Henry intended that his son’s uncle, Lord Hertford, Queen Jane Seymour’s brother, should be his sole guardian, and for a wretched pretext Norfolk and Surrey were arrested, imprisoned in the Tower, and sentenced to death. Of the Duke of Norfolk, Sir Walter Raleigh wrote in the preface to his great History: “Henry knew not how to value his deservings, having never omitted anything that concerned his own honour and the King’s service.” Despite his weakness for tears, Norfolk may rank amongst the English worthies, for he had done good service to the State, both in arms and council. He had commanded the English army at the Battle of Flodden, and had led another army during a second victorious war in Scotland; he had also led the English van in the war with France. In Ireland he had been one of the best and most just of the English Lords-Deputy. By the accident of birth the Duke was of the blood-royal, being descended from the Mowbrays; further than this, he had married one of the daughters of Edward IV., and two of his nieces had been Queens of England. For his own safety he was perilously near the steps of the throne, and his birth was too high, the story of his life too romantic, for Henry to tolerate his surviving himself, consequently, with reason or without, his death was determined upon; Henry was never troubled by lack of just cause. The dying King excused his treatment of the Duke and his son Surrey to foreign courts, by giving out that they had conspired to take upon themselves the government of the State; this was a pure invention. Another and a still more ridiculous charge brought against them was that Norfolk and his son had quartered in their shield the royal arms of Edward the Confessor. This charge could not have hoodwinked the most simple, for it had been the custom of the Duke’s family long before he himself was born to have these arms quartered upon their shield. However, on the 14th of January 1547, the House of Lords, without even the form of a trial, and without examining either the Duke or his son, passed a bill of attainder against them, and the end of the month was fixed for their execution.