At the time he sat to Holbein the Duke was at the height of his power. He had been the bitter enemy of both Wolsey and Cromwell, and had assisted to bring about the downfall of both, and had arrested the latter with his own hands. After Cromwell’s execution he became the most powerful of Henry’s subjects, and reached his highest summit of greatness. His influence over the King, however, waned after the fall of his niece, Catherine Howard, when he was supplanted by his enemies, the Earl of Hertford and the Seymours. In 1546 he was attainted, together with his son, the Earl of Surrey, for high treason, and only escaped the latter’s fate by the death of the King on the day the warrant for his execution was made out. He remained in the Tower throughout the reign of Edward VI, but was released on the accession of Queen Mary in 1553, and his titles and estates were restored to him, but he only lived to enjoy them for a year. [Illustration: VOL. II., PLATE 26 HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY Wrongly inscribed “Thomas Howard” _Drawing in black and coloured chalks_ WINDSOR CASTLE ] [Sidenote: PORTRAITS OF HENRY HOWARD] That Holbein painted his son, Henry, Earl of Surrey, is proved by the small portrait on the wall in Fruytiers’ version of Van Dyck’s picture of the Arundel family. The inscription on this miniature copy gives his age as twenty-five; and as he was born about 1517, Holbein must have painted him about 1541. He is represented with reddish hair and beard, and brown eyes, the head slightly turned to the right, and wears a black cap with a feather, and a black mantle from the folds of which the right hand appears. There is a small drawing in the Windsor Collection wrongly inscribed “Tho. Howard E. of Surrey,”[423] which bears some likeness to the Earl in the Fruytiers drawing, and is supposed to represent Henry Howard. It is badly rubbed, and has suffered from retouching and certain coarse alterations, and has the slightly-wavering touch which marks the so-called “Melanchthon” in the same collection. It is apparently the original study for the portrait which was engraved by Hollar when it was in the Arundel Collection.[424] There are two other heads at Windsor also named Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, but the attribution cannot be correct, as Surrey’s son, Thomas, was a small boy of only six or seven at the time of Holbein’s death. Whether the drawings represent the poet himself is also doubtful. One of them, inscribed “Thomas Earl of Surry” (Pl. 26),[425] in which he is shown full-face, clean-shaven, with hair cut straight across the forehead and partly covering the ears, and wearing a black cap with scalloped edges and an ostrich feather, is one of the finest drawings in the whole collection, conspicuous for the delicacy of the modelling and the freedom and expressiveness of the draughtsmanship. The face is one of considerable charm, which is not to be seen in the third drawing,[426] inscribed “Tho. Earle of Surry,”