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Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 28.djvu/81

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Howard
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Howard

the border fortresses, and late in the same year was made general of the army against the Scots. It assembled on 29 April 1639 at Selby-on-the-Ouse, whence it moved to Berwick under the king's command, but was disbanded in three months. Clarendon calls Arundel ‘a man who had nothing martial about him but his presence and his looks,’ and was, he says, chosen general for 'his negative qualities; he did not love the Scots; he did not love the puritans' (History, Clarendon Press edit., 1828, i. 201). New preparations were made for war in the end of 1639, and Arundel, who became lord-steward of the royal household on 12 April 1640, administered the oath to the commons on 25 April 1640. On 29 Aug. 1640 he was appointed ‘captain-general south of Trent,’ but after the Scots took Newcastle (30 Aug.), Arundel was examined in parliament as to his responsibility. No fault was found with his conduct. Early in the next year the earl presided at Strafford's trial (March and April 1641), acting as lord high steward; he had privately quarrelled with Strafford in 1635 over some land which both claimed, but by all impartial accounts did not allow his private enmity to bias his feelings. He notified the royal assent to the bill of Strafford's attainder, and also to a bill against dissolving parliament without the consent of both houses. On 29 June Arundel, supported by seventeen other noblemen, petitioned for the restoration of his grandfather's title of Duke of Norfolk. Charles avoided a direct reply, but in the year of the earl's death, and when unable to make his concession of any value, granted him the title by a patent, dated 6 June 1646, from Oxford.

In August 1641 Arundel, who was growing out of sympathy with the court, resigned his post of lord-steward of the household. The queen-mother of France concluded a visit to England in July 1641, and the earl and his wife escorted her to Cologne, where the countess remained. Arundel went on to Utrecht, where his eldest surviving son's children were being educated, and after a short visit to England, in company with Evelyn, in October, left the country for good in the middle of February 1642, ostensibly acting as escort to Queen Henrietta Maria and Princess Mary. Soon parting with them, he went on through France to Italy. His grandsons, Thomas and Philip, the eldest and youngest sons of Lord Maltravers, accompanied him, but Thomas became insane, and Philip turned Dominican at Milan [see Howard, Philip Thomas], to the earl's grief. He was joined at Padua, where he now permanently settled, by his second grandson, Henry. In 1644Arundel and other absent peers were recalled by an order of the House of Lords, but he remained abroad, contributing 54,000l. to the royalist cause. The same year Arundel Castle was captured by the Roundheads, but was retaken by Waller. Arundel's means were now much circumscribed; his personal estate had been seized in 1643 by parliament, and was in the hands of the sequestrators. Out of an annual revenue of 15,000l., he only received 500l. a year while abroad (House of Commons' Journals, iii. 231, 432, &c.) His son, Lord Mowbray and Maltravers, joined him with difficulty in 1645, and while preparing to return to England in 1646, Arundel was taken ill. Evelyn records a visit to him on his sick bed at Padua (Easter 1646), when he found him, more sick in mind than body, lamenting the undutifulness of his grandson Philip (Diary, i. 218). On 4 Oct. he died suddenly, and by his own desire his body was conveyed by his son and his grandson Henry to be buried at Arundel. The earl desired to have a tomb made by Fanelli, and composed his own epitaph, but, like other directions given in Arundel's will, these arrangements for a tomb were not carried out. By his wife Alathea he had six sons. The eldest, James, lord Mowbray, created K.B. in 1616, died unmarried at Ghent in 1624. Arundel's second son and successor, Henry Frederick, and his fifth son, William Howard, viscount Stafford, are separately noticed.

The earl's character has been unfairly drawn by Clarendon, who personally disliked him, but Clarendon brings no graver charges than those of pride and reserve, illiteracy and religious indifferentism. Austere in disposition, plain in speech and dress, very particular as to the respect due to his rank, the earl was unpopular at court, as well as with those below him. But he was an affectionate husband and parent, taking immense pains with the education of his sons and grandson. He was liberal and hospitable, especially to foreigners, and a patron of arts and learning. He brought Hollar from Prague, and employed him to make drawings. Oughtred, the famous mathematician, was tutor to his third son, William. Francis Junius [q.v.] was his librarian, and lived in his family thirty years. He was the friend of the antiquaries, Sir Robert Cotton, Sir Henry Spelman, Camden, and Selden, and is said to have first discovered the talent of Inigo Jones.

Arundel formed the first large collection of works of art in England. From 1615 he collected diligently in various countries of Europe, making purchases himself when travelling, or employing agents when he was in England. Much of his extant correspondence