Tudor England - A Fatal Lust for Power

The Howards of Norfolk

The fourth Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Howard, was executed on the 2^nd June 1572; his crime? To get caught in the web of a spider, whose stupidity was to eventually bring her too to the block as well as her intended fourth husband; Mary Stuart, the deposed Queen of Scotland. Her execution was delayed until February 1587, for continued plots against her captor, Elizabeth, Queen of England.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Born on 10^th March 1536, Thomas was the oldest son of Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey[i], a poet of some merit, and his wife Frances de Vere[ii]. Thomas[iii] was one of five children and was brought up in the Protestant religion, although the family did have Catholic leanings[iv].

Thomas was born at his grandfather’s house; Kenninghall Palace was the home of Thomas Howard the third Duke of Norfolk. The elder Thomas Howard was resident in the palace at the time of his grandson’s birth and on 14^th March he wrote to Thomas Cromwell, asking him to inform the king, Henry VIII, of the birth of the younger Thomas.

‘It hath pleased Almighty God to send me so good a fortune that my daughter of Surrey is brought to bed of a son………God be thanks, the child is as lusty a boy as needeth to be of that age.’[v]

Frances Howard, Countess of Surrey

The elder Thomas was the second most senior noble in the land and a schemer of the highest order; it was as a result of his machinations that his niece Catherine Howard had married the king as his fifth wife. Norfolk had not attempted to save her when she was accused of adultery, being more concerned with saving himself.

‘The abominable deeds done by two of my nieces against your Highness, hath brought me into the greatest perplexity that ever poor wretch was in; hearing that Your Majesty……..might not only conceive a displeasure in your heart against me.’[vi]

Norfolk had already presided over the trial of another niece, Anne Boleyn, and had Thomas Cromwell arrested for high treason. Cromwell had charged Norfolk with disloyalty during an argument over Cardinal Wolsey[vii] and Norfolk took his revenge on 10^th June 1540. Cromwell was executed on 28^th July.

Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond

The younger Thomas’s father was a close friend of Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset, an illegitimate son of King Henry. The two boys had grown up together, and Fitzroy married Henry’s sister Mary. But Fitzroy died a few months after the birth of Thomas, leaving no legitimate heirs.

Surrey’s daughter Jane was born in the summer of 1532; his second daughter Katherine was born in 1539 and Henry in February 1540. His last child Margaret was born in January 1543. The children spent most of their time at Kenninghall Palace; but they also resided at other Howard holdings throughout East Anglia.

The Duke was having his palace in Norwich rebuilt of stone from an abbey sequestered during the Reformation. While the Earl of Surrey was building Mount Surrey on the site of a former priory.

Childhood and Education

The Howard children were taught riding, hawking, hunting and archery as well as more academic subjects. The young Thomas enjoyed hare coursing and in later life wrote a treatise[viii] on the subject. Thomas as future master of the estates was also given lessons in ruling a great household.

Hadrianus Junius

The Earl of Surrey was a scholar of distinction nearest and dearest the children were taught by a scholar of European renown; Hadrianus Junius[ix]. Jane and Henry were to benefit most from their education. In later years Thomas was unable to talk Latin sufficiently well to trust himself to discuss matters of state with the Spanish ambassador.

‘Because his own Latin tongue was not ready.’[x]

The Foolishness of the Earl of Surrey

The Howards were old nobility and, even more than his father, Surrey despised new men. At the same time he was not sufficiently able a courtier to hide his distaste from such self-made men as Cromwell. Surrey was described as

‘The most foolish proud boy that is in England.’[xi]

Surrey was given Cromwell’s place as a Knight of the Garter following his fall from favour. Surrey was skilled at jousting, thereby gaining the favour of the king. Nevertheless this did not stop him finding himself in prison on a number of occasions, or being confined in Windsor Castle.

On 1^st April 1543 Surrey was called before the Privy Council, charged with breaking the peace and was sent to the Fleet for a second time. During his stay there he wrote A Satire Against the Citizens of London.

‘London! Hast thou accused me

Of breach of laws? the root of strife!

Within whose breach did burn to see,

So fervent hot, thy dissolute life……’[xii]

When released Surrey returned to Norwich and spent time that summer with his children. By October he was back at court and joined a military expedition aiding Emperor Charles V against François I. The following year Surrey fought in France and was made Lieutenant General of the English forces based in Boulogne. He returned it England in July 1545, asking the king for permission to have his family join him in France; his request was refused.

Norfolk was already planning dynastic marriages for his grandchildren;

‘Whereas my son of Surrey has a son and divers daughters that a cross marriage might be made between the Lord Great Chamberlain [Edward Seymour][xiii] and them.’[xiv]

The scheme came to nothing, but Surrey was plotting to have his widowed sister[xv] become her father-in-law’s mistress. She refused to consider the matter for one moment.

A Nest of Traitors

Henry VIII

The king was seriously ill and it was clear to those close to the king that Seymour’s star was in the ascendant. Men who had previously courted the Howards now turned their attentions and fawning upon the future Lord Protector. The Privy Council started meeting at Seymour’s house and after 1^st November 1546, fearing for his safety, Norfolk stopped attending.

In early December a Norfolk MP, whose loyalties changed with the wind, stood up in council to proclaim that

‘He knew certain things about the Earl [of Surrey] that touched his fidelity to the King.’[xvi]

Norfolk, who had retired to Kenninghall, was sent for and interned in the Tower, upon his arrival in London on 12^th December.The draft articles against Surrey and his father accused him of changing his armorial quarterings; illegal use of an old ‘coat of the Crown’; attempting to prostitute family members to the king in an attempt to rule him.

‘If a man say these words: ‘If the King die, who should have the rule of the Prince[xvii] but my father and I?’; what it importeth.

The depraving of the King’s Council.’[xviii]

Surrey was found guilty of treason on 13^th January and was executed on 19^th January 1547. Norfolk’s execution was set for 30^th January, but was forestalled by the death of the king the previous day.

A Breath of Fresh Air

Edward VI

The young Edward VI was now king. The nine year old boy had sixteen executors supplemented by twelve men of counsel. Originally Henry’s will provided for a Regency Council but by the 4^th February the king’s uncle, Edward Seymour had been appointed Lord Protector of the king. He was also made the king’s Governor and the Duke of Somerset.

Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset

The Duke of Norfolk was to remain in the Tower throughout Edward’s reign, his lands redistributed among Somerset’s supporters, with a large portion being given to Somerset himself. He also abrogated to himself Norfolk’s posts as Lord Treasurer and Earl Marshal. Somerset’s brother Thomas secretly married the king’s widow Katherine Parr. Thomas hoped to win over the young king as well, in an attempt to offset his brother’s power.

The young Edward was a fanatical Protestant, having been educated by Richard Cox, Bishop of Eley and John Cheke, and received some tuition from Roger Ascham. For the king being Protestant was a spiritual matter, not a political one as it had been for his father.

It was under Edward that Thomas Cranmer introduced far ranging reform to the Church of England’s doctrinal and liturgical structures. He also wrote the Book of Common Prayer[xix]. His reforming zeal as Archbishop of Canterbury had been kept in check during Henry’s reign; but now many of the changes, that differentiated the Church of England from the Church in Rome, were established[xx].

Looking After the Children

Mary Howard, Duchess of Richmond

Following their father’s execution the children were initially separated, but the following year they were placed under the guardianship of their Aunt Mary. They lived at Reigate Castle for five years, joined by their cousin Charles[xxi]. The Duchess of Richmond, an ardent Protestant, hired John Foxe[xxii] to teach her nephews and nieces.

John Foxe

In 1549 Ket’s Rebellion broke out in the former Howard stronghold of Norfolk, a protest movement against enclosure of land. For six weeks Ket and his followers held the city of Norwich, until stamped out by an army under the leadership of the Earl of Warwick on 27^th August. The farmers and their supporters were crushed by soldiers including German mercenaries.

Meanwhile the children saw nothing of their grandfather who was kept immured in the Tower. Norfolk was allowed a new feather bed and accoutrements in 1548 and the following year the exchequer allowed him £80[xxiii] per annum spending money. The Lieutenant of the Tower treated Norfolk with rather more leniency than the Duke of Somerset was led to believe.

By the autumn of 1549 Somerset’s rule, as Lord Protector, was under siege. Somerset took Edward to Windsor and issued a call for assistance. The remainder of the Privy Council meanwhile issued a statement of Somerset’s mismanagement of his responsibilities. A series of wars had brought the kingdom almost to financial ruin. On 11^th October Somerset was arrested and Edward brought to Richmond. Somerset was replaced by Warwick[xxiv], who instituted much needed reforms.

On 6^th July 1553 the young king died. Edward had been ill since the January and rumours abounded that the Duke of Northumberland or the Catholics had poisoned the king. His Catholic sister Mary was to attempt to overset her father and brother’s inculcation of the Protestant religion in England. Mary was as fanatical a Catholic as her brother had been Protestant.

Bibliography

Elizabeth and Mary – Jane Dunn, Harper Perennial 2003

Walsingham – Alan Haynes, Sutton Publishing 2004

The Boy King – Diarmaid MacCullough, Palgrave 2001

Lady Jane Grey – Alison Plowden, Sutton Publishing 2006

Mary Tudor – HFM Prescott, Phoenix 2003

Elizabeth I – Anne Somerset, Fontana 1992

Elizabeth – David Starkey, Vintage Books 2001

Rivals in Power – ed. David Starkey, Macmillan London Ltd 1990

A Tudor Tragedy – Neville Williams, Barrie and Rockcliff 1964

www.wikipedia.en

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[i] Henry was the eldest son of the third Duke of Norfolk

[ii] Daughter of the 15^th Earl of Oxford, she outlived her son by five years.

[iii] Named after his grandfather

[iv] The Howard family are now the premier Catholic nobility in the country

[v] A Tudor Tragedy - Williams

[vi] Rivals in Power - Starkey

[vii] Cromwell had worked for Wolsey, who had promoted him. Cromwell came out of the shadow of his former master after the cardinal’s fall following his failure to obtain a divorce for the king from his first wife, Katherine of Aragon.

[viii] A seminal work which was reprinted as recently as the 19^th century

[ix] Whose salary of 50 angels a year was twice the sum paid by the king to Roger Ascham, tutor to the Princess Elizabeth

[x] A Tudor Tragedy - Williams

[xi] Ibid

[xii] Ibid

[xiii] Earl of Hertford and later Duke of Somerset

[xiv] A Tudor Tragedy - Williams

[xv] The marriage between her and Henry Fitzroy had not been consummated

[xvi] A Tudor Tragedy - Williams

[xvii] The future Edward VI

[xviii] Rivals in Power - Starkey

[xix] An updated version of which is still in use today throughout the world

[xx] Including abolishing celibacy of the clergy

[xxi] Also known as Howard of Effingham; an admiral who fought against the Armada. Later first earl of Nottingham

[xxii] Later writing a book about the sufferings of Protestants under Mary Tudor and in 1552 ‘Tables of Grammar’

[xxiii] £30,000.00 using the retail price index or £375,000.00 average earnings www.measuringworth.com

[xxiv] Made Duke of Northumberland in 1551

Heretics - The Albigensian Crusade III

A Minor Diversion

I

King John

n the period 1215-7 the focus of the French king and his heir was not on the south of France, but on an expedition under the Dauphin, Louis; an invasion of England in an attempt to supplant King John in the First Barons War. Louis came at the invitation of the English barons, frustrated by their king’s refusal to abide by the conditions of Magna Carta.

The death of John in October 1216 had much to do with the ability of the new king’s regent, William Marshal, to persuade the barons to renege from their alliance with Louis and swear allegiance to Henry III. In early 1217 Louis decided to return to France to organise reinforcements, but had to fight his way to the coast. Following a series of inconclusive fights and sieges Louis signed the Treaty of Lambeth on 11^th September 1217, whereby he accepted that, despite a proclamation to that effect in the summer of 1216, he had never been king of England and gave up all pretensions to ruling the country.

A Change of Cast

Pope Honorius

On 16^th July 1216 the author of the war died, and war it was for all the supposed piety of calling the fighting a crusade. His replacement was Honorius III; a compromise candidate; Honorius hoped to spiritually reform the church and institute another crusade to the Holy Lands.

In 1217 Raymond VI returned to Toulouse and de Montfort besieged the town. In the ninth month of the siege de Montfort died on 25^th June 1218; his head smashed by a stone thrown from a mangonel on the city walls. His death was greeted with great pleasure by his opponents. The leadership of the crusade was now taken on by Simon’s son Amaury de Montfort. But Amaury was not the leader that his father was and the crusade was to fade away.

On 12^th November 1220 Honorius crowned Frederick Hohenstaufen as Holy Roman Emperor[i]; replacing Otto of Brunswick who had been enthroned by Innocent III. When Otto invaded Italy Innocent had him excommunicated.

Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse

Raymond VI died on 2^nd August 1222; he was replaced by his son Raymond VII as Count of Toulouse. Raymond VII had been involved in the fighting against the crusaders, active at the siege of Beaucaire in 1216 and the fight to recapture the family’s possessions in Toulouse.

Philip II of France died on 14^th July 1223 and was succeeded by his son Louis VIII. Louis now focussed on the crusade against the Cathars in the south. He died just over three years later and was replaced by Louis IX[ii] on 8^th November 1226.

Pressing for the Fifth Crusade[iv] Honorius turned to Frederick Hohenstaufen, his former pupil. Frederick had already promised to take the cross, but it was not until August 1227 that Frederick finally departed for Outremer[v].

Pope Gregory IX

Honorius III died on 18^th March 1227 and the man chosen to replace him as pope was Gregory IX. Like his cousin Innocent III, Gregory IX was a fervent supporter of the supremacy of Rome and in 1237 instituted the Papal Inquisition to aid the suppression of theologies in conflict with the Catholic Church[iii].

Hunting Heretics

In 1225 Raymond VII was excommunicated by the Council of Bourges. His lands had been scourged by the crusaders, vineyards uprooted and crops burnt on numerous occasions throughout the period of the crusade. There had also been large number of men, women and children killed; many of those left alive had no means of support. Languedoc was weary of war.

Blanche of Castile

On 28^th January 1226 Raymond’s sentence of excommunication was confirmed and at the same time Amaury de Montfort sold his rights and titles in Languedoc to the king. By the end of the year Louis VIII was dead and his wife Blanche of Castile was the guardian of their son, then a child of twelve.

Louis VIII had left an army to hold onto his possessions in Languedoc and his widow was determined to protect her son’s inheritance. The Seneschal Humbert de Beaujeu ravaged the Tarn countryside in the summer of 1227 and the following year he attacked the lands of the Count of Foix.

The French were determined to ensure that the lands of Occitan would cease to be able to defend themselves and wreaked deliberate devastation around Toulouse, egged on by the Bishop of the city;

‘The Crusaders heard Mass at dawn………..They began their work of destruction on the vineyards nearest to the town, at an hour that the inhabitants were barely awake; then they would retire in the direction of their camp……still pursuing their work of destruction….till the devastation was more or less complete.’[vi]

Raymond VII was aware of the desperation of his people and this must have been one of the major factors that persuaded him to try and come to terms with the king.

Alphonse as Count of Toulouse

The Treaty of Paris was signed on 12^th April 1229 between Raymond VII, Count of Toulouse and Louis IX, through his mother. By its terms Raymond VII formally ended Occitan political autonomy. Half Raymond’s lands were ceded to the French king. His daughter and heir Joan was to marry Louis’s brother Alfonso, who would rule his lands on Raymond VII’s death. Raymond was gratuitously imprisoned for a further six months after the signing of the treaty.

‘In the hope that we shall persevere in our devotion to the church and our loyalty to his person, the king has graciously consented to receive from us our daughter, whom we shall deliver into his care to be given in marriage to one of his brothers.’[vii]

But the fight against the heretics did not end and the Cathars were able to survive, despite the best efforts of the Inquisition. In 1233 the Cathars were given permission to make Montségur the seat of their church. In 1241, in an attempt to impress the Catholic Church with his piety, Raymond VII made an abortive attempt to take Montségur.

Montségur

Montsegur

On 28^th May 1242 two members of the Inquisition were murdered at Avignonet by about fifty men from Montségur. It is believed that Raymond VII gave his approval for the affair, as he was now in revolt against his overlord.

In response an army was sent to raze the citadel. In May 1243 the Seneschal Hugues des Arcis led an army of ten thousand against the fortified town, which had about one hundred fighting men. The town held the perfecti and credentes, many of whom lived in caves and huts outside the walls.

Failing to starve the defenders out; they were supported by many of the local population; the attackers found a position above the town that enabled them to attack the defenders from above. One of the results of this was the overcrowding of the town with those who had formerly lived in the surrounding countryside.

In March 1244 the besiegers, having been shown how to gain access to the barbican, took it and were able to start bombarding the town from there twenty-four hours a day.

‘No rest was given to the besieged, either by day or by night.’[viii]

Failing to dislodge the enemy from the barbican meant that the defenders had little option but to negotiate a surrender.

The End

Shortly before the fall of the fortress at Montségur, the contents of the Cathar treasury disappeared[ix]. It may have been hidden outside the fortress; there are suggestions that it came into the hands of the Knights Templar[x].

‘What was this treasure of the Cathars? How much gold and silver could three perfecti carry? It could not have been monetary…….it had to be something else, something that had been held in Montségur until the very last moment, something that had been essential for the ritual that took place on the vernal equinox, the day before the castle capitulated.’[xi]

After the fall of the fortress about 210 perfecti and credente were burned to death on 16^th March 1244. The Cathars never recovered from this setback; some adherents fled to Spain or Italy, where ironically conditions were less oppressive at the time, than in southern France under the sway of the Inquisition.

Bibliography

Gerald of Wales - Robert Bartlett, Tempus Publishing Ltd 2006

Massacre at Montségur – Zoe Oldenbourg, Weidenfeld & Nicholson 1989

Saint Louis – Frederick Perry, AMS Press Inc, 1978

The Thirteenth Century – Sir Maurice Powicke, University of Oxford Press 1988

The Templars – Piers Paul Reid, Weidenfeld & Nicholson 2000

The Monks of War – Desmond Seward, the Folio Society 2000

King John – WL Warren, Yale University Press 1997

www.wikipedia.en

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[i] The Holy Roman Emperor had to be crowned by the pope, otherwise his empire lacked the necessary moral or religious authority

[ii] Later to be canonised as Saint Louis

[iii] In part to root out any remaining Cathars

[iv] Which had been approved by the Lateran Council in 1215

[v] One of the names for the Holy Lands of Jerusalem and the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean

[vi] Montségur - Oldenbourg

[vii] Ibid

[viii] ibid

[ix] Believed to contain documents and relics as well as items of financial value

[x] This cannot be substantiated; Reid mentions a belief that this may have been the head known as Baphomet and described as the head of Christ, allegedly worshipped by the Templars pp305-6.

[xi] The Templars - Reid