Charles Arundell

Sir Charles Arundell (died 9 December 1587), was an English gentleman, lord of the manor of South Petherton, Somerset, notable as an early Roman Catholic recusant and later as a leader of the English exiles in France. He has been suggested as the author of Leicester's Commonwealth, an anonymous work which attacked Queen Elizabeth's favourite, the Earl of Leicester. Early life and background Arundell was the son of Sir Thomas Arundell (who was attainted and executed in 1552) and of Margaret Howard (died 1571), a sister of Queen Catherine Howard. His maternal grandparents were Lord Edmund Howard (died 1539), the third son of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, and Joyce Culpeper (c. 1480–1531). His great aunt Elizabeth, Countess of Wiltshire, was the mother of Anne Boleyn, who was thus the first cousin of Arundell's mother as well as being the mother of Queen Elizabeth I, and his ancestors on his mother's side included the Varangian chieftain Rurik (ca. 830–879), founder of the Rurikid dynasty which went on to rule Muscovy and several other states. Little is known of Arundell's early life. He had an older brother, Matthew, and two sisters, Dorothy and Jane. In 1554, two years after their father's execution, the Arundell brothers were restored in blood and the elder eventually succeeded in regaining most of their father's estates in Dorset and Wiltshire, including Wardour Castle. Life Matthew Arundell, as head of the family, regained most of Sir Thomas Arundell's lost estates, while to Charles Arundell came the manor of South Petherton in Somerset.