[Illustration] The great historical house of Howard in point of
antiquity must yield precedence to many other English families: it
can only be traced with certainty to Sir William Howard, Judge of
the Common Pleas in 1297. Norfolk appears to be the county where
this great family should be noticed, the Duke of Norfolk still
possessing property in the county of his dukedom derived from his
ancestors of the house of Bigod. In the fourteenth century, by the
match with the heiress of Mowbray, the foundation of the honors and
consequence of the Howards was laid, the first Duke being the son of
Margaret, daughter and coheir of Thomas de Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.
The Sussex estates came from the heiress of Fitzalan, Earl of
Arundel, in the reign of Edward VI.; Worksop from the Talbots;
Greystoke and Morpeth from the Dacres.
All the English Peers of the house of Howard are traced to a common
ancestor in Thomas, the second Duke of Norfolk, who died in 1524.
The Duke of Norfolk, the Earls of Suffolk and Carlisle, descend from
his first wife, and the Earl of Effingham from the second. The
Howards of Greystoke, in Cumberland, are a younger branch of the
present ducal house. The Howards of Corby Castle, in the same
county, descend from the second son of "Belted Will," the ancestor
of the house of Carlisle.
Extinct branches. The Viscount Bindon; the Earls of Northampton,
Nottingham, and Stafford; and Lord Howard of Escrick.
See Brydges's Collins, i. 50, for the Duke of Norfolk; iii. 147,
for the Earl of Suffolk; iii. 501, for the Earl of Carlisle; and iv.
264, for the Earl of Effingham. See also Cartwright's Rape of
Bramber, p. 185; and Dallaway's Rape of Arundel; Hunter's South
Yorkshire, ii. 10. For the Howard Monuments at East-Winch, see
Weever's Funeral Monuments, p. 842-9; for their state in the 18th
century Parkins's Blomefield's Norfolk, iv. 746; and Topographer and
Genealogist, ii. 90. For the Earl of Carlisle, see Hodgson's History
of Northumberland, ii. pt. 2, p. 381; for Howard of Corby, the same
vol. p. 477. See also "Historical Anecdotes of some of the Howard
Family," 12mo. 1769; Tierney's Castle and Town of Arundel, 8vo.
1834; and Mr. Howard's "Indication of Memorials, &c. of the Howard
Family," fol. 1834.
ARMS.--_Gules, a bend between six cross-crosslets fitcheé argent, on
an escucheon a demi-lion pierced through the mouth with an arrow,
within a double tressure flory counter-flory gules_, granted by
patent 5 Henry VIII. to Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, in
remembrance of the victory gained over the Scots at Flodden. The
present coat was borne by Sir John Howard in the reign of Edward
II., and by Mr. Howard in those of Edward II. and Richard III.: it
has been conjectured, from the similarity of this coat with that of
the Botilers, Barons of Wem, (Gules, a fess cheeky argent and sable
between six crosses pateé fitchée argent,) that Sir William Howard
the Judge was descended from the Hords, stewards to these Barons: it
is observable that none of the Howards ever prefixed the _de_ to
their name, a fact which opposes their derivation from Hawarden in
Flintshire. (Blakeway's Sheriffs of Shropshire, pp. 53 note.)
Present Representative, Henry Fitzalan Howard, 15th Duke of
Norfolk.