Henry Howard: A Life Cut Short
Henry Howard was born c. 1517, the oldest son of Lady Elizabeth Stafford and Thomas Howard. Both of his parents were of noble blood. His mother, Elizabeth, was the daughter of Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, and his father, Thomas, was — at the time — the Earl of Surrey and the son of the Duke of Norfolk. At the time, both of these families were still in good standing with King Henry VIII and were two of the most powerful families in the country.
It is no doubt this wealthy upbringing which shaped some of Henry’s attitudes towards the “New Men” of Henry VIII’s court. These men had powerful positions but had come from humble beginnings, often the sons (and for as much as Henry VIII and his father had done to promote meritocracy they were all men) of the middling sort. Howard had little regard for these men. He branded Thomas Cromwell a ‘foul churl’ and William Paget ‘a mean creature’ and although neither is immune to criticism, his emphasis on their class shows both his disdain for the “New Men” and hints at a more general inter-class friction which was developing at a time of unprecedented social mobility. Although it was ultimately this same pride which would cause his downfall, Howard was much more than the ‘foolish proud boy’ described by John Barlow.
Most notably, he was an Earl from 1524. That was the year his grandfather, the Duke of Norfolk, died and so…
