Framlingham Castle: The Howard Family and beyond

 

The Howard Family

John Howard succeeded to a portion of the Mowbray estates.  He was created the 1^st Duke of Norfolk.  Between1483-1485, John Howard probably began the sequence of improvements to the castle.   Under the Howards, the castle was extensively modernized; fashionable brick was used to improve parts of the castle; ornamental chimneys were added; the battlements were reduced in size to exaggerate the apparent height of the walls, and the Howard coat of arms was added to the gatehouse.  The Great Chamber was probably built across the Inner Court at this time, linking the Great Hall with the chapel and chambers on the east side of the castle, and by 1524 there were at least 29 different rooms in the castle.  On 22 August 1485, John Howard killed at Bosworth Field during the War of the Roses between the Yorkist, which side Johnn Howard chose and the Lancastrians, and his estates passed to his son.

Sir Thomas Howard (b. 1443) became the 2^nd Duke of Norfolk, who commissioned a hanging or 
tapestry depicting Hercules for the Great Chamber. Thomas married Lady Elizabeth Tilney, (ancestor, thru her 1^st marriage).  In 1487 upon the Lancastrian Victory, Sir Thomas Howard was attained and forfeited his lands and titles and placed in the Tower of London.  King Henry VII then gave the castle to John de Vere.  In 1513, Thomas Howard gained favor with King Hery VIII. after fighting at the victory of Flodden.  Framlingham was returned to Thomas and the Duke spent his retirement there; he decorated his table at the castle with gold and silver plate that he had seized from the Scots at Flodden.  The castle was expensively decorated in a lavish style during this period, including tapestries, velvet and silver chapel fittings and luxury bed linen.   A hundred suits of armor were stored in the castle and over thirty horses kept in the stables. Thomas and Elizabeth Howard were the grandparents of Queen Catherine Howard and Queen Anne Boleyn, wives of King Henry VIII.  Sir Thomas Howard died on 21 May 1524 at Framlingham Castle and his estates passed to his eldest son,

Sir Thomas Howard, 3^rd Duke of Norfolk (b. 1473).  Thomas made little use of the castle.  He married Anne Plantagenet, a daughter of King Edward IV in 1495.  In 1547, Sir Thomas Howard was attained, out of fears from his rivals lead by Edward Seymour that the Howards aspired to claim the crown.  All his honors were forfeited, and he was ordered to be executed.  However, King Henry VIII died the day before Thomas was to be executed.  King Henry VIII’s son, King Edward VI kept Thomas imprisoned at the Tower and gave Framlingham castle to his half-sister, Mary, who would become the 1^st Queen of England.

1553 Queen Mary gathered her supporters at Framlingham Castle to protest the claim to the throne by 
Lady Jane Grey and led a successful march on London and proclaimed Queen of England. Mary returned the castle to Thomas Howard for his loyalty.  Thomas did not return to Framlingham and the castle was leased out.  In 1558 Queen Mary of England died and she was succeeded by her half-sister Queen Elizabeth I.  In 1572, Thomas Howard was executed for treason by Queen Elizabeth I of England. Repairs to the castle appear to have been minimal from the 1540s onwards, and after Queen Mary left Framlingham, the castle went into a fast decline.  A survey in 1589 noted that the stonework, timber and brickwork all needed urgent maintenance, at a potential cost of £100.   The Great Park was turned into fields in 1580.  As religious laws against Catholics increased, the castle became used as a prison from 1580 onwards; by 1600 the castle prison contained 40 prisoners, priests and recusants.  

In 1613, King James I returned the castle to Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, but the castle was now derelict.  His son, Theophilus Howard sold the castle for £14,000 to Robert Hitcham in 1635, who died a year later leaving the castle to Pembroke College with the proviso that the inner buildings be destroyed and a workhouse be built inside. Over the following centuries the castle was used as an isolation ward for victims of the plague in 1666, storehouse during the Napoleonic Wars, later as a local jail.

The castle workhouse

In 1913, an act by Parliament to secure ancient monuments and buildings resulted in Pembroke College giving guardianship of the castle to the Commissioner of Works.  Today the castle is managed by English Heritage as a tourist attraction.

Panoramic View of the interior

Here ends the history of Framlingham castle and any connection my family had with the castle.