Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, Knight of the Garter, and Earl Marshal of England (1473 - 1554), portrayed by Sir Rex Harrison, was a real-life Tudor period politician. He was also the uncle of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, two of the six wives of King Henry VIII. Norfolk had a major role in the drama and arrangements behind both marriages. Norfolk fell out of favor with King Henry VIII in 1546, when he was stripped of his titles and imprisoned in the Tower of London. However, soon after his imprisonment, Henry VIII died, and Norfolk was able to cheat trial and execution, being finally released on the accession of Edward VI's oldest sister, Queen Mary I. He was of assistance to Catholic Mary succeeding to the throne, thereby setting the stage for alienation between his Catholic family and the successive Protestant monarchs beginning with his great niece, Queen Elizabeth I. In 1546-1547, Norfolk would have been aged about seventy-three, slightly older than Harrison (born 1908), who was sixty-eight at the time of production in 1976.

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