Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk

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Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk : biography

1443 – 21 May 1524

Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, KG, PC, Earl Marshal (1443 – 21 May 1524), styled Earl of Surrey from 1483 to 1514, was the only son of John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk, by his first wife, Katherine Moleyns. The Duke was the grandfather of both Queen Anne Boleyn and Queen Katherine Howard and the great grandfather of Queen Elizabeth I. He served four monarchs as a soldier and statesman.

Early life

Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, was born in 1443 at Stoke by Nayland, Suffolk, the only son of John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk, by his first wife, Katherine, the daughter of William Moleyns (d. 8 June 1425) and his wife Margery.; He was educated at Thetford Grammar School.

Marriages and issue

On 30 April 1472 Howard married Elizabeth Tilney, the daughter of Sir Frederick Tilney of Ashwellthorpe, Norfolk, and widow of Sir Humphrey Bourchier, slain at Barnet, son and heir apparent of Sir John Bourchier, 1st Baron Berners.; They had issue:

  • Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk
  • Sir Edward Howard;
  • Lord Edmund Howard, father of Henry VIII’s fifth Queen, Katherine Howard;
  • Sir John Howard
  • Henry Howard
  • Charles Howard
  • Henry Howard (the younger)
  • Richard Howard
  • Elizabeth Howard, married Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, and was mother of Queen Anne Boleyn, and grandmother of Queen Elizabeth.;
  • Muriel Howard (d.1512), married firstly John Grey, Viscount Lisle (d.1504), and secondly Sir Thomas Knyvet; .
  • daughter (died young)

Norfolk’s first wife died on 4 April 1497, and on 8 November 1497 he married, by dispensation dated 17 August 1497, her cousin, Agnes Tilney, the daughter of Hugh Tilney of Skirbeck and Boston, Lincolnshire and Eleanor, a daughter of Walter Tailboys. They had issue:

  • William Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham
  • Lord Thomas Howard (1511–1537);
  • Richard Howard (d.1517)
  • Dorothy Howard, married Edward Stanley, 3rd Earl of Derby;
  • Anne Howard, married John de Vere, 14th Earl of Oxford;
  • Catherine Howard, married firstly, Rhys ap Gruffydd. Married secondly, Henry Daubney, 1st Earl of Bridgewater.
  • Elizabeth Howard (d. 1536), married Henry Radclyffe, 2nd Earl of Sussex. [21]

Service under Richard III

After the death of Edward IV on 9 April 1483, Thomas Howard and his father John supported Richard III’s usurpation of the throne. Thomas bore the Sword of State at Richard’s coronation, and served as steward at the coronation banquet. Both Thomas and his father were granted lands by the new King, and Thomas was also granted an annuity of £1000. On 28 June 1483, John Howard was created Duke of Norfolk, while Thomas was created Earl of Surrey. Surrey was also sworn of the Privy Council and invested with the Order of the Garter. In the autumn of that year Norfolk and Surrey suppressed a rebellion against the King by the Duke of Buckingham. Both Howards remained close to King Richard throughout his two-year reign, and fought for him at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, where Surrey was wounded and taken prisoner, and his father killed. Surrey was attainted in the first Parliament of the new King, Henry VII, stripped of his lands, and committed to the Tower of London, where he spent the next three years.

Footnotes

Service under Henry VII

Howard was offered an opportunity to escape during the rebellion of the Earl of Lincoln in 1487, but refused, perhaps convincing Henry VII of his loyalty. In May 1489 Henry restored him to the earldom of Surrey, although most of his lands were withheld, and sent him to quell a rebellion in Yorkshire. Surrey remained in the north as the King’s lieutenant until 1499. In 1499 he was recalled to court, and accompanied the King on a state visit to France in the following year. In 1501 he was again appointed a member of the Council, and on 16 June of that year was made Lord High Treasurer. Surrey, Bishop Richard Foxe, the Lord Privy Seal, and Archbishop William Warham, the Lord Chancellor, became the King’s ‘executive triumvirate’. He was entrusted with a number of diplomatic missions. In 1501 he was involved in the negotiations for Catherine of Aragon’s marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales, and in 1503 conducted Margaret Tudor to Scotland for her wedding to King James IV.