Sir John Arundell, of Lanherne, who died in 1545, by his first wife the Lady Elizabeth Grey, left two sons,—Sir John the elder, a country gentleman located at the old family seat of Lanherne, and Sir Thomas, ancestor of the Wardour descent, and the subject of our little story.
Sir Thomas, born probably about 1500, was as a younger son sent early a-field to seek his fortune, and for that purpose introduced, it may be by his father, to the precincts of the Court of Henry VIII., where afterward he appears to have spent much of his time amid its phantasmagoria of pleasures and horrors, ecclesiastical, military, and civil.
Beginning, if not exactly with actual attendance at the Court itself, but doubtless intended as a stepping-stone to it, we first hear of him as attached to the service of the next potential person of the realm, the subtle and ambitious Wolsey, in whose retinue he was appointed as one of the Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber to my Lord Legate and Cardinal, with whom he was on friendly terms, and who probably brought him into notice.
The pompous semi-royal state in which this notable ecclesiastic lived and moved, even in that extravagant age, is almost incredible. His setting off to France on one of his diplomatic journeys is thus described,—
"Then marched he from his own house at Westminster, through all London, over London Bridge, having before him a great number of gentlemen, three in a rank, with velvet coats, and the most part of them with chains of gold about their necks; and all his yeomen followed him with noblemen's and gentlemen's servants, all in orange tawny coats, with the cardinal's hat and T and C, for Thomas Cardinal, embroidered upon all the coats, as well of his own servants, as all the rest of the gentlemen's servants; and his sumpter mules, which were twenty or more in number. And when all his carriages and carts, and other of his train were passed before, he rode like a Cardinal very sumptuously with the rest of his train, on his own mule, with a spare mule and a spare horse trapped in crimson following him. And before him he had his two great crosses of silver, his two great pillars of silver, the King's broad seal of England, and his Cardinal's hat, and a gentleman carrying his cloak-bag, which was made of scarlet, embroidered with gold. Thus passed he forth through London, and every day on his journey he was thus furnished, having his harbingers in every place before, which prepared lodgings for him and his train."
All this was not much beyond the state this proud churchman ordinarily assumed, and it leaves little room to wonder why Henry VIII. and Wolsey could not exist together, nor of church and state being straightway at issue, nor why not long afterward the knock of a heart-broken monk at the gate of the Abbey of Leicester was the knell of his own order in England.
Wolsey passed out of his troubled existence in November, 1530, and in the year following, 1531, an event took place that at once placed Sir Thomas among the foremost men of that era, this was his marriage with a scion of the noble house of Norfolk,—Margaret, eldest daughter of Lord Edmund Howard.
He was the third son of Thomas Howard, second Duke of Norfolk, K.G., who died 21 May, 1524, by his first wife Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of Sir Frederick Tilney.
Concerning this Duke a few words. "On May 13, 13 Henry VIII., 1521," says Collins,—
"he performed the office of Lord High Steward on the trial of Edward, Duke of Buckingham, and gave sentence of death on him, whereat he was so much concerned, as to shed tears."