The Ebbs And Flows Of Fortune: The Life Of Thomas Howard, Third Duke Of Norfolk

Features of The Ebbs and Flows of Fortune: The Life of Thomas Howard, Third Duke of Norfolk

Thomas Howard became the third duke of Norfolk during the reign of Henry VIII and was involved in many of the most controversial episodes of that era By some accounts Norfolk became known as the greatest soldier and aristocrat alive under Henry VIIIs rule in Britain a period of transition from medieval to modern and spanning the Renaissance and ReformationIn this first comprehensive biography of Norfolk David M Head confronts the central paradox of Norfolks career Here was a man of enormous ambition and family pride whose talents never matched that ambitiona man whose military and political victories brought him only shortterm rewards often followed by personal disaster A social and religious conservative Norfolk was uncomfortable with reformation ideology and the lowborn men of the court The duke sought a primary position within the court like that earned by Cromwell and Wolsey but was unwilling to perform the sustained hard work required to achieve that stature By the 1540s Norfolk was probably the richest man in England but nonetheless at the hands of Cromwell and Wolsey he was repeatedly exiled from the court for emotional excesses as factional struggles swirled and political rivalries turned personal and bloody Even when exiled from court his military and diplomatic service repeatedly earned him a return to Henrys inner circle a place he proved unable to hold as family disasters undermined his position and the shifts of faction turned against himTo understand Thomas Howard is to grasp the intimate scale of Tudor England and its measurement of power as ones proximity to the crown He serves as a symbol for this age of transitiona nobleman a figure from the feudal past adjusting to a changing age that he did not always understand and to which he could never completely accommodate himself