After the death of the apostate 11th Duke of Norfolk in 1815, the dukedom was inherited by his distant cousin, Henry Howard of Glossop. The 12th Duke (1815-42) was a cisalpine Catholic and a Whig; there are frequent descriptions by the politician and diarist Thomas Creevey of him (variously referred to as “Barney”, “Twitch” and “Scroop”) at Brooks’s and elsewhere. He took his seat in the House of Lords after Catholic Emancipation in 1829. A generous patron of small Catholic churches and chapels – eg the classical All Saints, Old Glossop of 1834-36 (Weightman and Hadfield) and the Perpendicular Gothic St Mary, Worksop (1838-40) by the same architects – he refused in 1838 to contribute to the building of Pugin’s St George’s, Southwark on the grounds that he “disapproved of large edifices”.
The 13th Duke (1842-56) – described by Creevey as “odious” because of his arrogance – was in his earlier days a patron of Catholic causes and for instance gave the land for what is now St Marie’s Cathedral, Sheffield. (Weightman & Hadfield 1846-50). However, he reacted strongly against what he regarded as the injudicious restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in 1850 and conformed to the Established Church, until his deathbed when he received the Last Rites from his chaplain, Canon Tierney.
The 14th Duke (1856-60) was an extremely pious Catholic and architectural patron. Interestingly he did not accept Pugin’s forceful and exclusive Gothicism. The former wrote to Ambrose Phillipps de Lisle in May 1850: “Why do you call one particular branch of Art, however beautiful, Christian Art? It appears to me to be at least strange in a Catholic to forget that under the much abused Churches of Roman and Greek form so many saints have received their inspirations.” He demonstrated this view by paying for the classical Little Oratory in Brompton by JJ Scoles as well as building a private Gothic chapel at Arundel Castle. He was a great Catholic benefactor, giving away most of his income to churches, convents and seminaries. He died young, at the age of 45.
Henry Fitzalan Howard, 15th Duke of Norfolk (1860-1917), is probably the beau ideal of what a Catholic nobleman should be. Sir Almeric Fitzroy wrote of him: “In every obligation of life faithful to the highest ideals, a great nobleman and the leading Catholic layman, he is punctual in the discharge of the most trivial courtesies as of the most solemn duties, an excellent man of business, an admirable host, a charming companion and a most humble-minded Christian, he fills his position with lustre and completeness, and yet with modesty and self-effacement.”
He was born at his parents’ house at Carlton House Terrace on December 27, 1847. The courtesy title of Lord Maltravers was initially given to him. He was educated at Cardinal Newman’s Oratory School at Edgbaston, but unable for religious reasons to go to Cambridge, as he wished, he completed his education by going on a prolonged Grand Tour. He came of age in 1868.
He was determined to protect and encourage his co-religionists. He purchased the buildings of the Venerable English College in Rome in 1876 after its confiscation by the Committee for the Liquidation of the Ecclesiastical State of Rome and its subsequent sale, and returned them to the seminary. He encouraged Newman to write his Letter to the Duke of Norfolk after Gladstone had attacked the dual loyalty of Catholics. He gradually came to act as the principal link between the British government and the Vatican. In 1877 he married Lady Flora Abney-Hastings at the London Oratory; she sadly died a decade later. In politics he initially followed his immediate forebears by sitting as a Liberal in the House of Lords. Home Rule eventually drove him into the Conservative Party. In 1886 he accepted the Garter from Lord Salisbury. From 1895 to 1900 he was Postmaster-General before he quixotically at the age of 53 went off to fight in the Boer War. He was first Lord Mayor of Westminster from 1900 to 1901 and Lord Lieutenant of Sussex from 1905. In 1904 he, happily, married his cousin the Hon Gwendolen Constable-Maxwell, the heiress of the Everingham estate in Yorkshire, with whom he had four children. In 1910 and 1911 he acted as Earl Marshal at the funeral of Edward VII and the coronation of George V.
The 15th Duke was a great church builder. On his coming of age in 1868 he commissioned JA Hansom to build the church of Our Lady and St Philip Neri in Arundel in 13th-century French Gothic style. It was opened in 1873 by Cardinal Manning. With its flèche over the sanctuary it dominates the town to this day. The interior is dominated by its soaring nave, western rose window and sanctuary with narrow ambulatory. The stained glass is by John Hardman Powell. In 1965 the church became the Cathedral of the new Diocese of Arundel and Brighton, being rededicated to Our Lady and St Philip Howard in the process.
St Joseph, Handsworth (Sheffield) was built at his expense in Perpendicular Gothic red sandstone by ME Hadfield in 1879-1881.
In 1884, to commemorate his first marriage, he commissioned the convert George Gilbert Scott Junior to build the splendid church of St John the Baptist in Norwich in Early English style. Its grey stone bulk with central tower dominates the southern end of Norwich. The interior is dominated by its large circular piers. The quality of the furnishings with stained glass by Powell and Hardman is superb. The church became the cathedral of the new Diocese of East Anglia in 1976.
The Duke started his reconstruction of Arundel Castle in the 1870s. Work continued until the 1890s. The chapel was erected in 1894-8 to the design of the convert Charles Alban Buckler. It is a masterpiece of the Gothic Revival, inspired by Lincoln Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. The interior is lavishly embellished with Purbeck marble, carving and stained glass.
The stone-built church of Our Lady Star of the Sea, Lytham St Anne’s, Lancashire was paid for by the 15th Duke, provided it commemorated his duchess Flora. It was designed by Peter Paul Pugin in stone Early English style and built 1888-90.
The 15th Duke paid for The Guardian Angels, Mile End Road, London, a red-brick Perpendicular church of 1901-03 by FA Walters, in memory of his sister Lady Margaret Howard.
His neo-Norman stone church of Our Lady of Lourdes, Ashby-de -la-Zouch, Leicestershire was designed by the same architect in 1913, although work continued for a number of years after that,
His churches at Angmering (1872, now part of the adjacent primary school) and Shoreham (1875 by Buckler, closed 1982, and subsequently converted into flats) had less happy fates.
He was a major benefactor to many other Catholic churches; in London these included the London Oratory, Westminster Cathedral, and Warwick Street. He also raised funds for the Birmingham Oratory. He gave the huge sum of £40,000 per annum to Catholic and other causes.
He died on February 11, 1917 at Norfolk House, St James’s Square, and was buried in the Fitzalan Chapel at Arundel where his fine bronze monument by Sir Bertram Mackennal now forms the centrepiece. Concurrent requiems were sung at Westminster Cathedral, the London Oratory and all the major Catholic churches of England.
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