ENGLISH DOMINICAN RECORDS. No. I. LETTERS OF PHILIP, CARDINAL HOWARD, 1645-1694. CONTRIBUTED
BY THE VERY REV. BEDE JARRETT O.P.
INTRODUCTION . The letters of Philip Thomas Cardinal Howard O.P. here collected can be grouped chiefly under five headings : the first one concerned with his vocation to the Dominican Order and the huge mass of difficulties which beset his following of it ; the second refers principally to his work in establishing the English Province, which had never wholly lapsed , on a foundation which should secure its regular continuance; the third to his repeated petition , in accordance with the marriage settlement of Queen Catharine of Braganza , to be raised to the episcopal dignity; the fourth to his answers to correspondents who consulted him in his official position as Cardinal Protector of England and Scotland ; the
fifth to the family affairs of the Howards. A full account of the Cardinal will be found in The Life of Philip Thomas Howard O.P. , Cardinal ofNorfolk by the Rev. Fr. C. F. Raymund Palmer O.P. published in London by Thomas Richardson & Son, 1867. It is now out of print but copies are not infrequently to be met with in secondhand catalogues . Philip was born on Sept. 21st , 1629 at Arundel House during the time that Rubens was living there, painting
the portrait of the Earl , Philip's grandfather ( cf. Rubens, by Max Roose, French translation pp. 307, 310 etc. ) . He was the third son of Henry Frederick Howard who was the sole surviving son of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel and of Alathea daughter and sole heiress to Gilbert Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and who married Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of Esmé, Duke of Lennox. At the age of eleven his name was entered as a Fellow Commoner at S. John's College, Cambridge , but there is nothing to show that he ever resided there. In 1642 the Earl went abroad into Holland with Queen Henrietta Maria to escort Princess Mary to her husband William of Orange . As soon after , the Civil War broke out , the Earl was joined on the continent by his Countess and the grandchildren. After some time at Antwerp, the Earl with some of the children went on to Italy , where at Milan Philip became acquainted with Fr. John Baptist Hackett, an Irish Dominican teaching theology in the Priory of S. Eustorgio. Here the boy asked to be allowed to become a Preaching Friar, but it was not till the family had moved to Piacenza that he got leave from his grandfather to return to Milan , without howeverdeclaringthe real purpose of his journey . From Milan Philip and the Irish Friar went to Cremona where in the Dominican Convent he received the habit . The following extracts from the Registers (De Rebus Conventus Cremonensis, edited by Domaschino O.P. Cremona 1767) are the official account: 1645. June 18-28 . Die 28 Julii Junii ] 1645 , F. Thomas Horvardus, Anglus, qui in sæculo vocabatur[ Princeps Philippus recepit habitum clericalem in hoc Conventu S. Dominici Cremone , nomine Provincie Angliae, et
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