. After the Priory Church was closed in 1540, the 3rd Duke had his father's remains moved to
Framlingham Church Assisting the King in the annulment of his first marriage, added to his extensive loyalty and services to the Crown, brought Howard extensive rewards in the form of monastic lands in Norfolk and Suffolk, employment on diplomatic missions, and being named a knight of the French
Order of St Michael in 1532 and
Earl Marshal of England on 28 May 1533. In November of that same year, his daughter
Mary was married to the Duke of Richmond,
Henry FitzRoy, a union that was politically advantageous to Norfolk. Given that Henry VIII did not yet have a legitimate male heir and Princess Mary had been removed from the line of succession, Richmond was seen by many as a potential heir to the throne. The marriage was never consummated by order of the King due to the youth of the couple, and it was then cut short by FitzRoy's death in 1536. Thomas Howard's marriage to his second wife, Lady Elizabeth Stafford, which had apparently been mutually affectionate at first, deteriorated in 1527 when he took a mistress,
Elizabeth Holland (died 1547/8), whom he installed in the Howard household. Lady Elizabeth formally separated from her husband in the 1530s. She claimed that in March 1534, the Duke of Norfolk 'locked me up in a chamber, [and] took away my jewels and apparel'. Howard then moved her to
Redbourn, Hertfordshire, where she lived as a virtual prisoner with a modest annual allowance of only £200. She also claimed to have been physically maltreated by Howard and his household servants. On 10 March 1536, the Earl of Surrey's eldest son
Thomas was born. On 2 May of the same year, Anne Boleyn and her brother
George Boleyn, Viscount Rochford were arrested by order of the King. They were tried in the great hall of the
Tower of London. Norfolk presided over the trial as
Lord High Steward. The Boleyn siblings were sentenced to death; Rochford was executed on 17 May, and Anne two days later. Following his niece's fall from grace, Howard's power and influence at court waned for a time. In July, the Duke of Richmond, Norfolk's only son-in-law, died at the age of 17 and was buried at
Thetford Priory, one of the Howard properties. When the
Pilgrimage of Grace broke out in
Lincolnshire and the northern counties in October 1536 in response to the
suppression of monasteries across England, Norfolk and his eldest son, the Earl of Surrey shared command of the King's forces with
George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury. The Howards and Talbot opened negotiations with the main leader of the insurgents,
Robert Aske at Scawsby Leys, near
Doncaster, where Aske had assembled between 30,000 and 40,000 people. The 24 Articles to the King, also called "The Commons' Petition", was given to Norfolk to present to the King. The Duke promised to do so, and also promised a general pardon for the rebels, that
Parliament would meet in York in a year, and another pardon, this time directed at the abbeys until the Parliament had met. Jesse Childs (a biographer of the Earl of Surrey, Norfolk's son) specifically notes that Henry VIII did not authorise Norfolk to grant remedies for the grievances. The Duke's enemies had told the King that the Howards could put down a rebellion of peasants if they wanted to, suggesting that Norfolk, being Catholic, sympathised with the Pilgrimage. Howard and Shrewsbury were outnumbered: they had between 5,000 and 7,000 men but there were more than 40,000 rebels. Upon seeing their numbers, Norfolk negotiated and made promises to avoid being massacred by insurgent forces. Norfolk tried to save
Thetford Priory from closure, petitioning Henry VIII for the Priory's church to become a
collegiate church on the grounds that not only Anne of York, Howard's first wife and aunt to the King, but also the monarch's illegitimate son, the Duke of Richmond, were buried there. The Dean was to be Prior William Ixworth, and the six prebendaries and eight secular canons to be the monks of the former house. The request had no effect. The same request was made to the King by other nobles, and he refused them all; at the same time however, Henry VIII ordered that the dissolution of the monasteries be briefly suspended, so that everyone who wished had time to rebury the remains of their relations. Howard moved those of his own relations to the
Church of St Michael the Archangel, Framlingham. After the dissolution of the monastic church, the lands were given to the Duke. On 29 June 1539, Howard, the Duke of Suffolk and Cromwell dined with the King as guests of the
Archbishop of Canterbury,
Thomas Cranmer at
Lambeth Palace. During a heated discussion about Cardinal Wolsey, Cromwell charged Thomas Howard with disloyalty; Howard in turn called Cromwell a liar. Their mutual hostility was now out in the open. Cromwell inadvertently played into Howard's hands by taking the initiative in the King's marriage to
Anne of Cleves. The King's disillusionment with Anne's physical appearance when he met her, and his desire to have the marriage annulled after the wedding had taken place, gave Howard an opportunity to bring down Cromwell. On 10 June 1540 Cromwell was arrested at a
Privy Council meeting on charges of
high treason, and the Duke of Norfolk snatched the
St George's collar (insignia of the Order of the Garter) from Cromwell's shoulders, saying: "A traitor must not wear it". On 9 July, King Henry's marriage to Anne of Cleves was annulled. By then
Catherine Howard, another of the Duke's nieces, had already caught the King's eye. Henry and Catherine were married at a private ceremony at
Oatlands Palace on 28 July, the same day that Cromwell was executed. As a result of this marriage, for a time, Howard enjoyed political prominence and material rewards. According to
Nicholas Sander, the religiously conservative Howards may have seen Catherine as a figurehead for a fight to restore Catholicism in England. Despite the fact that the King was much in love with Catherine, referring to her as his "rose without a thorn", the marriage quickly came to a disastrous end. While Henry and Queen Catherine were on progress during the autumn of 1541, the religious reformer
John Lassells and his sister
Mary Hall told Archbishop Cranmer of the Queen's premarital sexual indiscretions. On 1 November 1541 Cranmer revealed Queen Catherine's extramarital behaviour in a letter to the King, who vented his wrath on the Howard family, accusing them of concealing the Queen's misconduct. Catherine was condemned by a
bill of attainder and was executed on 13 February 1542. Various members of the Duke's family were punished, including his daughter Mary, his stepmother the widowed
Duchess of Norfolk, and the latter's son
William Howard, who was Thomas's half-brother. Norfolk tried to detach himself from the situation by retiring to his residence at
Kenninghall, from where he wrote a letter of apology to the King blaming both his niece and his stepmother for the scandal. However, the French ambassador
Charles de Marillac wrote on 17 January 1542, that the Duke had not only escaped punishment, but had apparently been restored to his "full former credit and authority". Howard was appointed Lieutenant-General north of the
River Trent on 29 January 1541, and Captain-General in a campaign against the Scots in October 1542 after the
battle of Haddon Rig. In June 1543, he declared war on France in the King's name and was appointed Lieutenant-General of the army. During the campaign of May–October 1544, he besieged
Montreuil, while King Henry VIII captured
Boulogne, before returning home. Complaining of lack of provisions and munitions, Howard eventually raised the siege of Montreuil, and realising that Boulogne could not realistically be held by the English for long, he left it garrisoned and withdrew to
Calais, for which he was severely rebuked by the King. ==Imprisonment and release==