William Howard (1612 - 1680)

Born 30 Nov 1612 in Westminster, Middlesex, England

Ancestors

Husband of Mary (Stafford) Howard — married 12 Oct 1637 (to 29 Dec 1680) in England

Descendants

Died 29 Dec 1680 at age 68 in Tower Hill, London, England

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Joe Cochoit [send private message]

Biography

William Howard was born on 30 November 1612, the fifth son of Thomas Howard , fourteenth Earl of Arundel, and his wife, Alethea Talbot. His father converted to the Church of England in 1616. Therefore William had an Anglican education which did not prevent him from becoming a Catholic. Aged eleven in 1624 he went to St John's College, Cambridge, but he took no degree. He was still only 13 when he was made a Knight of the Bath at the Coronation of Charles I.

William married Mary the 17 year old sister of Henry, 5th Baron Stafford by license granted on 11 October 1637. ^[1]

The marriage allegation reads: 11 Oct 1637 Mary Stafford, aged 18, daughter of _____Stafford, deceased, late son and heir of Lord Stafford, also deceased, with consent of 3rd Earl Marshall and of ____ Stafford, widow, mother of said Mary. To marry the Rt. Worshipful Sir William Howard, K.B. bachelor aged 22, son of the Rt. Hon. Earl Marshall of England. Marriage to be at St Martins in Fields or at St Clement Danes. ^[2]

The Staffords were Roman Catholics and the marriage was conducted by a Catholic priest on 12 October. Mary’s brother, Henry, who had been a ward in the Arundel household, died on 22nd October, leaving his property to his sister. On 12 September 1640 William was created Baron Stafford. Two months later, on 11 November, he was created Viscount Stafford. William and Mary had three sons and six daughters together.

The Earl and Countess of Arundel left England as the political situation worsened and William followed soon after with his wife and child. They lived mostly in Antwerp so he was not in England to defend Stafford Castle when it was attacked by Parliamentary forces in 1643. Instead the castle was defended by his wife’s grandmother, Isabel Stafford. ^[3]

He and Mary did return to England with the permission of Parliament in 1646 but his estate was sequestered in 1649 and he had to compound for his recusancy and his monarchist beliefs. He paid two visits to Rome in the late 1640s and in 1652 was jailed in Heildelburg for immorality. He was imprisoned again in 1656 in the Netherlands for the debts of his father who had died in 1646.

The Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 allowed him to resume his previous place in English society but he never became a strong political figure. This and his Catholicism made him a soft target for Titus Oates who implicated him in the Popish Plot in 1678 and he was imprisoned in the Tower on 31 October 1678. Accused of plotting to kill the King, Charles II and restore Catholicism he was put on trial on 30 November 1680. He was convicted on 7 December and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, which sentence was reduced by the king to one of beheading. He was executed on Tower Hill on 29 December and his body was buried in St Peter ad Venicula (some say it was returned to his family).

His attainder was reversed in 1824 by the Liverpool Ministry.

Sources

1. ↑ Vol. l. Marriage licence allegations in the registry of the Bishop of London https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/28562/images/dvm_LocHist012317-00086-1?ssrc=&backlabel=Return&rc=852%2C1579%2C1075%2C1624&pId=151
2. ↑ Page 231 Allegations for Marriage Licences Issued by the Bishop of London, 1520 to ...By Joseph Lemuel Chester
3. ↑ British History Online: Stafford Castle [1]

• Peter Holmes, ‘Howard, William, Viscount Stafford (1612–1680)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2011 accessed 22 Oct 2016

• Wikipedia biography [2]

• Staffordshire Pedigrees based on the Visitation of that county made by William Dugdale Esq, Norroy King of Arms in the years 1663-1664: Page 213 Baron Stafford

Acknowledgements

• WikiTree profile Howard-2488 created through the import of Gedcom ONE for WikiTree.ged on Aug 7, 2011 by Dolores M. Pringle Pringle. See the Changes page for the details of edits by Dolores M. Pringle and others.