Henry FITZALAN (18° E. Arundel)

Henry FITZALAN

(18th E. Arundel)

Born: 23 Apr 1512

Died: Sunday 24 Feb 1579/80, London, Middlesex, England

Notes: Knight of the Garter.

Father: William FITZALAN (17° E. Arundel)

Mother: Anne PERCY (C. Arundel)

Married 1: Catherine GREY (C. Arundel)

Children:

1. Mary FITZALAN (D. Norfolk)

2. Joan FITZALAN (B. Lumley)

3. Henry FITZALAN (B. Maltravers)

Married 2: Mary ARUNDELL (C. Sussex/C. Arundel) 19 Dec 1545

Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel

after Steven Van der Meulen oil on panel, 1565

Son of William Fitzalan, the 17th Earl, by Lady Anne Percy, dau. of Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland. He married first Catherine, dau. of Thomas Grey, 2nd M. Dorset, and Margaret Wotton. And secondly to Mary Arundell, dau. of Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, w. of Robert Radcliffe, 1st Earl of Sussex. Godson to Henry VIII, in whose palace he was educated Also educated at at Cambridge University, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England. He held the office of Page of Honour to King Henry VIII. He succeeded to the title of Lord Mautravers on 5 Feb 1532/33. From 1540 he was governor of Calais till 1543, when he succeeded to the earldom. In 1544 he beseiged and took Boulogne, being made lord chamberlain and a privy councillor as a reward in 1546.

He was a member of the council appointed by Henry to govern during the minority of Edward VI. In the reign of Edward VI he opposed Protector Somerset and supported the John Dudley, Earl of Warwick (later Duke of Northumberland), who eventually unjustly accused him of peculation and removed him from the council. When interrogating the Duke of Somerset in Dec 1549, Arundel and Southampton agreed that the Protector and Warwick were `traytors both', and Arundel `gave his consente that thei were bothe worthie to dye'. Warwick then took steps to protect himself after Lord St. John, who was also present, informed him of the conversation. The Imperial Ambassador, Francois van der Delft, stated that St. John (and also Sir Richard Rich and John, Lord Russell) abandoned Arundel not for reasons of religious doctrine but only after `seeing Warwick's determination'. His religious position coincided with the `politique' stance of contemporaries such as Russell, or William Paget and the Earl of Pembroke, Arundel's political allies in the reign of Mary.

Richard Scudamore reported, on 5 Dec 1549, that Arundel was likely to be made Lord Great Chamberlain, and the Earl retained an important role in government, attending meetings well into Jan 1550. On 11 Jan 1550 Scudamore reported that Arundel had been stripped of his Lord Chamberlain's office and was under house arrest at Arundel Place. The Earl was examined before the Council that day and again on 13 Jan, where `certain crimes of suspicion', as the young King observed in his diary, were laid against him; `plucking down of bolts and locks at Westminster, giving of my stuff away, etc.' The Earl was also suspected of appropriating supplies for the mint. This was an easy charge to make, but as Warwick, Southampton, Herbert, Paget and Dorset had also indulged in the exploitation of coining privileges when Somerset fell, just as Russell, Northampton, Wentworth and Darcy were to be rewarded in precisely the same way at Arundel's demise, it seems somewhat disingenuous. Van der Delft thought that the charges were manifestly artificial. Arundel, as Lord Chamberlain, had distributed `certain garments and furs no longer required by the King' and had substituted plate of his own of an equivalent value to plate destined for the mint, `those that were to be melted being more to his own taste'.

Johan Scheyfve, van der Delft's replacement as Imperial Ambassador in May 1550, wrote:

my Lord of Arundel has been deprived of his office because he refused to consent to the Duke of Somerset's release from prison and general reinstatement, on the grounds that he had solemnly been published and declared to be a traitor to the King.

After a longer imprisonment, Arundel rejoin the Council just before the King's death, and took the opportunity to torment his nemesis. In Jun 1553 he alone of the council refused the "engagement" of the council to support Edward's "device" for the succession - which passed over his sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, as illegitimate, in favour of Lady Jane Grey. He did, however, sign the letters patent. On Edward's death, while pretending to support Northumberland, he secured the proclamation of Mary as soon as Northumberland had left London. In his speech at Baynard's Castle which persuaded the Council to desert Warwick, now Duke of Northumberland, the Earl denied being `drawen by any passion either of ambition, as desirous to rule, or desire of revenge', but could not resist `bitterly inveighing against the Duke' who had `most unjustlye kept me a prisoner almost a yeare, practisinge my death by many wicked devises, as yow youre selves can witnesse ...`. The Earl perhaps took some pleasure in arresting Northumberland at Cambridge on 20 Jul 1553 and escorting him to the Tower.

He was described as "of the middle size, well proportioned in limb', 'stronge in bone, furnished with cleane and firme flesh, voide of fogines and fatnes'. His countenance was regular and expressive, his voice powerful and pleasing; but the rapidity of his utterance often made his meaning 'somewhat harde to the unskilfull'.

In Dec 1553 the Earl of Arundel purchased the wardship of the eldest daughter of Sir John Lutrell, Catherine Luttrell for 100 marks. In Mar 1557 he was awarded the custody of all three daughters with an annuity of £30 backdated to Luttrell's death, which perhaps suggest that they had joined the Earl's household then. The wardships may indicate a family connection or may have been suggested by the Countess of Arundel, who had known the girls' maternal grandmother Catherine Edgecombe from their service together in the household of Anne of Cleves. In any case, the wardships seem to indicate a sense of responsibility on Arundel's part, as there was little financial gain: two-thirds of Luttrell's estate was entailed in favour of his brother Thomas, only one-third remaining between the daughters.

Catherine Luttrell served in Queen Mary's privy chamber and presumably owed the position to Arundel, who was Lord Steward of the royal household by this time. The Earl married her to Thomas Copley in Jul 1558. The nuptial celebrations took place at Nonsuch Palace, which Arundel had recently purchased from the crown. The Queen probably attended the wedding as Copley, who had incurred her wrath in the first session of the 1558 parliament by expressing the fear that Princess Elizabeth would be excluded from the succession, wrote with some apprehension to the Master of the Revels requesting the loan of paraphernalia for the masque with which the guests were entertained. Later that year Copley attended Arundel at the peace conference at Cercamp.

Under Mary I he held a series of high appointments, including the lord stewardship.The election of Richard Whalley to the Parliament of 2 Apr 1554 for East Grinstead, a duchy of Lancaster borough, he probably owed to his association with Sir Thomas Holcroft who was acting with the Earl of Arundel early in 1554 and himself sat on this occasion for the earl’s borough of Arundel.

In 1558 he resigned the Lord Stewardship when, according to his biographer, `some meane persons' of the Council suggested a reorganization of established order in the royal household. Arundel, apparently, `did not prefer his vaine glorye nor profit before his honour and credit'. The Earl was reinstated by Elizabeth, but his pride in blood, manifested in an attempt to marry the Queen, prompted a second resignation in 1564 when it became clear that his suit was destined to fail.

In 1569 he was implicated in the intrigues of his son-in-law, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, who desired a marriage with Mary, Queen of Scots, but, although he appears to have received money from Spain, the evidence against him was insufficient, and he was released in Mar 1570 and even recalled to the council. After the discovery of the Ridolfi plot he was once more arrested and liberated only after the execution of Norfolk in 1572, and spent the rest of his life in retirement. At his death the title passed through his daughter Mary, the wife of the beheaded Norfolk, to the Howards.

Arundel made a habit of supporting foreign artists and intellectuals new to England. For instance, he was the patron of the Protestant Florentine illuminator and scholar Petruccio Ubaldini, who visited the country during Edward's reign. He was certainly part of Arundel's circle by 1550 when he presented Lord Maltravers, the Earl's heir, with a book of sententious sayings and `examples of wrytinge verie faire'. Ubaldini very probably produced the manuscript copy of the Senecan sententiae that were painted on the walls of the long gallery of Sir Nicholas Bacon's house at Gorhambury. Bacon presented themanuscript to Arundel's daughter Jane, the wife of John, Lord Lumley. Ubaldini described Arundel as `his Maecenas' in the dedication to his Description of Scotland and he was presented at court by the Earl when he returned to settle in England in 1562.

Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel (Ob. 1580)

From the painting by Holbein

Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel

by Unknown artist oil on panel, 1560s

Later in his career Arundel patronized the Huguenot printer Thomas Vautrouiller, who also came to England in 1562. Vautrouiller expressed his gratitude for the Earl's help in establishing his printshop in the dedication to his version of Jean de Beauchesne's A booke containing divers sortes of hands. Arundel was also interested in music, as the presence at Nonsuch of the largest band of musicians outside the royal court and his extensive music library testify, and Vautrouiller dedicated his edition of the secular music of Orlando de Lassus to the Earl. He also printed the Cantiones sacrae of Thomas Tallis, whose forty-part motet Spem in alium received its first performance at Arundel House, the Earl's London residence.

Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel

Hans Eworth (fl. 1545-1574)

Arundel's role as Hans Eworth's chief patron continued through the 1550s. In 1555 Eworth painted Arundel's daughter Mary, listed in the Lumley Inventory as `Of Mary Duches of Northfolke, daughter to the last Earl of Arundell doone by Haunce Eworth'. In 1557 he produced a posthumous portrait of Maltravers, who had died at Brussels on a diplomatic mission to Carlos V on 30 Jun 1556. It was probably; therefore, through the influence of the Earl as Lord Steward that Eworth became court painter to Queen Mary. This connection is the most plausible explanation of how the artist may have had access to the Queen's jewels in order to depict in detail the pendant and other objects in his 1554 portrait of Mary. Upon the accession of Elizabeth, Eworth went into the service of Catherine, Duchess of Suffolk, a lady who constantly urged the Queen towards more zealous Protestantism. During his service with the Duchess, Eworth produced a posthumous portrait of her old associate, the protestant martyr Anne Askew, bearing the inscription `Rather deathe: then false of faythe'.

Sources:

The Camden Miscellany xxx `The Letters of Richard Scudamore to Sir Philip Hoby, September 1549-March 1555', ed. S. Brigden, (London, 1990).

A. Boyle: Hans Eworth's portrait of the Earl of Arundel and the politics of 1549-50.

D. Willen, John Russell, First Earl of Bedford: One of the King's Men (London, 1981)

S. R. Gammon, Statesman and Schemer, William, First Lord Paget - Tudor Minister (Newton Abbot, 1973)

N. P. Sil, William Lord Herbert of Pembroke (c. 1507-1570): Politique and Patriot (Lewiston, 1988).

`Scudamore Letters'

The Chronicle and Political Papers of King Edward VI, ed. W. K. Jordan (Ithaca, 1966).

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