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
Execution by elephant common mode of execution in those days to have the offender trampled underfoot by an elephant." Captain Alexander Hamilton, writing in 1727, described how the Mughal ruler Shah Jahan ordered an offending military commander to be carried "to the Elephant Garden, and there to be executed by an Elephant, which is reckoned to be a shameful and terrible Death". The Mughal Emperor Humayun ordered the crushing by elephant of an imam he mistakenly believed to be critical of his reign. Some monarchs also adopted this form of execution for their own entertainment. Another Mughal ruler, the emperor Jahangir, is said