|
|
|
Review this Book
1 review (below) |
HENRY VIII'S LAST VICTIM
by
CHILDS, JESSIE
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey was one of the most flamboyant and controversial characters of Henry VIII's reign. A pioneering poet, whose verse had a profound impact on Shakespeare and the English Renaissance, Surrey was nevertheless branded by one contemporary as 'the most foolish proud boy that is in England.
Stock: In Stock, Delivery: Standard 2-3 Days (inc BFPO), £2.65
Format: Hardback
Published: 05/10/2006
Publisher: VINTAGE
ISBN: 0224063251
|
Our Price £13.20
List Price £20.00
Your Saving £6.80 (34%)
|
Click here to view associated books
Return to Previous Page |
|
|
Reviewed By: |
History Today Magazine |
|
Date: |
25/01/2007 |
|
Reader Rating: |
|
|
Review:
|
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517(?)–47) was an enigma who defies classification – haughty aristocrat and vulgar hell-raiser, scion of England’s leading Catholic family and Protestant activist, Renaissance courtier and cynical satirist of the establishment. His brief life coincided with the mature years of Henry VIII’s reign and may be seen as almost a commentary on the confused and confusing events of the Reformation epoch.
Surrey was the grandson of Thomas Howard, the hero of Flodden, and the son of the thoroughly obnoxious Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. Much of Howard’s instability can be put down to his upbringing in a dysfunctional household. His father was an adulterer and wife-beater who did not hesitate to use his children and relatives to further his own ambition. His mother was a shrew who took delight in embarrassing the duke at court. Surrey was early introduced to the machinations of the royal court when he became the companion of Henry VIII’s illegitimate son, the Duke of Richmond. The two young men were devoted to each other and Surrey was distraught when his friend died at the age of seventeen.
Mourning soon had to be set aside, for Surrey was now involved with his father in the political and military affairs of the kingdom. He travelled north with Norfolk to suppress the Pilgrimage of Grace. He was chief mourner at the funeral of Jane Seymour. He served in Henry’s anti-French campaigns between 1543 and 1546 and was entrusted with diplomatic missions. On the surface Howard was the heir to a great noble house who was on the way to becoming one of the leading English statesmen of the next reign.
That was not to be because there was another side to Henry Howard – hubristic, untamed and untameable. Like Hotspur, he was ‘a wasp-stung and impatient fool’. Intensely proud of his lineage, he felt acutely the ups and downs of fortune which beset the Howards with the rise and fall of their kinswomen, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard and the long and bitter rivalry with Thomas Cromwell. Surrey was not a man, like his father, who could rail inwardly at ill-usage, smile, fawn and flatter his enemies. He did not choose to bridle his tongue or pen
‘I saw a royal throne whereas that Justice should have sit
Instead of whom I saw, with fierce and cruel mode,
Where wrong was set, that bloody beast, that drunk the guiltless blood.’
Quarrels and unruly behaviour landed him in jail more than once, most notably after a high-spirited rampage through the centre of London, smashing windows and abusing citizens. In his defence he claimed to be incensed by the immorality of the capital. There is clear evidence that he was drawn to the new Protestantism, though how far his ‘conversion’ was simply an expression of fashionable, youthful revolt against conventional religion is not clear.
His downfall was the result of court faction in the last weeks of Henry’s reign. The new men – Seymour, Dudley, Wriothesley, et al – were intent on removing the Howard clan from the centre of power. Surrey played into their hands by boasting that his father would hold the reins of government during a minority and by blazoning royal devices on his own coat of arms. A failing Henry was persuaded that the government of young Edward VI would not be safe while Norfolk and Surrey were at liberty. Father and son were duly arrested and Surrey became ‘Henry VIII’s Last Victim’.
This is a rumbustious tale and well worth the retelling but what makes this biography special is the quality of the writing. It is as fluid and engaging as the research is careful and penetrating. Not only does Jessie Childs tell a good story, she sprinkles it with well-chosen examples of Surrey’s verse. For, of course, Surrey and Thomas Wyatt were the twin peaks of early English Renaissance poetry. Both men were steeped in the works of Virgil, Chaucer and Petrarch. In Surrey’s love sonnets, angry diatribes such as ‘London! hast thou accused me’ and, perhaps, most poignantly in his Elegy on the Duke of Richmond, we gain insight into the aspirations and emotions of this cultured courtier. Childs has obviously immersed herself in his work and employs quotation well to help us see the inner man.
This is narrative history at its best and it is heartening to be able to recognise a fresh talent among the new generation of history writers. The jacket blurb tells us that Jessie Childs’ next book will be on the Catholic recusants. It should be worth waiting for.
Derek Wilson is author of Hans Holbein: Portrait of an Unknown Man (revised edition, Pimlico 2006).
|
We found 3 associated Books. Displaying results 1 to 3 of 3
Displaying results 1 to 3 of 3
|
|
