Its criticism was no better than its literature; for Wyatt, whom few read but the literary historian, was then considered A hand that taught what might be said in rhyme, That reft Chaucer the glory of his wit.
The glory of Chaucer's wit remains, while Wyatt is chiefly known because he was executed.
SURREY .-- A twin star, but with a brighter lustre, was Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, a writer whose works are remarkable for purity of thought and refinement of language.

Surrey was a gay and wild young fellow--distinguished in the tournament which celebrated Henry's marriage with Anne of Cleves; now in prison for eating meat in Lent, and breaking windows at night; again we find him the English marshal when Henry invaded France in 1544.

He led a restless life, was imperious and hot-tempered to the king, and at length quartered the king's arms with his own, thus assuming royal rights and imperilling the king's dignity.

On this charge, which was, however, only a pretext, he was arrested and executed for high treason in 1547, before he was thirty years old.
Surrey is the greatest poetical name of Henry the Eighth's reign, not so much for the substance of his poems as for their peculiar handling.

He is claimed as the introducer of blank verse--the iambic pentameter without rhyme, occasionally broken for musical effect by a change in the place of the caesural pause.