Norfolk, Thomas Howard (1473–1554)

English soldier, brother-in-law of Henry VII and a leading Catholic politician under Henry VIII and Mary Tudor. He served at the Battle of Flodden in 1513 and was appointed Lord High Admiral in 1531. He led various campaigns against the French in the 1520s and returned to England to oppose Wolsey. He subsequently saw two nieces, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, marry Henry VIII. His willingness to preside over his nieces' trials and executions proved his loyalty to the king, even though he remained conservative in religion and opposed Thomas Cromwell's reforms. He was arrested in 1546 when his son and heir, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, claimed during Henry's last illness that his father should be protector for the young Edward VI. Though his son was beheaded, the duke was saved by Henry's own death, and he was released from the Tower by Queen Mary I.