St Michael the Archangel, Framlingham

St Michael the Archangel in Framlingham, Suffolk, known affectionately as St Mike's, is a Church of England church dedicated to Saint Michael the Archangel.

Howard family monuments

The church contains family burials of the Howards (mostly moved after the dissolution of Thetford Priory) [http://homepage.ntlworld.com/peter.fairweather/docs/framlingham.htm] :

Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk

Stands immediately to the south of the high altar. Part-Franch and part-English in design, it bears artistic comparison with anything in Northern Europe, if not perhaps Italy.

Around the four sides are the figures of the twelve apostles together with Aaron and St. Paul the Apostle, the last major display of religious imagery in England before the iconoclastic phases of the English Reformation ruled it out forever.

Significant for being the commission of an 'over mighty subject' rather than a royal, parts may be taken from the monument of his father Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk at Thetford.

Three male bodies interred in the 3rd Duke's monument, perhaps the 1st, 2nd and 3rd dukes, all removed here after the dissolution.

Wives of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk

He himself is buried at St Peter ad Vincula at the Tower of London, executed there for trying to make a 4th marriage to Mary Queen of Scots. In their robes of state and resting their heads and feet on emblems connected with their Houses, his 1st and 2nd wives Mary FitzAlan and Margaret Audley are represented, though only Margaret is buried here. The large space between these 2 effigies is perhaps for Mary, Queen of Scots, or him, or his third wife.

In 1842 this vault was opened and found to be empty but for a skull and some ashes. Tradition has it that the inhabitants of the town hid some of their valuables in the monument during the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 and swept it clean afterwards. The large space between the effigies is said to have been reserved for Norfolk himself, his third wife, or even Mary Queen of Scots.

The sides are decorated with their heraldic quarterings.

It would seem that at some former period there were columns which supported a canopy over the monument which must have rendered it highly magnificent.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey

Before his own death in 1613 Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton, Surrey’s youngest son made arrangements for his father’s and mother's remains to be removed to Framlingham and this monument portraying them both to be erected in 1614.

The Latin inscription refers to Surrey as being the son of the Second Duke which is technically correct as after the battle of Bosworth the Dukedom was rendered extinct and the Second Duke became the First Duke of the new creation.

The tomb chest is not a religious example but rather extolling the virtues of its subjects. His 2 sons kneel at the foot end. At the head end are Howard's 3 daughters:
*Jane, who wears a coronet
*in the center is Katherine who married Henry Berkeley, 7th Baron Berkeley
*Margaret who married Lord Scrope of Bolton (?Henry, 9th Baron Scrope of Bolton (1534-1592)).

By about 1976 the whole monument was subsiding in the centre and the ends collapsing in on itself. The restoration was entrusted to John Green and the monument was duly cleaned and restored to its full brilliance. It was when it was being cleaned that Mr Green found the dowell holes next to Surrey’s calf where there once was a coronet (not worn, since he died in disgrace). A new coronet was made of lead casting with large fish weights for the baubles, the whole thing was then painted, gilded, and placed in position.

External links

* [http://www.stmichaelsframlingham.org.uk/ St Michael's Church official website]
*IoE|286315