Many of the leading figures at the Elizabethan court, like the queen’s chief minister, William Cecil, Lord Burghley and the royal favourite Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, need no introduction. However, there were many other prominent men at the Elizabethan court, some of whom remain obscure even to Elizabethan historians. In the following blog, Dr Andrew Thrush, the editor of our House of Lords 1558-1603 section, turns the spotlight on the little-known Henry Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, whose papers have regrettably long since vanished…
The last of the Fitzalans, Earl Henry was a member of one of the oldest aristocratic dynasties in England. Indeed, his family had held the earldom of Arundel since the early thirteenth century. He was also extremely wealthy, having a large estate in Sussex, with other lands scattered throughout southern England. Born in 1512, three years after the accession of Henry VIII, Arundel first achieved high office in 1546, when he was appointed lord chamberlain. However, it was under Mary I that he attained a position of great prominence, as Mary, thankful for his support against Lady Jane Grey, promoted him to lord steward and also made him lord president of the Privy Council.
Seniority of rank was no guide to ability, of course. Contemporary observers regarded Arundel as a light-weight. The Imperial ambassador, for example, thought him ‘silly’, while Spanish diplomats considered him ‘flighty’ and ‘weak’. He was certainly unable to control his temper and did not like to be contradicted. On one occasion early in Elizabeth I’s reign he and the lord admiral, Lord Clinton, quarrelled so vehemently that they ‘fell to fisticuffs and grabbing each other’s beards’, to the considerable embarrassment of the queen, who witnessed this childish behaviour. However, it would be a mistake to write off Arundel as inconsequential.
Despite his character flaws, Arundel was an important figure at the Elizabethan court because he was regarded as potentially dangerous. His wealth and landed estate made him powerful. So too did his connections: until recently he had been father-in-law to the queen’s cousin, Thomas Howard, 4th duke of Norfolk, England’s premier peer. There was also the fact that, like many members of the ancient nobility, Arundel clung to the Catholic faith. Unless handled carefully, he might easily become a rallying point for disaffected members of the nobility and gentry alike. He was certainly a popular figure. When, in April 1567, he travelled to London through Kent, having spent some time in northern Italy, he was accompanied by six or seven hundred members of the gentry of Kent, Surrey and Sussex. By the time he reached the capital, his entourage had reportedly swollen to more than 2,000, including many of London’s aldermen and several of his fellow nobles.
From the very start of her reign, Elizabeth had the good sense to treat Arundel with kid gloves. When Arundel, then one of the commissioners entrusted with the task of negotiating a peace with France, returned to England without her permission in late 1559, Elizabeth neither upbraided him nor sent him back. On the contrary, she let his presumption go unpunished and instead confirmed him in office as lord steward. She also allowed him to retain his seat on the Privy Council, whereas four other Catholics lost theirs, among them Arundel’s Sussex neighbour, Viscount Montagu. Moreover, she allowed Arundel to play a central role in her coronation, appointing him lord high steward and constable of England for the occasion.
One reason Elizabeth trod so carefully was that she could not afford to alienate such a powerful Catholic peer before she secured parliamentary approval for the restoration of the royal supremacy and the Protestant faith. Arundel might otherwise serve as the focus of Catholic opposition in the Lords. This consideration probably explains why, before Parliament met, Elizabeth encouraged Arundel to believe that she might marry him, despite the more than twenty-year difference in their ages. The earl was completely taken in by this deception, and showered the queen’s ladies-in-waiting with jewels in the hope that they would further his suit. A few weeks after Parliament assembled in January 1559, Arundel made himself scarce, pleading illness, presumably to avoid incurring the queen’s displeasure, as he would have found it difficult to avoid allying himself in Parliament with fellow Catholic peers opposed to the reintroduction of Protestantism. Although he resumed his seat some weeks later, he quickly withdrew again.
Arundel seems to have been slow to discover that he had been deceived. As late as August 1559, in a bold attempt to win the queen’s hand, he lavishly entertained the queen at Nonsuch, the former royal palace he had bought from Queen Mary. However, the following year he learned that Elizabeth was amorously involved with Lord Robert Dudley. Thereafter, he proved to be something of a thorn in the queen’s side, though it soon became clear that he was less dangerous than was at first feared.
Arundel, in fact, was his own worst enemy. In July 1564 he lost his temper with the queen and surrendered his staff of office, for which offence he was placed under house arrest for the next five months. He thereby deprived himself of his key position at court. Sullen and resentful, he spent the next few years trying to avoid matters of state. However, he returned to the fray in 1569, when he and the duke of Norfolk began plotting with the Spanish ambassador to overthrow the queen’s chief minister, William Cecil, whom they blamed for Elizabeth’s hostility to her heir apparent, Mary, Queen of Scots. Arundel saw in Mary, by now Elizabeth’s prisoner, the best chance of restoring England to the Catholic faith. However, neither he nor Norfolk was ever able to deliver the coup they promised as they proved unable to win over Dudley, now earl of Leicester.
The following year Arundel became implicated in a plot to marry Norfolk to Mary, which Elizabeth considered treasonable. Indeed, according to Norfolk, the plan actually originated with Arundel. As a result, Arundel was once again placed under restraint, and only released in April 1570, after the suppression of the rebellion of the Northern Earls, the first serious Catholic conspiracy of the reign. Between September 1571 and December 1572 he was again imprisoned, this time in the Tower of London, after it was discovered that he was closely involved in the Ridolfi Plot, a Spanish-backed scheme which aimed to overthrow Elizabeth and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. However, his life, unlike Norfolk’s, was spared as it was clearly Norfolk who posed the major threat. Following his release, Arundel was permitted to resume his seat on the Council. This was a surprising decision, perhaps, but as Dr Neil Younger has recently shown, the Elizabethan Privy Council was never the sole preserve of Protestants but included many Catholics and crypto-Catholics, among them the well-known Sir Christopher Hatton. Besides, it may have been expected that Arundel would not live much longer as by then he was in poor health. In fact, he did not die until February 1580, whereupon his lands and titles descended to Philip Howard, the eldest son of his fellow conspirator, the late duke of Norfolk.
ADT
Further reading:
Neil Younger, ‘How Protestant was the Elizabethan Regime?’, English Historical Review, vol. 133 (2018)
Stephen Alford, The Early Elizabethan Polity (1998)
Wallace MacCaffrey, The Shaping of the Elizabethan Regime (1969)
The History of Parliament 