HOWARD, Sir Edward II (?1602-1675), of Escrick, Yorks. and Tollesbury Hall, Essex

Howard was dubbed a knight of the Bath at Prince Charles’s creation as prince of Wales, no doubt at the behest of his father, then lord treasurer. In 1617 he was the recipient, along with his brothers Sir Robert and Sir William, of a grant of fines upon original writs in King’s Bench.C66/2092. Licensed for three years’ foreign travel in 1620, he may have been abroad when, under the terms of a family settlement, he inherited the Escrick estate in 1622 from Sir Thomas Knyvett’s* widow. In the following year he married advantageously to a niece of the royal favourite, Buckingham, the duke ‘professing that he will not only be an uncle but a father unto them’.Chamberlain Letters, ii. 451, 533; C142/435/119; R. Lockyer, Buckingham, 69.

Howard depended entirely on his family ties for his parliamentary seats. In 1624 he was elected at Wallingford on the interest of his brother-in-law, Viscount Wallingford (William Knollys†), and also at Calne, where his father apparently nominated him on the strength of the substantial Howard estates in north Wiltshire.CP; King’s Coll. Lib. Camb., KCAR/1/2/16, vol. iv, no. 59; Wilts. N and Q, viii. 446-50. He opted on 24 Feb. to represent the latter borough, but thereafter made little impression on the Commons’ proceedings. The four legislative committees to which he was named concerned the repression of drunkenness, duchy of Cornwall leases, the sale of the lands of lord treasurer Middlesex (Sir Lionel Cranfield*), and the alienation of York House, London to the duke of Buckingham (26 Feb., 9 Mar., 19 May).CJ, i. 672b, 674b, 680a, 705b. Returned again for Calne in 1625, he left no mark at all on the records of the first Caroline Parliament, and seems not to have stood in the next election. In 1628 he was elected unopposed at Hertford, doubtless through the influence of another brother-in-law, the 2nd earl of Salisbury (William Cecil*), from whom he also received an annuity. However, Howard once more failed to have any impact in the Commons, and was raised to the peerage on 12 Apr., taking his seat in the Lords two days later.HALS, Hertford bor. recs., 23/17; L. Stone, ‘Electoral Influence of 2nd Earl of Salisbury’, EHR, lxxi. 393; Lords Procs. 1628, v. 216.

According to Clarendon (Edward Hyde†), Howard owed his barony to Buckingham, but he withdrew from Court after the favourite’s assassination and gradually turned against the Crown.Clarendon, Hist. of the Rebellion ed. W.D. Macray, i. 392-3. Having voted against supply in the Short Parliament, he opposed the king during the Civil War and, after the abolition of the House of Lords sat briefly in the Rump, until he was expelled for corruption in June 1651. Thereafter he withdrew from public life. Howard sold Escrick in 1668, and at the time of his death his main property was Tollesbury Hall, Essex. He died in April 1675, and was buried in the Savoy chapel in the Strand, London, at his own request. His younger son William represented Winchelsea in the 1660 Convention, but no subsequent members of the family sat in the Commons.CSP Dom. 1640, p. 66; Waters, i. 149-50; VCH E. Riding, iii. 20; PROB 11/347, f. 259r-v.