Henry Fitzalan, twelfth Earl of Arundel, was born about the year 1513. He was the only son of William Fitzalan, eleventh Earl of Arundel, K.G., by his second wife, Anne, daughter of Henry Percy, fourth Earl of Northumberland.

When fourteen years of age his father was anxious to place him in the household of Cardinal Wolsey, but he preferred to offer his service to his godfather, King Henry VIII., 'who did noblely receave him, and well esteemed of him for the same.'[10] In 1534 he was summoned to Parliament in his father's barony as Lord Maltravers,[11] and in 1536, although only twenty-three years of age, he was appointed Governor of Calais, a post he held until the death of his father in January 1544. On the 24th of April in the same year he was made a K.G., and in the following July he received the appointment of 'Marshal of the Field' in the army which invaded France. He greatly distinguished himself at the siege of Boulogne, and on his return home he was made Lord Chamberlain, which office he held until the fourth year of King Edward VI.'s reign, when, on a false and ridiculous charge of abusing the privileges of his post to enrich himself and his friends, he was deprived of it, and fined twelve thousand pounds, eight thousand pounds of which was afterwards remitted.[12]

On the death of Edward, Arundel took a prominent part in the proceedings which placed Mary on the throne, and as a reward for his exertions he was made Lord Steward of the Household, and was also given a seat on the Council Board. Queen Elizabeth, on her accession to the crown, continued him in all the appointments which he had held in the preceding reign, and on several occasions visited him at Nonsuch, his residence at Cheam in Surrey. These marks of kindness led him, it is said, to aspire to a union with his royal mistress; but being disappointed in gaining her hand, and 'being miscontented with sundry things,' in 1564 he resigned his post of Lord Steward 'with sundry Speeches of Offence,'[13] which so displeased Elizabeth that she ordered him to confine himself to his house. He afterwards partially regained the favour of the Queen, but having endeavoured to promote the marriage of his widowed son-in-law, the Duke of Norfolk, with Mary Queen of Scots, he was once more placed under arrest, and although after a time he obtained his release, it was followed by further imprisonment, and he did not finally regain his liberty until some months after the execution of Norfolk on the 2nd of June 1572.

Arundel passed the remainder of his life in retirement, affectionately tended until her death in 1577 by 'his nursse and deare beloved childe' Lady Lumley. He died on the 24th of February 1580 at Arundel House in the Strand, and was buried in the Collegiate Chapel at Arundel, where a monument, with an inscription by his son-in-law, Lord Lumley, was erected to his memory.

Arundel was twice married. By his first wife, Katherine, second daughter of Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, he had one son, Henry, Lord Maltravers, who died in 1556, and two daughters: Jane, who married Lord Lumley, and Mary, who became the wife of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, beheaded in 1572. His second wife, Mary, who died in 1557, was a daughter of Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, Cornwall, and widow of Robert Ratcliffe, first Earl of Sussex. By her he had no issue.

With the assistance of Humphrey Llwyd, the physician and antiquary, who married Barbara, sister of Lord Lumley, Lord Arundel formed at his residence of Nonsuch a fine collection of books, many of which had once been the property of Archbishop Cranmer. An account of this mansion is given in the manuscript Life of Lord Arundel, to which we have already alluded, and it also contains a reference to his library. 'This Earle moreover continewed allwayes of a greate and noble mynde. Amonge the number of whose doings, that past in his tyme, this one is not the least, to showe his magnificence, that perceivinge a sumptuous house called Nonsuche to have bene begon, but not finished, by his first maister Kinge Henry the eighte, and thearfore in Quene Maryes tyme, thoughte mete rather to have bene pulled downe and solde by peacemeale then to be perfited at her charges, he, for the love and honour he bare to his olde maister, desired to buye the same house, by greace, of the Quene, for w^ch he gave faire lands unto her Highnes; and having the same, did not leave till he had fullye finished it in buildings, reparations, paviments and gardens, in as ample and perfit sorte as by the first intente and meaninge of the saide Kinge his old maister, the same should have bene performed, and so it is nowe evident to be beholden of all strangers, and others, for the honour of this Realme as a pearle thereof. The same he haith lefte to his posterity, garnished and replenished with riche furnitures; amonge the w^ch his Lybrarye is righte worthye of remembrance.'

Lord Arundel left Nonsuch, with its library and furniture, together with the greater part of his estates, to his son-in-law, Lord Lumley.

There are portraits of the Earl of Arundel by Holbein and Sir Anthony More. That by Holbein, which is in the collection of the Marquis of Bath, is engraved in Lodge's Portraits of Illustrious Personages.