Note 4 — Chapter III

— The Earl of Arundel and Lord William Howard were half-brothers. (Lord William Howard was “the Belted Will Howard,” renowned in Border story as the scourge of the lawless moss-trooper. For a description of this remarkable man see Sir Walter Scott’s “Lay of the Last Minstrel.”) The half-brothers were both the sons of that unfortunate nobleman, Thomas fourth Duke of Norfolk, who in 1572 was beheaded for aspiring to the hand of Mary Queen of Scots. Lord Arundel died in the Tower of London in 1595, “a Martyr-in-will for the Ancient Faith.” Though their father was a strong Protestant (being a pupil of John Fox, the author of Fox’s “Book of Martyrs”) both his sons, Philip and William, became strong Roman Catholics, as did his daughter, Margaret Lady Sackville. Philip Howard Earl of Arundel, losing his father when only fifteen years old, was, at an early age, drawn within the vortex of the gaieties of the Court of his kinswoman Queen Elizabeth. However, in the year 1581, while still a mere courtier and votary of pleasure, it happened he was present, we are told, at “the disputation in the Tower of London in 1581, concerning divers points of religion betwixt Fr. Edmond Campion of the Society of Jesus and some other Priests of the one part; Charke, Fulk, Whitaker, and some other Protestant Ministers of the other.” We are further told by his biographer, an unknown Jesuit writer of the seventeenth century, “By that he saw and heard there, he easily perceived on which side the Truth and true Religion was, tho’ at that time, nor untill a year or two after, he neither did nor intended to embrace and follow it: and after he did intend it a good while passed before he did execute it. For, as himself signify’d in a letter which he afterwards writ in the time of his imprisonment in the Tower to Fr. Southwell, he resolved to become Catholic long before he could resolve to live as a Catholic, and thereupon he defer’d the former until he had an intent and resolute purpose to perform the latter. The which (being aided by a special grace of God) he made walking one day alone in the Gallery of his Castle at Arundel, where after a long and great conflict within himself, lifting up his eies and hands to Heaven, he firmly resolved to become a member of God’s Church, and to frame his life accordingly.”

Sir Robert Howard, in the reign of Henry VI., married the Lady Margaret Mowbray, daughter of Thomas De Mowbray Duke of Norfolk, and grand-daughter, maternally, of Richard Fitzalan Earl of Arundel (“Law Times,” 9th November, 1901). The motto of the Howards Dukes of Norfolk is, “Virtus sola invicta” — “Virtue alone unconquered.” The motto of the Howards Earls of Carlisle is, “Volo sed non valeo” — “I am willing, but I am not able.”

The Earl of Arundel was “reconciled” by Fr. Wm. Weston, of the Society of Jesus, in 1584. In the next year he was imprisoned, and after an incarceration of ten years died in 1595. Fr. Robert Southwell, the poet, wrote for the Earl’s consolation, when the latter was in the Tower of London, that ravishing work, the “Epistle of Comfort.” (The illustrious House of the Norfolk Howards has been indeed highly favoured in being able to call “Friend” and “Father” two such exquisite geniuses as Robert Southwell and Frederic William Faber.) The two half-brothers, Philip and William, married two sisters, the daughters and co-heiresses of Thomas Lord Dacres of the North, “a person of great estate, power, and authority in those parts (as possessing no less than nine baronies) and one of the most ancient for nobility in the whole kingdom.” These ladies were among the most amiable and delightful women of their time. From Philip Howard Earl of Arundel and Surrey and Anne Dacres is descended the present Duke of Norfolk; and from his half-brother Lord William Howard and Elizabeth Dacres the present Earl of Carlisle: both of which Englishmen are indeed worthy of their “noble ancestors,” and fulfil the great Florentine poet’s ideal of “the truly noble,” in that they confer nobility upon their race.

For further facts concerning those mentioned in this note — who so appeal to the historic imagination and so touch the historic sympathies — see the “Lives of Philip Howard Earl of Arundel and Anne Dacres his wife” (Hurst & Blackett), and the “Household Books of Lord William Howard” (Surtees Society).