Short answers, pulled from the story.
Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, was an English politician and nobleman of the Tudor era, born on the 10th of March 1473 and died on the 25th of August 1554. He served as Lord High Admiral, Lord High Treasurer, and Earl Marshal of England, and was an uncle to two of Henry VIII's wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, both of whom were executed.
Thomas Howard co-commanded the English forces at the Battle of Flodden on the 9th of September 1513, near Branxton, Northumberland, where the English defeated a numerically superior Scottish invasion force. King James IV of Scotland was killed in the battle, and the victory gave the Howards enormous prestige at court. The Howard coat of arms was subsequently changed to incorporate the Scottish lion pierced through the mouth with an arrow.
Howard was sentenced to death after being attainted by statute on the 27th of January 1547, following the arrest of him and his son Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, in December 1546. He was saved when Henry VIII died in the early morning of the 28th of January 1547, and the royal council decided not to begin the new reign with an execution. He remained a prisoner in the Tower of London throughout the reign of Edward VI.
Both of Howard's nieces became queens of England and were executed by order of Henry VIII. Anne Boleyn was arrested on the 2nd of May 1536 and executed on the 19th of May 1536; Norfolk himself presided over her trial as Lord High Steward. Catherine Howard was condemned by a bill of attainder and executed on the 13th of February 1542 after Archbishop Cranmer revealed her conduct to the King in November 1541.
The Pilgrimage of Grace was a large popular uprising in Lincolnshire and the northern counties that began in October 1536, with Robert Aske assembling between 30,000 and 40,000 people at Scawsby Leys, near Doncaster. Howard, commanding a far smaller royal force of between 5,000 and 7,000 men, negotiated with the rebels and made promises of pardon and parliamentary representation that Henry VIII had not authorized. When Bigod's Rebellion broke out in January 1537, Howard led a campaign of brutal repression in the north.
Howard was buried in the Church of St Michael the Archangel in Framlingham, Suffolk. His tomb is richly decorated with the twelve Apostles and early Christian saints arranged on all four sides, along with heraldic lions bearing the arms of both the Howard family and the House of York. His effigy lies to the left of his first wife Anne of York, rather than the customary right, because of her royal lineage.