William Howard, 1st Viscount Stafford

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Portrait of an Unknown Man by Anthony van Dyck . Presumably it is William Howard

William Howard, 1st Viscount Stafford (born November 30, 1614 in Westminster , † December 29, 1680 in the Tower Liberties ) was a British landowner and royalist from the Howard family . He was charged with participating in the papist conspiracy and executed. In 1929 he was appointed by Pope Pius XI. beatified as a catholic martyr .

Howard was the son of Anglican Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel and grandson of Philip Howard, 20th Earl of Arundel , one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales . William Howard grew up a member of the Church of England but, to the horror of his family, married Catholic in 1637.

His bride was Mary, sister of Henry Stafford, 5th Baron Stafford. Despite the Catholic marriage, Howard's family managed to secure him the title of Viscount Stafford in 1640 through their influence at court, which Roger Stafford, 6th Baron Stafford had to give up due to poverty. Between 1641 and 1660 Howard commuted between the Netherlands, England and Rome and was involved in numerous disputes within the family, mostly triggered by inheritance disputes, but also in the turmoil of the time. After the Stuart Restoration in 1660, he returned entirely to England and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society . He campaigned for the revocation of anti-Catholic laws, but otherwise remained politically inconspicuous.

In 1678 Titus Oates accused him of being a participant in the Papist conspiracy and Howard was imprisoned in the Tower of London . Although the fictional nature of the conspiracy and its instrumentalization became more evident in the years that followed, Howard was sentenced to death in November 1680 during a public surge of anti-Catholic sentiment. His main witness, Richard Gerard of Hilderstone, had been arrested "as a precaution" so as not to endanger the judge's verdict. On December 29, 1680, William Howard, Viscount Stafford, was beheaded on Tower Hill and, like his grandfather, was buried in the church of St. Peter ad Vincula on the site of the Tower. Unlike his grandfather, his bones are still buried there today.

The title of Baron Stafford was revoked after Howard's death, but the Howard family managed to regain it in 1824. George William Stafford-Jerningham, 8th Baron Stafford (1771-1851), multiple great-grandson of William Howard, was a Baron Stafford from the Howard family.

literature

  • Sambrooke Arthur Higgins Burne: The trial of William Howard, Viscount Stafford . SAH Burne, Stafford 1964.
  • Rose Meeres <under the pseudonym SND = Sister of Notre Dame>: Sir William Howard, Viscount Stafford, 1612-1680 . Sands & Co., London 1929.
  • Charles O'Conor: The Right Honorable Lord Viscount Stafford (1612-80). Blessed William Howard . In: The Irish Monthly , Vol. 58, No. 685 (July 1930), pp. 360-365.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ John Kenyon: The Popish Plot . Heinemann, London 1972. ISBN 0-434-38850-5 . P. 51.
personal data
SURNAME Howard, William, 1st Viscount Stafford
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British landowner and royalist
DATE OF BIRTH November 30, 1614
PLACE OF BIRTH Westminster
DATE OF DEATH December 29, 1680
Place of death Tower Liberties