HOWARD, Henry Frederick, Lord Maltravers (1608-52), of Arundel Castle, Suss. and Arundel House, London.

Henry Frederick Howard was the second son of Thomas Howard, 21st earl of Arundel, and was named after his godfather, Prince Henry, and his godmother’s father, Frederick of Denmark.57CSP Ven. 1607-10, p. 178; Hervey, Arundel, 49. From 1619 he spent a prolonged period on the continent, especially in Italy, with his elder brother James.58CSP Ven. 1619-21, pp. 34, 37, 55; 1621-3, p. 361; Hervey, Arundel, 161, 182, 214-6; Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton ed. L. P. Smith, ii. 240. On the death of the latter at Ghent in July 1624, Henry became heir to the earldom, and assumed the courtesy title of Lord Maltravers.59CP. After a short sojourn at St John’s College, Cambridge, he took his place at court.60Howarth, Lord Arundel, 122. However, in March 1626 he and his father fell out of favour with Charles I, on account of Maltravers’ secret marriage to a daughter of the duke of Lennox.61HMC Rutland i. 476; Hervey, Arundel, 233; Strafforde Letters, ii. 165. Arundel was committed to the Tower and relations with the family of George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham, were soured, but the rift with Charles I was soon healed. 62T. Birch, Court and Times of Charles I (1848), i. 86, 450; Hervey, Arundel, 240-49, 335; CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 273; CSP Ven. 1625-6, p. 358; Letters of John Holles 1587-1637 ed. P. R. Seddon (Thoroton Soc. xxxv), ii. 325.

Returned to Parliament for Arundel in 1628, Maltravers received nine committee nominations, but made no recorded speeches in the House.63HP Commons 1604-1629. He shared his father’s interests both in art collection and in the recovery of ancestral lands in Ireland.64Arundel, Autograph Letters 1616-32, no. 287; Hervey, Arundel, 253, 336-9, 355-6, 406, 410; Add. 15970, ff. 7, 8, 10, 14, 16, 17, 23, 65, 67. In the early 1630s Maltravers was in regular contact about the latter with James Butler, 12th earl of Ormond.65HMC Ormonde n.s. i. 26-7. While Maltravers and Arundel were visiting Ireland in 1634, Ormond effected the election of Maltravers as MP for Callan in County Kilkenny and his appointment to the Irish privy council, although Maltravers left for England before the Irish Parliament assembled.66Strafforde Letters, i. 276; HMC Ormonde, n.s. i. 27-8; CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 64. Nevertheless, his contacts with both Ormond and the lord deputy, Thomas Wentworth†, 1st earl of Strafford, continued, and an arrangement regarding the family lands was reached by September 1636.67HMC Ormonde, n.s. i. 28-9, 36; Sheffield City Lib. Strafford Pprs. 15/196.

Over the same period Maltravers was involved in commercial schemes in England, including: the Society for the Fishing (from 1633); the Bedford Level (from 1633); a monopoly on making farthing tokens, granted to Maltravers and Sir Francis Crane in February 1636, and renewed to Maltravers alone in 1639; and the corporation of saltmakers of Great Yarmouth (from 1636).68CSP Dom. 1631-3, p. 459, 569; 1634-5, pp. 57, 62, 600; 1635, p. 130, 132; 1635-6, p. 236; 1637-8, p. 147; 1638-9, p. 470; 1639, p. 509; Arundel, G1/111, unfol.; Coventry Docquets, 267. His activities betray a bias towards his family’s eastern estates. Although Maltravers was named to local commissions throughout the country, it was in Norfolk, where he was a deputy lieutenant from the late 1620s, and lord lieutenant from the mid-1630s, where his public duties were primarily fulfilled.69HMC Gawdy, 136; Add 27447, ff. 278, 284; Add 23006, f. 40; Bodl. Tanner 177, ff. 10v-11v, 21, 24v-25. There he sought to raise troops for the first bishops’ war in 1639, although he stayed in London rather than travelling north.70CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 571; 1639, p. 15.

In the spring elections of 1640, Maltravers was once again returned at Arundel. Before the session began, however, he was summoned to the House of Lords (21 Mar.) in his father’s barony as Lord Mowbray and Maltravers, entering the Upper House on 16 April.71Procs. 1640, 57. Following the dissolution of the Short Parliament, Lord Mowbray returned to his duties as lord lieutenant of Surrey, where he organized the trained bands, and of Norfolk, where he investigated those refusing to pay coat and conduct money.72CSP Dom. 1640, pp. 143, 150, 167, 485. That October he attended the council of peers at York.73Hardwicke State Pprs. ed. R.S. Rait (1912), ii. 283; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iii. 1301.

During the Long Parliament, Mowbray rapidly emerged as one of the peers most opposed to reforming policies. He took the Protestation on 4 May 1641, but absented himself from Westminster when the attainder of Strafford was voted upon two days later. 74LJ iv. 234b. His absence, which was excused, did not necessarily denote support for Strafford, but his conduct that summer earned censure from the House.75LJ iv. 236a. A violent confrontation at the privileges committee on 16 July between him and Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, resulted in both men being despatched to the Tower.76HMC 4th Rep. 91; Add. 34195, f. 33; CSP Dom. 1641-3, pp. 59, 62-3; CSP Ven. 1640-2, p. 194; Clarendon, Hist. i. 345, ii. 540; HMC Cowper ii. 289-90; Harl. 6424, ff. 82v-83. Mowbray was released, on petition, after appearing at the bar of the House to crave the pardon of the Lords.77Harl. 6424, ff. 84-5; HMC 4th Rep. 91.

Remaining in the Lords as a court peer, Mowbray protested against votes to secure Portsmouth (12 Jan. 1642), and to put the kingdom in a posture of defence (2 Mar.), and dissented from the militia ordinance (5 Mar.).78CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 135; LJ iv. 509a, 622b, 627a. On 15 June he subscribed the declaration of the peers with the king at York, ‘abhorring all designs of making war upon his Parliament’.79Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 627; Clarendon, Hist. ii. 186. Mowbray lent money to Charles, and in August attempted unsuccessfully to execute the royalist commission of array.80CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 344; PJ iii. 275; Ketton-Cremer, Norf. in Civil War, 145; Bodl. Tanner 63, f. 132.

Following the outbreak of war, Mowbray fought at Edgehill and procured arms for the cause (Dec.).81Tierney, Hist. and Antiq. Arundel, ii. 500; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 418. In Oxford by March 1643, for several months he sat regularly on the royalist council of war.82Harl. 6852, ff. 37, 85, 92, 117, 204, 233. But in letters to his parents in November he took a negative view of prospects for the country and the king’s cause.83CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 502. That month, after the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant, Mowbray explained to the Scottish privy council the reasons for his and other peers’ withdrawal from Westminster, and protested against the invitation to the Scottish army to come south of the border.84Clarendon, Hist. iii. 287-8.

Mowbray probably left England before the decisive battle of Naseby in June 1645. A safe conduct to travel overseas, sought on 11 March, was licensed by the king and granted by Parliament.85HMC 6th Rep. 50; LJ vii. 270. By Michaelmas Mowbray was in Venice.86Evelyn Diary ed. de Beer, ii. 470. He was in Padua with his father when the latter died in 1646. Now earl of Arundel, Surrey and Norfolk, he visited his mother in Holland, then returned to England.87Arundel, MD1249, p. 10; Tierney, Hist. and Antiq. Arundel, ii. 500. There he attempted to protect his estates, which had been sequestered in October 1645 on the grounds that he was a recusant.88CCC 620. Following an order in December 1646 to seize his rents, in February 1647 he was granted public faith bills for £1,000 paid for his 1/5 and 1/20.89CCC 295. There were rumours in March 1647 that he had been allowed to travel abroad again, but it is unclear whether he left England, or whether he played a role in negotiations between king and Parliament in the spring of 1648, as was also suggested.90CCSP i. 365, 419. At the end of that year the Commons granted Arundel a pardon for his delinquency and ordered lifting of sequestration, in return for a fine of £6,000 and other conditions, which he delayed fulfilling.91CJ vi. 86a; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. vii. 1337; CCC 645, 2461.

The Rump government was also concerned about his allegiances. In May 1650 Arundel entered a bond (in £3,000), upon his wife’s travelling to the continent, that she would not act prejudicially to the commonwealth.92CSP Dom. 1650, p. 156. The following October information surfaced that Arundel was not only a recusant, but had also sent arms to Charles Stuart and concealed from the commissioners for compounding lands to the value of £12,000 a year (an allegation later expanded to include significant portions of his estate).93CCC 295. It was probably no coincidence that the same month the council of state requisitioned Arundel House as a garrison.94CSP Dom. 1650, p. 405. In 1651 Arundel sought to avoid taking the oath of abjuration, claiming that coming to London would put him at risk from his father’s creditors. As a result, in April the re-sequestration of his estates was ordered, while in September there were claims that he had attended mass since 1642, and that his children were being brought up in the Catholic faith.95CCC 295, 2462.

Meanwhile, Arundel clashed with his mother over their respective inheritances. Having initially taken an oath that his father’s will was genuine, Arundel produced a new one when his mother launched a legal challenge alleging that he had retained her jointure lands – the most valuable single portion of the Howard estate. In July 1650 sentence was given against Arundel, but his delaying tactics prevented the land sales that would fund debts and his mother’s jointure. 96Arundel, MD1249, pp. 10-12. Despite arbitration by other peers, the matter may not have been settled before Arundel’s death in 1652.97Arundel, MD1249, pp. 1-5; Arundel, Misc. Corr. C5; Eg. 2534, ff. 124-25v; Tierney, Hist. and Antiq. Arundel, ii. 502-9; CCC 2462. He was succeeded by his son, Thomas, who was abroad and mentally ill. Despite the Rump’s attempt to effect his return to England in 1659, he may have stayed on the continent until his death in 1677.98CP.