Charles, Lord Howard of Effingham was the son of Lord William Howard, and grandson of Thomas Howard, second duke of Norfolk. Under his father, who was lord-high-admiral of England, he served with much distinction both by land and sea; and when the Spanish Armada was approaching the shores of England in 1588, he was himself promoted to the office which his father had so ably filled. It was mainly owing to his valour and nautical skill that that mighty armament was foiled, and Elizabeth evinced her sense of his services, by granting him a life-pension. In 1596, he held the joint command along with Essex of the English expedition against Cadiz, and on returning home was again rewarded for his services by the queen, who created him Earl of Nottingham. This act of Elizabeth's is the more creditable to her, that Essex, piqued at not being entrusted with the supreme command, had ungenerously tried to poison her mind against one of her most able and faithful servants. In 1599, when danger again threatened on the side of Spain, and Essex's conduct in Ireland seemed to indicate rebellion, Howard was made lieutenant-general of the kingdom, with the command-in-chief of all the forces, naval and military. In the six weeks during which he held this office, he crushed his old rival and brother-in-arms, who had raised the standard of revolt in Ireland; but instead of trampling upon his fallen foe, he treated him with a noble generosity and forbearance, of which that foe had shown himself little worthy. Elizabeth's death made no change in Howard's position at court. Her successor frequently availed himself of his services in delicate and important affairs. Some years before his death, Howard resigned his office of lord-high-admiral in favour of Villiers Earl of Buckingham, receiving in exchange a pension of L1000. He died, December 14, 1624, in the eighty-seventh year of his age, after one of the most useful and honourable careers that ever fell to the lot of an English seaman to pass through.

Henry, Earl of Surrey, one of the most gallant and accomplished of English nobles, and the first of our poets who composed in blank verse, was the eldest son of Thomas the third Duke of Norfolk. The exact date and place of his birth have not been ascertained, but the former is usually assigned to the year 1517. Of a family illustrious for rank, fortune, alliances, and public services, Surrey was early introduced to court, and he formed an intimacy, which soon ripened into a close and tender friendship with the king's natural son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond. While yet a boy, we find Surrey in attendance at court as cup-bearer to the king. In 1532, along with his young friend Richmond, he accompanied the sovereign to Boulogne, and in the following year he assisted as one of the sword-bearers at the marriage of Henry with Anne Boleyn. About this period, or even earlier, Surrey was affianced to the Lady Francis Vere, daughter of the Earl of Oxford, while Richmond was in like manner contracted to the Lady Mary Howard, Surrey's sister. The actual marriage of Surrey did not take place till 1535, and that of Richmond was prevented by his premature death, in July 1536. Previous to this time Surrey seems to have been enamoured of a certain Lady Geraldine, who has puzzled his biographers, and served as the groundwork of a series of romantic fictions. Some of the love sonnets of the noble poet may be purely fanciful imitations of Petrarch, in accordance with the taste and chivalrous gallantry of the age, but in one he gives a minute account of the lady of his affections:

"From Tuscane came my lady's worthy race; Fair Florence was some time her ancient seat: The Western Isle whose pleasant shores doth face Wild Cambria's cliffs first gave her lively heat; Fostered she was with milk of Irish breast; Her sire an earl, her dame of prince's blood, From tender years in Britain did she rest With king's child, where she tasteth costly food. Hamson did first present her to mine eyen, Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight. Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine, And Windsor, alas! doth chase me from her sight."

This array of biographical particulars indicates a real personage, and Horace Walpole set himself to prove that the lady was a daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, whose family is said to have been descended from one of the Dukes of Tuscany. Various circumstances concur to establish this theory, but the lady could only have been a child when Surrey wrote his sonnet, unless we suppose that his attachment had, contrary to good faith and true knighthood, taken place after his marriage. Founding upon this sonnet, Tom Nash, one of the most lively and unscrupulous satirists and miscellaneous writers of the reign of Elizabeth, put forth a singular romance, the pretended journey and adventures of Surrey in Italy on a visit to Florence, the assumed birth-place of his Geraldine. Nash's invention imposed upon Drayton, and being adopted by Anthony à Wood in his Athenea (with sundry additions, and Nash's authorship concealed), was continued as a genuine narrative by Walpole, Warton, and others. According to this historical romance, Surrey travelled like an Amadis, proclaiming the charms of his mistress, and prepared to defend her beauty in the spirit of knight errantry. On his way to Florence he passed a few days at the emperor's court, and there met Cornelius Agrippa, a celebrated adept in natural magic, who, in his mirror of glass, showed him the lively image of his Geraldine, "weeping on her bed, and resolved all into devout religion for the absence of her lord." Inflamed by the spectacle, Surrey hastened to Florence, and published a defiance to all knights and lovers, whether Christian, Jew, Turk, Saracen, or cannibal, who should presume to dispute the superiority of his Geraldine's beauty. The challenge was accepted, the Grand Duke permitting the combat, and opening the lists to all nations, and Surrey, of course, proved victorious. The shield which he presented to the duke before the tournament began, being preserved by the Norfolk family, and engraved by Vertue! The whole of this story—the continental journey, magic mirror, and tournament, was the invention of Nash, and is related in his Life of Jack Wilton, published in 1594. The literary fraud remained undiscovered till 1810, when Alexander Chalmers, in his edition of the English Poets, partially separated the truth of Surrey's history from the fable that had been blended with it, and Dr Neill, in his Memoir of Surrey, completed the detection. At the time of the pretended journey, the noble poet was in England anticipating the birth of his son, who was born on the 10th of March 1536. In May, of this year, the trial of Anne Boleyn took place, and Surrey was present as Earl Marshal, in the room of his father, who presided as Lord Treas- Howard, surer. In October he obtained the honour of knighthood from the king. At all the pageants and tournaments of the court, he was a conspicuous actor, and when war with France was threatened, we find him no less prominent in important public service. In 1540 he was joined in a commission with Lord Russell and the Earl of Southampton to visit the English Pale at Guines, and place the defences in proper order. He returned before Christmas. In the following year an incident is related, which, though involved, like other events in his career, in some obscurity, seems to illustrate at once his personal influence and magnanimity of character. Sir Edward Knyvett, a person high in court favour, assaulted Surrey's friend and attendant, Thomas Clerc, having struck him within the precincts of the palace. The indignity would probably have been passed over as inflicted only on a subordinate, but Surrey took it up warmly, and succeeded in bringing Knyvett to trial, the result of which was, that the knight was convicted and sentenced to lose his right hand. At this point Surrey again interposed. The public trial and conviction he deemed sufficient punishment, and at his intercession the sentence was remitted.

In 1542, the king conferred upon Surrey the distinction of the order of the garter. He seems, however, to have fallen into temporary disgrace the same year, in consequence of having quarrelled with, and challenged a certain John-à-Leigh of Middlesex. His conduct in this matter must have been violent and blamable, for he was committed to the Fleet, and only obtained his release after making a humble supplication to the privy council (in which he speaks of the "fury of reckless youth," and promises to "bridle in his heady will"), and by entering into recognizances to keep the peace to John-à-Leigh and his friends. A better field for his impetuosity and courage was soon opened up. War with Scotland was declared. Henry, indignant at his nephew, James V., who had failed to meet him at a conference appointed to be held at York, and who had otherwise offended the imperious monarch, ordered the Duke of Norfolk to proceed to the borders with a force of 40,000 men to chastise and lay waste the country. Surrey, attended by Thomas Clerc, accompanied his father on this expedition, and the English army unresisted, ravaged the border districts, burning two towns and twenty villages on the banks of the Tweed. What part Surrey took in this affair, or what command he held, is not stated, but in his epitaph on Clerc, he mentions that his follower, tracing the steps of his lord, "saw Kelso [Kelso] blaze." The short and destructive raid was over by the end of November 1542. On the 1st of April following, Surrey is ascertained to have been in London, the records of the privy council of that date furnishing another instance of his "heady will." It appears that with two companions, Wyatt and Pickering, he was summoned to the council on a complaint by the mayor, recorder, and aldermen, of the city, charging him with having, "in a lewd and unseemly manner," walked in the night about the streets, breaking the windows of the citizens with his stone-bow; and farther, that he had been guilty of eating flesh during the time of Lent. The first and most serious of these offences he did not attempt to deny: he acknowledged that he had "very evil doings therein;" but touching the eating of flesh, he alleged a license, "albeit he had not so secretly used the same as appertained." He was sent to the Fleet for a month; and he took revenge on the citizens, by inditing a poetical satire against them, in which he gravely alleges, that he woke the sluggards with his bow as a reproof to them for their dissolute life and sins—

"The which by words since preachers know What hope is left for to redress, By unknown means it liked me, My hidden burden to express."

This must be taken as ironical; but throughout the whole satire Surrey appears in the character of a devout and dignified denouncer of the vices of "false Babylon," on which he says the martyrs' blood calls for justice, and the Lord would hear their desire! We cannot but think that there was something more in this case than mere riotous excess and youthful folly. But Surrey was soon called off by military service from any further display of his unruly piet. War had been declared against France, and Surrey joined the auxiliary army under Sir John Wallop, encamped before Landrecy. He applied himself diligently to the study of military fortifications and tactics, and one day, when visiting the trenches, he made a narrow escape from a piece of ordnance shot towards him. On the approach of winter the siege of Landrecy was raised, the army went into quarters, and Surrey returned to England. Next summer he was again in the field, holding the important post of marshal of the vanguard commanded by his father. The troops under Norfolk and Surrey besieged Montreuil, but were inadequately supported, owing chiefly, it is said, to the jealousy and enmity of the Earl of Hertford, who kept back supplies; but there was no lack of military skill or bravery. Surrey distinguished himself by daring expeditions against the enemy, and on an attempt to storm the town he effected a lodgement within the gates, but was dangerously wounded and carried off by his attendant Clerc. In this service Clerc himself received a hurt which ultimately proved fatal.

"At Montreuil gates, hopeless of all recure, Thine Earl, half dead, gave in thy hand his will, Which cause did thee this plaining death procure."

The English were compelled to raise the siege of Montreuil. The Dauphin was approaching with an army of 60,000 men, and Norfolk's vanguard, though strengthened by reinforcements, was unable to cope with such a force. A retreat was resolved upon, which was ably conducted by Surrey as marshal of the camp. Boulogne had capitulated to Henry in person, and it was necessary to guard and maintain an acquisition so dearly purchased and highly valued. In the summer of 1543 Surrey again sailed for France, as commander of a body of 5000 men raised and equipped for a new expedition. He was shortly afterwards appointed governor or king's lieutenant of Boulogne; and both in his plans of defence, and in operations in the field, he fully sustained his reputation. One great effort, however, unfortunately proved a failure. He attempted to intercept a convoy of provisions for the enemy near St Etienne, but the defence was obstinate, and one of Surrey's attacking columns of infantry fled back in a sudden panic, which threw the army into disorder, and the day was lost. This disastrous affair was seized upon by Lord Hertford to incense the king against Surrey, and within a few months he was recalled, his successful rival being appointed the king's lieutenant-general. Prudence was never one of the virtues of Surrey, and his indignation at the intrigues of Hertford was openly and fiercely manifested, accompanied by expressions importing that he would be revenged in the next king's reign. The jealousy of Henry was roused by these declarations, and Surrey was sent a prisoner to Windsor Castle. He succeeded, however, in softening if not removing the royal displeasure, and in August of the same year he is again seen in attendance at court. This glimpse of favour soon vanished never to be renewed. On the 12th of December Surrey was arrested and committed to the Tower, and on the same day his father was also consigned to the Tower, each being ignorant of the other's fate. There can be no doubt that it is to the Hertford faction that we must attribute this decisive step. The king was known to be dying, and Hertford, as uncle of the heir to the throne, aspired to be protector of the kingdom during the minority of his nephew. The family of Norfolk stood between him and his ambition. The Duke was head of the Roman Catholics, and the most opulent and powerful nobleman in the kingdom. His son, the Earl of Surrey, was likely to extend