Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk KG PC (1443 – 21 May 1524), styled Earl of Surrey from 1483 to 1485 and again from 1489 to 1514, was an English nobleman, soldier and statesman who served four monarchs.On 14 January 1478 he was knighted by Edward IV at the marriage of the King's second son, the young Duke of York, and Lady Anne Mowbray (died 1481).[3] Both Howards remained close to King Richard throughout his two-year reign, and fought for him at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, where Surrey was wounded and taken prisoner, and his father killed.In 1501 he was involved in the negotiations for Katherine of Aragon's marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales, and in 1503 conducted Margaret Tudor to Scotland for her wedding to King James IV.On 1 February 1514, at the age of 71, he was created 2nd Duke of Norfolk, his late father's title, and his son Thomas was made Earl of Surrey.Both were granted lands and annuities, and the Howard arms were augmented in honour of Flodden with an inescutcheon bearing the lion of Scotland pierced through the mouth with an arrow.He withdrew from court, resigned as Lord Treasurer in favour of his son in December of that year, and after attending the opening of Parliament in April 1523, retired to his ducal castle at Framlingham in Suffolk where he died on 21 May 1524.His funeral and burial on 22 June at Thetford Priory were said to have been "spectacular and enormously expensive, costing over £1300 and including a procession of 400 hooded men bearing torches and an elaborate bier surmounted with 100 wax effigies and 700 candles", befitting the richest and most powerful peer in England.
Howard
augmentation of honour
, awarded to Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk after the Battle of Flodden (1513):
Or, a demi-lion rampant pierced through the mouth by an arrow within a double tressure flory-counterflory-gules
, to be borne on the bend in the Howard arms
Right
: Elizabeth Tilney, first wife of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk. On her
kirtle
, she displays her paternal arms
Azure a chevron between three griffin's heads erased or
(Tilney) and on her mantle the quartered arms of Howard (1&4:
Gules a bend between six cross crosslets fitchy argent
(Howard); 2&3: grand quarterly first and fourth Brotherton second and third Mowbray). Below is inscribed in Latin:
Elizabeta nat(a) Tilney ux(or) Thomae Howard
("Elizabeth born Tilney wife of Thomas Howard").
Left:
Elizabeth Talbot de Mowbray, Duchess of Norfolk
. Stained glass in Holy Trinity Church,
Long Melford
, Suffolk
Sketch of the grave of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk. He was originally buried at Thetford St. Mary's Priory Church, but was removed by his son after the dissolution of that house in 1537, and may have been moved to Lambeth, but no trace of his tomb was to be found when John Aubrey visited there in the 1690s. The church itself was substantially rebuilt.