The Dukes (8 page)

upon became 2nd Duke of Norfolk) survived the battle, but was
taken prisoner by the invaders, and thrown into the Tower. The first
Parliament of the new king, Henry VII, attainted Howard for High
treason, confiscated his property (including the Mowbray lands),
and deprived him of all titles and dignities. Technically, of course, he
could not possibly be guilty of high treason, since Henry Tudor was
neither
de facto
nor
de jure
King of England when Howard took
arms against him, but this awkward point was side-stepped by making
Henry's assumption of the crown retroactive by twenty-four hours,
so that Howard's actions could be legally regarded as treasonable.
⁵

Howard, stripped of all honours and influence, languished in the
Tower for three and a half years. He used his time to demonstrate that
solid Howard adaptability upon which his re-emergence was to be
founded. He refused all opportunity to escape (a real chance
presented itself in June 1487)," declaring that he was loyal to the
Crown, whoever was wearing it. Before the dust had settled from the
Battle of Bosworth he had told Henry, speaking of the slain Richard,
"He was my crowned King, and if the parliamentary authority of
England set the crown upon a stock, I will fight for that stock. And
as I fought then for him, I will fight for you, when you are established
by the said authority."
⁷
These are the words of a pragmatist and a
wily politician. Firm loyalty to the Crown of England has been a
quasi-religious duty of the Howards throughout the centuries, never
more evident than today; it is certainly an attitude which allows of
infinite flexibility. With the early Norfolks, it was simply a matter of
survival; the Howards knew which side to butter their bread, and, like
chameleons, they changed their colours according to whoever was in
power. They may say that they were loyal to the Crown, not to the
head beneath it, but they were far too canny really to believe such
humbug. One of them, the 4th Duke (executed by Elizabeth I for
having conspired with Mary Queen of Scots), backed the wrong
horse and paid for it with his head. His protestations of loyalty to the
Crown were then to no avail.

The 2nd Duke (1443-1524) was now biding his time in the Tower
of London. Henry VII did not forget his words after Bosworth,
observed his passivity in prison, and discerned his pragmatism. The
King correctly judged that, given the opportunity, Howard would
most likely serve faithfully. He released him in January 1489, and
carefully measured the amount of favour shown. A small carrot it was
to restore him to the earldom of Surrey; but the dukedom remained
vacant, and most of his lands forfeited. There had to be the possibility
of future preferment conditional on Howard's obedience, so the
largest prizes were reserved. Howard then showed of what mettle he
was made. Having served Edward IV and Richard III, he now
served their enemy Henry VII with identical devotion, rising to
become Chief General of England. After twenty years he was given
back the lands which had been forfeited, and his total rehabilitation
was confirmed by his being an executor of Henry VII's will. Adapta­bility brought its rewards.

Howard consolidated his position under Henry VIII, being the
king's chief adviser and most influential member of the Privy Council.
He was deeply resentful, however, of the influence wielded by Wolsey,
who also had the ear of the King but did not, in Howard's view, deserve
it. He was, after all, a commoner, a butcher's son. No amount of
imprisonment, beheadings, attainders, would ever deflect a Howard
from the opinion that his family was second to none in its nobility
and ancestry, and by virtue of that inheritance, should take its place
next to kings. Howard loathed Wolsey for mixing with the great, and
secretly thought less of the King for deigning to confide in the upstart.
It took very little to make the famous Howard pride bristle.

The Howard pride attained its finest expression at the Battle of
Flodden Field in 1513. Whether it was strategy or luck, or, as the
people thought, the intervention of divine aid, Howard led his troops
to an astounding victory. Though nearly seventy years old, and
though his troops were parched and their stomachs empty, he inspired
them with such zeal that they routed the Scots, who lost 10,000 men
against the English loss of barely 400. Insufficient attention has been
paid to the contribution made by the Howard arrogance, which
though unwelcome in society, is one of the most desirable qualities in
battle.

Howard's reward was the restoration of his father's dukedom
immediately after the battle in 1513. (There are some genealogical
purists who claim that this was a new creation,
⁸
and that the dukedom
of Norfolk should date from this year, but since he was the second
Duke of the Howard line, and since he would have inherited in 1485
anyway, it is much simpler to maintain the creation of the dukedom
in 1483.) He had travelled full circle back into the royal favour.

The old man was to show one more instance of pragmatism before
his death. In 1521, aged nearly eighty, he was appointed Lord High
Steward for the trial of Edward, Duke of Buckingham, on a charge
of treason. Trials in the sixteenth century were mere formalities, of
which the issue was decided beforehand. Buckingham was a personal
friend of Norfolk, his daughter had married one of Norfolk's sons,
and Norfolk was known to be in entire agreement with Buckingham's
views. Yet Norfolk consented to preside at the trial of his friend,
knowing full well that he would be required to pass a sentence of
death. When the moment came there were tears streaming down his
face.
⁹
However, he recovered sufficiently from his distress to accept
some of the manors forfeited from Buckingham.

The 2nd Duke's most spectacular achievement was to lay the
foundations of a family dynasty and to assure its continuance to the
present day. Thirteen of his children survived, and all made astute
marriages. His daughter Elizabeth was the mother of Anne Boleyn,
Henry VIII's second wife; his son Edmund was the father of
Catherine Howard, Henry's fifth wife; another grand-daughter
married Henry's natural son, Henry Fitzroy; a daughter married into
the family of de Vere, Earls of Oxford. The list is an impressive roll-
call of sixteenth-century nobility, which spawned several distinct
branches of Howards, many of which were ennobled. The Howard
family holds or has held twenty-five different patents of creation
to separate peerages, including the earldoms of Surrey, Suffolk,
Northampton, Stafford and Carlisle. The Howards of Effingham, the
Howards of Glossop, the Earls of Carlisle and of Suffolk, continue to
the present day. In fact, the present Lord Howard of Glossop (also
Lord Beaumont) inherited the dukedom of Norfolk in 1975. No
family in the history of the country can boast such staying power or
such success. The credit must go to the 2nd Duke of Norfolk, who, by
skilful manipulation of his progeny, made certain that the name of
Howard would not slide into oblivion.

He was succeeded by his eldest son, 3rd Duke of Norfolk
(1473-1554), who resembled him in many ways. An excellent soldier,
he fought with his father against the Scots and was ruthless and
brutal in battle. Also like his father, he showed that his chief aim in
life was the advancement of himself and his family, to which end he
would acquiesce in whatever designs the King his master might
cherish. He rose to become Henry VIII's Lord Treasurer (and,
incidentally, the subject of one of Holbein's greatest portraits), signed
the letter which threatened the Pope with loss of papal supremacy in
England if he would not grant the King's divorce, and on the
subsequent dissolution of the monasteries received extra lands as
rewards for his loyalty. He even went so far as to preside at the trial
of his niece Anne Boleyn, the disgraced Queen, and to make arrange­ments for her execution on the block. He followed this extraordinary
cold-bloodedness by proposing another niece, Catherine Howard, as
wife to the King, and only when she in turn lost her head were
Norfolk and his family disgraced. There are not many examples in
history of pragmatism pursued to such lengths.

Like his father, the 3rd Duke despised Wolsey for his low birth,
revealing a depth of contempt which is only comprehensible in a
dynastic family whose rightful place is undermined; "I will tear him
with my teeth", he is reported to have said.
¹⁰
Similarly, he had no time
for the up-and-coming Seymours. He marked out Edward Seymour,
now Earl of Hertford, as his prime enemy, a disastrous mistake which
backfired when Catherine Howard was beheaded; for Jane Seymour
proved a better wife for the King than had the Howards, and
she was the mother of the heir to the throne, Prince Edward.
Gleefully, the Seymours pursued the Howards to their second down­fall, and rose to eminence in their place.

The Seymours had been practically unknown until the King chose
Jane Seymour as his third wife. The
paterfamilias,
Sir John Seymour,
of Wolf Hall, Wiltshire, had been knighted by Henry VII in 1497
for his services against the Cornish rebels at Blackheath, but his
subsequent career did not attract attention. It was his children who
were to bring fame to the name of Seymour, notably Edward, Jane,
and Thomas. As they rose in royal favour, so, in direct proportion,
the Howards sank; the fortunes of the new family were directly related
to the humiliation of the old, and the Seymours climbed to the highest
rank by stamping on the slipping fingers of the Howards.

Jane Seymour, as the daughter of a country gentleman, was lady-
in-waiting to Henry VIII's first two queens, Catherine of Aragon and
Anne Boleyn. The King fell in love with her in 1535, and met her
through a secret passage to her apartments at Greenwich. The fate of
Queen Anne Boleyn was sealed; she was beheaded, and Jane married
the King the very next day. Thus, from obscurity the Seymours were
thrust into the headlines of English history, and, at the same time,
the Howards suffered a set-back by the execution of the favoured
niece Anne Boleyn. Jane secured the position of her family by giving
birth to the much-needed son, the future King of England. Cele­brations were ecstatic. At the christening, the Queen's brother,
Edward Seymour, carried her stepdaughter Princess Elizabeth (the
child of Anne Boleyn), and was elevated to the peerage as Earl of
Hertford. (He had already been made Lord Beauchamp after the
marriage.) Another brother, Thomas Seymour, was delivered from
even deeper obscurity (he was a servant to Sir Francis Bryan) to take
his place as a member of the Royal Family. Norfolk and his son the
Earl of Surrey watched from the shadows in silent fury.