HOWARD, Charles (c.1536-1624)

Nottingham’s father, William Howard^†, was a younger son of Thomas Howard^†, 2nd duke of Norfolk. Mary Tudor made William lord admiral and, in 1554, raised him to the peerage as Lord Howard of Effingham. He subsequently served Elizabeth, first as lord chamberlain and later lord privy seal, before his death in 1573. William acquired Reigate priory in Surrey at the Dissolution of the Monasteries and converted the priory house into his principal residence. He also acquired further properties, mostly in Surrey, including the manor of Effingham from which he took his territorial suffix, as well as Bletchingley, a parliamentary borough. However, he was considered insufficiently wealthy to be created an earl in 1572.97 VCH Surr. iii. 231, 235-6, 323; S. Adams, ‘Patronage of the Crown in Elizabethan Pols.’, in Reign of Eliz. I ed. J. Guy, 29; CSP Scot. 1571-4, p. 284.

Charles Howard was tutored by the future martyrologist, John Foxe, alongside his kinsmen Thomas Howard^†, later 4th duke of Norfolk, and Henry Howard^*, subsequently earl of Northampton.98 W.R. Hooper, Reigate, 127-8. How much Foxe influenced Howard’s religion is uncertain. While the 4th duke of Norfolk retained a lifelong respect for his tutor, Foxe evidently failed to instil Protestantism into Northampton.99 Oxford DNB, xxviii. 429. However, Howard clearly respected Foxe, as he appointed Richard Day as tutor for his eldest son William^* (Lord Howard of Effingham). Day was closely involved in propagating Foxe’s ideas, assisting his father in the publication of Foxe’s Actes and Monuments, for which he wrote prefatory verses. He also translated some of Foxe’s Latin works, one of which he dedicated to Howard’s son.100 J.F. Mozley, John Foxe and his Bk. 30; Oxford DNB, xv. 596. Howard himself conformed to the Church of England. Aside from being termed a heretic in a Spanish diplomatic paper in 1603, he was described after his death by George Abbot^*, archbishop of Canterbury, as ‘very sound for religion’.101 Spain and the Jacobean Catholics I: 1603-12 ed. A.J. Loomie (Cath. Rec. Soc. lxiv), 5; Negotiations of Sir Thomas Roe (1740) ed. S. Richardson, 373. However, there is no evidence that he was particularly pious, and he sympathized with lay Catholics who were persecuted by the Elizabethan regime.102 Manningham Diary ed. R.P. Sorlien, 98.

Religion for Howard seems to have been closely tied up with allegiance to the crown and respect for authority. He took great pleasure at the 1606 trial of the Jesuit Henry Garnet in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot, telling Garnet that, by being brought to account for his crimes, ‘thou hast done more good … this day … than in all the pulpits that ever thou camest’.103 Chamberlain Letters, i. 225. The close connection in his mind between religious expression and royal authority is illustrated by an incident that occurred in 1605, when the rulers of Guildford tried to persuade him to prevent the erection of a ‘summer pole’ in their town. Having been informed that the pole was to be set up in defiance of the magistrates and cause disorder, Howard was initially sympathetic to their complaint. However, the townsmen who wanted to erect the pole informed him that they had dutifully sought the permission of the mayor before proceeding, that in previous years the pole had been pulled down even though it had borne the king’s arms, and that opposition to the pole arose from ‘pure councils’, a coded reference to puritanism. Howard was horrified, and wrote that ‘if it [the pole] had a picture of any saint I should mislike it as much as any’, but a pole bearing ‘the arms of his Majesty or any other arms of noblemen or gentlemen’ could only be regarded as ‘honourable’. Clearly, Howard sought to find a way between Catholic superstition on the one hand and overzealous puritanism on the other, while preserving good order and respect for authority.104 HMC 7th Rep. 668; Loseley Mss ed. A.J. Kempe, 371-2.

Foxe did not succeed in turning Howard into a scholar. On the contrary, he later wrote that ‘all my life and bringing up was in war, hunting, or hawking’.105 Fortescue Pprs. ed. S.R. Gardiner (Cam. Soc. n.s. i), 180. He first experienced war when he was barely a teenager, being present when Metz was besieged by Emperor Charles V in 1552.106 T. Rosa, Idaea siue De Iacobi Magnae Britanniae (1608), 196; T. Churchyard, A Lamentable, and Pitifull Description, of the Wofull Warres in Flaunders (1578), 11. He subsequently served as a captain in the Navy while his father was lord admiral. His physical appearance was widely admired: Sir Robert Naunton^‡, who knew him well, thought him ‘for his person, as goodly a gentleman as the times had’, and another contemporary stated that there was not ‘a goodlier man for person in Europe, as my eyes did witness, though they met not with him before he was turned the point of eighty’.107 R. Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia ed. E. Arber (1870), 45; Secret Hist. of Ct. of Jas. I ed. W. Scott, i. 79. Thomas Fuller described him as ‘a hearty gentleman … of a most proper person’.108 T. Fuller, Worthies of Eng. iii. 211-12.

Howard was soon attached to Elizabeth’s court as one of her attendants. Both Elizabeth and James I seem to have consistently regarded him as someone who could be relied upon to perform ceremonial service with credit. Under Elizabeth he had the added advantage that both he and his first wife Katherine, daughter of Henry Carey^†, 1st Lord Hunsdon, were related to the queen. Moreover, his wife was a prominent member of Elizabeth’s privy chamber, rising to the post of head of the bedchamber and groom of the stole.109 Naunton, 45; H.M. Payne, ‘Aristocratic Women and the Jacobean Ct., 1603-25’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 2001), 57; Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OE534, Nottingham to Cranfield, 14 Nov. 1621. However, Howard’s intellect may have been limited. In 1600 the Jesuit, Robert Persons, presumably drawing on reports from Catholics in England, described him as ‘a simple man and little able to guard a secret’, while in 1605 the celebrated jester, John Stone, was whipped for describing the earl as a fool. Howard was also held in undisguised contempt by his more academic kinsman, Northampton, who called him ‘our idle admiral’.110 L. Hicks, ‘Sir Robert Cecil, Father Persons and the Succession’, Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, xxiv. 125; Spain and the Jacobean Catholics, 5; Winwood’s Memorials ed. E. Sawyer, ii. 92; HMC Buccleuch, i. 53; Cott., Titus C.VI, ff. 106v, 154-5. Howard himself was aware of his limitations, and perfectly willing to admit to them. After James’s accession in 1603 he sought the help of Robert Cecil^*, subsequently 1st earl of Salisbury, in preparing his first letter to the new king as he had ‘no curious words, it is not my skill to use them’. Moreover, on being sent as ambassador extraordinary to Spain in 1605, he asked to be accompanied by a diplomat of ‘of learning and judgment’ to deal with any complicated negotiations, ‘acknowledging my weakness to do in those things that are out of element’.111 Hatfield House, CP 103/32; 104/55.

Howard’s first major office was that of lord chamberlain, which he held briefly during the mid 1580s. However, it is upon his position as lord admiral that his fame rests. His appointment to the admiralty in 1585 coincided with the outbreak of war with Spain, and in 1588 he was in overall command of the fleet which opposed the Spanish Armada. His caution, and his ability to manage and learn from his more experienced subordinates, played an important role in the success of the campaign, in the aftermath of which he showed an admirable concern for the welfare of his men.112 Oxford DNB, xxviii. 319-20, 322. However, the only subsequent occasion on which Howard saw active service was in 1596, when he jointly commanded the Cadiz expedition with Robert Devereux^†, 2nd earl of Essex. By way of reward, Howard was made an earl. He probably chose Nottingham as his title because his ancestor, John Howard^†, 1st duke of Norfolk, was the grandson of Thomas Mowbray, 1st duke of Norfolk and 1st earl of Nottingham. The Nottingham title had never been used by the senior branch of the Howard family and, consequently, enabled Howard to draw attention to his descent from the medieval nobility without treading on the toes of his kinsmen.113 CP, ix. 611, 780-2.

Nottingham’s preferment brought with it the lasting enmity of Essex, who believed that only he should have been given the credit for the successful Cadiz expedition.114 Naunton, 45. This, in turn, led Nottingham into close alliance with Essex’s great rival, Cecil. Cecil regarded Nottingham as someone he could easily manage: writing to Henry Wriothesley^*, 3rd and 1st earl of Southampton in 1608, he described the lord admiral as ‘a man who is placable enough upon cold blood, if he be courteously handled, especially, if in point of his commodity, you give him satisfaction’.115 G.P.V. Akrigg, ‘Something more about Shakespeare’s Patron’, Shakespeare Quarterly, xxviii. 68. Consequently, Cecil saw Nottingham not as a threat but as a useful ally, having, like Essex, the military credentials and following he himself so conspicuously lacked, but without the disadvantage of Essex’s overweening political ambition. During the invasion scare of 1599, it was thus Nottingham who was placed in command of the hastily levied forces, so demonstrating ‘that if occasion be, military services can be as well and readily ordered and directed’, even when Essex was absent in Ireland.116 Chamberlain Letters, i. 83. It was also Nottingham who was placed in command of the forces raised to subdue Essex’s rising in 1601.

The accession of James I and the first Jacobean Parliament, 1603-10

The last years of Elizabeth’s reign were the high point of Nottingham’s power: in the last Parliament of the reign, in 1601, he received no fewer than nine proxies.117 LJ, ii. 226a. Nevertheless, Nottingham may have been among those peers who helped pave the way for James’s succession. Writing to Cecil in 1609, Nottingham referred to having ‘put in venture’ his ‘fortune’ on behalf of James before the latter ascended the throne.118 SP14/47/71. Later, he claimed to have done James ‘some service to his grace’s liking’ during Elizabeth’s reign, for which reason James ‘determined to take nothing from me which he found me in possessor of’.119 Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OE534, Nottingham to Cranfield, 14 Nov. 1621. The nature of this service is unknown, but there is some evidence that Nottingham had been in contact with James via Cecil before 1603, and that he had received unspecific assurances of goodwill.120 Letters of King Jas. VI and I ed. G.P.V. Akrigg, 192-5; Secret Corresp. of Robert Cecil with Jas. I ed. D. Dalymple (1766), 139. According to one, widely circulated, account it was Nottingham who finally persuaded Elizabeth to name James as her successor.121 ‘The death of Queen Elizabeth, with her declaration of her successor’, in Somers’ Tracts, i. 246-8. There are ms versions in SP14/86/150 and Cott., Titus C.VII, f. 57. Nottingham’s role in persuading Elizabeth to nominate her successor is omitted in Mems. of Robert Cary ed. G.H. Powell, 73, but see the French diplomatic reports abstracted in F. von Raumer, Hist. of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ii. 194.

On the face of it, Nottingham, the hero of 1588, had little reason to be anxious at the start of the new reign. As late as 1618, the chaplain to the Venetian ambassador described him as ‘the famous lord admiral’, indicating a European fame few other English noblemen of this period shared.122 CSP Ven. 1617-19, p. 314. Indeed, his position seemed assured. At James’s coronation on 23 July 1603, Nottingham acted as both temporary lord steward and lord high constable, and, along with two other peers, dubbed 432 knights on behalf of the king.123 L. Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, 76. The following month he was granted ownership of Arundel House in the Strand (which he already occupied), forfeited to the crown on the attainder of his kinsman, Philip Howard^†, 20th (or 13th) earl of Arundel in 1589.124 CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 31.

However, Nottingham had every reason to feel apprehensive following Elizabeth’s death, as James brought an end to the war with Spain, from which, as lord admiral, he had profited enormously, receiving a percentage of the prizes taken by English privateers. (It has been suggested that this source of income may have amounted to as much as £12,000 a year during the war; it certainly dwarfed Nottingham’s income from his landed estate.)125 Kenny, Elizabeth’s Admiral, 87. A report on the English court drawn up in the summer of 1603 for the Spanish diplomats sent to negotiate peace with England claimed that Nottingham had always opposed peace because of ‘the profit he reaps from the war at sea’.126 Spain and the Jacobean Catholics, 5. James not only cancelled the letters of marque and reprisal granted by his predecessor,127 CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 12. but also went on to express sympathy with foreign complaints that English privateers had attacked neutral shipping with Nottingham’s connivance. Indeed, in October 1603 James reportedly told a Venetian diplomat that he would ‘hang the pirates with my own hands, and my lord admiral as well’.128 CSP Ven. 1603-7, pp. 100-1.

Nottingham was particularly vulnerable because he had failed to plough his profits from the war into enlarging his landed estates. Instead, the money had funded a lavish lifestyle which was famous long after his death. Writing in the middle of the seventeenth century, Thomas Fuller observed that his ‘voluntary expenses’ were ‘vast’ and included the keeping of ‘seven standing houses at the same time’.129 Fuller, ii. 212. Nottingham was also generous to his equally spendthrift eldest son, William Howard^*, Lord Howard of Effingham, to whom he conveyed Bletchingley and other properties.130 C2/Chas.I/H18/35. To make matters worse, Nottingham’s management of his private affairs seems to have been characterized by confusion and incompetence. He had a knack of losing paperwork,131 Harl. 703, f. 163v; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 36. and failed to keep track of his property holdings: on the marriage of his second son, Charles Howard^* (subsequently 2nd earl of Nottingham), in 1597, one of the properties Nottingham settled on the couple was a manor he had sold two years previously.132 SP16/22/110. As a result, Nottingham’s finances assumed a hand-to-mouth character as the earl tried to turn virtually anything he could into ready cash, even, in 1615, selling his fee as lord admiral to Lionel Cranfield^* (subsequently 1st earl of Middlesex).133 Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/B146.

Nottingham’s endless search for cash had a profound effect on the administration of the Navy, as he took control of all appointments, thereby enabling him to sell posts to the highest bidder. This spread a culture of corruption throughout the organization, as officeholders sought to recoup the purchase price of their positions.134 HMC Cowper, i. 42; M.B. Young, Servility and Service, 20. In the last years of Elizabeth’s reign, this culture was challenged by Sir Fulke Greville^* (subsequently 1st Lord Brooke), appointed treasurer of the Navy in 1598, and Greville’s deputy, John Coke^‡. They drew up a programme of reforms which would involve a significant curtailing of the lord admiral’s powers and, in the autumn of 1603, they lobbied members of the Privy Council for their support.135 Young, 14, 18, 22, 25-6.

Nottingham was clearly dismayed, and seeing that the admiralty in peacetime was likely to prove more trouble than it was worth, agreed to sell his office to his kinsman Thomas Howard^*, 1st earl of Suffolk.136 R.A. Rebholz, Life of Fulke Greville, 347, 349. However, he was not willing to sell his place cheaply, nor did he wish to lose precedence. His bargaining position was strengthened by his recent marriage to the king’s relative, Margaret Stewart, one of the ladies of Anne of Denmark’s privy chamber. This match gave Nottingham valuable connections with prominent Scottish courtiers, such as Ludovic Stuart^*, 2nd duke of Lennox [S] (later duke of Richmond in the English peerage), and the groom of the stole, Sir Thomas Erskine (subsequently 1st earl of Kellie [S]), who were among the trustees of his new wife’s jointure.137 Payne, 281; C2/Chas.I/N3/5. More importantly, it proved popular with the king, who expressed pleasure that Nottingham had ‘begun the Union’. It enabled him to obtain a pension of £600 and lands worth £200 to compensate for his loss of revenue from an admiralty plunged into peace. (The land was subsequently sold.)138 Illustrations of Brit. Hist. ed. E. Lodge, iii. 27, 39, 57-8; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 47; C3/320/45; C2/Jas.I/N5/40. By giving him ‘at least an appearance of strength’, this marriage also led Nottingham to demand a senior position at court in return for surrendering the admiralty.139 Rebholz, 349.

Suffolk was evidently unable or unwilling to meet Nottingham’s asking price, and therefore the latter remained in post. On 15 Mar. 1604 Nottingham again held office as lord high constable, on this occasion for James I’s ceremonial entry into the City of London, when, as one of the commissioners for the office of the earl marshal, he was responsible for ordering the procession.140 J. Nichols, Progs. of Jas. I, i. 324, 326; iv. 600n2. Four days later the first Jacobean Parliament convened, whereupon Nottingham was appointed lord steward of the Household ‘for the time of Parliament’, there then being no permanent holder of the office.141 CJ, i. 149b. As temporary lord steward, Nottingham, who had held this position during the last two Elizabethan assemblies, was required to supervise the roll-call of Members of the Commons held at the start of each Parliament. He may also have been expected to provide food and drink at court for members of both Houses.142 H. Elsyng, Manner of Holding Parls. in Eng. 90; N. Pronay and J. Taylor Parliamentary Texts of the Latter Middle Ages, 185; G. Goodman, Ct. of Jas. I, i. 191. The Spanish ambassador, Gondomar, was under the misapprehension that the lord steward was appointed to preside over Parliament in the monarch’s stead. Procs. 1614 (Commons), 5. However, his chief duty was to administer the oath of supremacy to Members of the Commons, who were prohibited from taking their seats until they had been sworn.143 SR, iv. 404. While he held office, Nottingham may also have played some role in the administration of the king’s household.144 CSP Dom. Addenda, 1580-1625, p. 512. However, his authority evidently ended when Parliament was not sitting: in 1597 it was reported that Nottingham had surrendered the white staff, the traditional insignia of office, on the day the session was prorogued.145 Letters and Memorials of State ed. A. Collins, ii. 77.

When Parliament opened on 19 Mar. 1604, Nottingham performed his usual part, instructing the crier to call the names of members of the Commons and swearing in 12 of their number, whom he appointed as his deputies for administering the oath to the rest.146 CJ, i. 140b-141a. That same day he was also named by the king one of the triers of petitions from England, Scotland and Ireland.147 LJ, ii. 263b. Unlike 1601, he held no proxies. He was joined in the upper House by his son, William, who had been summoned in right of his father’s barony as Lord Howard of Effingham.

In the Commons, several Members owed their seats to Nottingham, though not perhaps as many as in 1601. His second son, Charles, sat for Sussex, and his nephew Sir Edward Howard^‡ for Reigate. He also filled both seats at New Shoreham and at Bletchingley, though lordship of the latter now belonged to his eldest son. He was probably also responsible for securing the elections of Sir Edmund Bowyer for Surrey, one Member at Gatton, and another at New Windsor. Although Nottingham used his following in the Commons to good effect when private bills in which he had an interest came up for consideration, there is no evidence that he tried to wield his following into a disciplined party with a single line on the political issues of the day.148 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 12, 390-1, 394, 398-9, 403, 417; R. W. Kenny, ‘Parlty. Influence of Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham’, JMH, xxxix. 215-32.

One reason for this, perhaps, is that Nottingham does not seem to have bestowed his electoral patronage in any systematic fashion, preferring instead to lend his support according to circumstance. Sir Hugh Beeston^‡, for instance, owed his return for New Shoreham in 1604 to a request by Cecil rather than because Nottingham wanted him at Westminster, and his decision to nominate Matthew Dodsworth for Scarborough 1603 (when it was rumoured that Parliament would soon meet) seems to have been heavily influenced by the fact that Dodsworth, being the admiralty court judge for Yorkshire, needed to be in London on admiralty business in the autumn anyway. There is certainly no evidence that Nottingham renewed his nomination of Dodsworth when Parliament was finally summoned the following year.

Nottingham evidently made no effort to influence elections at Guildford or Great Yarmouth, despite being high steward of both boroughs. He may have been equally inactive at Rochester, where he was also high steward, leaving matters instead to his former brother-in-law and secretary, Sir Edward Hoby^‡, who lived nearby and secured election on his own interest in 1604 and 1614. Only at New Windsor does Nottingham seem to have used his influence as borough steward, in favour of his nephew Sir Francis Howard in 1610, and probably for the latter’s brother, Sir Charles, in 1621. However, he appears to have played no part in the borough’s 1614 election, possibly because no one asked him to.149 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 12, 204, 277, 396, 417, 504.

Nottingham attended 50 of the 71 sittings of the 1604 session, an attendance rate of 70 per cent. Initially, he was almost always present in the chamber, as before 30 May he missed only one sitting, on 28 March. However, thereafter he was increasingly absent, presumably because he was one of the commissioners for negotiating a peace treaty with Spain. His attendance is particularly impressive because of the pressure of his official duties which, on 18 Apr., necessitated a hasty letter to Sir Julius Caesar^‡, the judge of the admiralty court, at 11 o’clock at night.150 Add. 12505, f. 132. Nevertheless, he was named to less than 30 per cent of committees (20 out of 70), although at least four bills were entrusted to him and he made five recorded speeches.

As a senior privy councillor it is unsurprising that Nottingham was regularly appointed to confer with the Commons about major issues of the Parliament. These included wardship, the proposed union with Scotland and purveyance. Moreover, on 10 May, he was named one of the commissioners for the Union.151 LJ, ii. 266b, 277b, 284a, 290b, 292a, 296a, 303a, 323a. Although Nottingham was temporary lord steward, and thus the senior member of the board of Green Cloth, which supervised purveyance for the royal Household, there is no evidence that he tried to defend the officers of the board from attacks made by the lower House. When the Commons presented their petition against purveyance to the king on 27 Apr., Nottingham confined himself to defending the conduct of the Navy’s officials, arguing that they had only acted in accordance with established usage and asserting that it was ‘not possible the king should be served’ without purveyance for the Navy.152 CJ, i. 961a.

On 18 Apr. Nottingham was appointed to consider a bill to enable Sir Thomas Monson^‡, a courtier and brother of Nottingham’s Surrey neighbour, the former admiral Sir William Monson^‡, to exchange land with Trinity College, Cambridge. The measure was entrusted to Nottingham’s care and he reported it, on 7 May, with amendments, which were approved, although it subsequently failed in the Commons.153 LJ, ii. 281a, 293a, 294b; HP Commons, 1604-29, v. 355. His position as lord admiral presumably explains why Nottingham was instructed to take care of two bills for the repair of harbours in Yorkshire - Bridlington on 18 Apr. and Whitby ten days later - but neither were reported.154 LJ, ii. 281a, 286a. On 4 June he did report, without amendments, the bill to regulate Thames watermen, which measure was presumably of interest to him as watermen were often pressed by the Navy. This measure was subsequently enacted.155 Ibid. 312b; SR, iv. 1034. The only other legislation he reported was the bill against poaching. He had been given custody of the bill on 5 May, and brought it back to the House nine days later, with amendments, which were approved, and the measure was ordered to be engrossed.156 LJ, ii. 292a, 298b.

On 19 May Nottingham intervened in the dispute over the Abergavenny barony to propose that both claimants to the title should be ennobled. The issue was referred to the commissioners for the office of the earl marshal, of whom the earl was one. Three days later, after Nottingham renewed his motion, the House agreed to ask the king to ennoble both parties, and Nottingham was appointed to the committee to attend the king. On 26 May he was among those instructed to ensure that the case was properly entered in the records of the House.157 Ibid. 302a, 303a-b, 307a.

Nottingham was personally interested in two private bills in 1604. One was to naturalize his wife and the other to provide for his daughter, Frances, the dowager countess of Kildare, whose second husband, Henry Brooke^†, 11th Lord Cobham, had been attainted for his part in the Main Plot. Both measures passed the Lords without commitment. The former, and possibly also the latter, was guided through the Commons by Sir Edward Hoby, who had served as Nottingham’s secretary in 1588. It is possible that Sir Edward was acting with Nottingham’s encouragement when he spoke in support of continuing the war with Spain on 12 May.158 Ibid. 269a, 299b; B.R. Dunn, ‘CD 1603/4’ (Bryn Mawr Coll. Ph.D. thesis, 1987), 888; HP Commons, 1604-29, iv. 723, 725-6.

Whatever his misgivings about peace may have been, Nottingham was appointed, in late May, one of the commissioners to negotiate with the Spanish delegation which arrived in London to negotiate an end to the war. On 18 June, the Spanish ambassador reported that Nottingham was co-operating with the negotiations.159 A.J. Loomie, ‘Toleration and Diplomacy’, Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. n.s. liii. 52. However, that same day, Nottingham objected to proposals that James should undertake to punish English interlopers in the Spanish Indies, ‘asking why they could not go to China and Java and some other countries in the west where the Spaniards had never been, and using the map of the world to illustrate this’. The Spanish delegates, unimpressed by his knowledge of geography, believed that Nottingham wanted to enable the English to continue plundering Spanish colonies in order to share in the prizes, but he won over his English colleagues.160 K.R. Andrews, ‘Caribbean Rivalry and the Anglo-Spanish Peace of 1604’, History, lix. 14. The Spanish diplomats initially recommended that Nottingham should be granted a pension, but they soon changed their minds, possibly because they concluded that he was not sufficiently influential.161 Loomie, 55; C.H. Carter, ‘Gondomar: Amb. to Jas. I’, HJ, vii. 196.

At the time of the treaty the Spanish diplomat Juan de Tassis reported that George Clifford, 3rd earl of Cumberland, had ‘hopes of being lord high admiral’, but that James intended to confer the position on Prince Charles (Stuart^*, later prince of Wales), in which case Cumberland would be forced to accept the post of deputy.162 Loomie, 53. In reality Cumberland, who died in 1605, was in no position to succeed Nottingham, being heavily in debt and therefore unable to buy out the lord admiral. As far as James’s intention of placing his second son in the admiralty was concerned, this presented no immediate threat to Nottingham, as Charles was then still an infant. On the contrary, Nottingham may have welcomed the chance to become a mentor to the young prince. He certainly used the status of his intended successor on several occasions when trying to uphold the powers of his office, arguing that it would be dishonourable to the prince if they were diminished.163 R. T. Spence, Privateering Earl, 211; Akrigg, 68; Add. 12505, f. 114; Lansd. 160, f. 12.

After the conclusion of the peace it was necessary to send an extraordinary ambassador to Spain to witness its ratification by Philip III. Nottingham subsequently wrote that he ‘made all the means that I could possible to be excused of it’, both because of his age and because he had ‘opposed myself so much against the Spaniards in all the wars’. However James insisted, because he needed someone of comparable status to Juan Fernández de Velasco, duke of Frías, the constable of Castile, who had led the Spanish delegation in England. Nottingham protested that as an earl he could not be considered to be of equivalent rank as the constable, and tried to persuade James to make him a duke, or failing that a marquess, but was informed that his equal status lay in the fact that he was lord admiral.164 CSP Ven. 1603-7, p. 195; Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OE534, Nottingham to Cranfield, 14 Nov. 1621; T. Carte, General Hist. of Eng. iii. 751; Illustrations of Brit. Hist. iii. 117-18.

James wanted the embassy to impress the Spanish with its splendour and therefore granted Nottingham £15,000 for his expenses. He also granted him, in December 1604, a patent for issuing licences to sell wine.165 Chamberlain Letters, i. 198-9; CSP Ven. 1603-7, p. 201; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 174. The latter arose from mid-Tudor legislation intended to restrict the number of taverns, which had enabled Elizabeth to grant Sir Walter Ralegh^‡ the right to issue licences in return for fees and rents. Although this patent had been forfeited to the crown in 1603, when Ralegh was attainted for his part in the Main Plot, the office for issuing licences had continued and an attempt by the Commons to repeal the original legislation, in 1604, had been blocked by the Lords.166 HMC Sackville, i. 75, 78, 86; CSP Dom. 1603-10, pp. 102, 129; CJ, i. 252a. Nottingham promptly farmed out the right to sell wines licences for an initial payment of £6,000, and an annuity of £3,000.167 HMC Sackville, i. 88; SP16/98/117.

Despite the cash advance he received, Nottingham almost immediately began to borrow from the farmers in anticipation of his annuity; by October 1605 his overdraft to the farmers exceeded his annuity by £1,500. He also granted away parts of the annuity so that, by 1609, only £700 was left. One of the earl’s servants, William Jackson^‡, found that he could not receive any of the £200 a year granted him as compensation for money expended for the Spanish embassy because ‘his lordship had formerly taken it up aforehand’ of the farmers.168 A.F. Upton, Sir Arthur Ingram, 56-8; HMC Sackville, i. 87, 90; C3/362/19.

Nottingham left for Spain at the end of March 1605 with a party numbering 672. Those who accompanied him included his sons, Effingham and Sir Charles Howard* (later 2nd earl of Nottingham), Robert Bertie*, 14th Lord Willoughby de Eresby (later 1st earl of Lindsey), Francis Norris^*, 2nd Lord Norris (later earl of Berkshire), and Suffolk’s second son Sir Thomas Howard^* (later 1st earl of Berkshire).169 R. Treswell, ‘Relation of such things as were observed to happen in the journey of the right honourable Charles earl of Nottingham’ (1605), reprinted in Harl. Misc. iii. 425; Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OE534, Nottingham to Cranfield, 14 Nov. 1621. Nottingham arrived in Spain on 15 Apr., and witnessed the ratification of the treaty on 30 May.170 HMC Hatfield, xvii. 169, 228-30. Sir Charles Cornwallis^‡, who travelled with Nottingham to take up the post of permanent ambassador but quarrelled with the earl over precedence, recorded on 24 June that Nottingham received £20,000 worth of gifts from his hosts, but that otherwise rewards were limited to about a dozen members of the party nominated by the ambassador extraordinary, to the discontent of the rest.171 Stowe 168, f. 50; CSP Ven. 1603-7, p. 268. However, Willoughby de Eresby and other members of the embassy stated that Nottingham had given more in gifts than he had received.172 HMC Hatfield, xvii. 302.

On 29 June Nottingham arrived back in England having, according to his own account, spent £27,600 on the embassy.173 Treswell, 446; Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OE534, Nottingham to Cranfield, 14 Nov. 1621. He is said by Northampton to have received such a cold welcome at court that he retired to his home.174 Winwood’s Memorials, ii. 92. According to the Venetian ambassador, James was furious because of reports from Cornwallis that Nottingham had exceeded his brief while in Spain by discussing a Spanish match for Prince Henry and by holding out the prospect of assisting the Habsburgs against the Dutch Republic. Nottingham was also said to have exhibited enthusiasm for the Catholic faith. These supposed offences may have been compounded by his predictable choice of parrots as a gift for Anne of Denmark, and by his obtaining letters of recommendation from prominent Spaniards. Certainly this latter piece of ineptness caused James to remark to Cecil, by now earl of Salisbury, that were he the subject of a king ‘I would not desire another king’s subject to make suit for me’. However, whether James was really as angry as Cornwallis believed is open to question, not least because James considered promoting Nottingham in the peerage ‘for satisfying the king of Spain’s request’.175 CSP Ven. 1603-7, pp. 268-9; Letters of King Jas. VI and I, 259.

It is possible that Nottingham had actually received secret instructions concerning a Spanish match of which Cornwallis and the Venetian ambassador were unaware. He was certainly instructed not to offend the religious sensibilities of his hosts, and for this reason he did not allow his chaplains to wear clerical dress and confined religious services to his own household. It is true that Nottingham visited the English College run by the Jesuits at Valladolid, where he expressed the hope that James would grant some measure of toleration for Catholics, and he also ordered his company to take off their hats when the sacrament passed by. However, these actions were probably performed for the sake of diplomacy.176 Carte, iii. 751; HMC Hatfield, xvii. 129; Loomie, 43-4; Procs. 1626, iii. 157. It is possible that Nottingham’s absence from court in the summer of 1605 arose not from royal displeasure but from a family crisis which followed the death on 2 Aug. of his son-in-law, Sir Richard Leveson^‡, for whom the earl had considerable affection, and who left a mentally incapacitated widow.177 HMC Hatfield, xvii. 347. If Nottingham really was in bad odour, as Northampton believed, it is odd that he had returned to court by the end of the month.178 HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, iii. 190.

Nottingham failed to attend the Lords on 5 Nov. 1605, the sensational first day of the second session of the 1604-10 Parliament, when the Gunpowder Plot was discovered, although he was evidently in Westminster, as he signed a Privy Council letter that same day.179 HMC Hatfield, xvii. 478. Subsequently, he attended the upper House assiduously until 15 Mar. 1606. Thereafter he was occasionally absent, although never for more than two sittings in a row. In all, he was recorded as being present on 72 of the 85 sittings, 85 per cent of the total.

During the 1605-6 session, Nottingham was named to nearly half of all committees (35 out of 72), including two when he was not recorded as being present, and made five recorded speeches. On 3 Feb. 1606 he was appointed to attend a conference with the Commons about strengthening the laws to protect Protestantism in the wake of the Gunpowder Plot. This same committee was also instructed to confer with the lower House about purveyance on 12 Feb., and again five days later. On the latter occasion he spoke twice about ‘the charge of the Navy’ and ‘touching the repair of the Navy’, presumably to emphasize to the Commons the crown’s need for money.180 LJ, ii. 367b; CJ, i. 271a-b.

On 22 Feb. Nottingham was named to consider two private bills, one to assure a jointure for Suffolk’s daughter, Frances, then married to Robert Devereux*, 3rd earl of Essex, the son of Nottingham’s old antagonist, and another to confirm the attainder of his son-law, Lord Cobham. The countess of Essex’s bill was delivered to Nottingham, who reported it three days later, while the Cobham bill was entrusted to Thomas Sackville, 1st earl of Dorset, who reported it on 25 February. However, by early March Dorset was in poor health, and therefore it was Nottingham rather than Dorset who reported the bill as unsatisfactory on 13 March. A new version, drafted by the committee, was referred for consideration and was reported by a recovered Dorset on 26 March. As this version was also defective, a further bill was needed, which was also reported by Dorset rather than Nottingham.181 LJ, ii. 379a, 382a, 385a, 394a, 395b, 401b, 413a.

On 3 Mar. Nottingham was appointed to consider a bill introduced by Gray Brydges^*, 5th Lord Chandos, concerning the disputed ownership of Sudeley Castle, which was claimed by the latter’s first cousins, the daughters of Giles Brydges^†, 3rd Lord Chandos. The measure was entrusted to Nottingham who, with other senior privy councillors, had previously tried to mediate a settlement between the parties. He reported the bill, which was subsequently enacted, on 11 March.182 Ibid. 336b, 386a, 392b; PA, HL/PO/PB/1/1605/3J1n32.

Nottingham had inherited the property of the dissolved priory of Barnstaple in Devon, which probably explains his involvement in a long-running dispute between William Bourchier^*, 3rd earl of Bath and Philip Bushton over the latter’s scheme to transport timber down the River Taw to Barnstaple. In 1604 Bushton had tried to invoke the protection of Nottingham and his son, Howard of Effingham, claiming to be their servant, whereupon Bath had asked the lord admiral to disown him.183 HMC Hatfield, xvi. 338; Beds. RO, R3/10/1. Bushton now promoted a bill in Parliament to legitimize his project. Nottingham was appointed to consider this bill on 20 Mar., although he was not recorded as being present on that day.184 J.B. Gribble, Memorials of Barnstaple, 26-7; LJ, ii. 397b. Bath had been warned about the bill by Salisbury, but, being absent from Parliament, feared he would not have time to make all his objections. It may have been to give Bath more time to respond that Nottingham persuaded the House, on 8 Apr., to delay the meeting of the bill committee for four days. After the committee met, Nottingham reported that the bill should not be proceeded with.185 LJ, ii. 410b, 413a; SP14/19/75-6.

Nottingham’s wine licences’ patent came under attack in the Commons during this session. A bill for the better execution of penal statutes, subsequently renamed ‘an act for the better execution of penal statutes and restraint of monopolies’, which received a second reading on 22 Jan., seems to have been responsible. This would explain why Arthur Ingram^‡, who managed the farm of Nottingham’s patent, took an interest in its progress. On 28 Jan. Ingram informed Cranfield, who had a financial stake in the farm, that Nottingham had received assurances from Salisbury that there would be no danger. Confident of Salisbury’s support in the upper House, Nottingham made no effort to mobilize support in the Commons. Consequently the bill made it to the Lords, where it received a second reading but was not committed. There were no further proceedings.186 CJ, i. 258a, 260a; HMC 4th Rep. 118; HMC Sackville, i. 129; Kenny, ‘Parlty. Influence’, 232; LJ, ii. 422a; HMC Var. viii. 7. The patent was subsequently included in the grievances drawn up by the Commons, but the king defended the legality of the grant.187 Bowyer Diary, 154; CJ, i. 316b.

In the summer of 1606 Nottingham’s career faced a sudden crisis arising from the visit of the king of Denmark, Christian IV, the brother of Anne of Denmark. On 11 Aug., before returning to his kingdom, Christian entertained the English royal couple and the court, including Nottingham, on board his ship. During the course of the festivities, Nottingham and Christian IV disagreed over the correct time. To indicate that it he thought it was then 2 o’clock, the Dane ‘made a sign with his two fingers to my lord admiral’. According to Dudley Carleton^* (later 1st Viscount Dorchester), Nottingham was not offended. However, the French ambassador reported that Christian had ‘frequently made sport’ of the earl as ‘an old man with a young wife’, and had deliberately ‘made the sign of the horns several times’.188 Egerton Pprs. ed. J.P. Collier (Cam. Soc. xii), 468-70; Carleton to Chamberlain ed. M. Lee, 90; Raumer, ii. 215-16. The accusation of cuckoldry, whether accidental or not, came at a particularly sensitive time, because Nottingham’s wife, who was not then present, was pregnant. She was informed of the incident and, either on her own initiative, or (according to the French ambassador) at Nottingham’s command, wrote to the Danish king’s secretary, not only defending her honour but also attacking Christian, raging that ‘there is as much baseness in him as can be in any man’. When Christian, now back in Denmark, saw this letter, he immediately wrote to his sister, who promptly banned the countess of Nottingham from court. Although James placed the blame entirely on the countess, Nottingham must have found the whole incident profoundly embarrassing, particularly as copies of his wife’s letter circulated widely.189 Raumer, ii. 215-16; Letters of King Jas. VI and I, 281-3. For copies of the countess of Nottingham’s letter see Harl. 787, f. 62v; Egerton Pprs. 468; Cabala, i. 305-6.

The following month Nottingham compounded his problems by trying to bring his wife to the queen’s lodgings. When challenged he answered Anne ‘in other sort than was meet and with more haughty language then she expected’. However, though the queen was notoriously prickly, Anne informed James that she would not ‘make quarrel’ with Nottingham because he was ‘an old man and a noble man whom she respects’. This suggests that the earl owed his continued survival at the Jacobean court to his past glories.190 Hatfield House, CP117/97.

Nottingham attended the first sitting of the 1606-7 session on 18 Nov. 1606, but was reportedly very unwell and was excused when the House reconvened two days later. He returned on 12 Dec., but is recorded as having missed a further 13 sittings in late April and early May of the following year.191 HMC Downshire, ii. 442; LJ, ii. 451a. In all, he attended 64 of the session’s 108 sittings, 60 per cent of the total, and was appointed to 17 out of 41 committees. His nominations included the conference with the Commons about the Union on 24 Nov., although he was then absent.192 LJ, ii. 452b, 464b. He made four recorded speeches.

On 18 Mar. 1607 Nottingham was named to consider a bill to drain Plumstead marshes, which lay close to an important royal property, Greenwich Park in north Kent. He reported three days later that the committee had heard the concerned parties, and thought ‘it a fit bill to be proceeded in’.193 Ibid. 490b, 493a. A bill presumably of local interest to Nottingham was the measure to enable the Surrey Catholic conformist, John Good^‡_, to convey property to augment the park of the royal palace of Nonsuch, which the earl was appointed to consider on 9 June. Nonsuch was part of Anne of Denmark’s jointure and Nottingham may have been eager to assist in the passage of the bill to appease the queen. Although delivered to Edward Somerset*, 4th earl of Worcester, it was reported by Nottingham, the senior member of the committee on 30 June, whereupon it was ordered to be engrossed.194 Ibid. 521b, 533a. Nottingham reported two further bills at the end of the session in which he had an official interest. On 1 July he successfully recommended a measure to repeal a clause in the statute for regulating Thames watermen, which he had himself reported in 1604. The day after, he reported that a bill to regulate mariners and seamen was unfit to proceed.195 Ibid. 534b, 536a.

Nottingham did not long remain in disfavour with the king. In late 1606 he was granted permission to bid for the right to farm the Irish customs. Although the crown derived virtually no revenue from the customs in Ireland, which had been mostly appropriated by the port towns, peace and prosperity made them potentially lucrative. On his return from Spain, Nottingham had been willed by James ‘to seek out something that he might bestow upon me in reward of my service’ and to recompense him for the charges he had incurred in the embassy. Ingram had alerted the earl to the potential of the Irish customs, arguing that they rightfully belonged to the crown.196 V. Treadwell, ‘Establishment of the Farm of the Irish Customs 1603-13’, EHR, xciii. 586; Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OE534, Nottingham to Cranfield, 14 Nov. 1621.

In January 1607 Nottingham submitted his proposals, which were subsequently approved by a committee of the Privy Council. However, there proved to be significant administrative difficulties in creating a central customs administration for Ireland and prising these revenues from the port towns. Moreover, Salisbury began to think that Nottingham’s grant was ‘was too great a gift to be given to a subject’. In November Nottingham was persuaded to accept a pension of £3,000 a year from these duties instead. However, continued administrative difficulties made it impossible for him to receive the money and, consequently, in early 1609, he surrendered the pension in return for one of £1,700 payable, out of impositions, the new and highly controversial unparliamentary surcharge on the English customs.197 Treadwell, 586, 590-1; Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OE534, Nottingham to Cranfield, 14 Nov. 1621; CSP Dom. 1603-10, pp. 384, 437; SO3/4, unfol. (Feb. 1609).

Nottingham seems to have been particularly desperate for money in late 1607. In November he sold Arundel House, his London residence, to Thomas Howard^*, 21st (or 14th) earl of Arundel, for £4,000. The sum angered Arundel but was considered much too low by Nottingham, who only accepted it after coming under pressure from Suffolk and Salisbury.198 Illustrations of Brit. Hist. iii. 209; HMC Hatfield, xix. 337, 478-9; E214/1333; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 390. The following month he pressed the farmers of the wine patent to accept a diamond ring as collateral for a loan of £1,680.199 HMC Sackville, i. 89, 148, 150.

Nottingham faced his most serious challenge of the Jacobean period in April 1608, when Northampton, who may have wanted the admiralty for himself, succeeded in obtaining a commission to inquire into corruption in the Navy. Although ostensibly directed against his subordinates rather than himself, Nottingham was widely regarded as dependant on his officers, particularly the treasurer of the navy, Sir Robert Mansell^‡, who had replaced Greville in 1604. Nottingham certainly thought that he was Northampton’s primary target. By August Nottingham was, according to Salisbury, ‘moved and grieved’ by ‘observation of his declining credit’, and fears that ‘his person were much less esteemed’ than his office.200 Akrigg, 69.

Northampton’s commission worked diligently for over a year and uncovered a vast amount of corruption on the part of Nottingham’s subordinates. In the summer of 1609 it was reported that James was taking a close personal interest in the outcome of the inquiry, driving Nottingham to write to him in protest. Although this letter has not survived, it is evident from the explanation that he sent Salisbury on 9 Aug. that Nottingham was intent on making the issue one of personal honour. Salisbury had tried to assure the earl that he had ‘not been touched personally’, but Nottingham protested: ‘yes my lord, I have been, and cunningly’. Nottingham invoked his ‘ancient friendship’ with Salisbury, and concluded that he trusted ‘that I shall have [no] cause to wish that I had been put into my grave when my old mistress [Elizabeth] was’. Nottingham thereby left James and Salisbury to choose between abandoning Northampton’s drive to reform the Navy and humiliating the hero of the Armada. Consequently, James decided to remit the offences of the Navy’s officials ‘upon hope and promise that ever after they would … perform their duties justly and carefully’.201 Jacobean Commissions of Inquiry, 2; Naval Tracts of Sir William Monson ed. M. Oppenheim (Navy Recs. Soc. xlv), 140; Secret Hist. of Ct. of Jas. I ed. W. Scott, i. 354-5; T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, i. 99; CSP Ven. 1607-10, p. 312; SP14/47/71.

Nottingham continued to attend the upper House regularly when Parliament reconvened in 1610. He is recorded as having been present on 73 of the 95 sittings of the session, 77 per cent of the total. After the king complained of poor attendance in the Lords on 19 Apr., Nottingham moved to excuse the absence of his son, Howard of Effingham.202 Procs. 1610 ed. E.R. Foster, i. 209. On 12 May he was himself excused, ironically by Northampton, on grounds of illness. He returned for the next sitting two days later, but continued poor health may explain his absence from seven sittings between 24 May and 2 June inclusive.203 LJ, ii. 592b. Nevertheless, on 4 June he played a prominent role in Prince Henry’s installation as prince of Wales, when he and Northampton led the prince to the king.204 HMC Downshire, ii. 136. Three days later he took the oath of allegiance, which was now demanded from all members of the upper House.205 LJ, ii. 608b. Nottingham was named to only 18 of the 58 committees appointed by the Lords but, in this better documented session, he also made ten recorded speeches.

On 14 Feb. Nottingham was named to attend the conference at which Salisbury spelt out the desperate state of the royal finances and first indicated that James might be willing to surrender some of his traditional rights in return for a standing revenue from taxation. At a further conference ten days later, the Commons inquired whether the abolition of wardship was on the table. This led Nottingham, when the conference was reported to the upper House on 26 Feb., to move the Lords to resolve ‘whether … touching the wards, it be fit to deal with the king’. According to the diary of Henry Hastings^*, 5th earl of Huntingdon, Nottingham was included in the committee sent to discover whether James was willing to negotiate for the surrender of wardship. However, his name is deleted in the committee list in the clerk’s scribbled book, and not included in the Journal.206 LJ, ii. 550b; Procs. 1610, i. 18, 178; Parl. Debates 1610 ed. S.R. Gardiner, 14; PA, BRY/61, f. 2v.

The proposal to surrender wardship was part of what became known as the Great Contract. Surprisingly, Nottingham was subsequently only recorded as having spoken once on the Contract, when he restricted his remarks to questions of procedure. This is despite the fact that the Contract was promoted by Nottingham’s ally Salisbury, and of considerable significance to the lord admiral in his official capacity, as it would have entailed the abolition of purveyance, which, as Nottingham had pointed out in 1604, was vital to supplying the Navy.

Nottingham was among those peers instructed on 27 Feb. to confer with the Commons about The Interpreter, Dr John Cowell’s allegedly absolutist book. On 2 Mar., before the conference was held, he proposed that the archbishop of York, Tobie Matthew^*, and George Abbot, bishop of London, should be appointed to report back to the House. This suggests that he thought that the archbishop of Canterbury, Richard Bancroft, who had been required to carry out this duty despite being the dedicatee of Cowell’s book, was an inappropriate choice. His nominees were approved, along with Northampton and Edward La Zouche^*, 11th Lord Zouche.207 LJ, ii. 557b, 560a; Procs. 1610, i. 184.

Nottingham’s speeches reveal a concern with procedure, of which he had ample knowledge, having first entered the Lords in 1576. At a conference with the Commons about the Great Contract on 4 May, having complained that ‘so great disputation’ had produced ‘so little good’, he deplored the practice of delivering messages in writing, ‘which ever since I have been a Parliament man was not the manner of either House’.208 Procs. 1610, i. 81. On 7 July, following Abbot’s motion to reject a bill against scandalous ministers at its first reading, Nottingham contradicted the 1st earl of Exeter (Thomas Cecil^*), who asserted that it was wholly irregular to reject a bill at first reading, saying that a bill could certainly be rejected after only one reading if it touched ‘either the king or any other person’, or even if were simply ‘an ill bill’.209 Ibid. 128. The measure nevertheless received a second reading on 12 July, when Nottingham, having rebuked Richard Neile^*, bishop of Rochester (later archbishop of York), for describing the bishops as peers, was appointed to the committee.210 Ibid. 136-7; LJ, ii. 641b.

Nottingham was concerned not only to defend established procedure but also to uphold the powers of the crown. When the bill against enforcing Canons not confirmed by statute received a second reading, Nottingham argued that it should be rejected if it ‘touched’ the royal prerogative, and moved for a ruling by the judges. His motion was blocked by the lord chancellor, Thomas Egerton^*, Lord Ellesmere (later 1st Viscount Brackley), who argued that the judges could not pronounce on the issue without notice. Nottingham was subsequently appointed to the bill committee, suggesting that his speech was not deemed to have been in opposition to the measure.211 Procs. 1610, i. 104; LJ, 611a.

On 14 May Nottingham was named to consider a bill for improving agricultural land in Devon and Cornwall by using sea sand, although by then he had probably conveyed his property in the former county to his eldest son. He reported the bill on 23 May, without amendments, when it was given a third reading.212 LJ, ii. 593b, 597b; Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OL44. He reported two further bills, the first concerning rearing cattle and the second to fund a proposed divinity college at Chelsea, where Nottingham had a house, from the proceeds of a conduit that would bring water from Hackney to London.213 LJ, ii. 636b, 646b; SR, iv. 1165-6. The latter may have been of particular interest to Nottingham, who had been appointed in February to investigate an alternative scheme, to bring water from the Wandle river in Croydon, where he also he also had a house. The Wandle proposal was highly controversial in Surrey, and consequently Nottingham may have been eager to promote the Hackney project to bolster his popularity in his native county.214 Giuseppi, 177-88.

During the session, Nottingham’s wine patent was again raised as a grievance by the Commons. They argued that although the lord admiral was ‘of great desert’, the law on which it was based was obsolete, and that the patent itself was illegal because ‘the king cannot give the penalty, benefit, or dispensation’ of any law intended ‘for the public good of the realm’ to a private person. In response, James defended Nottingham who, he said, had ‘been so great an honour unto this country’. However, he also promised that the patent would not be renewed, and would cease on the earl’s death.215 Procs. 1610, i. 133; ii. 270-1; Birch, i. 126.

Nottingham attended only 11 of the 21 sittings of the fifth and final session of the 1604-10 Parliament, which convened in late 1610, 57 per cent of the total. He was nevertheless appointed to six of the session’s nine Lords committees, but made only one recorded speech. On 22 Oct. he was named to consider a bill to preserve timber, which interested him both as lord admiral and as chief justice in eyre of southern England. The following day he was appointed to consider legislation to prevent the export of artillery and to encourage the creation of common breweries. On 10 Nov. he reported that he and his colleagues thought the latter measure was ‘in every substantial point … faulty’, and for this reason it was rejected.216 LJ, ii. 669a, 670a, 676a.

Retirement and the Addled Parliament, 1611-20

In 1611 Nottingham strengthened his ties with Prince Charles. He accompanied Charles when the latter was made a knight of the Garter in May, and in August they went hunting together, during which they ‘drunk many carouses’.217 CSP Ven. 1610-13, p. 153; SP14/65/70. In September it was reported that Nottingham would retire as lord admiral, with a payoff amounting to £4,000 and a yearly pension of £1,500. In his place, Prince Charles would be appointed, with Prince Henry exercising the office until his brother came of age. Nottingham, described by the Venetian ambassador the following month as too ‘decrepit’ to administer the Navy properly, may not have been reluctant to go, now that there was a substantial financial inducement on the table. Indeed, he reportedly offered up his patent. However, matters were complicated by the ambition of Prince Henry, who wanted the lord admiral’s post for himself. Faced with the prospect of conflict between his sons over the office, James refused to accept Nottingham’s resignation. Instead, Charles was granted a reversion the following January. Nottingham was granted a further pension of £1,000 a year, presumably to assuage his disappointment at not being paid off.218 HMC Downshire, iii. 147, 171; CSP Ven. 1610-13, p. 227; CSP Dom. 1611-18, pp. 94, 111.

Nottingham seems to have finally consolidated his place in the king’s affections thanks to an incident that occurred at horse races held at Croydon in March 1612. These races were attended by a number of English and Scottish courtiers, including Nottingham himself, Philip Herbert^*, 1st earl of Montgomery and William Ramsay, the brother of John Ramsay^*, Viscount Haddington [S] (subsequently earl of Holdernesse in the English peerage). Montgomery quarrelled with Ramsay, who struck the English peer across the face with his riding crop. Tensions between the English and Scots ran so high that they were, in the words of John Chamberlain, ‘like enough to have made it a national quarrel’. According to Chamberlain, the danger was averted ‘for want of weapons’, but another letter-writer gives Nottingham the credit for averting disaster, reporting that there ‘were more than a hundred swords drawn’ and that ‘undoubtedly if one stroke had been given there had much harm ensued thereof, for that one in the company cried out “down with the Scot”’.219 Chamberlain Letters, i. 340; Newsletters from the Archpresbyterate of George Birkhead ed. M.C. Questier (Cam. Soc. ser. 5 xii), 169, n.796. Nottingham himself subsequently wrote that, had he not intervened, ‘all the Scotsmen in the field had been killed unless they would have run away’. Nottingham added that James considered his intervention to have been ‘as great to him as the service which I did in the queen my mistress’s time of ’88, and said he would never forget it’.220 Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OE534, Nottingham to Cranfield, 26 Aug. 1622. See also SP14/105/119.

Nottingham was probably still hoping to retire in January 1613, when he was appointed to command the fleet which would take Princes Elizabeth, who had recently married the Elector Palatine, across the Channel; at any rate, Chamberlain reported that ‘the old lord admiral means to make it his last service’.221 Chamberlain Letters, i. 404. However, he still needed to find a buyer for his office and no doubt wished to retire with dignity. He still faced the hostility of Northampton, who reacted angrily to rumours that Nottingham wished to procure the office of vice admiral of England, which had long lain vacant, for his eldest son. Northampton described the suggestion as an ‘impertinency’, for whereas Nottingham had ‘experience’ but not ‘integrity and understanding’, Howard of Effingham ‘wants all three’.222 Cott., Titus, CVI, f. 106v. This letter is undated, but contains a suggestion that Nottingham might recruit Princes Elizabeth and the Elector to lobby on his behalf. L. L. Peck, Northampton, 35.

In January 1613 Northampton procured a fresh commission to re-examine the evidence collected by the 1608 inquiry. This was followed in April - while Nottingham was abroad with the Princess Elizabeth and the Elector - by another commission to inquire into abuses committed since 1609, presumably in the hope of discovering that, despite James’s admonition, the corruptions identified by the 1608 inquiry had continued.223 SO3/5, unfol. (Jan. and Apr. 1613). In response Sir Robert Mansell, claiming authorization from Nottingham, consulted a prominent lawyer, James Whitelocke^‡, in order to question the legality of the January commission. Mansell and Whitelocke were thereupon arrested and brought before the Privy Council, whose members, keen to distance Nottingham from Mansell’s action, declared that the latter had only ‘pretended’ to have the lord admiral’s authority. After suing for pardon, both Mansell and Whitelocke were forgiven.224 APC, 1613-14, pp. 211-17. This, however, proved to be a pyrrhic victory for Northampton, as the work of his commission was suspended. Nevertheless, it was probably not until Northampton’s death the following year that Nottingham was truly safe from his kinsman.225 L.L. Peck, ‘Problems in Jacobean Admin.: Was Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, a Reformer?’, HJ, xix. 852-3.

Nottingham was again appointed temporary lord steward when Parliament was summoned in 1614, playing his accustomed role on 5 Apr. in supervising the initial roll-call of the lower House and swearing in about 20 senior Members, who acted as his deputies.226 Procs. 1614 (Commons), 11. He was also reappointed by the king a trier of petitions from England, Scotland and Ireland.227 LJ, ii. 686b. Listed as present on all but three of the sittings of the upper House, a total of 90 per cent, he may also have attended on 7 Apr., when no attendances were recorded.

Nottingham was named to four of the nine committees appointed by the Lords that Parliament, and made nine recorded speeches. On 11 Apr. he moved to commit the bill to prevent wasteful consumption of gold and silver on the grounds that it was ‘too short in some things and too large in some other’. He was named to the committee and successfully reported it with amendments four days later, when it was ordered to be engrossed.228 HMC Hastings, iv. 241; LJ, ii. 691a, 693a. His other appointments were to attend the conference with the Commons about the bill to settle the succession following the marriage of Princess Elizabeth, and to consider legislation to prevent lawsuits over bequests of land and preserve timber. The latter was of official interest to Nottingham in his capacity as lord admiral because, as Mansell (the treasurer of the Navy) informed the Commons, ship building was threatened by timber shortages.229 LJ, ii. 692a, 694a, 697b; HP Commons, 1604-29, v. 243-4.

On 7 May Nottingham spoke on behalf of his brother-in-law, Sir Francis Stewart^‡, who was seeking statutory naturalization. One of the requirements for naturalization was that the person concerned take the sacraments of the Church of England. Nottingham confirmed that Stewart had done this with him at Chelsea the previous Sunday, and reiterated this statement formally at the next sitting two days later ‘before a convenient number of other lords in the Parliament House’. (The House was fuller than it had been on the 7th.) Stewart then took the oaths of supremacy and allegiance and the bill received a second reading.230 HMC Hastings, iv. 247; LJ, ii. 700a-b. The naturalization bill was also intended to benefit William Ramsay, whose quarrel with Montgomery Nottingham had quelled two years previously.

The attack on impositions launched by the Commons in the Addled Parliament directly threatened Nottingham because he drew a large pension from that source. Consequently, when the Lords debated whether to agree to the lower House’s request for a conference on that subject, Nottingham was reluctant to comply. After asserting, somewhat dubiously, that he was not only the ‘oldest man in this House’ (John Bridges^*, bishop of Oxford, may have been older) but also ‘the longest [serving] Parliament man’ (an honour which properly belonged to Edward Seymour^*, 1st earl of Hertford), he stated that ‘there never came in my memory into the House a thing of so great moment’, and argued that the Lords should not only first consult the judges but also ‘know the king’s mind ... whether he will give us leave to treat of this matter’.231 HMC Hastings, iv. 252. He reiterated his argument the following day, stating that he ‘tremble[d] to think of this matter’, and that impositions were a ‘flower of the crown’; he moved that they should neither ‘meet [n]or confer with them [the Commons] without the king’s leave’.232 Ibid. 260. Nevertheless, even Nottingham objected after James Montagu^*, bishop of Bath of Wells, asserted on 26 May that Ellesmere’s proposed message to the Commons rejecting a conference ‘cannot be mended’. He argued that it was not a ‘direction’ but merely proposed ‘unto your lordships’ consideration’.233 Ibid. 265.

When Neile, by now bishop of Lincoln, was attacked by the Commons on 28 May for calling the attack on impositions seditious, Nottingham came to his defence, arguing that it was against ‘the justice and equity of this House to punish or condemn a nobleman of this House by common fame’. However, in his enthusiasm to defend the bishop he had contradicted his own criticism of Neile in 1610, as the earl of Huntingdon promptly reminded the House, for if bishops were noblemen they were necessarily peers.234 Ibid. 269. Three days later Nottingham moved for Neile to ‘interpret his own meaning’, arguing that ‘time was short’, a reference to James’s increasing impatience with the Parliament’s failure to vote taxation.235 Ibid. 274. Neile was duly persuaded to explain himself, but the Commons continued to refuse to grant supply without the abolition of impositions. On 7 June, Nottingham was one of the commissioners who dissolved the Parliament.236 LJ, ii. 717a. The Venetian ambassador reported that Nottingham ‘entered and dissolved the Parliament by the royal command’, but in fact the dissolution was by commission. CSP Ven. 1613-15, p. 135. The following year James appointed a permanent lord steward of the household, the duke of Lennox, thereby obviating the need for Nottingham to fill the post temporarily while Parliament sat.

In the aftermath of the Addled Parliament Nottingham agreed to surrender his interest in the wine licences’ patent in return for £5,536. How much of this sum the earl actually received is uncertain; he had to pay £1,400 to his son Howard of Effingham, who had also been a patentee, and it is likely that much of the rest went towards paying off the debts and annuities secured on the rent.237 Upton, 58; F. Devon, Issues of the Exch. 170; C2/Chas.I/H18/35.

Nottingham’s dynastic plans were thrown into confusion on the death of Effingham in late 1615. Nottingham had conveyed the manor of Bletchingley to Effingham with the restriction that, if Effingham died without male heir, it would pass to Nottingham’s next eldest son. Effingham did indeed die without male heir, but shortly before his death he broke the entail on Bletchingley in order to leave it to his daughter. Nottingham later blamed Effingham’s wife for exerting undue influence on her husband during his final illness. She was said to have brought a judge by torchlight to Hampton Court, where Effingham lay dying, to put into effect the legal formalities.238 CPR, 1599-1600 ed. C. Smith, S.R. Neal and C. Leighton (L. and I. Soc. cccxxxii), 223-5; M. Prestwich, Cranfield, 74; J.B. Gribble, Memorials of Barnstaple, 26-7; C2/Chas.I/H34/28; Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OL44; OE534, Nottingham to Cranfield, 26 Aug. 1622. These arrangements meant that Bletchingley did not revert to Nottingham as it should have done on Effingham’s death. As nearly all of his remaining land was settled on his second wife as her jointure, Nottingham now had only the manor of Effingham, usually valued at £100 a year, to leave to his new heir, Charles.239 C2/Chas.I/N5/46; N28/30; Negotiations of Sir Thomas Roe, 329. When Nottingham and Charles tried to gain possession of Bletchingley they found themselves blocked by the Privy Council and the Court of Wards.240 APC, 1615-16, pp. 659-60, 666; Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OL44.

In March 1617 it was reported that Nottingham was dangerously ill and would soon resign his offices. It was also rumoured that he would get an additional pension and the sale of a barony in return for surrendering the admiralty to William Herbert^*, 3rd earl of Pembroke.241 CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 449; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 58; HMC Buccleuch, i. 251. In the summer the Spanish ambassador, Gondomar, reported that the earl of Southampton was intriguing to replace Nottingham.242 S.R. Gardiner, Hist. of Eng. iii. 70. However, neither Pembroke nor Southampton had enough influence with the king to give Nottingham the kind of payoff he needed to support his expanding family: his wife gave birth to a daughter in June 1616, and was pregnant again in 1617. The latter child, a son, survived only two days, causing Chamberlain to remark that ‘a pension is saved’.243 Carew Letters ed. J. Maclean (Cam. Soc. lxxvi), 35; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 122. In March 1617 the daughter had been granted a pension of £250 to commence after Nottingham’s death. CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 446.

In October 1617 a new candidate for the admiralty emerged, one who had the capacity to procure for Nottingham the retirement package he needed, James’s young favourite George Villiers^*, earl (later 1st duke) of Buckingham. In the last three months of 1617 there were frequent reports that Buckingham would soon be lord admiral.244 HMC Downshire, vi. 300, 357; Trevelyan Pprs. ed. W.C. and C.E. Trevelyan (Cam. Soc. cv), 140; Strafforde Letters (1739) ed. W. Knowler, i. 5; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 118, 122; Beaumont Pprs. ed. W.D. Macray, 37; CSP Ven. 1617-19, p. 94. However, in January 1618 it was reported that Buckingham had turned the office down because of his inexperience. This was probably only an excuse, as the Venetian ambassador reported that James was having difficulty meeting Nottingham’s demands for compensation. Another factor concerned Prince Charles’s reversion, which, unless it were cancelled, would automatically make the prince lord admiral on Nottingham’s resignation.245 CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 511; CSP Ven. 1617-19, p. 107.

In early 1618 the Howard faction at court, led by the earl of Suffolk, tried to supplant Buckingham by promoting William Monson^‡ as an alternative candidate for the king’s favour. Monson had served as a page to the countess of Nottingham and his father was Nottingham’s Surrey neighbour, the former admiral Sir William Monson. However, it is unlikely that Nottingham himself was a party to this intrigue. His only role may have been to bring Monson to the attention of his relatives. There is no evidence that Nottingham objected to being replaced by Buckingham, so long as the price was right and he could resign with his honour intact.246 HP Commons, 1604-29, v. 357.

The fresh inquiry into the corruption in the Navy initiated in June 1618 may have been promoted by Buckingham to persuade Nottingham to lower his demands. It was dominated by Nottingham’s antagonist from 1603, John Coke, but also included Cranfield who, having purchased the earl’s salary as lord admiral, had a financial stake in Nottingham remaining in office.247 HP Commons, 1604-29, iii. 600; APC, 1617-19, p. 263; Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OE534, Nottingham to Cranfield, 14 Nov. 1621. The dismissal of Suffolk from the treasury in July for corruption must have added to the pressure on Nottingham.

In early September the Venetian ambassador’s chaplain reported that the lord admiral ‘enjoys life in his robust old age’. Nevertheless there were renewed rumours that Nottingham would leave the admiralty, or alternatively that Buckingham and Nottingham would share the office. The latter proposal may have been put forward to save the reputation of the old lord admiral from any suggestion of disgrace. However, on 2 Oct. it was reported that Nottingham preferred to resign completely. In the middle of that month Prince Charles surrendered his reversion to the office of lord admiral to Buckingham, now a marquess. Nottingham may have had last-minute reservations, as it was reported on 2 Dec. that he could not be persuaded to make a complete surrender. However, it is likely that this was only a bargaining ploy and, on 27 Jan. 1619, he finally surrendered his patent, citing his age and infirmity as his reasons.248 CSP Ven. 1617-19, p. 314; HMC Downshire, vi. 503, 527, 529-31, 599; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 585; CCSP, i. 13.

Buckingham succeeded where Northampton failed because he used both carrots and sticks to remove Nottingham. Moreover, the marquess was always careful to treat the old earl with the greatest civility. As compensation for surrendering his office, Nottingham received £3,000 from Buckingham, which was paid to Nottingham’s wife for the use of her eldest son, Charles Howard^†, subsequently 3rd earl of Nottingham, as well as a pension of £1,000.249 Secret Hist. of Ct. of Jas. I ed. W. Scott, ii. 264; Birch, ii. 134; Procs. 1626, i. 568; ii. 408. In addition, in February 1619 the earl received a grant of the precedence of John Mowbray, who had been created earl of Nottingham at the coronation of Richard II in 1377. Mowbray was described as Nottingham’s ‘progenitor’, but in fact Nottingham was descended from John’s brother Thomas, who had not received the Nottingham title until six years later. This meant that Nottingham, though he no longer had the lord admiral’s precedence, still ranked as the fourth most senior earl.250 47th DKR, 96. When the herald and antiquary William Camden made a copy of Nottingham’s grant he crossed out ‘progenitor’ and replaced it with ‘predecessor’. Harl. 5176, f. 231.

The grant of the Mowbray precedence soon proved controversial. Following the death of Anne of Denmark on 2 Mar. 1619, Nottingham sought the advice of the heralds about whether it extended to his wife, who, as a member of the late queen’s household, was required to attend the funeral. They thought that it did, but reserved final judgment to the king.251 Harl. 5176, f. 231v. However, by 14 Apr. Nottingham had lost the heralds’ reply, and when he wrote to them for a copy they answered that they had since been ordered by the commissioners for the office of the earl marshal, of whom the earl, ironically, was one, not to express opinions on such cases without the commissioners’ order.252 CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 36. As a result, the matter remained unresolved. When the countess of Nottingham claimed the right to act as chief mourner at the funeral, both the countess of Arundel and the countess of Northumberland, whose husbands outranked Nottingham, even allowing for the Mowbray precedence, refused to follow her.253 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 232-3. When the funeral was finally held, on 28 May, Nottingham was one of the senior peers who flanked the coffin, but his wife absented herself, telling the king that she little regarded ‘these vain titles of honour in respect of the thing’, valuing them only because ‘they are witnesses of your Majesty’s gracious favour’.254 Nichols, iii. 539; Add. 22548, f. 11.

Nottingham largely retired from national politics even before his resignation from the admiralty; the last occasion he is recorded as having attended the Privy Council was on 6 Oct. 1618.255 APC, 1617-19, p. 267. He sought to sell his justiceship of the eyre south of the Trent, along with the keepership of Hampton Court, to Buckingham in return for the right to sell a barony, but was unsuccessful. Significantly, the negotiations were handled by the countess of Nottingham rather than the earl himself, suggesting that she was now a major influence over her husband.256 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 275; Harl. 1581, ff. 372-4. Nevertheless, when his pensions fell into arrears in 1620, it was Nottingham rather than his wife who threatened to move in with the chancellor of exchequer, the former treasurer of the navy Sir Fulke Greville, until he had eaten the equivalent of what he was owed.257 CCSP, i. 19.

Final years, 1621-24

When the third Jacobean Parliament convened in 1621, Nottingham was granted leave to be absent and gave his proxy to Buckingham.258 SO3/7, unfol. (Jan. 1621); LJ, iii. 4a. Nevertheless, he did attend three sittings of the upper House. The first was on 25 Apr., when a deleted entry in the clerk’s scribbled book records that he was seated next to the earl of Arundel, in accordance with the Mowbray precedence.259 Add. 40085, f. 41. Five days later a note in the manuscript minutes states that he should be ‘added to the catalogue’ for the morning sitting, suggesting that he arrived late. He was also recorded as being present that afternoon.260 PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/1, p. 78.

On 3 Mar. a bill was given a first reading in the Lords to confirm the sale of the rectory of Dorking made by Nottingham and his deceased eldest son to Sir Thomas Trevor^‡ and William Bryan.261 LJ, iii. 35a. The bill was promoted by William Jackson, the former servant of Nottingham who, as has already been noted, had experienced considerable difficulty receiving repayment for the large sums he had expended for the earl’s 1605 embassy to Spain. To satisfy Jackson, Nottingham had agreed to convey the rectory to Trevor and Bryan in trust for Jackson, but the legality of the conveyance had been challenged by the widow of Nottingham’s eldest son, whose daughter stood to inherit on Nottingham’s death should the conveyance be found to be invalid.262 C3/362/19; C2/Jas.I/I3/6; C8/87/200. Jackson’s promotion of the bill is made clear in the scribbled books. Add. 40085, ff. 116, 132v. It is unclear if the earl himself supported or opposed the bill. The measure received a second reading on 5 May, when it was committed, but was reported as unfit to be proceeded with by Henry de Vere^*, 18th earl of Oxford, on 12 May.263 LJ, ii. 110a, 119a.

Cranfield was made lord treasurer in September and began a review of public expenditure, causing Nottingham to write to him a length on 14 Nov. defending his various pensions with a long recital of his past services to the crown. Concluding that he was ‘a very old man’ and ‘desirous to live at quiet for my foot is going in the grave’, he implored Cranfield to ‘friend me … for I protest … I cannot spend £200 a year land in all the world’. He claimed, with exaggeration, that he had ‘upon some great occasion’ conveyed all his lands in England to his deceased eldest son, ‘but yet it was so wrought by lady his wife that … my whole house was defeated’.264 Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OE534, Nottingham to Cranfield, 14 Nov. 1621. His appeal was successful, although payment of his pensions may have been delayed for a period; they were certainly not cancelled.265 Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OE1022; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 539.

Despite saying that he had one foot in the grave, Nottingham was not in poor health. On 28 Mar. 1622 he informed Buckingham that he had been ‘this winter and now [am] at this instant better in health and strength of body then I was ten years ago’. He asked if he might have 16 or 20 deer out of the royal park at Nonsuch for his own park at Reigate ‘to have some sport there now and then to kill a buck with my beagle, which may peradventure prolong my life a year or two’.266 Fortescue Pprs. 179-80.

Nottingham wrote another long letter to Cranfield on 26 Aug., after being pressed to pay the subsidies granted by the 1621 Parliament. He had been assessed as owning lands worth £200 a year, but he pointed out that this was the rating fixed upon him when he was lord admiral and before he had conveyed his lands to his eldest son. Interweaving truth and fantasy, he claimed to have deliberately divested himself of his lands ‘upon great occasion of unkindness which was between me and my lord of Northampton’ in order ‘to avoid danger that might peradventure happen’. He claimed that Effingham had promised to return the lands on request, but that his plans had been thwarted by his son’s wife. He even attributed the sudden death of the judge who had enabled Effingham to break the entail, Sir Augustine Nicholls (d.1616), to the latter’s guilt at his part in the affair. Forgetting his pensions, amounting to £3,700 a year, he protested that he did not have ‘above 200 marks a year in the whole world’, or even enough ‘to be buried withal like a poor bachelor knight’, before adding that he ‘made no account of that, for my ambition is but a black marble stone’. He also claimed to be ‘none of those that had thousands in gifts of his Majesty, nor I never pressed him in any of those suits’. Having again recited his services to the crown, he concluded on a more sober note by offering to pay half of what he owed at Michaelmas and the other half at Christmas. In a postscript he announced his intention of attending the king ‘and so take my humble last leave of him’. Cranfield, however, claimed that he had no power to alter Nottingham’s assessment.267 Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. U269/1/OE534, Nottingham to Cranfield, 26 Aug. 1622; U269/1/OE1233, Cranfield to Nottingham, 28 Aug. 1622.

In May 1623 Nottingham gave final testimony of his loyalty to the Church of England when he reported John Monson, son of the admiral Sir William Monson, to the archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot, for openly asserting that James was a Catholic at heart and for trying to convert members of the earl’s family. Nottingham denounced Monson in heated terms, describing him as ‘the most dangerous papist that I think hath been in this kingdom this many years’, worse than the Jesuit Henry Garnet. Nevertheless, he had evidently tolerated Monson’s missionary activities in his household for some time, as he observed that every member of his family had rejected Monson. Moreover, Monson’s faith cannot have come as much as a surprise, as the family was widely suspected of Catholicism.268 SP14/145/22. It was clearly the aspersions Monson had cast on the king’s faith that had enraged Nottingham, suggesting that although he was willing to tolerate Catholic practice in private, Catholicism in the political sphere was unacceptable to him. Monson was brought before the Privy Council, where he claimed not to remember uttering any such remarks, and upon making his submission he was released.269 CSP Dom. Addenda, 1580-1625, p. 654; APC, 1623-5, pp. 6-7.

There is no evidence that Nottingham attended the 1624 Parliament. When the upper House was called on 23 Feb. it was announced that he had been given leave to be absent and that he would send a proxy. In fact, he was not granted leave until 22 Mar. and there is no evidence that he appointed a proxy.270 LJ, iii. 217b; SO3/7, unfol. (22 Mar. 1624). The Commons made a further attempt to repeal the Tudor statute on which the wine licences’ patent was based, but this was rejected by the Lords on 22 May on the grounds that Nottingham was still alive, although the earl no longer had an interest in the patent.271 LJ, iii. 402a.

Nottingham died at Haling House, one of his Surrey residences, on 14 Dec. 1624; he was buried at night four days later in Reigate parish church.272 Leveson-Gower, 401, 422. George Carew^*, Lord Carew (later earl of Totness), reporting his death to Sir Thomas Roe^‡ on 31 Dec., declared that ‘the new earl, his son, hath no other inheritance by his death than the barony of Effingham, little better then worth £100 per annum’.273 Negotiations of Sir Thomas Roe, 329. Nottingham had drawn up a will in December 1587, but this was never proved, and his eldest surviving son, Charles Howard, 2nd earl of Nottingham, neglected to take out letters of administration until 4 Nov. 1629.274 Coll. Top. et Gen. vi. 98-99; PROB 6/13, f. 123.