HOWARD, Edward (?1602-75)

The youngest son of Thomas Howard^*, 1st earl of Suffolk, Howard presumably grew up in the environs of the court. In 1616, no doubt at the behest of his father, the then lord treasurer, he was dubbed a knight of the Bath prior to the creation of Prince Charles (Stuart^*) as prince of Wales. However, his prospects for further advancement were seriously hampered by Suffolk’s disgrace two years later. Howard achieved a measure of financial independence in 1622, when he inherited the Escrick estate in Yorkshire from his maternal uncle Thomas Knyvett^*, Lord Knyvett. His court career also finally seemed back on track by November 1623, when he married a great-niece of the royal favourite, George Villiers^*, 1st duke of Buckingham. The wedding took place at the duke’s London mansion, York House, and Buckingham reportedly promised to be ‘not only … an uncle but a father’ to the bride and groom’.43 C142/435/119; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 533. Nevertheless, Howard’s hope of securing a position in the king’s bedchamber was not realized, and for several years his association with the duke brought him only minor financial rewards, despite ‘having his whole dependence upon … [Buckingham] and being absolutely governed by him’.44 Add. 72299, f. 126; SO3/8, unfol. (Mar. and Apr. 1626); Clarendon, Hist. of the Rebellion, i. 392. When he represented Calne in the Commons in 1624 and 1625, it was on the strength of his Howard connections, not his ties with the favourite.45 HP Commons, 1604-29, ii. 432.

In March 1628 Howard was again elected to Parliament, this time for Hertford, through the influence of his brother-in-law, William Cecil^*, 2nd earl of Salisbury. However, less than a month after the session’s opening, he was created Lord Howard of Escrick, as the king acted to bolster his support in the upper House in the face of attacks on the crown’s prerogative powers.46 Ibid. 809; Clarendon, i. 392; Procs. 1628, pp. 187, 192; T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, i. 351. Howard was formally introduced in the Lords on 14 Apr., supported by Algernon Percy^*, 4th Lord Percy (later 4th earl of Northumberland) and Edward Montagu^*, 1st Lord Montagu, and took the oath of allegiance on 7 May. He attended 50 of the remaining 73 sittings during this session, but received only three nominations. Appointed to committees for bills concerned with the River Medway in Kent, and the estates of his kinsman Thomas Howard^*, 21st (or 14th) earl of Arundel, he was also named to confer with the Commons about the formal title of the Petition of Right, the king having modified the phrasing proposed by Parliament.47 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 221, 337, 390, 582, 679. During the 1629 session, Howard missed only four of the 23 sittings, but was appointed to just one committee, to consider the proposal for an academy to educate the sons of peers and major gentry, originally put forward by Buckingham, and now revived by Arundel.48 LJ, iv. 39b.

The duke’s assassination in August 1628 deprived Howard of his principal patron at court, and in the following decade he seems to have spent much of his time in the country. In May 1630 he was instructed to investigate a possible plague outbreak at Great Chesterford, Essex, which suggests that he was living nearby at Audley End, the palatial home of his elder brother, Theophilus Howard^*, now 2nd earl of Suffolk.49 Clarendon, i. 392; R. Cust, Chas. I and the Aristocracy, 80; CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 258; APC, 1629-30, p. 409. During these years he frequently socialized with his assorted siblings, making use of Suffolk House in London, and also visiting the earl of Salisbury at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire. Another regular destination in the latter county was presumably Watton Woodhall, the seat of his father-in-law, John Boteler^*, 1st Lord Boteler, which certainly became one of his principal residences during the 1640s. Howard briefly owned a house in St Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster, but this was given to him in 1634 by his brother Sir William^‡ as a financial asset, and he almost immediately sold it for £2,500 to Mountjoy Blount^*, 1st earl of Newport.50 CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 69; HMC 6th Rep. 64-5; Strafforde Letters (1739) ed. W. Knowler, i. 206-7.

Money was a perennial concern for Howard, not least because he was a suretor for his brother Sir Robert^‡, who was perennially in trouble with High Commission over his adulterous relationship with the wife of Buckingham’s brother, John Villiers^*, Viscount Purbeck.51 APC, 1629-30, p. 409; CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 69; Birch, ii. 260; C54/3146/216. In December 1631 Howard and his brother Thomas (Howard)^*, 1st earl of Berkshire, were granted a 21-year farm of the greenwax, the office responsible for collecting fines imposed by the Westminster courts. This was a very lucrative arrangement, notwithstanding the king’s habit of demanding advances on the revenues due to the crown.52 C54/2935/2; G.E. Aylmer, King’s Servants, 213; SP23/215, p. 591; T56/1, ff. 23, 39; HMC Cowper, ii. 159; CSP Dom. 1637-8, p. 152; E403/2983, pp. 90, 107-8; 403/3042, pp. 118-19. Even so, Howard struggled to live within his means, and in January 1637 it was rumoured that he was about to take as his second wife the wealthy widow of Sir Francis Crane^‡. In the event, nothing came of this plan, possibly because rumours of the lady’s affluence proved to be exaggerated.53 Birch, ii. 269. Two years later, when Howard was summoned to attend the king at York, accompanied by the men-at-arms appropriate to his rank, he tellingly replied that he would come as well equipped as his financial position permitted.54 SO1/3, ff. 114v-15; CSP Dom. 1638-9, p. 439.

According to Edward Hyde^†, 1st earl of Clarendon, Howard became disenchanted with the court following his wife’s death in 1634. His failure to achieve office was doubtless a factor, and he must have resented the persecution of his brother, Sir Robert, by the archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud^*. The latter’s anti-Calvinist church reforms presumably also offended Howard, given his subsequent support for presbyterianism.55 Clarendon, i. 392; Birch, ii. 260. When the Short Parliament met in 1640, he voted for grievances to be addressed before granting supply, and in August that year he both signed and delivered the Petition of the Twelve Peers, which called for peace with the Covenanters and wide-ranging domestic reforms.56 CSP Dom. 1640, pp. 66, 640; HMC Var. ii. 257.

Howard attended the 1640 Great Council of Peers, and was one of the ‘popular men’ selected to treat with the Scots at Ripon. During the Long Parliament, he supported the impeachment of Laud and Thomas Wentworth^*, 1st earl of Strafford, and was among the handful of peers who continued to attend the Lords throughout the Civil War.57 SP16/466/42, p. 38; Clarendon, i. 203, 244, iii. 297. Following the abolition of the upper House in 1649, he secured election to the Rump, but was expelled for corruption in June 1651, and briefly imprisoned. He lived privately for the rest of the decade, but secured a royal pardon at the Restoration, and resumed his seat in the Lords. He continued to attend the House until a week before his death in 1675. Howard was succeeded by his son Thomas (Howard)^†, 2nd Lord Howard of Escrick.58 CJ, vi. 591b; Waters, i. 149.