Regiment) on 24 December 1902, and chaired the Royal Commission on Militia and Volunteers that was established in 1903. The commission attempted to define the role of the auxiliary forces, and made detailed proposals on how their deficiencies in training and equipment could be addressed. Norfolk's commission proposed a Home Defence Army raised by conscription, which was unpopular with the Volunteers and Yeomanry, and was quickly shelved. However, in conjunction with the Elgin Commission on the War in South Africa, the Norfolk Commission's work influenced the creation of the Territorial Force (TF) under the 1908 Haldane Reforms, which subsumed the old Volunteer Force. He retired from command of the 4th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment (as the battalion had become in the TF) in 1913 after 42 years' service. In his capacity as Earl Marshal the duke arranged the state funerals of William Ewart Gladstone (1898), Queen Victoria (1901), and King Edward VII (1910), and the coronations of Edward VII (1902) and George V (1911). Apart from serving as Earl Marshal between 1860 and 1917, Norfolk was Lord Lieutenant of Sussex between 1905 and 1917. He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1886, and received the Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) from King Edward VII on 11 August 1902, following the King's coronation two days earlier. He was three-time chairman of the National Union of Conservative Associations, grand chancellor of the Primrose League, and commanding officer of the 4th (Volunteer) Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment. Philanthropy and Religious Work [[File:StEdmund'sCrest.png|thumb|Arms of St Edmund's College, Cambridge: Arms of the founder Henry Fitzalan-Howard, 15th Duke of Norfolk (quarterly of four: Howard, Brotherton, Warenne, FitzAlan) with a canton of St Edmund of Abingdon (Or, a cross fleury gules between four Cornish choughs proper) all within a bordure argent]] As is common with the Dukes of Norfolk, but exceptional within the British aristocracy, Norfolk was a Roman Catholic. In his dual role as Premier Duke and most prominent Roman Catholic in England, he undertook a programme of philanthropy which served in part to reintegrate Roman Catholics into civic life. He was born a generation after the Catholic Relief Act 1829 but before the reconstitution of Roman Catholic dioceses in 1850. By the time he came of age as Duke in 1868, the process of Catholic Emancipation had made the establishment of Catholic institutions legal, but the reality of two hundred