SURREY, HENRY HOWARD, Earl of (c.1517 47). An English soldier and poet., son of Lord Thomas Howard, affirmed third Duke of Norfolk. His youth was spent in France, and at the Court of Henry VIII., and be received a care ful classical education. He was made a knight of the Garter in 1541, and in 1543 joined the English army in France, where by his gallantry and feats of arms he gained the title of field marshal. lie captured Boulogne, was made its Governor, and gained other victories, but was re called to England after some slight reverses at Saint-Etienne. His influence at Court was no longer so powerful as in the life of his youthful friend and companion the Duke of Rieiunold, Henry's natural son, and charges of treasonable ambition in aspiring to the royal succession were constantly urged against Surrey and his father by the Hertford faction. In 1546 the two were arrested ; Norfolk was sent to the Tower, and Surrey, on the most trivial charge, was beheaded in 1547. Though not primarily a man of letters, his work in that field left a more abiding impres sion than his exploits as a soldier. He wrote
many amatory verses and elegies in the Italian manner, but his ehief service to English litera ture lay in the insight with which he enriched its poetry by the introduction of the verse forms which had already received a higher development in Italy. His translation of two books of the :Each/ gave the language its most powerful and characteristic poetic form, blank verse; and the sonnet which Shakespeare used, consisting of three quatrains and a couplet, was also introduced by Surrey. The peculiar excellence of his work was in the insight with which he not only adopted but also adapted these forms, making them harmonize with the genius of the English language. The best known edition of his verse and that of Wyatt, including a memoir, is by Nett (London, 1815-16; new ed. 1871) ; there is also the Arber reprint of Tottcl's .1i/sec/luny, in which the work of both of them first appeared. Consult also an essay in Hales, Folic' Literaria (London, 1893).