Note (back) — Chapter III

At the head of the latter stood Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, soon to be rewarded for his victory at Flodden by his restoration to the dukedom of Norfolk. He and his son, the third duke, were Lord High Treasurers throughout Henry's reign; but jealousy of their past, Tudor distrust of their rank, or personal limitations, impaired the authority that would otherwise have attached to their official position; and Henry never trusted them as he did ministers whom he himself had raised from the dust. Surrey had served under Edward IV. and Richard III.; he had fought against Henry at Bosworth, been attainted and sent to the Tower. Reflecting that it was better to be a Tudor official at Court than a baronial magnate in prison, he submitted to the King and was set up as a beacon to draw his peers from their feudal ways. The rest of the council were men of little distinction. Shrewsbury, the Lord High Steward, was a pale reflex of Surrey, and illustrious in nought but descent. Charles Somerset, Lord Herbert, who was Chamberlain and afterwards Earl of Worcester, was a Beaufort bastard,[93] and may have derived some little influence from his harmless kinship with Henry VIII. Lovell, the Treasurer, Poynings the Controller of the Household, and Harry Marney, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, were tried and trusty officials. Bishop Fisher was great as a Churchman, a scholar, a patron of learning, but not as a man of affairs; while Buckingham, the only duke in England, and his brother, the Earl of Wiltshire, were rigidly excluded by dynastic jealousy from all share in political authority.