Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 28.djvu/29

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Howard
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Howard

companion for men of the best accomplishments who have nothing to ask.' Except the contribution towards the cost of Marble Hill she took little from George II, either as king or prince, except snubs and slights; and the queen avenged herself for her husband's infidelity by humiliating her, employing her until she became Countess of Suffolk in servile offices about her person. 'It happened more than once,' writes Horace Walpole (Reminiscences, cxxix.), 'that the king, while the queen was dressing, has snatched off the handkerchief, and, turning rudely to Mrs. Howard, has cried, "Because you have an ugly neck yourself, you hide the queen's." ' Nor was she able to do much to advance her friends. For Gay she could procure only the place of gentleman-usher to the Princess Louisa, which, though worth 200l. a year, he declined. She obtained, however, an earldom for her brother [see Hobart, John, first Earl of Buckinghamshire]. She was strictly truthful, and in conversation minutely accurate to the point of tediousness. She behaved with such extreme propriety that her friends affected to suppose that her relations with the king were merely platonic. A selection from her correspondence, entitled 'Letters to and from Henrietta, Countess of Suffolk, and her second husband, the Hon. George Berkeley, from 1712 to 1767,' was edited anonymously by John Wilson Croker in 1824, 2 vols. 8vo. The correspondence, which comprises letters from Pope, Swift, Gay, Peterborough, Bolingbroke, Chesterfield, Horace Walpole, the Duchess of Marlborough, and Lady Hervey, deals mainly with private affairs, and sheds little light on politics. The volume contains an engraving of her portrait preserved at Blickling.

[Blomefield's Norfolk,ed. 1805, vi.402; Gent Mag. 1767, p.383; Collins's Peerage, ed. Brydges, iii. 159, iv. 368; Horace Walpole's Reminiscences in Cunningham's edition of his Letters; Horace Walpole's Memoirs, ed. Lord Holland, 1847; Hervey's Memoirs; Pope's Correspondence, ed. Elwin and Courthope; Chesterfield's Letters; Coxe's Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole, i. 279 et seq.; Suffolk Correspondence, ed. Croker; Swift's Memoirs, ed. Scott. Her relations with Lord Peterborough are discussed in Russell's Earl of Peterborough and Monmouth.]

J. M. R.

HOWARD, HENRY, Earl of Surrey (1517?–1547), poet, born about 1517, was eldest son of Lord Thomas Howard, afterwards third duke of Norfolk (1473?-1554) [q. v.], by his second wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham. Thomas Howard, second duke of Norfolk [q. v.], was his grandfather, and he was usually known in youth as ' Henry Howard of Kenninghall,' one of his grandfather's residences in Norfolk, which may have been his birthplace. He spent each winter and spring, until he was seven, at his father's house, Stoke Hall, Suffolk, and each summer with his grandfather at Hunsdon, Hertfordshire. On the death of the latter in 1524 his father became Duke of Norfolk, and he was thenceforth known by the courtesy title of Earl of Surrey. He was with his family at Kenninghall between 1524 and 1529. On 23 July 1529 he visited the priory of Butley, Suffolk, with his father, who was negotiating the sale of Staverton Park to the prior. Surrey was carefully educated, studying classical and modern literature, and making efforts in verse from an early age. Leland was tutor to his brother Thomas about 1525, and may have given him some instruction. John Clerk (d. 1552) [q. v.], who was domesticated about the same time with the family, seems to have been his chief instructor. In dedicating his 'Treatise of Nobility' (1543) to Norfolk, Clerk commends translations which Surrey made in his childhood from Latin, Italian, and Spanish. In December 1529 Henry VIII asked the Duke of Norfolk to allow Surrey to become the companion of his natural son, Henry Fitzroy, duke of Richmond [q. v.], who was Surrey's junior by sixteen months (Bapst, pp. 164-5). He thus spent, in the words of his own poems, his 'childish years' (1530 to 1532) at Windsor 'with a king's son.' As early as 1526 Norfolk purchased the wardship of Elizabeth, daughter of John, second lord Marney, with a view to marrying her to Surrey. But at the end of 1529 Anne Boleyn urged Henry VIII to affiance his daughter, the Princess Mary, to the youth. On 14 Sept. 1530 Chappuys, the imperial ambassador in London, wrote to his master for instructions as to the attitude he should assume towards the scheme. But in October Anne Boleyn's views changed, and she persuaded the duke, who reluctantly consented, to arrange for Surrey's marriage with Frances, daughter of John Vere, fifteenth earl of Oxford. The contract was signed on 13 Feb. 1531-2, and the marriage took place before April, but on account of their youth husband and wife did not live together till 1535. In October 1532 Surrey accompanied Henry VIII and the Duke of Richmond to Boulogne, when the English king had an interview with Francis I. In accordance with arrangements then made, Richmond and Surrey spent eleven months at the French court. Francis first entertained them at Chantilly, and in the spring of 1533 they travelled with him to the south. The king's sons were their constant companions, and Surrey im-