HOWARD, Philip (d. 1686), of Leicester Fields, Westminster, and Sissinghurst, Cranbrook, Kent.

Howard was a less complex, more straight-forwardly royalist, figure than his elder brother Charles. Like Charles, he was ‘bred up a papist’, but his early life remains almost totally obscure until late 1657, when he fought a duel with Lord Belasyse (John Belasyse*) in the belief that the latter had seduced Charles’s wife.25Supra, ‘Charles Howard’; LJ viii. 296b; CSP Dom. 1657-8, pp. 258, 551; HMC 5th Rep. 200; HMC Ormonde, n.s. ii. 397. Howard should not be confused with Philip Howard†, son of the 1st earl of Berkshire, who entered the service of the princess royal in Holland in the early 1650s.26  HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Hon. Philip Howard’.

In the elections to Richard Cromwell's* Parliament of 1659, Howard and the civil-war parliamentarian George Marwood – who appear to have stood as electoral partners – were returned for the Yorkshire constituency of Malton. The Howards enjoyed a strong proprietorial interest in the Malton area, owning the manor of Thorpe Bassett, just three miles to the west of the borough, and the property at nearby Hinderskelfe.27C142/774/15; Castle Howard Archives, C18/1/5; VCH N. Riding, i. 111. However, Howard probably owed his election not to his family’s local landed influence but to his kinswomen, Margaret and Mary Eure and their mother – the widow of Colonel William Eure, the brother of Howard’s mother. The Eure women had inherited the family’s principal estate at Old Malton and claimed the right to appoint the borough’s returning officer.28VCH N. Riding, i. 531-3; HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Malton’.

Howard’s and Marwood’s return was contested by the Yorkshire republicans and army supporters Colonel Robert Lilburne* and Luke Robinson*, who had been elected by the voters of the adjacent manor of New Malton, which the Long Parliament had re-enfranchised in 1640. The double return at Malton sparked off a protracted and heated battle in the committee of privileges and on the floor of the House between the republican MPs, who backed the return of Lilburne and Robinson, and their Cromwellian and Presbyterian opponents, who supported Howard and Marwood.29Supra, ‘Malton’. Having attended the committee of privileges without legal counsel, Howard was assisted in presenting his case by a kinsman of the Eures, Dr William Denton.30Mems. of the Verney Fam. iii. 445. When the issue was put to a vote in the House on 7 March 1659, the republican interest was defeated, and Howard’s and Marwood’s return was upheld – a result that may well have heightened the army’s fears that Parliament was dominated by its Cromwellian and royalist enemies.31CJ vii. 611a; Burton’s Diary, iv. 46.

Howard took his seat immediately.32Burton’s Diary, iv. 46. But although it had reportedly cost Howard and Marwood almost £200 to secure their return, Howard played little part in this Parliament’s proceedings, and his allegiance in the House is difficult to determine.33Mems. of the Verney Fam. iii. 476. Following a division on 21 March on whether Scottish MPs should be allowed to sit in the House, he appears to have joined the crypto-royalist Ralph Delaval and other opponents of the army in declaring ‘against the question’.34Burton’s Diary, iv. 219. This has been taken to mean that he was against having Scottish MPs at Westminster and was thus at one with the republicans, who regarded them as Cromwellian placemen.35Bolton, ‘Yorks.’, 178. A more likely interpretation, however, is that Howard, rather than having voted in the negative to this question, had been opposed to having it put in the first place. He received only one appointment – to a committee set up on 18 April 1659 to consider measures for securing Parliament and the government against the royalists who were now gathering openly in London.36CJ vii. 642a. It is unclear whether Howard was a crypto-royalist or a Cromwellian and adherent of the court party like his brother Charles. But it is almost certain that he was hostile to the army republicans and the sects.

The army’s coup against the protectorate in April 1659 and the subsequent restoration of the Rump apparently pushed Howard into outright opposition. In July, the Rump rejected a proposal to add Howard to the Yorkshire assessment commission; and he and Major Robert Harley* – the son of the Presbyterian grandee Sir Robert Harley* – were then questioned by the council of state for having discussed a rumour that the army intended to dissolve the Rump and seize power for itself. Howard was required to give security of £1,000 for his good behaviour.37Bodl. Rawl. C.179, pp. 197, 201, 212; CJ vii. 724b; HMC Bath, ii. 135; CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 34, 36. But although Charles Howard was apparently complicit in Sir George Boothe’s* royalist-Presbyterian rising that summer and was committed to the Tower as a result, there is no evidence that Howard was similarly involved. In fact, nothing is heard of him until late December 1659, when he resolved to take up arms in support of General George Monck* – who was a friend of Charles Howard – in defiance of Major-general John Lambert* and the committee of safety. 38Supra, ‘Charles Howard’. On 26 December, Thomas Clarges*, Monck’s brother-in-law, informed the general that Howard had offered to

raise a troop of gentlemen in the north [principally in Cumberland and Northumberland] and carry them to my brother [Monck] upon condition to command them for a life-guard, which our friends here encouraged him to, and he has been a week gone northwards. He is a stout man and ventures a good estate.39HMC Leyborne-Popham, 137-8; Baker, Chronicle, 675.

Howard was also in contact with the London royalists by December 1659, sending them intelligence of Lambert’s forces in York just days before the city was seized for Monck by the 3rd Baron Fairfax (Sir Thomas Fairfax*) early in January 1660.40Clarendon SP iii. 637. Whether Howard did indeed raise men against Lambert is not known, but he had evidently won Monck’s approval in some capacity, for by 20 January he was commander of his life-guard and, as such, was part of the force that accompanied the general down to London.41CCSP iv. 526; Baker, Chronicle, 681. On 24 February, following his appointment as commander-in-chief, Monck made Howard captain of Parliament’s life-guard (which Monck had appropriated as his own), with Robert Harley as his lieutenant.42CCSP iv. 572; Firth and Davies, Regimental Hist. i. 56. Howard and his officers immediately set about purging the life-guard and were reportedly ‘so active that in six hours time they displaced all of whom they had any suspicion and filled up the troop with honest and gallant men’.43Baker, Chronicle, 690. According to another report, however, Howard’s new recruits were ‘mostly cavaliers and papists’.44CCSP iv. 593. Late in February, Monck employed the remodelled life-guard under Howard to help bring to heel the republican army officer, Colonel Nathaniel Rich*.45Baker, Chronicle, 690. In April, Howard joined his brother Charles and other senior army officers in an address to Monck, pledging their obedience to him and to the forthcoming Convention.46The Remonstrance and Address of the Armies...to the Lord General Monck (1660), 5-8, 14 (E.1021.1).

In the elections to the 1660 Convention, Howard stood for Malton again, this time with the royalist (Sir) Thomas Heblethwayte. The two men were challenged, although in a very gentlemanly fashion, by Dr Denton. According to Denton, there was much courteous communication between the candidates, neither wishing to stand in the other’s way, and in the end Denton stood aside and Howard and Heblethwayte were elected.47Mems. of the Verney Fam. iii. 476-7. Howard was largely inactive in the Convention and made no recorded contribution to debate.48HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Philip Howard’. His moment of glory came late in May, when, as captain of the life-guard, he attended Charles II’s landing at Dover and was knighted at Canterbury.49HMC 5th Rep. 199. Two days later, Howard and the life-guard accompanied the king on his triumphal entry into London.50OPH xxii. 323. The king confirmed Howard’s command of what would become the second, or queen’s, troop of the royal Life Guards.51Castle Howard Archives, J5/3/3.

In 1661, Howard was returned to the Cavalier Parliament for Carlisle, where his brother Charles was governor. He received only 25 committee appointments during the course of this Parliament and, again, made no recorded speeches.52HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Philip Howard’. A notorious court dependent, he was consistently identified with the cavalier interest, both at Westminster and in London generally.53HMC 5th Rep. 348; Browning, Danby, iii. 34, 45, 48, 52, 63, 66, 69, 72, 109; HP Commons, 1660-90, ‘Philip Howard’. He was also suspected of having Catholic sympathies. Twice during the 1660s he was accused of being a papist, and it was possibly only his gallant service during the first Dutch War that persuaded Parliament to dismiss the allegations against him on the second occasion.54Bramston Autobiog. ed. P. Braybrooke (Cam. Soc. xxxii), 144; Milward Diary ed. C. Robbins, 45; R. S. Ferguson, Cumb. and Westmld. MPs, 1660-1867, 380; CSP Dom. 1666-7, pp. 27, 32, 37, 42; HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘Philip Howard’. Returned for Carlisle to the first and second Exclusion Parliaments in 1679, he was classed as ‘thrice vile’ by the earl of Shaftesbury (Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper*) and voted against the Exclusion Bill.55HP Commons 1660-1690. He seems to have stood down in 1681, and his seat was taken by his nephew, Edward Howard, Viscount Morpeth.

Late in 1684, Howard was appointed governor of Jamaica (a post held by his brother Charles between 1678 and 1681), but his departure was delayed by the ‘clamours of his debtors’, and he died in England in mid-April 1686 before he could embark for the Caribbean.56CSP Col. America and W. Indies, 1681-5, pp. 751-2; Ellis Corresp. ed. G. A. Ellis, i. 35-6; Life and Times of Anthony Wood ed. Clark, iii. 183. Although he was said to have been reconciled to Rome on his deathbed, he was buried in Westminster Abbey on 15 April.57Ellis Corresp. ed. Ellis, i. 99; Westminster Abbey Regs. ed. Chester, 216. In his will, he assigned his estate to his executors – his nephew Viscount Morpeth (now 2nd earl of Carlisle) and kinsman Sir John Fenwick† – to hold in trust for payment of his debts and the education and maintenance of his young (and only) son Philip. He charged his estate with annuities of £140.58PROB11/383, ff. 244v-245. His debts were probably in excess of £10,000, and his debtors may have included his own troopers, who had accused him in 1672 of detaining their pay.59Add. 28937, f. 161; Castle Howard Archives, J5/1/1-11.

A libertine, a duellist and a courageous soldier, Howard was in many ways the epitome of the Restoration cavalier. He was much admired by the diarist and parvenu Samuel Pepys†, who thought him ‘a very fine-spoken gentleman and one of great parts and very courteous’.60Pepys’s Diary, vii. 87. In November 1666, he records calling on Howard at his house in Leicester Fields, where he found him

dressing himself in his night-gown and turban, like a Turk; but one of the finest persons that I ever saw in my life. He had several gentlemen of his own waiting on him and one playing finely on the guitar. He discourses as well as ever I heard man, in few words and handsome.61Pepys’s Diary, vii. 378.

Howard’s son Philip was elected for Morpeth in 1698 and Carlisle in 1701.62HP Commons 1690-1715, ‘Philip Howard’.