of Northumberland, was born about 1517. He entered King Henry’s household, attending the latter to Calais in 1532. In 1533 he was summoned to parliament in his father’s barony of Maltravers, and in 1540 he was made deputy of Calais, where his vigorous administration was much praised. He returned to England in April 1544 after the death of his father, and was made a knight of the Garter. In July of the same year he commanded with Suffolk the English expedition to France as lord marshal, and besieged and took Boulogne. On his return to England he was made lord chamberlain, an office which he retained after the accession in 1547 of Edward VI., at whose coronation he acted as high constable. He was one of the twelve counsellors nominated in Henry VIII.’s will to assist the executors, but he had little power during the protectorship of Somerset or the ascendancy of Warwick (afterwards duke of Northumberland), and in 1550 by the latter’s device he was accused of embezzlement, removed from the council, confined to his house, and fined £12,000—£8000 of this sum being afterwards remitted and the charges never being proved. Subsequently he allied himself with Somerset, and was implicated in 1551 in the latter’s plot against Northumberland, being imprisoned in the Tower in November. On the 3rd of December 1552, though he had never been brought to trial, he signed a submission and confession before the privy council, and was liberated after having been again heavily fined. As Edward’s reign drew to its close, Arundel’s support was desired by Northumberland to further his designs on the throne for his family, and he was accordingly reinstated in the council and discharged of his fine. In June 1553 he opposed Edward’s “device” for the succession, which passed over his sisters Mary and Elizabeth as illegitimate, and left the crown to the children of the duchess of Suffolk, and alone of the council refused the “engagement” to support it, though he signed the letters patent. On the death of Edward (July 6, 1553) he ostensibly joined in furthering the duke’s plans, but secretly took measures to destroy them, and according to some accounts sent a letter to Mary the same evening informing her of Edward’s death and advising her to retreat to a place of security. Meanwhile he continued to attend the meetings of the council, signed the letter to Mary declaring her illegitimacy and Lady Jane Grey’s right to the throne, accompanied Northumberland to announce to Jane her accession, and urged Northumberland to leave London and place himself at the head of the forces to attack Mary, wishing him God-speed on his departure. In Northumberland’s absence, he gained over his fellow-councillors, and having succeeded with them in getting out of the Tower, called an assembly of the corporation and chief men of the city, denounced Northumberland, and had Mary proclaimed queen, subsequently riding off to join her with the Great Seal at Framlingham. On the 20th of July he secured Northumberland at Cambridge, and returned in triumph with Mary to London on the 3rd of August, riding before her with the sword of state. He was now made a privy councillor and lord steward, and was granted several favours and privileges, acting as high constable at the coronation, and obtaining the right to create sixty knights. He took a prominent part in various public acts of the reign, was a commissioner to treat for the queen’s marriage, presided at the trial of the duke of Suffolk, assisted in suppressing Wyatt’s rebellion in 1554, was despatched on foreign missions, and in September 1555 accompanied Philip to Brussels. The same year he received, together with other persons, a charter under the name of the Merchant Adventurers of England, for the discovery of unknown lands, and was made high steward of Oxford University, being chosen chancellor in 1559, but resigning his office in the same year. In 1557, on the prospect of the war with France, he was appointed lieutenant-general of the forces for the defence of the country, and in 1558 attended the conference at the abbey of Cercamp for the negotiation of a peace. He returned to England on the death of Mary in November 1558, and is described to Philip II. at that time as “going about in high glee, very smart” and with hopes of marrying the queen, but as “flighty” and of “small ability.” He was reinstated in all his offices by Elizabeth, served as high constable at her coronation, and was visited several times by the queen at Nonsuch in Surrey. As a Roman Catholic he violently opposed the arrest of his co-religionists and the war with Scotland, and in 1560 came to blows with Lord Clinton in the queen’s presence on a dispute arising on those questions. He incurred the queen’s displeasure in 1562 by holding a meeting at his house during her illness to consider the question of the succession and promote the claims of Lady Catherine Grey. In 1564, being suspected of intrigues against the government, he was dismissed from the lord-stewardship and confined to his house, but was restored to favour in December. In March 1566 he went to Padua, but being summoned back by the queen he returned to London accompanied by a large cavalcade on the 17th of April 1567. Next year he served on the commission of inquiry into the charges against Mary, queen of Scots. Subsequently he furthered the marriage of Mary with the duke of Norfolk, his son-in-law, together with the restoration of the Roman Catholic religion and government, and deposition of Elizabeth, in collusion with Spain. He made use of the incident in 1568, of the seizure of treasure at Southampton intended for Philip, as a means of effecting Cecil’s overthrow, and urged upon the Spanish government the stoppage of trade. He is described in 1569 to Philip as having “good intentions,” “whilst benefiting himself as he was very needy.” In January he alarmed Elizabeth by communicating to her a supposed Spanish project for aiding Mary and replacing her on her throne, and put before the queen in writing his own objections to the adoption of extreme measures against her. In June he received with Norfolk and Lumley 6000 crowns from Philip. In September, on the discovery of Norfolk’s plot, he was arrested, but not having committed himself sufficiently to incur the charge of treason in the northern rebellion he escaped punishment, was released in March 1570, and was recalled by Leicester to the council with the aim of embarrassing Cecil. He again renewed his treasonable intrigues, which were at length to some extent exposed by the discovery of the Ridolfi plot in September 1571. He was once more arrested, and not liberated till December 1572 after Norfolk’s execution. He died on the 24th of February 1580, and was buried in the chapel at Arundel, where a monument was erected to his memory.
He married (1) Catherine, daughter of Thomas Grey, 2nd marquess of Dorset, by whom he had Henry, who predeceased him, and two daughters, of whom Mary married Thomas Howard, 4th duke of Norfolk; and (2) Mary, daughter of Sir John Arundell and dowager countess of Sussex, by whom he had no children. Arundel was the last earl of his family, the title at his death passing through his daughter Mary to the Howards.
Authorities.—MS. Life by a contemporary in Royal MSS., British Museum, 17 A ix., printed with notes in Gent. Mag. (1833)(ii.), pp. 11, 118, 210, 490; M. A. Tierney, Hist. of Arundel, p. 319; Chronicle of Queen Jane (Camden Soc. 1850); Literary Remains of Edward VI. (Roxburghe Club, 1857); J. Nichols, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth (1823), i. 74; Wood, Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), i. 153, 156; Cal. State Papers, Simancas, i. 18, ii. 152, &c., Notes and Queries, 2 Ser. iv. 84, &c.
Philip Howard, 1st earl[1] of Arundel (1557–1595), eldest son of Thomas Howard, 4th duke of Norfolk, executed for high treason in 1572, and of Lady Mary, daughter and heiress of Henry Fitzalan, 12th earl of Arundel, was born on the 28th of June 1557. He was married in 1571 to Anne, daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Dacre, Lord Dacre (1566), and was educated at Cambridge, being accorded the degree of M.A. in 1576. Subsequently Lord Surrey, as he was styled, came to court, partook in its extravagant gaieties and dissipations, and kept his wife in the background; but he nevertheless failed to secure the favour of Elizabeth, who suspected the Howards generally. On the death of his maternal grandfather in February 1580 he became earl of Arundel and retired from the court. In 1582 his wife joined the church of Rome, and was committed to the charge of Sir Thomas Shirley by the queen. He was himself suspected of disloyalty, and was regarded by the discontented Roman Catholics as the centre of the plots against the queen’s government, and even as a possible successor. In 1583 he was
- ↑ i.e. in the Howard line.
