Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk

Who was Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk?

Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, KG Earl Marshal was an English nobleman.

Norfolk was the son of the poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. He was taught as a child by John Foxe, the Protestant martyrologist, who remained a lifelong recipient of Norfolk's patronage. His father predeceased his grandfather, so Norfolk inherited the Dukedom of Norfolk upon the death of his grandfather, Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk in 1554.

Norfolk was the second cousin of Queen Elizabeth I through her maternal grandmother, Lady Elizabeth Howard, and he was trusted with public office despite his family's history and leanings towards Catholicism. It was the 4th Duke of Norfolk who commissioned Thomas Tallis, probably in 1567, to compose his renowned motet in forty voice-parts, Spem in alium.