Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 28.djvu/72

 Howard till he had gathered evidence which raised the king's suspicions and led to Wolsey's summons to London and his death on the journey.

Norfolk hoped to fill Wolsey's place, but he was entirely destitute of Wolsey's genius. He could only become the king's tool in his dishonourable purposes. In 1529 he signed the letter to the pope which threatened him with the loss of his supremacy in England if he refused the king's divorce. He acquiesced in all the subsequent proceedings, and waxed fat on the spoils of the monasteries. He was chief adviser of his niece, Anne Boleyn, but followed the fashion of the time in presiding at her trial and arranging for her execution. But, after all his subservience, Thomas Cromwell proved a more useful man than himself. A fruitless embassy to France in 1533, for the purpose of winning Francis I to side with Henry, showed that Norfolk was entirely destitute of Wolsey's diplomatic skill. But there were some points of domestic policy for which he was necessary. He was created earl marshal in 1533, and presided over the trial of Lord Dacre, who, strange to say, was acquitted. In the suppression of the Pilgrimage of Grace, Norfolk alternately cajoled and threatened the insurgents till their forces melted away, and he could with safety undertake the work of official butchery. He held the office of lord president of the council of the north from April 1537 till October 1538, when he could boast that the rebellion had been avenged by a course of merciless punishment.

On his return to court Norfolk headed the opposition against Cromwell. He allied himself with Gardiner and the prelates of the old learning in endeavouring to prevent an alliance with German protestantism. In the parliament of 1539 he laid before the lords the bill of the six articles, which became law. 'It was merry in England,' he said, 'before the new learning came up' (, Hist. ch. xix.), and henceforth he declared himself the head of the reactionary party. In February 1540 he again went to Paris as ambassador, to try if he could succeed on this new basis in detaching Francis I from Charles V and gaining him as an ally to Henry VIII (State Papers, Hen. VIII, viii. 245-340). Again he failed in his diplomacy, but after his return he had the satisfaction on 10 June of arresting Cromwell in the council chamber. The execution of his rival threw once again the chief power into Norfolk's hands, and a second time he made good his position by arranging for the marriage of a niece with the king. But the disgrace of Catherine Howard was more rapid than that of Anne Boleyn, and Norfolk again fell back into the position of a military commander. In 1542 he was sent to wage war against Scotland, and again wreaked Henry VIII's vengeance by a barbarous raid upon the borders. It was the terror of his name, and not his actual presence, which ended the war by the disastrous rout of Solway Moss. When Henry went to war with France in 1544, Norfolk in spite of his age was appointed lieutenant-general of the army. The army besieged Montreuil, and, after a long siege, captured Boulogne, but Norfolk could claim no glory from the war. Again he found himself superseded in the royal favour by a powerful rival, the Earl of Hertford, whom he failed to conciliate by a family alliance which was proposed for his acceptance. Under the influence of his last queen (Catherine Parr) and the Earl of Hertford Henry VIII favoured the reforming party, and Norfolk's counsels were little heeded. As the king's health was rapidly failing, it became Hertford's object to remove his rivals out of the way, and in 1546 Norfolk's son, Henry, earl of Surrey [q. v.], was accused of high treason.

The charge against the son was made to include the father, and Norfolk's enemies were those of his own household. His private life was discreditable, and shows the debasing effect of the king's example on those around him. Norfolk quarrelled with his wife, who, although of a jealous and vindictive temper, was one of the most accomplished women of the time. She patronised the poet Skelton, who wrote, while her guest at Sheriff Hutton, Yorkshire, 'A Goodly Garlande or Chapelet of Laurell.' But with her husband she was always on bad terms, and accused him of cruelty at the time of her daughter Mary's birth in 1519. The duke soon afterwards took a mistress, Elizabeth Holland, 'a churl's daughter, who was but a washer in my nursery eight years,' as his wife complained to Cromwell (, Works of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, App. xxvii-xxxii.) In 1533 he separated from his wife, who withdrew to Redborne, Hertfordshire, with a very scanty allowance. Appeals of husband and wife to Cromwell and the king failed to secure a reconciliation, and the duchess refused to sue for a divorce. The discord spread among the other members of the family, and they were all at variance. Evidence against Norfolk was given, not only by his wife, but by his daughter, the Duchess of Richmond, and even by Elizabeth Holland, who only wished to save herself and her ill-gotten gains. But the evidence was not sufficient for his condemnation, and Norfolk, a prisoner in the Tower, was persuaded to plead guilty and throw himself on the king's mercy. He