Earl of Arundel

“ If there were in the world one layman more than another who hated Wycliffe and Lollardism from the centre of his soul, it was that Earl of Arundel to whom Roger's future education was thus entrusted. And the astute statesman who was really—not ostensibly—the ruler of England, knew this quite as well as she did. This was Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, the youngest and cleverest of the sons of Edward III. And we have now arrived at a point in our story which makes it necessary to interpose a few words upon the state of politics at that time. ”

“ And now I must speak of the picture of the Arundel Family. But first, a word about Thomas, Earl of Arundel. It is impossible to write an English work on art and omit a brief account of one of England's greatest art benefactors. Thomas, Earl of Arundel, representing in his day the great house of Howard, had a love of art which approached to a mania; and without being so outrageously vain as Sir Kenelm Digby, there is no doubt that the Earl counted on his art collection as a source of personal distinction. ”

“ Lord Arundel married in 1606 Lady Alethea, daughter and heir of Gilbert Talbot, 7th earl of Shrewsbury, by whom, besides three sons who died young and one daughter, he had John, who predeceased him, Henry Frederick, who succeeded him as 3rd earl of Arundel and earl of Surrey and of Norfolk, and William, Viscount Stafford, executed in 1680. In 1849 the Arundel Society for promoting artistic knowledge was founded in his memory. ”

“ With regard to the title of earl of Arundel, taken by this Philip, eldest son of Thomas, duke of Norfolk, the following passage from Collins's Peerage affords a very ample explanation: "The title of the duke of Norfolk being, by the attainder of this Thomas, thus taken away, Philip, his eldest son, was called earl of Arundel, as owner of Arundel Castle in Sussex, by descent from his mother; it having, in II Henry VI. been adjudged in parliament to be a local dignity, so that the possessors thereof should enjoy that title of honour. ”

“ It became, with Arundel, the property of the D’Albinis, and was destroyed by order of King John, after which the third Earl of Arundel founded on its site the Grey Friars, of which the house was probably built with the materials of the castle. It is said that upon the mound stood a circular or polygonal keep, as at Arundel, and that the traces of its foundations were long visible on its summit. The mound has survived all its Norman additions, and is the only relic of the ancient fortress that is extant. The city, within which the castle stood, is also an early strong place. ”

“ Earl Thomas was in character hot, impulsive, and brave. He was a good soldier, and faithful to his friends ; but he showed a vindictive thirst for revenge on the enemies of his house, and a recklessness which subordinated personal to political aims. He left no children, so that the bulk of his estates was divided among his three surviving sisters, while the castle and lordship of Arundel passed to his second cousin, John V Fitzalan (1387-1421) , grandson of Sir John Arundel, marshal of England, and of his wife, Eleanor Maltravers [see John VI Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel] . ”

“ HE was the only son of William the seventeenth Earl of Arundel, by Anne, daughter of Henry Percy, fourth Earl of Northumberland, and succeeded to the title and estates when about thirty years of age, until which time he had lived apart from public life. ”

“ It would appear that even the Norman nobles had become tired of the horrors of a civil war which had lasted fifteen years, and the Earl of Arundel did not hesitate to say that it was unreasonable that the calamities of the nation should be continued further through the ambition of two princes. Other lords, on both sides, expressed the same sentiments, and entreated the king and the prince to meet together for the purpose of arranging terms of peace. ”

“ SOME NOTES ON ARUNDEL HOUSE, STRAND, AND ON THE DISPERSION OF SCULPTURES FORMERLY PART OF THE ARUNDELIAN COLLECTION.
The celebrated Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, was son of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel—the faithful and constant, who being persecuted for his religion, was suffered by Queen Elizabeth to languish in the Tower, where he died in 1595—and great-grandson of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, the accomplished nobleman who was beheaded in 1547 by "the Nero of the Tudor race." ”

“ He had not dared to reply to Philippa’s entreaty, without seeking in his turn the permission of the Earl of Arundel, in whose hands his fortune lay to make or mar. And, by one of those uncomfortable coincidences which have led to the proverb that “Misfortunes never come single,” it so happened that the news of the Countess’s death had reached the Earl on the very morning whereon Sir Richard laid Philippa’s letter before him. ”

“ Fitz-Alan, the last Earl of Arundel of that name, in the year 1580; which cannot be the truth; for his Lordship died 1579. This Earl, after having served Kings Henry VIII. and Edward VI. and Queen Mary, became likewise high in the favour of Queen Elizabeth, and was Lord Steward of her Household ”

“ He was translated to Canterbury on the death of Courtenay, and consecrated Archbishop, January 11th, 1397. On September 19th of the same year, Arundel was commanded to keep his house; and the day after was solemnly impeached by the House of Commons of high treason, “he having in the eleventh year of the King (1387-8) counselled the said Duke (Thomas of Gloucester) and Earl (Richard of Arundel, his brother) , to take on themselves royal power.” (Rot. Pari, iii. 353.) The Commons entreated on the 25th that the Archbishop might be banished. ”

“ The illness of his father summoned him to Padua in 1645. He stayed with him until his death on 4 Oct. 1646, when he succeeded as third Earl of Arundel and earl-marshal of England. Returning home he found his estate in possession of the parliament, so that he subsisted with difficulty, until the commons, by a vote passed on 24 Nov. ”

“ James I., himself an art collector, so far humoured the Earl in his taste as to present him with Lord Somerset's forfeited collection, valued at a thousand pounds. But Charles I, and the Earl became rival collectors, and little love was lost between them. The Earl of Arundel impairing even his great revenues in the pursuit, employed agents and ambassadors—notably Petty and Evelyn—all over Europe, to obtain for him drawings, pictures, ancient marbles, gems, &c. &c. When the civil wars broke out, Lord Arundel conveyed his priceless collection for safety to Antwerp and Padua. ”

“ Many of these books had been presented by Popes, Cardinals, and great persons, to the Earls of Arundel and Dukes of Norfolk; and the late magnificent Earl of Arundel bought a noble library in Germany, which is in this collection. I should not, for the honor I bear the family, have persuaded the Duke to part with these, had I not seen how negligent he was of them, suffering the priests and everybody to carry away and dispose of what they pleased; so that abundance of rare things are irrecoverably gone. ”

“ Arundel remained on his own estates till the King’s death, when he came forward as a zealous supporter of Mary’s claim to the Crown. At a meeting of the friends of that Princess he made a most stirring and impressive speech, nor did he lose the opportunity thus offered him of attacking the Duke of Northumberland (the Earl of Warwick) for his conduct, past and present, namely, his disloyalty in the reign of Edward, and his actual treason in setting up his daughter-in-law, Jane Grey, as Queen. ”

“ Earl (A.Sax. eorl; Dan. jarl) , a degree of the British nobility between marquess and viscount, the title of highest antiquity in England. The title was made hereditary by William the Conqueror, and for a time was used interchangeably with that of count, the corresponding title on the Continent. The wife of an earl is still called a countess. The earl was the highest in rank of the nobility until Edward III created a duke in 1357, and Richard II a marquess in 1385. The first earl of England is the Earl of Arundel. ”

“ The old Irish soldier, humorous and bemedalled, who keeps watch and ward over the fane, is not the least of its merits.
Although the chancel of the parish church has been closed, permission to enter may occasionally be obtained. It is rich in family tombs of great interest and beauty, including that of the nineteenth Earl of Arundel, the patron of William Caxton. In the siege of Arundel Castle in 1643, the soldiers of the parliamentarians, under Sir William Waller, fired their cannon from the church tower. They also turned the church into a barracks, and injured much stone work beyond repair. ”

“ This vast army came winding along the strand to the castle, which it surrounded, and Richard beheld himself a captive in the midst of his own subjects. At this sight, and the reflections it occasioned, the once arbitrary monarch shuddered, and bewailed his fate. He cursed Northumberland in impotent rage, but was soon called to meet Archbishop Arundel, himself a rebel returned, without asking leave, from banishment, the traitor Duke of Albemarle, and the Earl of Worcester. They knelt in pretended homage, and Richard held a long conversation with Arundel. ”

“ The King replied that ‘the Earl of Arundel is restrained for a misdemeanour which is personal to the King’s Majesty, and has no relation to matters of Parliament.’ The Lords still insisted that it was the Earl’s unquestionable right ‘to be admitted to come, sit, and serve in Parliament.’ Charles released Arundel from the Tower, and then confined him to 184Horsley. Royal evasion did but provoke increased earnestness and firmness from the Peers. At length they resolved that they would suspend public business until the Earl presented himself in his place. |Secretary Conway’s Letter Book, pp. ”

“ In the first year of Charles's reign, Arundel's eldest surviving son Henry Frederick, lord Maltravers, married Elizabeth, daughter of Esmé Stuart, for whom Charles had arranged another match. On this ground the king sent the young couple into confinement at Lambeth, and, to gratify his own and Buckingham's personal hostility to Arundel, ordered him and his wife to be confined first in the Tower and afterwards in their country house at Horseley, Sussex. But the lords demanded Arundel's release so peremptorily that Charles was obliged to yield, and the earl was set at liberty in June 1626. ”

“ On the 6th of June 1644 he was created earl of Norfolk. He died at Padua, when on the point of returning home, on the 14th of September 1646, and was buried at Arundel.
Lord Arundel was a man of high character, an exemplary husband and parent, but reserved and unpopular, and Clarendon ridicules his family pride. His claim to fame rests upon his patronage of arts and learning and his magnificent collections. ”

“ Within a month Earl Robert and the empress Matilda were in England.
Matilda and the Earl of Gloucester landed at Arundel, where the widow of Henry I was dwelling. They had a very small force to support their pretensions. The Earl crossed the country to Bristol. "All England was struck with alarm, and men's minds were agitated in various ways. Those who secretly or openly favored the invaders were roused to more than usual activity against the King, while his own partisans were terrified as if a thunderbolt had fallen." Stephen invested the castle of Arundel. ”

“ Lord Arundel desired to have an Arundel family portrait painted for him by Rubens. The Earl was rather given to having Arundel family portraits, for there are no less than three in which he figures. One by Van Somer, in which the hero is pointing somewhat comically with his truncheon to the statues of his collection in the background, and the last one projected by Van Dyck, but executed by an inferior artist, in which various family pieces of armour, swords, and shields, worn at Flodden, or belonging to the poet Earl of Surrey, are introduced in the hands of the sons of the family. ”

“ Less threatening than his vulture’s nest at Tre Baldwin, [171] less tempting to an enemy than his fortresses on the peninsula of Shrewsbury and within the walls of Chichester, [172] the stronghold of Arundel seems exactly the place for an experienced observer of men and things like Earl Roger to look out from and bide his time. He had to watch the course of things in the three rebel fortresses; he had further to watch what might come from a nearer spot, another break in the hill ground, where, between his doubtful Arundel and rebellious William of Warren at Lewes. ”

“ The Castle of Arundel, and the lands, that had been given to my Lord of Kent when my Lord of Arundel was execute, were granted to Queen Isabel shortly after his ’heading. I think they were given as sop to keep him true to the Queen: not that he was man to be bought, but very like she thought all men were. Dear heart, what strange gear are we human creatures! I marvel at times whether the angels write us down greater knaves or fools.
Note 1. The crystallised juice of the aspen. Earl John of Hereford seems to have been a valetudinarian. ”

“ At this time, if we may trust some French accounts (and the incident might have occurred during the archbishop's visitation of his province) , a new conspiracy against Richard II was hatched at Arundel by the king's turbulent uncle, Gloucester, and the Earls of Arundel and Warwick, to whom the archbishop administered the sacrament to secure their fidelity to each other. The story has been generally discredited — perhaps on insufficient grounds — because no reference to any such conspiracy is made in the proceedings soon afterwards taken in parliament against the earl and archbishop. ”