Henry Howard Surrey, earl of, an English poet, born about 1516, beheaded on Tower hill, London, Jan. 21, 1547. He was the eldest son of Thomas Howard, third duke of Norfolk, and passed his youth at the court of Henry VIII. In 1532 he married .the daughter of the earl of Oxford, and went to France with the duke of Richmond, He assisted in the trial of Anne Boleyn in 1536, served in France in 1540, and was imprisoned for some wild irregularities in 1543. In 1544 he commanded in France, and earned the rank of field marshal. After the taking of Boulogne he became its governor, and continued the war with advantage until January, 1546, when he met with a reverse. A panic among his troops caused a failure to intercept a convoy of provisions near St. Etienne, and his rival, the earl of Hertford, afterward the protector Somerset, induced the king to recall him to England. Surrey's comments on this action offended Henry, who imprisoned him for a short time in the tower. The Hertford faction lost no opportunity to excite the fears of the king, and on Dec. 12, 1546, Surrey with his father was again arrested on a charge of treason, for having quartered the royal arms with his own.

Surrey in an eloquent defence proved conclusively his right to assume the royal arms; yet he was condemned and executed about a week before the death of the king. His works consist of sonnets, amatory verses, elegies, paraphrases from the Scriptures, and translations of the second and fourth books of the AEneid, and afford the first instance of the use of the sonnet and of blank verse in English poetry. The first edition of his sonnets was published by Richard Tottel in 1557. Editions of his works, with those of Sir Thomas Wyatt, and biographies, have been published by George Frederick Nott, D. D. (2 vols. 4to, 1815 - '16; new ed., 1871), Sir Harris. Nicolas (1831), Prof. Child (Boston, 1854), and the Rev. R. Gilfillan (Edinburgh, 1856).