2022 Hudson’s roundup of happenings from history to commemorate this year.
Thomas Howard, 4th Earl of Norfolk by Hans Eworth
Four hundred and fifty years ago on 2 June on Tower Hill, Thomas Howard, 4th Earl of Norfolk lost his head. He’d been the figurehead of a plot to overthrow Elizabeth I and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots. The plot was funded by King Philip of Spain and orchestrated by an Italian banker called Roberto Ridolfi and would have restored Roman Catholicism to England. Howard was England’s senior peer, in fact the only Duke in the land, and, despite the fact that he was actually a Protestant, he seized the chance to advance his power. Unfortunately for him, Elizabeth was informed of the plot in advance and a ciphered letter from Mary was found in Norfolk’s London house. After his execution, his estates were forfeited to the Crown but luckily, Arundel Castle and its lands were the property of Norfolk’s first wife Mary Fitzalan, heiress of the 19th Earl of Arundel and could be inherited by her son, Philip. The Fitzalan-Howard family survived the turbulent years of the Tudor era and the current Duke and Duchess of Norfolk still live at Arundel Castle today.
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BO S TO N M A N O R H O U S E , H O U N S LOW 4 0 0 Y E A R S - 162 2 2022 is a special year at Boston Manor House. The house, meticulously restored, will open again in 2022 and take its place within the community of Hounslow. Co-incidently, it is also the anniversary of the building of the house in 1622 by Lady Mary Reade. Lady Mary had inherited the Boston Manor estate after the death of her first husband, the elderly Sir William Reade of Osterley. She seems to have immediately set about building a new house, choosing to create one of the earliest examples of a neo-classical house of the English Renaissance. The interior decoration of the drawing room includes a fine plaster ceiling designed by Edward Stanyon, where strapwork panels capture classical figures of the Elements (after designs by Marc Gheeraerts the Younger), the Five Senses, War and Peace and Faith, Hope and Charity. A map of 1635, which hangs at Syon Park in Middlesex, shows the house looking much as it does today, even though Palladian buildings of this type are usually associated with the end of the 17th century. Lady Mary was evidently an architectural taste-maker.
The estate at Firle Place in Sussex belonged to the Tudor courtier Sir John Gage, Lord Chamberlain to Henry VIII and Mary I; three generations later, it passed to his namesake John Gage. 1622 marks the year in which the family purchased a baronetcy, a title devised by King James 1st as a means of raising funds for the settlement of Ulster. In return, the new Sir John Gage Bt agreed to equip 30 men at arms for the King but also gained a little status with the Stuart monarchy. Since the Gage family had impoverished themselves by sticking to their catholic faith through the long reign of Elizabeth I, it probably looked like a good investment.
Sir John Gage Bt
MARK THE YEAR 8 visitheritage.co.uk
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