of Durham, divided with Fox the
chief business of State; and these clerical advisers were supposed to
be eager to guide Henry's footsteps in the paths of peace, and
counteract the more adventurous tendencies of their lay colleagues.

[Footnote 89: _L. and P._, i., 811, 2082; ii.,
114.]

[Footnote 90: _D.N.B._, xx., 152.]

[Footnote 91: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 63.]

[Footnote 92: _Sp. Cal._, ii., 44.]

At the head of the latter stood Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, soon to
be rewarded for his victory at Flodden by his restoration to the
dukedom of Norfolk. He and his son, the third duke, were Lord High
Treasurers throughout Henry's reign; but jealousy of their past, Tudor
distrust of their rank, or personal limitations, impaired the
authority that would otherwise have attached to their official
position; and Henry never trusted them as he did ministers whom he
himself had raised from the dust. Surrey had served under Edward IV.
and Richard III.; he had fought against Henry at Bosworth, been
attainted and sent to the Tower. Reflecting that it was better to (p. 050)
be a Tudor official at Court than a baronial magnate in prison, he
submitted to the King and was set up as a beacon to draw his peers
from their feudal ways. The rest of the council were men of little
distinction. Shrewsbury, the Lord High Steward, was a pale reflex of
Surrey, and illustrious in nought but descent. Charles Somerset, Lord
Herbert, who was Chamberlain and afterwards Earl of Worcester, was a
Beaufort bastard,[93] and may have derived some little influence from
his harmless kinship with Henry VIII. Lovell, the Treasurer, Poynings
the Controller of the Household, and Harry Marney, Chancellor of the
Duchy of Lancaster, were tried and trusty officials. Bishop Fisher was
great as a Churchman, a scholar, a patron of learning, but not as a
man of affairs; while Buckingham, the only duke in England, and his
brother, the Earl of Wiltshire, were rigidly excluded by dynastic
jealousy from all share in political authority.

[Footnote 93: He is a link in the hereditary chain
which began with Beauforts, Dukes of Somerset and
ended in Somersets, Dukes of Beaufort.]

The most persistent of Henry's advisers was none of his council. He
was Ferdinand the Catholic, King of Aragon; and to his inspiration has
been asc