After his father's death, Thomas and his siblings Philip, William and Margaret were left in the care of their uncle Henry Howard, who also took charge of their education.

Forced by the long delay to land his sick and repair his ships, he was barely able to re-ballast and get to sea off Flores in time when his scouts reported an arriving fleet.

All of Howard's fleet escaped, by the barest of margins, except Revenge, commanded by the squadron's vice-admiral, Sir Richard Grenville.

Favoured by Queen Elizabeth, he was installed as a Knight of the Garter in April 1597, and in June sailed with the unsuccessful expedition to the Azores, which he had partly funded.

[11]) A friend of Sir Robert Cecil, he became acting Lord Chamberlain at the close of 1602, and entertained the Queen at the Charterhouse, towards the end of her life in January 1603.

[2] Suffolk accepted a gift from the Spanish ambassador negotiating the peace treaty of 1604, but his countess proved a more valuable informant and Catholic sympathiser.

Later that evening, the Keeper of the Palace, Sir Thomas Knyvet (Suffolk's brother-in-law) made further search, revealing the gunpowder, and the plot collapsed.

Though he disliked Sir Robert Carr, the royal favourite, Suffolk supported his daughter Frances' desire to divorce her husband, the Earl of Essex to marry him.

However, Suffolk then made the mistake of attempting to undermine the rising power of Villiers by grooming another handsome young man to succeed him in James's favour.

Under James, the situation was somewhat eased by his preferment at court, which gave him board and lodging and valuable emoluments, and the regrant of some of the sequestered estates of his father.

He had been forced to sell his London residence, the Charterhouse, in 1611, but this was replaced in 1614 when he inherited the Earl of Northampton's house at Charing Cross.

He also added an expensive new wing to Charing Cross, and his wife built Charlton Park on the Knyvett estates she had inherited.

He spent considerable sums to keep up their profile at court, and provided generous marriage portions to improve their matches.

His appointment as Lord High Treasurer in 1614 provided the opportunity to ameliorate his financial position through selling patronage and through deals with customs farmers, although it did not completely relieve his debts.

Early in 1619, his wife suffered an attack of smallpox which destroyed her famous beauty, and Suffolk himself pleaded ill health in an attempt to avoid trial.

These efforts failed: in October 1619, he, his wife, and their crony Sir John Bingley, Remembrancer of the Exchequer were prosecuted on a variety of counts of corruption in the Court of Star Chamber.

Sir Francis Bacon, the prosecutor, compared Lady Suffolk to an exchange woman keeping shop while her apprentice, Bingley, cried "What d'ye lack?"

Although Suffolk further irritated James by legal manoeuvres to avoid seizure of his property, Buckingham was willing to be magnanimous to his rival now that his power had been destroyed.