Pejman Yousefzadeh

thestuartkings:

Portrait of Henry Howard, Duke of Norfolk 1660c.

By John Michael Wright

The identity of the sitter as Henry Howard, 6th Duke of Norfolk is confirmed by Adrian Hanneman’s portrait of the 6th Duke at Arundel Castle, dated 1660. As with many of his contemporaries, Henry Howard spent much of his youth abroad. By 1665 he had settled at his villa at Albury, Surrey, where Evelyn visited him and admired his pictures and curiosities. According to Evelyn, Howard was instrumental in restoring the dukedom to Norfolk, which fell to his elder brother Thomas, by settling the debts of his grandfather, Thomas Earl of Arundel (1586-1646), the famous collector. Henry was also a keen connoisseur and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society on 28th November 1666, to whom he presented the greater part of his library. In 1667 his friend Evelyn persuaded him to give the famous Arundel marbles, which were lying neglected in the garden of Arundel House, to the University of Oxford.

On the death of his first wife Lady Anne Somerset, eldest daughter of Edward, 2nd Marquis of Worcester, in 1662 he is said by Evelyn to have fallen into a deep melancholy and to have sought relief in a course of dissipation, which impaired both his fortune and reputation. He married secondly his mistress, Jane Bickerton, whose father was a gentleman of the wine cellar to Charles II. He died in 1684 at Arundel House and was buried at Arundel Castle, except for his heart which was deposited at the convent of St Elizabeth in Bruges.