Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 28.djvu/62

Howard jurisdiction, and that the right of the old English chapters to choose their bishop and chapter-men should be respected by the court of Rome (, Account of the Chapter, ed. Turnbull, p. 94). In consequence of the report of the Abbate Claudius Agretti, who had been sent to England to examine the question, the propaganda resolved on 9 Sept. 1670 to give the English vicariate to Howard, but it was not until 26 April 1672 that another decree, passed in a ‘particular congregation,’ received the sanction of the pope. The briefs were then issued, and sent to the internuncio at Brussels, who was instructed to deliver them at his discretion. That for Howard's see in partibus was dated 16 May, and in it he was styled bishop-elect of Helenopolis. In April 1672 the chapter of England had again resolved ‘that the name of vicar-apostolic be not admitted.’ The second brief granting Howard the vicariate consequently contained a clause that the bishop-elect was to promise that he would not recognise the ‘chapter of England’ by word or deed. In an audience held on the 24th of the following August the pope was informed that the king, in the catholic interest, demanded the suspension of Howard's briefs. Consequently they were not published, and the bishop-elect was not consecrated (, Episcopal Succession, iii. 129).

His proselytising zeal and the part he took in promoting the declaration of indulgence rendered Howard particularly odious to the protestant party. Eventually he was charged by the dean and chapter of Windsor with authorising the insertion in some books of devotion of the pontifical bulls of indulgence granted to the recitation of the rosary. Under the penal laws the offence amounted to high treason. Howard pleaded in vain that he had only followed the example of the Capuchin chaplains of Queen Henrietta Maria. Popular feeling ran high against him, and he sought an asylum at Bornhem, where he arrived in September 1674, and resumed his duties as prior. On 27 May 1675 he was created a cardinal-priest by Clement X, mainly owing to the influence of his old friend John Baptist Hacket, now the pope's confessor. Soon afterwards Howard left for Rome. Among the distinguished company who attended him were his uncle William Howard, viscount Stafford [q.v.], Lord Thomas Howard, his nephew, and John Leyburn, president of the English College of Douay, his secretary and auditor. For defraying the expenses of this journey he had 'the assistance of the pope, and not of King Charles II and Queen Catherine, as the common report then went' (, Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss;, Hist.of Arundel, p. 532). The hat was placed on his head by the pope, and he took the title of S. Cecilia trans Tyberim, which after the death of the cardinal de Retz, in 1679, he changed for that of S. Maria super Minervam. Clement X declared him, 23 March 1675-6, assistant of the four congregations, of bishops and regulars, of the council of Trent, of the propaganda, and of sacred rites. Innocent XI afterwards placed him on the congregation of relics. He was commonly called the cardinal of Norfolk, or the cardinal of England (, Church Hist. iii. 446).

Howard was charged with complicity in the ‘Popish plot.’ Oates swore that in a congregation of the propaganda held about December 1677, Innocent XI had declared all the dominions of the king of England to be part of St. Peter's patrimony, and to be forfeited through the heresy of the prince and people, and that Howard was to take possession of England in the name of his holiness. Oates also swore he had seen a papal bull, by which the archbishopric of Canterbury was given to Howard, with an augmentation of forty thousand crowns a year to maintain his legatine dignity. The cardinal was consequently impeached for high treason, but he was at Rome and beyond the reach of danger.

At the request of Charles II, Pope Innocent XI nominated him cardinal protector of England and Scotland, in succession to Cardinal Francesco Barberini, who died in 1679. In this capacity he was the chief counsellor of the holy see in matters relating to Great Britain. He addressed an admirable epistle on 7 April 1684 to the clergy of the two countries, particularly recommending to them the ‘Institutum clericorum in communi viventium’ which had been established in Germany. It flourished in England for a few years, but was dissolved in consequence of misunderstandings between the members and the rest of the secular clergy, and its funds were devoted to the establishment of the ‘common purse,’ or secular clergy fund, which still exists. Under Howard's direction the fine new buildings of the English College at Rome and his own adjoining palace were completed in 1685 from the designs of Legenda and Carlo Fontana. He used his palace only on state occasions, for though he had a pension of ten thousand scudi (about 2,250l.) from the pope, and apartments in the Vatican, he chose to lead the simple life of a friar in the convent of S. Sabina. He seconded the efforts of the English clergy to secure episcopal government, and at length in 1685 a vicar-apostolic