John Howard (died 1437)
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Sir John Howard (c. 1366–1437), of Wiggenhall and East Winch, in Norfolk, England, was a landowner, soldier, courtier, administrator and politician. His grandson was John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk, the great-grandfather of two queens, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, two of the six wives of King Henry VIII.[1]
Born in about 1366, Howard was the son and heir of Robert Howard and Margaret Scales, daughter of Robert de Scales, Baron Scales and Katherine d'Ufford, a daughter and eventual heiress of Robert d'Ufford, Earl of Suffolk. His grandfather, John Howard (died 1364), had served as Admiral of the Northern Fleet from 1335 to 1337.[1]
Career
By 1380 Howard was married to an heiress and had been knighted by March 1387, when he served at sea in the fleet commanded by Richard FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel that fought the French and their allies at the Battle of Margate. In 1389, both his father and his father-in-law died, bringing him most of the paternal lands and those inherited by his wife, which he retained for life when she died in 1391. These estates gave him not only a considerable income but also local influence.[1]
In 1394, Howard was appointed a member of the royal household, serving in the English expedition that year against Ireland. In 1397, by which time he had married another heiress, he was made a justice of the peace (JP) for both Suffolk and Essex and in September was elected a Member (MP) of the Parliament of England for Essex. This Parliament was used by King Richard II to penalise his opponents and, on behalf of the Crown, Howard was empowered to seize the estates of rebel nobles and to collect large fines from the dissident counties of Essex and Hertfordshire. He then accompanied the King on his second expedition to Ireland in 1399.[1]
Howard's position in the royal household was not renewed under the new reign of King Henry IV, but he continued to sit as a JP and serve on royal commissions. He served the first of two terms as High Sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire in 1400, during which he was summoned to the Great Council of August 1401, and was High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire in both 1401 and 1402. In 1407 he returned to Parliament as MP for Cambridgeshire.[1]
In 1408, Howard's wife's father died, and she inherited his lands.[citation needed] Chosen again as Sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire in 1414, he was involved in preparations for the first expedition to France of the new King, Henry V. In 1420 he was in a feud in Suffolk with the influential MP Thomas Kerdiston, which Thomas Erpingham reported to the Privy Council, but by 1422 was sufficiently in favour locally to be elected Suffolk's MP.[1]
After sitting in this third Parliament, and following the death of his second wife in 1426, Howard took less part in local administration, though continuing as a JP and on royal commissions. In February 1436, he was asked to contribute 100 marks to the cost of the Duke of York's expedition to France.
Howard then went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he died in Jerusalem on 17 November 1437. His remains were brought back to England and buried beside his second wife at Stoke-by-Nayland.[1]
