ARUNDEL, THOMAS (1353-1414), archbishop of Canterbury, was the third son of Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel and Warenne, by his second wife, Eleanor, daughter of Henry Plantagenet, earl of Lancaster. His family was an old and influential one, and when Thomas entered the church his preferment was rapid. In 1373 he became archdeacon of Taunton, and in April 1374 was consecrated bishop of Ely. During the early years of the reign of King Richard II. he was associated with the party led by Thomas, duke of Gloucester, Henry, earl of Derby, afterwards King Henry IV., and his own brother Richard, earl of Arundel, and in 1386 he was sent with Gloucester to Eltham to persuade Richard to return to parliament. This mission was successful, and Arundel was made lord chancellor in place of Michael de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, and assisted to make peace between the king and the supporters of the commission of regency. In April 1388 he was made archbishop of York, and, when Richard declared himself of age in 1389, he gave up the office of chancellor, to which, however, he returned in 1391. During his second tenure of this office he removed the courts of justice from London to York, but they were soon brought back to the metropolis. In September 1396 he was translated from York to Canterbury, and again resigned the office of chancellor. He began his new rule by a vigorous attempt to assert his rights, warned the citizens of London not to withhold tithes, and decided appeals from the judgments of his suffragans during a thorough visitation of his province. In November 1396 he had officiated at the marriage of Richard and Isabella, daughter of Charles VI., king of France, and his fall was the sequel of the king’s sudden attack upon the lords appellant in 1397. After the arrest of Gloucester, Warwick and Arundel, the archbishop was impeached by the Commons with the king’s consent, although Richard, who had not yet revealed his hostility, held out hopes of safety to him. He was charged with assisting to procure the commission of regency in derogation of the royal authority, and sentence of banishment was passed, forty days being given him during which to leave the realm. Towards the end of 1397 he started for Rome, and Pope Boniface IX., at the urgent request of the king, translated him to the see of St Andrews, a step which the pope afterwards confessed he repented bitterly. This translation virtually deprived Arundel of all authority, as St Andrews did not acknowledge Boniface. He then became associated with Henry of Lancaster, but did not return to England before 1399, and the account which Froissart gives telling how he was sent by the Londoners to urge Henry to come and assume the crown is thought to refer to his nephew and namesake, Thomas, earl of Arundel. Landing with Henry at Ravenspur, he accompanied him to the west. He took his place at once as archbishop of Canterbury, witnessed the abdication of Richard in the Tower of London, led the new king, Henry IV., to his throne in presence of the peers, and crowned him on the 13th of October 1399.
The main work of his later years was the defence of the church, and the suppression of heresy. To put down the Lollards, he called a meeting of the clergy, pressed on the statute de haeretico comburendo, and passed sentence of degradation upon William Sawtrey. He resisted the attempt of the parliament of 1404 to disendow the church, but failed to induce Henry to pardon Archbishop Scrope in 1405. In 1407 he became chancellor for the fourth time, and in 1408 summoned a council at Oxford, which drew up constitutions against the Lollards. These he published in January 1409, and among them was one forbidding the translation of the Bible into English without the consent of the bishop of the diocese, or of a provincial synod. In 1411 he went on an embassy abroad, and in 1412 became chancellor again, his return to power being accompanied by a change in the foreign policy of Henry IV. In 1397 he had sought to vindicate his right of visitation over the university of Oxford, but the dispute remained unsettled until 1411 when a bull was issued by Pope John XXIII. recalling one issued by Pope Boniface IX., which had exempted the university from the archbishop’s authority. In 1413 he took a leading part in the proceedings against Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham, and in the following year he died on the 19th of February, and was buried at Canterbury. A legend of a later age tells how, just before his death, he was struck dumb for preventing the preaching of the word of God.
The chief authorities are T. Walsingham, Historia Anglicana, ed. by H.T. Riley (London, 1863-1864); Eulogium historiarum sive temporis, ed. by F.S. Haydon (London, 1858-1863); the Monk of Evesham, Historia vitae et regni Ricardi II., ed. by T. Hearne (Oxford, 1729); W.F. Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, vol. iv. (London, 1860-1876).
ARUNDEL, a market town and municipal borough in the Chichester parliamentary division of Sussex, England, 58 m. S.S.W. from London by the London, Brighton & South Coast railway. Pop. (1901) 2739. It is pleasantly situated on the slope of a hill above the river Arun, which is navigable for small vessels to Littlehampton at the mouth, 6 m. south. From the summit of the hill rises Arundel Castle, which guarded the passage along the river through the hills. For its connexion with the title of earl of Arundel see [Arundel, Earldom of]. A castle existed in the time of King Alfred, and at the time of the Conquest it was rebuilt by Roger de Montgomerie, but it was taken from his son, who rebelled against the reigning monarch, Henry I. In 1397 it was the scene of a conspiracy organized by the earl of Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury and duke of Gloucester, to dethrone Richard II. and murder the lords of his council, a plot which was discovered before it could be carried into execution. During the civil wars of the 17th century, the stronghold was frequently assaulted by the contending parties, and consequently greatly damaged; but it was restored by Charles, 11th duke of Norfolk (d. 1815), who made it what it now is, one of the most splendid baronial mansions in England. Extensive reconstruction, in the style of the 13th century, was undertaken towards the close of the 19th century. The town, according to the whimsical etymology shown on the corporation seal, takes its name from hirondelle (a swallow). The town hall is a castellated building, presented to the corporation by the duke of Norfolk. The church of St Nicholas, founded about 1375, is Perpendicular with a low tower rising from the centre. In the north aisle of the chancel there are several ancient monuments of the earls of Arundel. The church is otherwise remarkable for its reredos and iron work. The chancel is the property of the duke of Norfolk and is screened from the rest of the building, although in 1880 this exercise of right by the owner was made the subject of an action at law and subsequent appeal. The Roman Catholic church of St Philip Neri was built by the duke of Norfolk (1873). Some remains of a Maison Dieu, or hospital, erected in the time of Richard II., still exist. The borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 2053 acres.
The first mention of Arundel (Harundell) comes as early as 877, when it was left by King Alfred in his will to his nephew Æthelm. In the time of Edward the Confessor the town seems to have consisted of the mill and a fortification or earthwork which was probably thrown up by Alfred as a defence against the Danes; but it had increased in importance before the Conquest, and appears in Domesday as a thriving borough and port. It was granted by the Conqueror to Roger de Montgomery, who built the castle on the site of the ancient earthwork. From very early times markets were held within the borough on Thursday and Saturday, and in 1285 Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel, obtained a grant of two annual fairs on the 14th of May and the 17th of December. The borough returned two members to parliament from 1302 to 1832 when the Reform Act reduced the membership to one; in 1868 it was disfranchised altogether. There are no early charters extant, but in 1586 Elizabeth acknowledged the right of the mayor and burgesses to be a body corporate and to hold a court for pleas under forty shillings, two weekly markets and four annual fairs—which rights they claimed to have exercised from time immemorial. James II. confirmed in 1688 a charter given two years before, and incorporated the borough under the title of a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 burgesses. The town was half destroyed by fire in 1338, but was soon rebuilt. Arundel was formerly a thriving seaport, and in 1813 was connected by canal with London.
See M.A. Tierney, The History and Antiquities of the Castle and Town of Arundel (London, 1834); Victoria County History—Sussex.
ARUNDELL OF WARDOUR, THOMAS ARUNDELL, 1st Baron (c. 1562-1639), son of Sir Mathew Arundell of Wardour Castle in Wiltshire, a member of the ancient family of Arundells of Lanherne in Cornwall, and of Margaret, daughter of Sir Henry Willoughby, was born about 1562. In 1579 he was personally recommended by Queen Elizabeth to the emperor Rudolph II. He greatly distinguished himself while serving with the imperial troops against the Turks in Hungary, and at the siege of Gran or Esztergom on the 13th of August 1595, he captured the enemy’s banner with his own hand. He was created by Rudolph II. a count of the Holy Roman Empire in December 1595, and returned to England after suffering shipwreck and barely preserving his life in January 1596. His assumption of the foreign title created great jealousy among the English peers, who were wont to give a precedence by courtesy to foreign nobles, and he incurred the resentment of his father, who objected to his superior rank and promptly disinherited him. The queen, moreover, was seriously displeased, declared that “as chaste wives should have no glances but for their own spouses, so should faithful subjects keep their eyes at home and not gaze upon foreign crowns,” and committed him to the Fleet immediately on his arrival, while she addressed a long letter of remonstrance on the subject to the emperor. Arundell remained under arrest till April, when he was liberated after an examination. In April 1597, however, he was again confined, but declared innocent of any charge save that of “practising to contrive the justification of his vain title with Ministers beyond the seas.” In December he was liberated and placed under the care of his father, but next year he was again arrested and accused of a conspiracy against the government. His petitions for a licence to undertake an expedition by sea, wherein he declared “his end was honour which some base minds call ambition,” were refused, but in 1599 he was apparently again restored to favour. On the 4th of May 1605 he was created by James I. Baron Arundell of Wardour, but fell again under temporary suspicion at the time of the Gunpowder Plot. In 1623 he once more got into trouble by championing the cause of the recusants, of whom he was himself one, on the occasion of the visit of the Spanish envoys, and he was committed to custody, and in 1625 all the arms were removed by the government from Wardour Castle. After the accession of Charles I. he was pardoned, and attended the sittings of the House of Lords. He was indicted in the king’s bench about the year 1627 for not paying some contribution, and in 1632 he was accused of harbouring a priest. In 1637 he was declared exempt from the recusancy laws by the king’s order, but in 1639 he again petitioned for relief. The same year he paid £500 in lieu of attending the king at York. He died on the 7th of November 1639. Arundell was an earnest Roman Catholic, but the suspicions of the government as to his loyalty were probably unfounded and stifled a career destined by nature for successful adventure. He married (1) Mary, daughter of Henry Wriothesley, 2nd earl of Southampton, by whom besides other children he had Thomas, who succeeded him as 2nd baron; and (2) Anne, daughter of Miles Philipson, by whom he had several daughters.