Francis Bacon included three of his sayings in his Apophthegms, and chose him as "the learnedest councillor in the kingdom to present to the king his Advancement of Learning.

Between his maternal and paternal families, the religious differences were notable: his maternal grandfather was a supporter of the Reformation and was the first Protestant earl of Oxford, whereas his paternal grandfather was the premier Roman Catholic nobleman of England although he had complied with the changes in the governance of the Church of England brought about by Henry VIII, and served the King in suppressing rebellion against those changes.

Henry, who was increasingly unwell, became convinced that Surrey and his father planned to usurp the crown from Edward in order to reverse the Reformation and thus return the English Church to papal jurisdiction.

The Privy Council made a decision not to inaugurate the new reign with bloodshed, but Howard remained a prisoner in the Tower of London for the next six years, with most of his property and titles forfeit to the Crown.

[5] After Surrey's death, his sister Mary Howard, Dowager Duchess of Richmond took over the care of his children and John Foxe, the Protestant martyrologist was employed to be their tutor, at the suggestion of Lord Wentworth.

[6] Despite being educated by Foxe, both Henry and his siblings were Catholics, as were most of his paternal family, who remained loyal to the Roman Church during the turmoil of the Reformation.

As soon as the 3rd Duke was released, he took over the upbringing of Henry and his siblings, dismissing Foxe, who soon had to go into exile in various countries of Continental Europe to escape the anti-Protestant measures taken by Queen Mary.

He afterwards joined Trinity Hall, read Latin lectures on rhetoric and civil law in public, and applied to a friend in London for a master to teach him the lute.

When Norfolk was arrested in September 1571, accused of being involved in the Ridolfi plot to overthrow Elizabeth and then release Mary I Stewart, Queen of Scots from her imprisonment to marry her and jointly accede to the English throne, Laurence Bannister, one of the Duke's confidential agents, testified that Henry was the one who really intended to marry the former Scottish queen.

About 1580 he circulated a manuscript tract in support of the scheme for the marriage of Elizabeth with François, Duke of Anjou, in answer to John Stubbe's Discoverie of a Gaping Gulf (1579), and at Burghley's request began a reply to a pamphlet denouncing female government, which he completed in 1589.

In 1582 his cousin Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, quarrelled with him, and revived the charges of heresy and of treasonable correspondence with Mary.

He was again arrested, and defended himself at length in a letter to Elizabeth, in which he admitted that he had taken part in Roman Catholic worship owing to conscientious difficulties on the sacramentary, but denied that he could win Mary Stuart's favour.

[1][4] Howard helped his great-nephew, Thomas Howard, Lord Maltravers to regain royal favour following the Scottish monarch's accession to the English throne as James I. Maltravers and his mother, the widowed Countess of Arundel had suffered economic and political difficulties in the 1580s and 1590s due to their Catholicism [15] and the attainder of the 13th Earl in 1589 following his conviction for treason, which led to forfeiture of his title and property.

He was one of the judges at the trials of Walter Raleigh and Lord Cobham in 1603, of Guy Fawkes in 1605, and of Henry Garnet in 1606, in each case pressing for a conviction.

Howard organised the welcome of the Spanish ambassador, Juan Fernández de Velasco y Tovar, 5th Duke of Frías, Constable of Castile, who came to sign the treaty in August.

The Constable was brought up the Thames in a boat, admiring the sights, including Anne of Denmark and her companions who attended in a barge near the Tower of London wearing black masks.

Both Northampton and her father Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk represented her in an interview with Essex held at Whitehall in May 1613, in the hope of obtaining his assent to a divorce.

When, however, the divorce was obtained, Somerset's intimate acquaintance, Sir Thomas Overbury, dissuaded him from pursuing the project of marriage with Lady Frances.

Northampton himself commissioned the construction of the spectacular painted alabaster tomb richly decorated with the coats of arms and heraldic animals of the Howard and De Vere families, which was erected at Framlingham to house the remains of his parents.

[4][23] During the funeral of Anne of Denmark in May 1619, a large stone letter 'S' fell from the battlements of the frontispiece of Northampton House on the procession, killing one William Appleyard.