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
Catherine of Alexandria by way of torture, he tried to win the beautiful and wise princess over by proposing marriage. The saint refused, declaring that her spouse was Jesus Christ, to whom she had consecrated her virginity. The furious emperor condemned Catherine to death on a spiked breaking wheel, but, at her touch, it shattered. Maxentius ordered her to be beheaded. Catherine herself ordered the execution to commence. A milk-like substance rather than blood flowed from her neck. Angels transported her body to the highest mountain (now called Mt. Saint Catherine) next to Mount Sinai, where God gave His Law. In 850, her