THE UNIVERSITY OF HULL THE EARLY CAREER OF THOMAS, LORD HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY AND THIRD DUKE OF NORFOLK, 1474—c. 1525 being a Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of Hull by Susan Elisabeth Vokes, B.A. September, 1988 Acknowledgements I should like to thank the University of Hull for my postgraduate scholarship, and the Institute of Historical Research and Eliot College, the Universiy of Kent, for providing excellent facilities in recent years. I am especially grateful to the Duke of Norfolk and his archivists for giving me access to material in his possession. The staff of many other archives and libraries have been extremely helpful in answering detailed enquiries and helping me to locate documents, and / regret that it is not possible to acknowledge them individually. I am grateful to my supervisor, Peter Heath, for his patience, understanding and willingness to read endless drafts over the years in which this study has evolved. Others, too, have contributed much. Members of the Russell/Starkey seminar group at the Institute of Historical Research, and the Late Medieval seminar group at the University of Kent made helpful comments on a paper, and I have benefitted from suggestions, discussion, references and encouragement from many others, particularly: Neil Samman, Maria Dowling, Peter Gwynn, George Bernard, Greg Walker and Diarmaid MacCulloch. I am particularly grateful to several people who took the trouble to read and comment on drafts of various chapters. Margaret Condon and Anne Crawford commented on a draft of the first chapter, Carole Rawcliffe and Linda Clerk on my analysis of Norfolk's estate accounts, Steven Ellis on my chapters on Surrey in Ireland and in the north of England, and Roger Virgoe on much of the thesis, including all the East Anglian material. Finally, I would particularly like to thank Steve Gunn for his enthusiastic scrutiny of the whole study and enlightening comments and suggestions. Without the contributions of these people, and the support, encouragement and understanding of my husband, who read the proofs and helped me with the maps, this study would never have been completed. Any errors or ommissions which remain are, of course, entirely my own. Abbreviations used in the Notes BIHR Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research BL British Library CAD Descriptive Catalogue of Ancient Deeds in the Public Records Office (London, 1890-1915) CCM Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth (London, 1867-73) CCR Calendar of the Close Rolls, Henry VI - Henry VII (London, 1933-63) CFR Calendar of Fine Rolls, 1485-1509 (London, 1962) CIPM Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, Henry VII (London, 1898-1955) CPR Calendar of the Patent Rolls, Henry VI - Philip and Mary (London, 1901-39) CSPS Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, ed. G.A. Bergenroth, P. de Gayangos, M.A.S. Hume, G. Mattingly (London, 1862-1954) CSPV Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, ed. R. Brown, C. Bentinck, H. Brown (London, 1864-98) DNB The Dictionary of National Biography, ed. L. Stephen, S, Lee, (2nd edn. London, 1908-9) ECP Early Chancery Proceedings, Deputy Keeper of the Public Records EE S Early English Text Society ERO Essex Record Office GC Great Chronicle of London, ed. A.A. Thomas, I.D. Thornley (London, 1938) GEC The Complete Peerage, by G.E.C., ed. V. Gibbs, et al. (London, 1910-40) Hall E. Hall, Hall's Chronicle, (London, 1809 edn.) HMC Reports of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts HP History of Parliament, The House of Commons 1509-1558, S.T. Bindoff ed. (London, 1982) unless otherwise stated KLBRO King's Lynn Borough Record Office LJ Journals of the House of Lords (London, 1981 edn.) LP Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII, ed. J.S. Brewer et al. (London, 1862-1932) NRO Norfolk Record Office PCC Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Wills -v- PRO Public Record Office, Chancery Lane RP Rotuli Parliamentorum SBT Shakespeare's Birthplace Trust Record Office, Stratford upon Avon. SR Statutes of the Realm, ed. A. Luders et al. (London, 1810-28) SRO Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich Branch SP State Papers, King Henry VIII (London, 1830-52) TRHS Royal Historical Society, Transactions TV Testaments Vetusta UC University of California Vergil Polydore Vergil, Anglica Historia, D. Hay ed. VCH Victoria History of the Counties of England YRO Yorkshire Record Office -VI- THE EARLY CAREER OF THOMAS. LORD HOWARD. EARL OF SURREY AND THIRD DUKE OF NORFOLK. 1474-c.1525 Table of Contents Acknowledgements Table of Contents iv Abbreviations used in the Notes Introduction 1 Part 1 The Lord Howard. 1483-1514 Chapter I The Family and the Turning Wheel of Fortune, 1483-1509 7 Chapter II Howard influence at Court and in Council 1509-1512 49 Chapter III The First War with France and Scotland 1512-14 86 Part 2 The Earl of Surrey. 1514-1524 Chapter IV Central and Local Politics after Flodden, 1514-20 134 Chapter V The Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, 1520-1522 183 Chapter VI The Second War with France and Scotland, 1522-4 218 Part 3 The Duke of Norfolk 1524-c.1525 Chapter VII The Troubles over the Amicable Grant, 1525 275 Chapter VIII The Estates and Affinity, 1520-c.25 324 Conclusions 339 Bibliography 350 Maps (in the rear pocket) Howard Lands in East Anglia, 1474-c.1525 Flodden Field, 1513 Picardy Campaign, 1522 Howard Genealogy (in the rear pocket) -iv- INTRODUCTION Why another thesis on the third duke of Norfolk, and why, in particular, a partial one? It is true that two competent studies of the duke have been made in relatively recent times; the first an M.A. thesis submitted in the University of Nottingham in 1961 by F.R. Grace, and the second, a Ph.D. in the University of Florida, submitted in 1978 by D. Head. Both of these suffer from one besetting problem. Because Norfolk lived to the age of eighty years, and from the age of thirty-eight occupied a very important position in the Tudor state, both were forced to deal almost exclusively with the massive bulk of material which survives concerning his actions in the public domain. The result is that we learned more about Norfolk the politician, but almost nothing new about Norfolk the man. Indeed, I would go further. The pressure to negotiate large quantities of material in the public records at speed forced both researchers to accept without question assumptions about the motivations of the duke which had been current for a very long time, and which a more detailed study of the early part of his life, and attention to private records might have modified. Norfolk, who was respected and admired by contemporary chroniclers and foreign ambassadors alike, has had a very bad press for more than a century.' However, on close examination the widely accepted portrayal appears strangely unconvincing. I believe the reason for this is that it combines two distinct, not to say incompatible, traditions. First, he was condemned on moral grounds for taking a maitrasse en titre and packing off to her dower house his admirable wife (whose only error lay in being loyal to her admirable mistress the queen) while offering his two nieces to Henry's viciousness for political advantage, and finally sacrificing the life of his gifted son to save himself, thus embodying "the deterioration of English life under Henry VIII". 2 According to this view Norfolk was self-seeking, servile and unprincipled, but by no means politically inept. The second view, which sits so uncomfortably with -1- this, offers us Norfolk the uneducated, rough and ready, sometimes brutal, military man, greedy for power, indeed anxious to become another Wolsey or a Cromwell, but so completely out of his depth in politics that on each occasion, having combined with other aristocrats and conservatives to bring the upstart minister down, he lacked the intelligence and ability to assume his place in government and soon lost power.° It is, of course, a truism that historians see the century they study through the eyes of their own, but what is more puzzling than the righteous Victorian condemnation of Norfolk, either for lack of morality or intelligence, is the durability of such judgements, despite the contortions necessary to combine two disparate traditions. In 1963 Mattingly could write of the "ponderous, cold hearted, chicken brained Duke, moving sluggishly in the mists of the feudal past, like some obsolete armoured saurian", 4 while the most detailed assessment of Norfolk in the same period, in L.B. Smith's A Tudor Tragedy, is as confused as any that had gone before. For Smith Norfolk was both "a nobleman of limited mentality, few inhibitions and inordinate ambitions", who "blundered . with magnificent stupidity", and, at the same time, "crafty, servile, compromising and versatile", thus representing "the feudal wolf . domesticated, . neither a very pleasant nor a very enviable creature. " s It is true that Norfolk's abilities and tireless service have been somewhat grudgingly acknowledged in more recent years, so that he has gained the reputation of being a Tudor work horse, 6 but as recently as 1985 Dr. Starkey could sum up the second and third dukes, in his book on Henry VIII as follows: "events were to show that there was nothing, not even their own children, that they would refuse to sacrifice on the altar of royal favour. This made them always a formidable force in politics; but always too the supremacy they longed for eluded them. They had great name and reputation, and great military skills; they lacked only greatness itself."7 This judgement is as unconvincing as any that had gone before and betrays its Victorian roots just as surely.