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Thomas Howard, Fourth Duke of Norfolk (1536-1572)
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The only duke during Elizabeth's reign, Howard was the son of the poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, executed for treason by Henry VIII in 1547. His grandfather, Thomas Howard, the third Duke, narrowly escaped the block when Henry died later that year. Howard grew up a vain and weak man with Catholic leanings whose ambition to wed Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, then imprisoned in England, destroyed him. When Elizabeth refused to allow the marriage in 1569, Norfolk encouraged the Northern Rising of 1570 to support his scheme. Captured, he was pardoned and released. When he was implicated in the Ridolfi plot to free Mary and dethrone Elizabeth, restoring Catholicism with the aid of Spanish troops, Elizabeth had him tried, condemned, and sent to the block in 1572. This painting of Howard was made in 1563 by Hans Eworth, court painter to Mary Tudor.
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