LORD SURREY

JOHN HOWARD, Duke of Norfolk, perished at Bosworth Field in the year 1485, bravely fighting for Richard III. Being attainted by the first parliament of Henry VII., all his great estates and property of every kind were forfeited to the crown. His son Thomas, who had been created Earl of Surrey during his father's life-time (in the year 1483, and by Richard III.), was also in the battle of Bosworth Field; and, after fighting valiantly, and being severely wounded, he was taken prisoner. The earl was also attainted; he was thrown into the Tower, and was for some time thought to be in imminent danger of losing his head. He lay in close prison more than three years, but was liberated and restored to the earldom of Surrey in 1489. He had conciliated Henry VII. by his prudent and cautious behaviour. When re-admitted at court, he rapidly rose in the good graces of the politic sovereign. His son, Lord Thomas Howard, was allowed to marry, about the year 1495, the

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Lady Anne Plantagenet, youngest daughter to Edward IV., to whom, when only a child, he had been affianced at the beginning of the reign of Richard III. By this marriage the Lord Thomas Howard had four children, who are said to have all died young. His wife, the Lady Anne, died in 1512 or 1513,* the date being uncertain, and a very short time after her decease the Lord Thomas married the Lady Elizabeth, daughter to Edward Stafford duke of Buckingham, the son and successor of the unfortunate duke of that name who was beheaded for insurrection and treason in the time of Richard III. When he so hurriedly contracted this second marriage, the Lord Thomas was forty years old, the bride scarcely fifteen. But there was another circumstance which cast a gloom over this hurried marriage : the Lady Elizabeth was tenderly attached to the young Earl of Westmoreland, and was on the point of being married to him when the richer and far more powerful Howard demanded her hand, and induced her weak father to break off the previous match. From this marriage proceeded Henry, the eldest son (the poet, and the subject of the present memoir), Thomas, who afterwards became Viscount Bindon, and Mary, who married Henry Fitzroy duke of Richmond.

Thomas the restored Earl of Surrey continued to

* There is an evident want of accuracy in all this part of the history of the Howard family. It is not known with any precision in what year the Lady Anne Plantagenet died, nor can any details be found respecting her life. It is said that the four children she bore her husband were all sons, and that they all died very young; but the dates of their deaths are not known, nor does there appear to be any authentic record about them. Neither the date of the second marriage, nor the date of Surrey's birth is anywhere given in registers or family documents. These facts have been acknowledged by a member of the family who has devoted much care to the inspection of documents. See Indications of memorials, monuments, paintings, &c., of persons of the Howard family, by Henry Howard, of Corby Castle.

A.D. 1834.

prosper under Henry VII., and was repeatedly employed in cases of emergency by that king, to whose despotic and rapacious system of government he was exceedingly submissive. On the accession of Henry VIII. he continued in favour at court; and in February 1514, as a reward for his great victory obtained over the Scots at Flodden Field, in September, 1513, he was created Duke of Norfolk, his son Thomas, the father of the poet, being at the same time created Earl of Surrey. This duke had the good fortune to die in his bed in 1524, before Henry VIII. plunged into blood. He had been lord high treasurer as well as earl marshal. On his decease the father of the poet succeeded to the dukedom and to the high offices which his father had held. When the tyranny began, he, as much as any great man living, flattered the tyrant and aided him in his deeds. The date of the poet's birth is not known. It is said to have been in 1515 or 1516, or two or three years after the battle of Flodden Field. But others assign a still more recent and less probable date; and this difference, which exists even among professed heralds and genealogists, is a pretty convincing proof that the date is very doubtful and uncertain. Doubts

are also entertained as to the place of his birth; but the probability is, that he was born at Framlingham Castle, in Suffolk. Nearly at the same time (or, as we are disposed to believe, somewhat later), that he came into the world, which he afterwards described as a place which

was born that Henry Fitzroy and natural son of Henry VIII. who subsequently became the poet's brother-in law. According to several concurrent traditions, the two boys were educated and brought up together, and thus contracted a friendship which lasted till death. A minute search into documents seems to prove that they could not have lived much together until Surrey was

fourteen or fifteen years old ;* but there is nothing to disprove the belief that they might have met frequently before that time, and have played together as thoughtless happy boys at Windsor. Nay, if we are to believe Surrey's own words in one of his poems (and the passage is as much entitled to be taken in an autobiographical sense as other verses which have been so interpreted, and which they do not in reality contradict), he certainly spent some of his boyish or childish years with Henry Fitzroy in the place which had so long been the residence of the poetical James I. of Scotland. The passage is this:

:

-"Proud Windsor, where I, in lust and joy,

With a king's son, my childish years did pass
In greater feast than Priam's son of Troy."

This is a distinct statement from that contained in another passage in the same poem, which has been cited as a proof that they were young men before they met at Windsor Castle, in

"Those large green courts, where we were wont to rove, With eyes cast up unto the Maiden Tower,

With easy sighs, such as men draw in love."

But there is no inconsistency or contradiction in the two passages: they may have passed some time together, and have studied together at Windsor as boys, and have met there and lived there afterwards as youths. We know that the king's natural son was sent to Sheriff Hutton, in Yorkshire, when he was about six years old; but we do not know how long or how short a time he stayed there; and although Surrey went to live with his father at Kenninghall, in Norfolk, when he was about eight years old, we have nothing to show that he constantly resided there during the rest of his boyhood. Dr. Nott, his laborious but somewhat dull and pedantic biographer, who loves to weave dark cobwebs over tradition, treats the subject as if there were no travelling in

* Dr. Nott. Memoirs of Surrey,' prefixed to his edition of the works of Surrey and Sir Thomas Wyatt.

those days for a noble, or even for a princely boy. The king being exceedingly fond of his son was likely to have him frequently in the neighbourhood of the court, and to look out for a companion and playmate for him of his own age; and where could he suit himself better than in the young, noble, and promising Howard? Wherever the poet alludes to Henry Fitzroy, it is as the dear friend and playmate of early life. In 1525, when he is said to have been only in his tenth or eleventh year, Henry Fitzroy was created Earl of Nottingham and Duke of Richmond and Somerset, and ample revenues were allotted to him to maintain a household or little court.* Great care was taken of his education; his father, the king, prided himself on his own learning, and Cardinal Wolsey, who had an ardent and sincere love of literature, was his god-father. As he grew up, he became master of several languages, and attained to an excellent taste in polite literature. Similar pains were taken in the education of the young Surrey, who counted among his kinsmen Bouchier Lord Berners, the translator of Froissart's Chronicles; Thomas Lord Stafford, who wrote in verse, and was the cause of the publication of the Mirror for Magistrates;' Edward Vere, Earl of Oxford, who was a poet; Lord Morley, who was conversant with Italian literature, and published some translations from Petrarca; George Boleyn (afterwards Lord Rochford), brother to Anne Boleyn, who wrote songs and sonnets, and to one or two other noblemen who were distinguished by their literary acquirements. As a boy, Surrey was noted for the quickness of his natural parts, and for the progress he had made in his studies. Anthony à Wood, a pleasant gossip, but a bad historical authority where his assertions are not supported by other evidence, says that Surrey was sent to complete his education at Oxford, and that it was probable the Duke of Richmond (Henry Fitzroy) accompanied him thither.

* The age of Henry Fitzroy may, very probably, be misstated. We cannot discover that the date of his birth is anywhere given with any pretension to accuracy.