External links
- Charles Arundell at thepeerage.com
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Sir Charles Arundell (died 9 December 1587), was an English gentleman, lord of the manor of South Petherton, Somerset, notable as an early Roman Catholic recusant and later as a leader of the English exiles in France. He has been suggested as the author of Leicester's Commonwealth , an anonymous work which attacked Queen Elizabeth's favourite, the Earl of Leicester.
Arundell was the son of Sir Thomas Arundell (who was attainted and executed in 1552) and of Margaret Howard (died 1571), a sister of Queen Catherine Howard. His maternal grandparents were Lord Edmund Howard (died 1539), the third son of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, and Joyce Culpeper (c. 1480–1531). [1] His great aunt Elizabeth, Countess of Wiltshire, was the mother of Anne Boleyn, who was thus the first cousin of Arundell's mother as well as being the mother of Queen Elizabeth I, [2] and his ancestors on his mother's side included the Varangian chieftain Rurik (ca. 830–879), founder of the Rurikid dynasty which went on to rule Muscovy and several other states. [3]
Little is known of Arundell's early life. He had an older brother, Matthew, and two sisters, Dorothy and Jane. In 1554, two years after their father's execution, the Arundell brothers were restored in blood and the elder eventually succeeded in regaining most of their father's estates in Dorset and Wiltshire, including Wardour Castle. [4]
Matthew Arundell, as head of the family, regained most of Sir Thomas Arundell's lost estates, while to Charles Arundell came the manor of South Petherton in Somerset. [5]
Unlike his brother, Arundell was openly a recusant. With their cousin Lord Henry Howard (later created Earl of Northampton), he was briefly imprisoned in the Tower of London at Christmas 1580, after both had been denounced by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, as traitors and spies of Philip II of Spain. Both were formerly friends of the Queen, but according to Oxford's biographer Charleton Ogburn Jr., Howard spent the balance of the year 1581 under restraint. Arundell apparently remained imprisoned until 1583, when he would go altogether over to the Spanish side. [6] Following his release, Arundell spent several months under house arrest. Neither he nor Howard ever returned to court favour, [5] and after the Throckmorton Plot of 1583 in support of Mary, Queen of Scots, Arundell fled to Paris with Thomas, Lord Paget, the elder brother of the conspirator Charles Paget. [7] In August 1584 there appeared in England Leicester's Commonwealth , a brilliant and anonymous tract of Roman Catholic propaganda which attacked the Queen's favourite, the Earl of Leicester, and the political and religious policy of the English government, in particular the Puritan sympathies of Leicester, who was portrayed as an amoral opportunist. [8] At that time Arundell was seen as a leader of the English Roman Catholic exiles. [9] As early as 1947 Arundell was described as "the now generally admitted author of that Elizabethan masterpiece", [5] and in his critical edition of Leicester's Commonwealth (1985), Dwight C. Peck argued that Arundell was probably the lead author among the group of exiles in Paris. [10] Recently historians have tended to agree with the view that several English Catholic exiles based in France may have worked on the text, including Charles Arundell, his associate Charles Paget, and Paget's brother, Thomas, Lord Paget. [11]
Arundell was reported to have pawned his valuables to raise money for an armed landing in England to be led by the Earl of Westmorland in support of Mary, Queen of Scots. In Paris he worked with the Archbishop of Glasgow, Mary's trusted representative in France. [12] [13] Arundell was a cousin of Douglass Howard, Lady Sheffield, the wife of Sir Edward Stafford (1552–1605), the English ambassador in Paris, and had a role in putting Stafford into secret contact with Bernardino de Mendoza (c. 1540–1604), the ambassador in Paris of Philip of Spain. Early in 1587, Arundell acted secretly as a mediator between them to offer Stafford's services to Philip as a spy, when Arundell received two thousand crowns to pass on to Stafford. [14]
Arundell died in Paris in 1587—in the year of the Singeing the King of Spain's Beard, during the Anglo-Spanish War which had begun in 1585—perhaps having been poisoned. [15] It is sometimes claimed that his knighthood was bestowed on him by Philip of Spain, but he died in possession of the manor of South Petherton, which was inherited by his brother, Sir Matthew, and in the inquisition post mortem taken on 12 March 1588 he is named as "Sir Charles Arundell of London, Knt." [5]
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Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, was an English peer and courtier of the Elizabethan era. Oxford was heir to the second oldest earldom in the kingdom, a court favourite for a time, a sought-after patron of the arts, and noted by his contemporaries as a lyric poet and court playwright, but his volatile temperament precluded him from attaining any courtly or governmental responsibility and contributed to the dissipation of his estate.
Sir Francis Walsingham was principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I of England from 20 December 1573 until his death and is popularly remembered as her "spymaster".
William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley was an English statesman, the chief adviser of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign, twice Secretary of State and Lord High Treasurer from 1572. In his description in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, A.F. Pollard wrote, "From 1558 for forty years the biography of Cecil is almost indistinguishable from that of Elizabeth and from the history of England."
Sir William Stanley, son of Sir Rowland Stanley of Hooton and Margaret Aldersy, was a member of the Stanley family, Earls of Derby. He was an officer and a recusant, who served under Elizabeth I of England and is most noted for his surrender of Deventer to the Spanish in 1587.
William Paget, 1st Baron Paget of Beaudesert, was an English statesman and accountant who held prominent positions in the service of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I. He was the patriarch of the Paget family, whose descendants were created Earl of Uxbridge (1714) and Marquess of Anglesey (1815).
Henry Arundell, 3rd Baron Arundell of Wardour, PC was a Peer of England during the 17th century, and the most famous of the Lords Arundell of Wardour. He served as Lord Privy Seal and Lord High Steward, and was appointed to the Privy Council. During the Popish Plot he suffered a long period of imprisonment, although he was never brought to trial.
Thomas Arundell, 1st Baron Arundell of Wardour was the eldest son of Sir Matthew Arundell of Wardour Castle in Wiltshire, and Margaret Willoughby, the daughter of Sir Henry Willoughby, of Wollaton, Nottinghamshire, and wife Margaret Markham. He distinguished himself in battle against the Ottoman Turks in the service of the Emperor Rudolf II, and was created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. His assumption of the title displeased Queen Elizabeth, who refused to recognize it, and imprisoned him in the Fleet Prison. In 1605 Arundell was created 1st Baron Arundell of Wardour. In the same year, he was briefly suspected of complicity in the Gunpowder Plot.
Sir Thomas Arundell of Wardour Castle in Wiltshire was a Cornish administrator and alleged conspirator.
Sir Christopher Blount was an English soldier, secret agent, and rebel. He served as a leading household officer of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester. A Catholic, Blount corresponded with Mary, Queen of Scots's Paris agent, Thomas Morgan, probably as a double agent. After the Earl of Leicester's death he married the Dowager Countess, Lettice Knollys, mother of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. Blount became a comrade-in-arms and confidant of the Earl of Essex and was a leading participant in the latter's rebellion in February 1601. About five weeks later he was beheaded on Tower Hill for high treason.
William Paget, 4th Baron Paget of Beaudesert was an English peer and colonist born in Beaudesert House, Staffordshire, England to Thomas Paget, 3rd Baron Paget and Nazareth Newton. His grandfather was William Paget, 1st Baron Paget (1506-1563).
Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton, was an English peer.
Gilbert Gifford was a double agent who worked for Sir Francis Walsingham and played a role in the uncovering of the Babington Plot. Shortly before his death in Paris, he was ordained as a Catholic priest in Rheims. His true allegiances, whether to Queen Elizabeth I or to Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Catholic cause – are unclear.
Charles Paget was a Roman Catholic conspirator, involved in the Babington Plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I of England.
Mary Wriothesley, Countess of Southampton, previously Mary Browne, became the wife of Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton, at the age of thirteen and the mother of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton. Widowed in 1581, she was Dowager Countess of Southampton until 1595, when for a few months until his death she was married to the courtier Sir Thomas Heneage. In 1598 she married lastly Sir William Hervey.
Sir Edward Stafford was an English Member of Parliament, courtier, and diplomat to France during the time of Queen Elizabeth I.
Thomas Paget, 3rd Baron Paget was an English peer, the second son of William Paget, 1st Baron Paget. He succeeded to the barony in 1568 at the death of his elder brother, Henry Paget, 2nd Baron Paget.
Leicester's Commonwealth (1584) is a scurrilous book that circulated in Elizabethan England and attacked Queen Elizabeth I's favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. The work was read as Roman Catholic propaganda against the political and religious policy of Elizabeth I's regime, particularly the Puritan sympathies fostered by Leicester. In doing so, it portrayed Leicester as an amoral opportunist of "almost satanic malevolence" and circulated lurid stories of his supposed scandalous deeds and dangerous plots.
Sir Matthew Arundell of Wardour Castle in Wiltshire, known between 1552 and 1554 as Matthew Howard and after his death sometimes called Matthew Arundell-Howard, was an English gentleman, landowner, and member of parliament in the West of England.
Sir Lewes Lewknor (c.1560–1627) was an English courtier, M.P., writer, soldier, and Judge who served as Master of the Ceremonies to King James I of England. M.P. for Midhurst in 1597 and for Bridgnorth 1604–10. His career has been described as a "tortuous trajectory rich in false starts, byways and rather nebulous interludes...[with] slippery religious and political allegiances".
Lady Eleanor Arundell, was an English noblewoman, and the first wife of Sir John Arundell of Lanherne in Cornwall, "the most important man in the county", being Receiver-General of the Duchy of Cornwall. Their monumental brass in the church at St Columb Major in Cornwall was described by E. H. W. Dunkin (1882) as "perhaps the most elaborate and interesting brass to be found in Cornwall." Her father was Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset. Eleanor was an ancestor of the later Barons Arundell of Wardour.
