Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey



Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, KG, Earl Marshal (1517 – 19 January 1547) was an English aristocrat, and one of the founders of modern English poetry.

Life
He was born in Hunsdon, Hertfordshire, England, the eldest son of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, and his second wife, Lady Elizabeth Stafford (daughter of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham), so he was descended from kings on both sides of his family tree. He was reared at Windsor Castle with Henry VIII's illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy Duke of Richmond, and they became close friends and, later, brothers-in-law. He became Earl of Surrey in 1524 when his grandfather died and his father became Duke of Norfolk.

In 1532 he accompanied his first cousin Anne Boleyn, the King, and the Duke of Richmond to France, staying there for more than a year as a member of the entourage of Francis I of France. In 1536 his first son, Thomas (later 4th Duke of Norfolk), was born, Anne Boleyn was executed on charges of adultery and treason, and Henry Fitzroy died at the age of 17 and was buried at one of the Howard homes, Thetford Abbey. That was also the year Henry &mdash; who took after his father and grandfather in military prowess &mdash; served with his father against the Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion protesting the dissolution of the monasteries.

Marriage and issue
He married Lady Frances de Vere, the daughter of John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford and Elizabeth Trussell, Countess of Oxford. They had five children:
 * Jane Howard
 * Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk (10 March 1536 – 2 June 1572) married (1) Mary FitzAlan (2) Margaret Audley (3) Elizabeth Leyburne
 * Margaret Howard, married Henry Scrope, 9th Baron Scrope of Bolton
 * Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton
 * Catherine Howard, married Henry Berkeley, 7th Baron Berkeley, by whom she had issue.

Death and burial
He was imprisoned with his father by Henry VIII, who was convinced that Henry Howard had planned to usurp the crown from his son Edward. Henry Howard was sentenced to death on 13 January 1547, and beheaded for treason on 19 January 1547. (His father was saved only by his execution being set for the day after the king happened to die). His son Thomas became heir to the Dukedom of Norfolk instead, inheriting it on the 3rd Duke's death in 1554.

Henry Howard is buried in a spectacular painted alabaster tomb at St Michael the Archangel, Framlingham.

Ancestry
Ancestors of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey 

Writing
Howard and his friend Sir Thomas Wyatt were the first English poets to write in the sonnet form that Shakespeare later used, and Howard was the first English poet to publish blank verse in his translation of the second and fourth books of Virgil's Aeneid. Together, Wyatt and Surrey, due to their excellent translations of Petrarch's sonnets, are known as "Fathers of the English Sonnet." While Wyatt introduced the sonnet into English, it was Surrey who gave them the rhyming meter and the division into quatrains that now characterizes the sonnets variously named English, Elizabethan or Shakespearean sonnets.

Recognition
Three of his poems ("Description of Spring," "Complaint of the Absence of Her Lover being upon the Sea," and "The Means to attain Happy Life") were included in the Oxford Book of English Verse.

Publications

 * The Poems of Henry Howard Earl of Surrey (edited by F.M. Padelford). Seattle, 1920 and 1928.
 * Selected Poems by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and Dennis Keene. Fyfield Books.
 * The Poems of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (edited with a Memoir by James Yeowell)