On this day in history, 2nd December 1546, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, poet, courtier, soldier and the eldest son of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, was arrested after Richard Southwell, his former friend, gave evidence against him.
François van der Delft, the imperial ambassador, reported to Emperor Charles V on 14th December that Surrey had been “detained” but that “The reason for this is still unknown”…
I’m sure I can see a likeness to his cousin Anne Boleyn in that portrait, and not just physically, he appears to be rather like her in character to, they both used to let their mouths run away with them, they were both rather arrogant and very reckless, Henry more so because he had such a high regard for his noble birth.
Reading Starkey’s “The Reign of Henry VIII’ last night, final chapter, The Last Months, the following words: “By the standards of the age, Surry’s guilt, if not his father’s, was well established. But the pair were still victims of a conspiracy. The Imperial Ambassador considered that, ‘this misfortune to the house of Norfolk may have come from that quarter’, by which he meant Hertford and Dudley. And it is clear that Surrey saw even further. In a paper of memoranda culled from various interrogations appears this note: ‘things in common: Paget, Hertford, Admiral, Denny’. Too late Surrey had understood the forces that had come together to destroy him, and too late also he had been working to break up the coalition. Another of these memoranda reads ‘that Mr. P should be Chancellor of England’. To have detached Paget from Hertford six months earlier would have changed everything. Now, however, Paget was to achieve his master-stroke for the other side.”
Interesting.