Arundel was appointed Lord Steward of the royal household in April 1640, and in 1641 as lord high steward presided at the trial of the Earl of Strafford. This closed his public career. He became again estranged from the court, and in 1641 he escorted Marie de' Medici home. In 1642 he accompanied Princess Mary for her marriage to William II of Orange. With the troubles that would lead to the Civil War brewing, he decided not to return to England, and instead settled first in Antwerp and then at a villa near Padua, in Italy. He contributed a sum of £34,000 to the king's cause, and suffered severe losses in the war. He died in Padua in 1646, having returned to the Roman Catholicism he nominally abandoned on joining the Privy Council, and was buried in Arundel. He was succeeded as Earl by his eldest son Henry Howard, 15th Earl of Arundel who was the ancestor of the Dukes of Norfolk and Baron Mowbray. His youngest son William Howard, 1st Viscount Stafford was the ancestor of what was first the Earl of Stafford and later Baron Stafford.