Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk (1473 – 25 August 1554) (Earl of Surrey from 1514), was a prominent Tudor politician. He was an uncle of two of the wives of King Henry VIII of England, namely Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, both of whom were beheaded, and played a major role in the machinations affecting these royal marriages. After falling from favour in 1546, he was stripped of the dukedom and imprisoned in the Tower of London, avoiding execution when King Henry VIII died on 28 January 1547. He was released on the
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey consequence, the King ordered Surrey's imprisonment and that of his father, sentencing them to death on 13 January 1547. Surrey was beheaded on 19 January 1547 on a charge of treasonably quartering the royal arms. His father survived execution as the king died the day before that appointed for the beheading, but he remained imprisoned. Surrey's son Thomas Howard became heir to the Dukedom of Norfolk in place of his father, which title he inherited on the 3rd Duke's death in 1554. He was buried in Framlingham Church in Suffolk, where survives his spectacular painted alabaster tomb. He and his