Howard (noble family)

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Original coat of arms of the Howard family
Coat of arms of the Duke of Norfolk, head of the Howard family

The aristocratic Howard family was and is considered the top of the English Catholic nobility. The head of the family, the Duke of Norfolk , is the Empire's first peer and Hereditary Earl Marshal of England.

history

The founder of the house was William Howard († 1308), since 1297 chief judge of the Court of Common Pleas . His grandson John Howard was Admiral of the Navy (1337) and Sheriff of Norfolk . John's great-grandson Robert Howard married Margaret, daughter and co-heir of Thomas Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk . Both son John Howard was raised to Duke of Norfolk in 1483.

Important members of the family include the influential Agnes Howard, Duchess of Norfolk , her stepson, the English statesman Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk and his nieces, the queens by marriage Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard .

Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk (1538–1572), confessed to the newly founded Anglican State Church . However, he married several strictly Catholic women and had his children raised Catholic, who later also officially converted to Catholicism. His son Philip Howard, 20th Earl of Arundel , was therefore imprisoned in the Tower of London by Elizabeth I from 1584 until his death in 1595 ; later he was recognized as a martyr and has been a saint of the Catholic Church since 1970 . Henry Howard, 6th Duke of Norfolk , lost his seat in the House of Lords in 1678 due to an alleged papist conspiracy ; he refused to renounce his belief and went into exile in Bruges for three years . The Howard family is still a member of the Roman Catholic Church .

Title overview

Arundel Castle , seat of the Dukes of Norfolk

Members of the widely ramified Howard family carried or carry the following titles of nobility:

Tribe list

literature

  • Neil Grant: The Howards of Norfolk. F. Watts, London 1972, ISBN 0-85166-236-6 .
  • Gerald Brenan, Edward Phillips Statham: The House of Howard. 2 volumes, Hutchinson & Co., London 1907.