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A Reinterpretation of Surrey's Character and Actions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
In 1538 John Barlowe, an adherent of Surrey's enemies, exclaimed, “[Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey!] It ys the most folish prowde boye that ys in Englande.” Although Barlowe's companion, George Constantyne, was at one with him in his hostility to the political and religious conservatism of the Howards, he retorted ironically, “What, man, he hath a wife & childe, & ye call hym boye?” and continuing, he ridiculed Barlowe's use of the phrase “folish prowde” as equally inept. Soon after Surrey was executed, however, unfounded traditions began to modify the point of view exemplified by Constantyne's refusal to take Barlow's remark seriously. The repetition of these misleading traditions for more than three centuries has so distorted the conception of Surrey's character and the interpretation of his actions that the justice of Barlowe's remark has come to be accepted without question.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1936
References
1 Archœologia, xxiii (1831), 62.
2 Thomas Howard, then Earl of Surrey, later second Howard Duke of Norfolk.
3 William Camden, Remaines (ed. 1614), p. 283.
4 Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, was freed from prison early in 1489; John Weever, Ancient Funerali Monuments (London, 1631), p. 835. His son was permitted to marry Anne Plantagenet, thus becoming the uncle of the heir to the throne; G. Buck, Richard III, printed in Rennet's Complete History of England (London, 1719), i, 574. By 1501 the Earl of Surrey had become High Treasurer of England; Patent Rolls, 16 Henry VII, pt. 2, m. 11 (11).
5 Letters and Papers … of Henry VIII, i, nos. 4694, 4695. Hereafter referred to as L. and P.
6 In my unpublished dissertation, The Life of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey … (1931) (a copy of which is in the library of the Examination Schools, Oxford University), I have, I think, demonstrated that this date is correct.
7 Gerald Brenan and Edward Phillips Statham, The House of Howard (London, 1907), i, 109–112.
8 When Thomas became the third Howard Duke of Norfolk in 1524, his second title, Earl of Surrey, passed as a courtesy title only to his eldest son, Henry. As Henry was executed before his father's death, he was never actually a peer of England. That his was a courtesy title only explains why he could be tried for treason in 1547 before a common jury; see note 47 below.
9 This John Clerke was an excellent scholar of Magdalen College, Oxford, who proceeded to his M.A. in 1516. He then traveled widely on the Continent, studying particularly in Italy. In reference to Clerke see: Wood, Athenae Oxonienses (ed. 1813), i, 203; Foxe, Acts and Monuments (ed. 1877), viii, 634; Richard Pace, De Fructu Qui Ex Doctrina (ed. 1517), p. 24; Charles Dodd, Church History of England (ed. 1737), i, 379.
10 “Registrum Buttley Suff. penes le Neve. N. fol. 52 b; printed by Geo. Fred. Nott, The Works of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and of Sir Thomas Wyatt, the Elder (London, 1815), i, xiv.
11 “Chapuis à l'Empereur, 31 octobre 1530 (Vienne, Archives de la Burg. Rep. P. fasc. c. 226, no. 44)”; printed by Edmond Bapst, Deux gentilshommes-poètes de la cour de Henry 7/77 (Paris, 1891), p. 178.
12 Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, 1529–1530, no. 228.
13 L. and P., v, no. 1627.
14 Acta Regia, or an account of … instruments … published in Mr. Rymer's Foedera (published monthly, 1726/27), iii, 342.
15 Op. cit., pp. 226–231.
16 State Papers of Henry VIII, v, no. 325.
17 The reforms which the revolting people demanded—the reëstablishment of the nobility as an actual power, the suppression of upstart statesmen such as Cromwell, and the return to the old religion (cf. A. F. Pollard, Henry VIII [new impression, London, 1930], pp. 353–354)—were all demands which Norfolk and Surrey strongly sanctioned.
18 L. and P., xi, no. 21; where the document is mistakenly assigned to the year 1536, instead of to 1537, as pointed out by Bapst, op. cit., p. 227.
19 He had recently been created Viscount Beauchamps.
20 Raphael Holinshed, Chronicles (ed. 1587), iii, 953. This also gives details of the infliction of this punishment.
21 Correspondance politique de MM. de Castillon et de Marillac, par M. Jean Kaulek (Paris, 1885), p. 352 ff.; L. and P., xvi, no. 1488 (18); ibid., xvii, no. 362 (66).
22 Nott (op. cit., i, p. 1), without the slightest evidence, suggests that this quarrel was caused by Leigh's slighting remarks to Surrey relating to the “Faire Geraldine.” Bapst (op. cit., p. 257) notes that John à Leigh had been charged with association with Cardinal Pole (British Museum, Cotton MS. Cleopatra E. vi. fol. 394; State Papers of Henry VIII, i, pt. 2, nos. 134 and 135). Leigh succeeded in clearing himself of the charge, but as Bapst suggests, although admitting that Surrey's name is nowhere mentioned in the records, Leigh might have attempted to involve Surrey.
23 J. R. Dasent, Acts of the Privy Council (London, 1890), i, 17.
24 Ibid., p. 104; Bapst, op. cit., p. 273.
25 L. and P., xviii, pt. 1, no. 327(2); Dasent, op. cit., i, 104.
26 Bapst, op. cit., p. 314; from Acts of the Privy Council, 31 August, 1545.
27 Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Henry VIII (London, 1649), p. 511. For a full description of the duties of the Marshall of the Field see Francis Markham, Five Decades of Epistles of Warre (London, 1622).
28 The correspondence at this time between the Council of Boulogne and the king and Privy Council furnish this information. Much of this is printed by Nott, op. cit., i, 170ff.; see also records of this date printed in L. and P., xx and xxi, ad loc.; Dasent, op. cit., i, ad loc.; State Papers of Henry VIII, x, pt. 5, ad loc.—The records of Surrey's military career show that only once did forces which he commanded suffer a definite repulse. (Surrey was not in command of the attack upon Montreuil, September, 1544.) This was in a skirmish, for it can be called nothing more, which took place before Boulogne on January 8, 1546. Even in this skirmish his tactics were succeeding admirably, in spite of the superior numbers of the enemy, and the French were on the point of being routed when the English second line suddenly retreated leaving several men of high rank in the first line to be killed because they were not supported. No final explanation for this failure of the second line has been found, but it seems quite probable that some of Surrey's rivals within his own ranks caused it. (Such action was not unknown at the time.) In spite of the failure of his support, however, Surrey was almost entirely successful in accomplishing the objective of the skirmish—only twenty of the carriages laden with French provisions reached their destination, and the French, prevented from bringing up supplies, were forced to retreat to Montreuil. (In this connection see State Paper Office, French Correspondence, vi, no. 2; printed in Nott, op. cit., i, letter xvi; to this Nott has appended the French account of the skirmish by Du Bellay.) The effect of this military reverse, if it can be called that, on Surrey's later life has been magnified out of all proportion to the facts that can be determined. The data are very confusing and contradictory concerning the attitude of the king and the Privy Council toward this loss, but certainly there are no positive grounds for the almost unanimous assumption of earlier writers that the loss of this one skirmish was the direct cause of Surrey's downfall. In fact, the assumption becomes absurd if we note that Surrey continued to receive grants from the king (L. and P. xxi, pt. 1, nos. 716 and 970), and his advice on matters pertaining to Boulogne was sought and followed as much as six months later. (Ibid., no. 1397; British Museum, Cotton MS. Titus B.ii. 58; printed in Nott, op. cit., i, letter xxix.)
29 L. and P., xxi, pt. 2, no. 555 (4).
30 Although Surrey's assertion of his father's right to be regent to Edward VI is alluded to in the records of the search for evidence against Surrey, the Privy Council was unable to find anything treasonable in his so doing. The fact was not mentioned in the indictment brought against Surrey; see note 39 below.
31 Cf. A. F. Pollard, History of England, 1547–1603 (second impression, London, 1911) (printed as volume vi of The Political History of England, edited by William Hunt and Reginald L. Poole), pp. 4–5.
32 L. and P., xxi, pt. 2, nos. 555 and 605.
33 L. and P., xxi, pt. 2, no. 568.
34 At this time Earl of Hertford.
35 Cf. A. F. Pollard, History of England 1547–1603, pp. 5–6, where he discusses the validity of Henry VIII's will.
36 Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, op. cit., p. 562.
37 The indictment contains only the spurious charge that Surrey's quartering of the royal arms of Edward the Confessor on his escutcheon was treason; see note 39 below.
38 Cf. A. F. Pollard, History of England, 1547–1603, pp. 4–7, where he discusses the source of the powers of the Privy Council.
39 “The Earl of Surrey's Inditement and Judgment,” Baga de Secretas, Pouch xiv; printed by Nott, op. cit., i, appendix no. xxxiii.
40 Dasent, op. cit., ii, 106, contains the following item of July 5, 1547: “This day Sir Robert Sowthwell, Master of the Rolles, deliverde uppe a bag of bokes sealed with his seale, wherein were conteigned writinges concerning the attaindre of the Duke of Norfolk and th'erle of Surrie his sonne, to the saide Sir Robert and other learned men hertofore deliverid to peruse, which bag it was hereapon ordred to be bestowed in the Studie at Westminster Palays where other recordes do lye.” The exact contents of the bag remain unknown, but the fact that the “writings” had been “perused” with the knowledge of the administration suggests that this action was taken to expurgate all traces of illegality, or irregularity, from the records of the action taken to remove Norfolk and Surrey. British Museum, Harleian MSS., no. 1453, fol. 69, contains a coat of arms over which is written “Howard Earl of Surrey, for which he was attainted.” The heraldic mistakes in the coat of arms, however, are so apparent that the validity of the statement is extremely doubtful.
41 Records of this inherited right are so numerous that I cite but one example of sanction by writ and one of sanction of usage: Patent Rolls, 17 Richard II, pt. 1, m. 2; Frederic Harrison, Annals of an Old Manor House (London, 1893), p. 176.
42 L. and P., xxi, pt. 2, no. 697; cf. Bapst, op. cit., p. 358 ff.
43 Charles Wriothesley's Chronicle, 1485–1559, Camden Society, New Series, xi (1885), i, 177.
44 Holinshed, Chronicles (ed. 1577), ii, 1610–11; here the account of the inquest and the account of the trial are so intermingled, however, that it is impossible to separate them.
45 He received the usual sentence for treason, “to be taken back to the Tower and thence led through the city of London to the gallows at Tiborne, hanged, disembowelled, etc.” (L. and P., xxi, pt. 2, no. 697.) Instead of being executed according to the sentence, however, he was permitted to have his head cut off on Tower Hill—a courtesy customarily granted to condemned traitors who had held high position at court.
46 Rapin's History of England, translated by N. Tindell (London, 1729), vii, 701, contains the following note, “Henry Howard … died much pitied, being a Man of great Parts and High-Courage, with many other noble Qualities. His Sentence was generally condemned as an Act of high Injustice and Severity which loaded the Seymours with a popular Odium that they could never overcome.” Although this statement undoubtedly exaggerates, it is indicative of the contemporary attitude towards his execution; cf. Raphael Holinshed, Chronicles (ed. 1577), ii, 1611.
47 The Duke of Norfolk permitted himself to be persuaded by the Privy Council to acknowledge in writing that he was guilty of treasonable acts which he had not committed. Knowing that there was no chance to receive a just trial, he sought to follow the example of Gardiner, who earlier had secured the king's pardon for treason which he had not committed by confessing and throwing himself upon the king's mercy (see Nott, op. cit., i, cxiii.). For once, however, the wily duke was trapped by his own guile. He escaped execution at this time only because Henry VIII died too soon. As a peer of the realm and a member of the House of Lords, he could be tried only by that body; before his trial and execution could be completed (L. and P. xxi, pt. 2, no. 759.) the death of Henry VIII forced the “new men” to proceed carefully. Having his written confession of treason, however, they felt that they could justify keeping him in prison, and in the Tower he remained until Mary came to the throne.