaimed as a Catholic Martyr.
  Howard was buried without ceremony beneath the floor of the church of St Peter ad Vincula, inside the walls of the Tower. Twenty-nine years later, his widow and son obtained permission from King James I of England to move the body to the Fitzalan Chapel located on the western grounds of Arundel Castle. Some of his bones are also found within his shrine at Arundel Cathedral.
  Howard was attainted in 1589 for his mother's title, but his son Thomas eventually was restored in blood and succeeded as Earl of Arundel, and to the lesser titles of his grandfather.
caption: Shrine of St Philip Howard
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