till 1580, when the last Fitzalan earl died, leaving as his sole heir his daughter’s son Philip Howard, whose father Thomas, duke of Norfolk, had been beheaded and attainted in 1572.
Philip, who was through his father senior representative of the earls of Arundel down to 1415, and through his mother sole representative of the subsequent earls, was summoned to parliament as earl in January 1581, but was attainted in 1589. His son Thomas was restored to the earldom and certain other honours in 1604, and, in 1627, obtained an act of parliament “concerning the title, name and dignity of Earl of Arundel, and for the annexing of the Castle, Honour, Manor and Lordship of Arundel ... with the titles and dignities of the Baronies of Fitzalan, Clun and Oswaldestre, and Maltravers, ... to the same title, name and dignity of Earl of Arundel.” This act, which was based on the earl’s allegation that the title had been “invariably used and enjoyed” by the owners of the castle, “and by reason of the said inheritance and seisin,” has been much discussed, especially in the Lords’ Reports (i. 430-434). There is no doubt that the earl’s object was to entail the earldom and the castle strictly on a certain line of heirs, and this was effected by elaborate remainders (passing over the Howards, earls of Suffolk). It is under this act of parliament that the earldom has been held ever since, and that it passed with the castle in 1777 to the heir-male of the Howards, although the representation in blood then passed to heirs general. Thus the castle and the earldom cannot be alienated from the line of heirs on whom it is entailed by the act of 1627; while the heirship in blood of the earlier earls (to 1415) is vested in Lords Mowbray and Petre and the Baroness Berkeley, and that of the later earls (to 1777) in Lords Mowbray and Petre.
The precedence of the earldom was challenged in 1446 by Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, owing to the question as to its descent spoken of above, but the king in council confirmed to the earl the precedence of his ancestors “by reason of the Castle, Honour and Lordship of Arundel.” In the act of 1627 the “places” and “pre-eminences” belonging to the earldom were secured to it. It would appear, however, that the decision of the dispute with the earl of Devon in 1446 restricts that precedency to such as the earl’s ancestors had enjoyed, if indeed it goes farther than to guarantee his precedence over the earl of Devon. But as there is no other existing earldom older than that of Shrewsbury (1442), the present position of Arundel as the premier earldom is beyond dispute.
See Lords’ Reports on the Dignity of a Peer ; Dugdale’s Baronage; Tierney’s History of Arundel ; G. E. C[okayne]’s Complete Peerage; Round’s Geoffrey de Mandeville; Pike’s Constitutional History of the House of Lords. (J. H. R.)
ARUNDEL, EARLS OF. According to Cokayne (Complete Peerage, i. p. 138, note a) there is an old Sussex tradition to the effect that
“Since William rose and Harold fell
There have been earls of Arundel.”
This, he adds, “is the case if for ‘of’ we read ‘at.’ ” The questions involved in this distinction are discussed in the preceding article on the earldom of Arundel, now held by the duke of Norfolk. The present article is confined to a biographical sketch of the more conspicuous earls of Arundel, first in the Fitzalan line, and then in the Howard line.
Richard Fitzalan (1267–1302), earl of Arundel, was a son of John, lord of Arundel (1246–1272), and a grandson of another John, lord of Arundel, Clun and Oswaldestre (Oswestry), who took a prominent, if somewhat wavering, part in the troubles during the reign of Henry III., and who died in November 1267. Richard, who was called earl of Arundel about 1289, fought for Edward I. in France and in Scotland, and died on the 9th of March 1302.
He was succeeded by his son, Edmund (1285–1326), who married Alice, sister of John, earl de Warenne. A bitter enemy of Piers Gaveston, Arundel was one of the ordainers appointed in 1310; he declined to march with Edward II. to Bannockburn, and after the king’s humiliation he was closely associated with Thomas, earl of Lancaster, until about 1321, when he became connected with the Despensers and sided with the king. He was faithful to Edward to the last, and was executed at Hereford by the partisans of Queen Isabella on the 17th of November 1326.
His son, Richard (c. 1307–1376), who obtained his father’s earldom and lands in 1331, was a soldier of renown and a faithful servant of Edward III. He was present at the battle of Sluys and at the siege of Tournai in 1340; he led one of the divisions of the English army at Creçy and took part in the siege of Calais; and he fought in the naval battle with the Spaniards off Winchelsea in August 1350. Moreover, he was often employed by Edward on diplomatic business. Soon after 1347 Arundel inherited the estates of his uncle John, earl de Warenne, and in 1361 he assumed the title of earl de Warenne or earl of Surrey. He was regent of England in 1355, and died on the 24th of January 1376, leaving three sons, the youngest of whom, Thomas, became archbishop of Canterbury.
Richard’s eldest son, Richard, earl of Arundel and Surrey (c. 1346–1397), was a member of the royal council during the minority of Richard II., and about 1381 was made one of the young king’s governors. As admiral of the west and south he saw a good deal of service on the sea, but without earning any marked distinction except in 1387 when he gained a victory over the French and their allies off Margate. About 1385 the earl joined the baronial party led by the king’s uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester, and in 1386 was a member of the commission appointed to regulate the kingdom and the royal household. Then came Richard’s rash but futile attempt to arrest Arundel, which was the signal for the outbreak of hostilities. The Gloucester faction quickly gained the upper hand, and the earl was one, and perhaps the most bitter, of the lords appellant. He was again a member of the royal council, and was involved in a quarrel with John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, whom he accused in the parliament of 1394. After a personal altercation with the king at Westminster in the same year Arundel underwent a short imprisonment, and in 1397 came the final episode of his life. Suspicious of Richard he refused the royal invitation to a banquet, but his party had broken up, and he was persuaded by his brother, Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, to surrender himself and to trust to the king’s clemency. At once he was tried, was attainted and sentenced to death, and, bearing himself with great intrepidity, was beheaded on the 21st of September 1397. He was twice married and had three sons and four daughters. The earl founded a hospital at Arundel, and his tomb in the church of the Augustinian Friars, Broad Street, London, was long a place of pilgrimage.
His only surviving son, Thomas (1381–1415), was a ward of John Holand, duke of Exeter, from whose keeping he escaped about 1398 and joined his uncle, Archbishop Thomas Arundel, at Utrecht, returning to England with Henry of Lancaster, afterwards King Henry IV., in 1399. After Henry’s coronation he was restored to his father’s titles and estates, and was employed in fighting against various rebels in Wales and in the north of England. Having left the side of his uncle, the archbishop, Arundel joined the party of the Beauforts, and was one of the leaders of the English army which went to France in 1411; then after a period of retirement he became lord treasurer on the accession of Henry V. From the siege of Harfleur he returned ill to England and died on the 13th of October 1415. His wife was Beatrix (d. 1439), a natural daughter of John I., king of Portugal, but he left no children, and the lordship of Arundel passed to a kinsman, John Fitzalan, Lord Maltravers (1385–1421), who was summoned as earl of Arundel in 1416.
John’s son, John (1408–1435), did not secure the earldom until 1433, when as the “English Achilles” he had already won great distinction in the French wars. He was created duke of Touraine, and continued to serve Henry VI. in the field until his death at Beauvais from the effects of a wound on the 12th of June 1435. The earl’s only son, Humphrey, died in April 1438, when the earldom passed to John’s brother, William (1417–1488).
Henry Fitzalan, 12th earl of Arundel (c. 1517–1580), son of William, 11th earl, by Anne, daughter of Henry Percy, 4th earl
