Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

1517-1547. Aristocrat and poet who, with Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542), introduced into England the styles and metres of the Italian humanist poets.

Life

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey was born in Hunsdon, Hertfordshire, in 1517. He was the first born son of Thomas Howard, and Lady Elizabeth Stafford (daughter of the Duke of Buckingham). Surrey was of royal descent on both sides of his family. After the death of his grandfather, Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey and 2nd Duke of Norfolk, he inherited the title Earl of Surrey. In 1532, he married Lady Frances de Vere, the oldest daughter of the Earl of Oxford, but due to both their young ages, they only started to live together in 1535.

In 1532 Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey accompanied the Duke of Richmond, King Henry VIII, and Anne Boleyn to France for a meeting. He stayed there for almost a year as a member of the entourage of Francis I of France. In 1533 he came back to England to take part in the coronation of Anne Boleyn.

In 1536 he was in trouble because Jane Seymour became queen, and the Seymours, a rival faction of the Howards, began their scheming. In 1537, the Howards were accused by the Seymours of supporting the rebels of the Pilgrimage of Grace. The accusations were false because Henry Howard had fought to put down the rebellion.

In 1546 the Howards were the obvious regents for Prince Edward, Henry VIII’s son by Jane Seymour. The Seymours convinced Henry VIII that Earl of Surrey had planned to usurp the crown from his son Edward and that he was still a close adherent to the Roman Catholic faith. In January 1547 Henry Howard was executed on Tower Hill.

Literary Contribution

The wave of anti-Catholicism aroused by the Reformation also affected England and put a brake on its contacts with Italy. Yet it is on Italian schemes that the best poetry of this time is modeled. It was in this period that Sir Thomas Wyatt introduced the Petrarchan sonnet into England.

The Petrarchan sonnet was later modified by the Earl of Surrey, who, in his translation of the second and fourth books of Virgil's Aeneid, was the first to use blank verse in English. As for the Petrarchan sonnet, he understood that the scarcity of rhymes in the English language was a handicap, so he introduced a modified version of the original Petrarchan model. Whereas Petrarch’s sonnets are divided into two quatrains and a sestet, Surrey’s sonnets are developed in three quatrains and conclude with a couplet, which adds an epigrammatic tone to the poem. The rhyme pattern is different, too. It is this type of sonnet, more suitable to the English language, that will be brought to perfection by Shakespeare at the end of the century.

Sources

• http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/575369/Henry-Howard-Earl-of-Surrey
• Nagel, Heinrich Adolph (1989): Sir Thomas Wyatt und Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, eine literatur- und sprachgeschichtliche Studie. Mengerinhausen. Weigel'schen Hofbuchdruckerei.
• Tucker, Melvin J (1964): THE LIFE OF THOMAS HOWARD EARL OF SURREY AND SECOND DUKE OF NORFOLK. 1443-1524. London, The Hague, Paris. Mouton & Co.