Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk

The Earl of Suffolk
Spouse(s)	Mary Dacre Katherine Knyvet
Issue Theophilus Howard, 2nd Earl of Suffolk Elizabeth Howard Robert Howard Gertrude Howard Sir William Howard Catherine Howard Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Berkshire Emily Howard Frances Howard Sir Charles Howard Henry Howard John Howard Edward Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Escrick Margaret Howard
Noble family	House of Howard
Father	Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk
Mother	Margaret Audley
Born	24 August 1561
Died	28 May 1626

Admiral Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk, KG PC (24 August 1561 – 28 May 1626) was a son of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk by his second wife Margaret Audley, Duchess of Norfolk, the daughter and heiress of the 1st Baron Audley of Walden.

After the death of his mother on 10 January 1564, the infant Thomas inherited Saffron Walden and other Audley properties. While imprisoned in the Tower before his execution in 1572, his father urged him to marry his stepsister Mary Dacre, the daughter of Thomas Dacre, 4th Baron Dacre and Elizabeth Leybourne, the Duke's third wife. He did so; but Mary died, childless, in April 1578 at Walden.

In or before 1582, Howard remarried to Katherine Knyvet, widow of Richard, son of Robert Rich, 2nd Baron Rich. A noted beauty, she was also the eldest daughter and heiress of her father, Sir Henry Knyvet of Charlton. She survived him, dying in 1633.

In December 1584, he was restored in blood as Lord Thomas Howard. Lord Thomas commanded the Golden Lion in the attack on the Spanish Armada. On 25 July 1588, the Golden Lion was one of the three ships that counter-attacked the Spanish galleasses protecting the Saint Anne. He was knighted the next day aboard Ark Royal by his kinsman, Admiral Lord Howard of Effingham.

In 1591, he was sent with a squadron to the Azores which was to waylay the Spanish treasure fleets from America. However, one fleet reached Spain before his arrival, and the second would not arrive in the islands until September. Forced by the long delay to land his sick and repair his ships, he was barely able to reballast and get to sea off Flores in time when his scouts reported an arriving fleet. To his horror, this proved to be, not the treasure fleet, but a powerful Spanish force dispatched from Ferrol to destroy his squadron. All of Howard's fleet escaped, by the barest of margins, except Revenge, commanded by the squadron's vice-admiral, Sir Richard Grenville. Revenge, some distance from the remainder of the fleet, attempted to break through the Castilian Squadron and was forced to surrender after a long fight, in which Revenge was virtually destroyed and Grenville mortally wounded.