General Notes

Thomas Howard, English nobleman and court intriguer during the reign of
Henry VIII. The eldest son of Thomas Howard, 2d duke of Norfolk, he
commanded the English vanguard at Flodden Field and was made earl when his
father regained the family dukedom. On the death of his father he succeeded
to the dukedom and became the most powerful peer in England. Norfolk led the
party opposed to the policies of the lord chancellor, Cardinal Thomas
Wolsey. He favored Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon and his
marriage to Anne Boleyn, who was Norfolk's niece. As Henry's pliant tool,
however, he also presided at Anne's trial and execution in 1536. That same
year he repressed the rebellion of the Pilgrimage of Grace, a protest
against the confiscation of monastic properties, from which he profited
handsomely. In 1540 Norfolk arrested Henry's secretary, Thomas Cromwell,
earl of Essex, who had lost favor with the king. With the execution of his
niece, Catherine Howard, Henry's fifth wife, in 1542, Norfolk lost his
influence at court. When his son, the poet Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, was
arrested for treason, Norfolk was charged with complicity; and was condemned
and attainted with his son. His son was executed in 1547, but the subsequent
death of the king prevented Norfolk's execution. He remained a prisoner
until the accession of Mary I in 1533, when his lands and titles were
restored.