Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, KG, was an English nobleman, politician and poet. He was one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry and the last known execution by King Henry VIII. He was a first cousin of both Queen Anne Boleyn and Queen Catherine Howard, second and fifth wives of King Henry VIII.
2. Born
He was born in Hunsdon,
Hertfordshire,the eldest son of
Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of
Norfolk by his second wife
Elizabeth Stafford, a daughter of
Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of
Buckingham. He was thus
descended from King Edward I on
his father's side and from King
Edward III on his mother's side.
3. Career
Howard inherited Greystoke Castle from his father in
1824. He represented the constituencies of Steyning
from 30 June 1824 to 8 June 1826 and New Shoreham
from 16 June 1826 to 15 December 1832. He was also
the High Sheriff of Cumberland in 1834.
4. Marriage
He married Frances de
Vere, a daughter of John
de Vere, 15th Earl of
Oxford (by his wife
Elizabeth Trussell) by
whom he had two sons
and three daughters:
5. Earl of surrey
Associated with the royal court, he grew up at Windsor, where he
was a childhood companion to the Duke of Richmond, son of
Henry VIII. Surrey was also a first cousin to Anne Boleyn.
Educated by tutors, he lived an eventful life as a soldier and a
courtier, eventually marrying Lady Frances de Vere, daughter of
the Earl of Oxford.
6. Surrey’s poetry
Surrey’s poetry is often associated with that of Thomas Wyatt, whose work was
published alongside Surrey’s in Tottel’s Miscellany (1557). A major poet of the
16th century, Surrey is credited with developing the Shakespearean form of the
sonnet. He wrote love poems and elegies and translated Books 2 and 4 of
Virgil’s Aeneid as well as Psalms and Ecclesiastes from the Bible. He also
introduced blank verse to English—a form that he used in his translations of
Virgil.
7. Literary activity and legacy
He and his friend Sir Thomas Wyatt were the first English poets to write in the
sonnet form that Shakespeare later used, and Surrey 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 characterises the sonnets
variously named English, Elizabethan, or Shakespearean sonnets.
8. In popular culture
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey was portrayed by actor
David O'Hara in The Tudors, a television series which
ran from 2007 to 2010.
9. Burial
He was buried in
Framlingham Church in
Suffolk, where survives
his spectacular
painted alabaster
tomb.
