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Saint Philip Howard

19 October
25 October as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales

Profile

Grandson of the poet Henry, Earl of Surrey, who was executed by King Henry VIII in 1547. Son of Thomas, the 4th Duke of Norfolk. Godson of King Philip of Spain. His parents were Protestant, but his mother returned to Catholicism and helped hide priests. Married to Anne, daughter of Lord d’Acre, at age 14. His father was beheaded by Queen Elizabeth in 1572 when Phillip was 15. Grandfather of Blessed William Howard. Graduated from Saint John’s College, Cambridge in 1574. Courtier to Queen Elizabeth at age 18. Earl of Arundel and Surrey on 24 February 1580. At the royal court he led a sinful and dissolute life.

In 1581 he was present at the Tower of London during the proceedings against Saint Edmund Campion, Saint Ralph Sherwin and others, and they had a great effect on him. He returned to his home in Arundel to consider their faith and his own, and was reconciled to the Church on 30 September 1584. He planned to move abroad so he could practice his faith, but was betrayed by a servant, arrested on 15 April 1585, and lodged in the Tower of London on 25 April. He was interrogated extensively for a year, found guilty of treason due to being Catholic, fined £10,000, and returned to prison. During the wave of anti–Catholicism that swept the country in 1588, he was re-tried , found guilty of praying for victory for the Spanish Armada, and sentenced to death. He spent the next seven years in prison, praying for hours each day, eventually dying from general mistreatment. One of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.