The first Dominicans to return to Leicester after the Reformation came from Holy Cross Priory, Bornhem, founded in 1657 in what was then the Spanish Netherlands. The founder was Philip Thomas Howard, born in 1629, a member of the family of the Dukes of Norfolk, whose title had been in abeyance since the reign of Elizabeth. He was brought up in the household of his grandfather the Earl of Arundel, known as the ‘Collector Earl’ because of his patronage of the fine arts (the ‘Arundel Marbles’ are to be seen in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford). The Earl, being a Royalist, settled on the Continent during the Civil Wars. In 1645, at Cremona, the young Philip took the habit of the Order, much to the displeasure of the Earl. His purpose was to restore the English Province, and it was for this reason that he eventually persuaded the Master of the Order and the General Chapter to allow him to seek a patron, the Count of Bornhem near Ghent, to make the first foundation of the English Dominicans since the Reformation. Howard returned to England as Almoner to Charles II’s Queen in 1660, but eventually had to leave England due to anti-Catholic sentiment. He was created Cardinal in 1675 and died in Rome in 1694. He was Cardinal Protector of England and Scotland, did much to restore the English College in Rome, and gave his unheeded advice to the headstrong James II. His tomb is in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome.