HOWE, John Grobham (1625-79), of Little Compton, Withington, Glos.

The Howe family first came to acquire property in Gloucestershire through the legacy of Sir Richard Grobham of Great Wishford, who acquired Chedworth manor in 1616. Grobham settled his lands on his nephew, John Howe, our MP’s father, who may have been intended as his beneficiary as early as 1617.12Glos. RO, D1878, Chedworth box. Nearby Little Compton was bought by Thomas Rich, master in chancery, in 1610, and had come to John Howe senior by 1636 through his marriage to Rich’s daughter. This marriage bestowed on Howe senior sufficient status for him to be admitted to the Gloucestershire commission of the peace in 1640.13C231/5, p. 395. He consolidated his estate through the purchase of Compton Abdale manor, and through his father-in-law was assigned a lease of Withington from John Prideaux, bishop of Worcester.14VCH Glos. ix. 34, 259, 26. The Withington lease was held for lives, including that of John Grobham Howe, the second son. The woods of the manor were held on a separate lease by Gabriel Becke*, who had acquired the interest of John Dutton*.15Worcs. RO, BA 2636/56/44069A. When the estates of the bishop were offered for sale in 1648, Howe bought Withington, and held it until 1660.16VCH Glos. ix. 259. A further acquisition by Howe senior, in 1652, was Chedworth manor, also former ecclesiastical property, but this was an augmentation of his family interest there which dated back to 1615.17Glos. RO, D1878. Howe senior seems to have remained inactive politically during the civil war, and was sufficiently trusted by the commonwealth government to be appointed sheriff of Gloucestershire in 1650.18List of Sheriffs (L. and I. ix), 51.

John Grobham Howe, his second son, was a minor during the first civil war, and came of age in 1646. His admission to the Wiltshire commission of the peace that year recognised the standing of the family in their county of origin.19C231/6, p. 69. There is necessarily some doubt over whether it was the father or the son who joined the Gloucestershire bench of magistrates in 1650.20C231/6, p. 194. As the event coincided with the year of Howe senior’s appointment to the shrievalty, it may seem unlikely that a second son should receive preference over his father. But as ‘John Howe junior’ seems to have been deleted from the commission by October 1653, the likelihood is that it was John Grobham Howe’s father who remained on the Gloucestershire bench throughout the 1650s, and that father and son only served together briefly in the early 1650s. It is also more likely that the ‘John Howe’ named to various Gloucestershire commissions through the 1650s was Howe senior.21A. and O.

There is less doubt about the identity of the MP in three Cromwellian Parliaments, as the clerk consistently noted him as John Grobham Howe. Modern commentators erroneously continue to attribute membership of the Commons to his father.22VCH Glos. ix. 261. He was elected to the first protectorate Parliament during a political climate in which the Gloucestershire gentry sought to protect their ‘country’s’ interest. Even so, in his first Parliament he was named to the important committee framing the ‘recognition’, the test of loyalty to the government and on the same day to a committee for a bill on ejecting scandalous ministers (26 Sept.1654). A little later he was added to the committee of privileges when it turned its attention to disputed elections in Ireland (5 Oct.), suggesting that he was at this stage no enemy of the protectorate.23CJ vii. 370a, 373b. Indeed, during the interlude of the major-generals, his father was a commissioner for securing the peace of the commonwealth, a further apparent indication of the family’s political orientation. But even then, there was an element of ambivalence; Major-general John Disbrowe* noted that in January 1656 Howe senior was absent from a meeting of the commissioners owing to gout; the major-general’s tone suggests that he thought it an excuse.24TSP iv. 391.

Howe was returned to the 1656 Parliament after the sheriff had apparently manipulated the election to ensure a military element, in the shape of William Neast and John Croft, was returned alongside Howe and George Berkeley, representatives of the established gentry community.25Glos. RO, D2768/1/1. On 18 September, Howe was again named to the politically important committee of privileges, but was then given leave of absence for three weeks (6 Oct.).26CJ vii. 424a, 435a. His three other committee appointments were on bringing in the arrears of excise and on petitions from individuals, which may suggest that by this time his interest and commitment were waning.27CJ vii. 443a, 452a, 472b. There was little outward sign of disenchantment with the protectorate when he took his place in Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament. On 28 January 1659 he was for the third time elected to the committee for privileges, which was becoming his wonted place.28CJ vii. 595a. But by then, Howe was effectively leading a double life, as on the one hand an apparently loyal MP and on the other, as a royalist agent.

Howe seems to have been in touch with the supporters of the future Charles II through the king’s Bristol agent, William Clayton, as early as mid-1657.29Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy, 240. Early in September 1658, Howe was apparently offering to raise 3,000 men and bring in a town – he must have meant Gloucester – and was attractive to the plotters in the Great Trust because he had never been in arms for either side in the 1640s. Towards the end of the month, Charles accepted Howe’s offer of service, and must have acceded to his request that he should sit in the next Parliament: Charles himself was encouraging ‘entryism’ on his behalf.30CCSP iv. 78, 87, 88, 90. By mid-March 1659, the leading conspirator, John Mordaunt, considered rather unrealistically that Howe was the most important figure politically in Gloucestershire, and worried that their man might abandon the royalist cause. By this time, Howe was being encouraged to make contact with Edward Massie*, the former Presbyterian governor of Gloucester.31CCSP iv. 158-9, 161, 166; Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 9.

In Parliament itself, Howe was opposed to extending the debate on recognising the protector’s title (14 Feb.) and sought to exclude the Scots and Irish Members, on the grounds that their presence was not sanctioned by the old constitution. In seconding Matthew Alured’s claim that these Members sat ‘upon no foot of law’, Howe ominously warned the government of trouble ahead: ‘take notice we lay our claim’.32CJ vii. 603b; Burton’s Diary, iv. 87, 218. During March, Howe became closely associated with leading crypto-royalists in the House, such as Lord Falkland (Henry Cary), Sir Horatio Townshend and Edward Hungerford, and it was later said that he was ‘forward, but not so able’ as Falkland, while his brother, Richard, was considered ‘honest, but not so forward’.33Bodl. Clarendon 60, ff. 248, 336v. Such associations influenced Howe’s activity in the House. On 25 March, the royalist plotters heard how Howe was among the most vocal of MPs in favour of reviving the old House of Lords, perhaps giving a pointer to his reason in participating in the committee on corresponding with the Other House (6 April).34CCSP iv. 166-7; CJ vii. 627a. It was his interest in a revival of the full old constitution that presumably lay behind his involvement in a division on messages to the Other House.35CJ vii. 632b; Burton’s Diary, iv. 374.

The pace of royalist plotting intensified after the collapse of Richard Cromwell’s regime, and in May 1659 Howe was apparently issued with a commission by Mordaunt to organise a rising in Gloucestershire, as part of a linked series of revolts across England. Some doubt about Howe’s intentions in the minds of the plotters seem to have been dispelled; doubts that for different reasons surrounded him in the eyes of the authorities. Howe was questioned by the authorities about arms conveyed to him, but the suspicions of the revived commonwealth government were apparently allayed by Sir Arthur Hesilrige, his former fellow-Member.36CCSP iv. 189, 190, 194, 195, 200, 202, 203, 204, 207, 210. Howe was still expected to bring over Gloucester to the king, where it was reported that the mayor was ready to act. How far active preparations were really in hand may be doubted, however, since on 17 June, Howe was uncertain whether he had been given a commission to lead a rebellion in the town.37CCSP iv. 216, 217, 218, 219, 226, 227, 233, 237, 243. The plot centred on Howe and Gloucester began to blur by July with the rising of Sir George Boothe*, and the approaching harvest was considered a rival attraction for labourers who might have been hoped for as foot soldiers in the venture.38CCSP iv. 259, 280, 281, 297. At some point before mid-August, Howe was rounded up and imprisoned, as it became clear that suspicions of him held in the spring were justified. Howe wrote to Hesilrige requesting house arrest rather than incarceration, on the grounds of his wife’s health. From then on, he was constantly under suspicion by the republican government, and his property, mainly in Nottinghamshire through his wife, was sequestered.39CSP Dom. 1659-60, pp. 103, 340, 348; CCC 3252.

The royalist plots failed because they were too ambitious, but also because of rivalry between the plotters. Massie began to express doubts about Howe’s reliability as early as the beginning of July 1659, but he was notoriously difficult to work with, and came to view Howe as a rival for local leadership of the plot.40CCSP iv. 259, 297. Edward Hyde* was among those won over to Massie’s claim for pre-eminence, and by March 1660, Howe had assumed a lesser role. Doubts circulated about his commission as a leader of the Gloucestershire royalists – it seemed not have been renewed after the disappointments of the previous summer – but Howe’s visit to London in November 1659 to have it renewed seems to have been unsuccessful. Massie did nothing to bolster Howe’s standing in the eyes of Hyde, and in March 1660 was commending men such as Christopher Guise* and the son of Edward Stephens* as more useful to the king’s cause.41CCSP iv. 259, 297, 525, 537, 543, 555, 556, 570, 573, 583; Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 89, 116. Despite Massie’s coldness towards him, Howe was included in the county militia commission later that month.42A. and O.

At the Restoration of the monarchy, Howe’s father was granted a baronetcy and his wife was legitimised. Returned once more as knight of the shire in the Cavalier Parliament, he was sympathetic towards nonconformists, and took a generally sceptical line against the government.43HP Commons 1660-1690, ‘John Grobham Howe’. On the death of his father, Howe took up residence at the 18-hearth house in Little Compton, where he made his will in 1678.44E179/247/14; PROB11/370/8. He left extensive estates in ten counties, including rectories, tithes and lead mines. He was buried at Langar, Nottinghamshire on 27 May 1679.