“THE HOWARDS, THE HOWARDS, THE ANCIENT, GLORIOUS HOWARDS!”

Jerry Harkins

I am a Howard on my paternal grandmother’s side and the title of this essay is a toast often raised in my family. My father was Howard Edward Harkins [1] and I have a brother, John Howard Harkins. My granduncle was Judge John Howard, and I inherited the Howard silverplate from his sisters, my maiden grandaunts, the teachers Jane and Annie Howard. I had a cousin Howard Harkins of fond if not sainted memory, and have a cousin, Paul Howard Landau, a gentleman, the son of a gentleman and a truly gentle lady.

Two generations ago, two Irish families of the Brooklyn diaspora joined fortunes through the marriages of two Harkins brothers to two Howard sisters. The former were scions of the O’hEarcáin clan of Moville, County Donegal,[2] descendents in the direct male line of Saint Finian of Moville.[3] The Howards were the Anglo-Norman-Irish branch of one of Perfidious Albion’s most distinguished families. The nameplate that graces the family townhouse hard by St. Stephen’s Green reads O’hOurahan which is a backward rendering of the name into Irish—perhaps a reverse snobbery.

My particular branch of this vast and complex family settled in County Cork shortly after Strongbow defeated the ragtag Corkmen of Dermot McCarty in 1174. Dermot had been the first Irishman to cast his lot with Henry II, thinking the monarch had come to settle scores with Strongbow and not taking into account the capacity of the English to renege on mere treaties. The early Howards left few traces. It wasn’t until the English branch of the family came into prominence that the record becomes richer. Not in Ireland, of course, at least not until Elizabeth I began to exile upper crust Howards there. There was a Jane Howard of Cork who got herself listed as a landowner in Pender’s Census of 1659. Since this was at the height of the Cromwellian genocide, Jane had to have been some sort of Protestant. There was also a John Howard of Cork whose will was probated in 1741. With an estate large enough to require probate, he too was probably a Protestant.

The first well-documented Howard was Robert of Norfolk (1336-1388), a Norman [4] landowner who married Margaret Scales (1339-1416). They had one child, a son, the first John Howard (1365-1436), who married Margaret Plaiz (b. 1368). Their son Robert (1385-1437) married Margaret Mowbray, the daughter of Thomas Mowbray who was the first Duke of Norfolk but who was banished by Richard II in the aftermath of the Bolingbroke affair, the bloody feud that forms the heart of Shakespeare’s play about that accursed monarch (take your pick; I meant Henry but Richard was an equally obnoxious pervert). While these famous events were transpiring, Robert and Margaret had a son, the second John Howard (1430-1489), who became the second [5] Duke of Norfolk and the Earl Marshall of England in 1483.

The third Duke was Thomas Howard (1473-1554) who was the uncle of Anne Boleyn. [6] Thomas himself was condemned to death for treason but, unlike his niece, he managed to survive when Henry VIII died the evening before the scheduled decapitation. One of Tom’s sons had been named Henry [7] for obvious sucking-up reasons. Henry became a third rate poet and the Earl of Surrey but led a star-crossed life. He was the foster brother and brother-in-law of another Henry, Henry Fitzroy, who, as the name implies, was one of the tribe of bastard sons of Henry VIII. He, the Earl, ended up beheaded for treason on the testimony of his sister, Mary Howard Fitzroy, wife of the bastard and no mean bastard in her own right. His brother George Howard, Viscount of Rochford (through his wife Jane) was beheaded along with his sister Anne Boleyn for alleged incest between them. It wasn’t true, of course, but His Majesty had to blame someone for the stillbirth of Anne’s son. His own manhood was unquestionable. When he arrived at the block, George said, "Masters all, I am come hither not to preach a sermon but to die, as the law hath found me, and to the law I submit me." His cousin, Catherine Howard, also married the King and, in keeping with family tradition, was the only other wife he beheaded. [8] For Anne whom he actually seems to have liked, he had provided an expert swordsman imported from France for the occasion. No such niceties attended Catherine’s date with the axman. It should be admitted that various of the Howards (as well as George’s wife Jane) had testified against George, Anne and, later, Catherine but almost all of them lost their heads also. Hopefully for perjury.

The fourth Duke was Henry’s son Thomas (1538-1572) who turned out to be a supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots. It was suggested that he marry the lady but he declined. Instead, he plotted with the Spanish court to overthrow Elizabeth I which was a fatal error in judgment. Thomas’ son and heir, Philip Howard, “enjoyed the favor of the queen” for a time but was later twice tried for treason, the first time for reconciling with Rome, the second for allegedly praying for the success of the Spanish Armada. While the court ruled that prayer could not be treason, Philip was condemned anyway. British justice is famous for making subtle distinctions that leave the rest of us breathless. In the event, Philip evaded the headsman by dying in prison. Nevertheless, he was canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970 as one of the 40 British “martyrs.” Don’t ask. [9] Philip’s brother, Lord William Howard, Lord High Admiral of Britain, was another one who married well, to the lovely Elizabeth Dacre whose inheritance included the vast estate upon which the family would establish Castle Howard. The castle was actually built several generations later by Charles Howard, the third Earl of Carlisle and Gentleman of the King’s Bedchamber. Again, don’t ask. Meanwhile, Lord William’s son, Charles, Earl of Nottingham and Baron of Effingham, followed his father’s footsteps, becoming Lord High Admiral of Her Majesty’s fleet just in time to become the victor over the Spanish Armada in the late summer of 1588. [10] Charles’ brother, William, Jr., is presently awaiting canonization in Rome. The seventh earl was a fellow named George who was something of a dandy and who was twice named Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Charles Howard was an 18th Century Earl of Suffolk who is best known for marrying the Lady Henrietta who served also as mistress to King George II. She was by all accounts an attractive and witty woman but, like so many of the Hanoverians, George was an ingrate. On one occasion he described her as an “…old, dull, deaf, peevish beast.”

Not all members of the family died ignominiously but that was the general drift of things for several centuries. Elizabeth I exiled several Howards to Ireland where, following local tradition, they bred prolifically and managed to survive in what passed for high style with castles and townhouses aplenty. For the most part, the family in England, Ireland and Australia, remained true to its Catholic traditions, often at considerable cost. Through the centuries, it kept turning out notable sons and daughters. Elizabeth Howard, for one, was the wife of John Dryden and a decent poet in her own right. The third John Howard was High Sheriff of Bedfordshire and a noted prison reformer. He was the first warden not to charge prisoners for their meals. Luke Howard (1772-1864) is generally regarded as the father of meteorology and the godfather of clouds. General Tilghman A. Howard was a U.S. Senator from Indiana and American Charge d’Affaires to the Republic of Texas. Sir Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928) was a pioneer Nebraskan [11] who returned to London and started the city garden movement. The Comtesse de Beauregard was originally the English courtesan Lizzie Howard who in 1851 lent 800,000 francs to the Emperor Napoleon which he used to bribe key members of the military thereby assuring the success of his coup d’ etat. The grateful Emperor bestowed the title to recognize the lady’s contributions. [12] Sylvia Howard was the paternal grandmother of William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States and, later, the tenth Chief Justice. [13] Roy W. Howard (1883-1964) was the editorial head of the Scripps-Howard newspapers and, for many years, President of the United Press and its successor, UPI. John Winston Howard is the former Prime Minister of Australia. Even the late Lady Diana Frances Spencer [14], daughter of the eighth Earl Spencer, has a collateral and perhaps legitimate connection to the family through the first Visount Althorp, another ill-fated supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots.

It is a quirk of history that the only English word that rhymes with Howard may be the only pejorative that does not fairly describe one or another of the members of the family. Indeed, they were and remain a swashbuckling bunch. Two of England’s most famous regiments are the Green Howards and the Buff Howards, both named after Eighteenth Century Regimental Commanders, Charles of the Greens, Thomas and George of the Buffs. The Greens fought on the wrong side in the Battle of the Boyne, (1690) and the American Revolution but redeemed themselves on June 6, 1944 at Gold Beach in Normandy. [15] The Buffs were an important part of Marlborough’s forces at Blenheim (1704) and Wellington’s at Waterloo (1815) and played a notably heroic role at the bloody Battle of Anzio in 1944. [16]

John Eager Howard was a hero of the American Revolution who later served as Governor of Maryland and a United States Senator. It is his “warlike thrust” that is commemorated in the state song of Maryland. [17] His son George served as a General in the War of 1812 and his other son, Benjamin, was Governor of Maryland and a member of the House of Representatives. His great grandson, also John Eager, was the father of endocrinology. Oliver Otis Howard (1830-1909) was the commanding general of the Army of Tennessee and led Sherman’s right flank in the famous march through Georgia. He lost his right arm at the Battle of Fair Oaks. He received the Medal of Honor and went on to become the founding President of the great university that bears our name. He also wrote biographies of Zachary Taylor and Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Nation. Major John Howard led a vanguard of 150 volunteers from the British 6th Airborne Glider Infantry in the first battle of D-day. At 12:20 AM, they landed deep behind the Normandy beaches and seized two vital bridges over the Caen Canal and the Orne River. John’s cousin, Mark Howard, was killed in the invasion later that day and his brother Christopher died flying with the famous 617th Squadron, the Dambusters [18]. Major General Miles Howard, the 17th Duke of Norfolk [19], fought throughout North Africa and Europe. He was awarded the Military Cross for bravery under enemy fire. His 2002 obituary in The Times quoted him as saying "Anyone can be the Duke of Norfolk, but I'm rather proud of that medal." The American General James Howell Howard was the only World War II pilot in Europe to win the Medal of Honor. He was the only ace in both the European and Pacific theaters and in one engagement he single-handedly fought off 30 German fighters attacking an American bomber squadron. Earlier, he had flown 56 missions over the hump as a member of the Flying Tigers. [20] There was another James H. Howard, an American Admiral, who was awarded the Silver Star for saving the lives of sailors under fire in the Battle of the Solomon Islands.[21]

Finally, our own era has been graced by the life and death of George Howard, a Port Authority cop who raced into work on an off day when he heard that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. It was the second time he had done something like this. During the first bombing in 1993, he had rescued an elevator full of children by rappelling his way down the shaft and taking them out the top. Afterward he told an incredulous reporter, “That’s what they pay us for.” But his luck ran out the second time and he became one of the 400 rescue workers who died on September 11, 2001. In his eulogy, his brother Pat Howard, a New York City police sergeant, quoted a poem George had written about a colleague who had died in the line of duty. “He died a quiet hero, there really is no debate / He saved the lives of others, snatching victory from defeat” His mother, Arlene, a Navy veteran of World War II, gave his badge, Number 1012, to President Bush who said he would keep it with him always.
All these Howards are related to each other and to me. The family tree is many-branched and, at this late date, none of us carries more than a tiny genetic inheritance from Robert of Norfolk. Even as an Irish person with a considerable amount of Celtic blood, however, chances are I have as much Howard blood by percentage as the current Duke. I’m happy to say.

Notes

1. HEH was the twelfth of twelve children, born on May 26, 1908. On the eighth day they took him up to Our Lady of Perpetual Help to be baptized. It was in the middle of a blistering heat wave and powerful thirsts had been potently slaked. The priest allowed as to how there had never been a Saint Howard, so Daddy acquired Edward as a middle name. In the general alcoholic miasma, he was named after the English king who by rights should be remembered as Edward II but is called Saint Edward the Confessor (1003-1066). The Harkins side never caught on to the Anglo-Irish pretensions involved here. But the connections are rich.

King Eddie was, arguably, the least effective of all English monarchs, a class of Neanderthals genetically predisposed to ineffectuality. He enjoyed a companionate marriage to Edith, but he was not a priest. I wish I could enlighten you as to why he was called Confessor, but can only speculate that he had much to confess, including his share of the blame for losing England to the Normans. Granted he was six months dead at the time but he had done much to set the stage, following the course laid out by his father, Æthelred the Unready. As death neared, Edward named Edith’s brother as his successor. This, of course, was Harold II, the Hapless. But Edward had previously promised the throne to another cousin, William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy, and it was this duplicity that led to the unpleasantness at Hastings on the only memorable date in English history, October 14, 1066. Anyway, you see the theme that emerges from all this. What’s in a name, indeed! Poor daddy!

2. The Brits always get this wrong. You will find Moville situated in County Down in English publications, even engraved in the stones of Westminster Abbey. On maps and on the ground, however, you will find it on the west bank of Lough Foyle, comfortably within the boundaries of Donegal and the Irish Free State. The Inishowen Peninsula was anciently part of Tyrconnell (the Land of Connell, the second son of Niall of the Nine Hostages) which was, in turn, part of Ulster. The eastern part of Down was also part of Tyrconnell which is probably the source of the confusion.

3. Actually, the second Finian of Moville, he of the Tenth Century. The first was Finnian, a Sixth Century teacher and scholar.

4. The name appears to be of Scandinavian origin, a combination of ha meaning high and ward meaning guardian or warden. In English, a warden is a guardian while a ward is a person guarded. Thomas himself was many generations removed from his barbarian forebears.

5. You often see him referred to as the first duke because he was the first Howard to hold the title which, of course, he got because his father had married well. This became a defining characteristic of the whole family.

6 . Anne’s mother was his sister, Elizabeth Howard who had married Thomas Boleyn.

7. This was the first in an intimidating number of Henry’s and Harry’s on the family tree. In 1857, Harry Howard was elected Fire Engineer for New York through the patronage of his good friend and former fire fighter, Boss Tweed. In our own time, Harry Howard married the heiress to the Butterick Pattern Company which he promptly sold to American Can of which he became Vice Chairman. He ran the whole thing into the ground and sold the corpse to Gerry Tsai who chopped it up into dog food and sold the empty shell to Sandy Weill who turned it into today’s CitiGroup.

8. Catherine was convicted on a bill of attainder that Henry sought and obtained from Parliament about 14 months into the marriage. The act declared that it was treason for an unchaste woman to marry the king. Catherine had been a lusty young lady, a fact that was well known to His Majesty who was one of the suitors who had enjoyed her favors. She was beheaded two days after the verdict. She was seventeen. Anne, on the other hand, was convicted on completely trumped up charges of adultery and incest with her brother George, Viscount Rochford.

9. It is not clear how one who dies of natural causes, even in prison, can be said to be a martyr but, then again, the Pope has special insights. Among the 40 chosen for sainthood in 1970 was Edmund Campion, S.J., who returned to England to minister to the Catholics in hiding. He wrote Campion’s Brag which I haven’t read but for which he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn.

10. Howard’s Number 2 was Sir Francis Drake, the famous pirate who also occasionally enjoyed the favor of the queen. His Number 3 was Sir John Hawkins, another pirate and slave trader. Hawkins made the key contribution to the victory by designing the faster, lighter but more heavily armed warships that did the Spanish in.

11. Howard County is located about 150 miles due west of Omaha. There are also Howard Counties, named in honor of various other members of the family, in Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Texas and, of course, Maryland.

12. Who says Emperors don’t have nuanced senses of humor? Beauregard, of course, means beautiful and Napoleon III like his illustrious uncle was certainly a connoisseur of feminine beauty.

13. Taft’s father, Alfonso, had been Secretary of War under Grant and his mother was Louisa Torrey, an 1845 graduate of Mount Holyoke. His son was Mr. Republican, Senator Bob Taft of Ohio from 1939 to 1953.

14. The women in the family never married as well as their brothers and, of course, Lady Di was no exception. I mean, Charles Phillip Arthur George Windsor may be a Prince but he is also a first class ass. See my essay, “Things His Father Never Taught Him.” By the way, Lady Di’s brother, also Charles (the Queen is his Godmother), is the current Lord Althorp and a perfect ass in his own right.

15. The Battle of the Boyne was fought before the Howards became associated with the regiment. It should also be noted that since the early Twentieth Century, the Colonel-in-Chief has been a member of the royal family of Norway, currently King Harald V.

16. Buff, in this case, refers to the buffalo’s dark tan coat not to a regiment accustomed to fighting in the nude. Anzio was the brainchild of Winston Churchill and turned out to be almost as disastrous as a similar plan he promoted in World War I. That, of course, was the Battle of Gallipoli in which the casualties were primarily troops of Australia and New Zealand.

17. The “warlike thrust” refers to a brilliant maneuver he commanded that won the day at the Battle of Cows Pen, South Carolina on January 17, 1781. Or maybe it had something to do with needing a phrase to rhyme with “Carroll’s sacred trust.” (With deep subjects like geneaology, you have to learn to take the bad with the good. The state song of Maryland is based on a poem written in 1861 by one James Ryder Randall. It complains about the Unionist sympathies of some traitors and looks forward to the day when Noble Maryland, “spurns the Northern scum.” It is sung to the tune of “O Christmas Tree.”

18. Christopher did not join the squadron until after its most famous exploit, Operation Chastise, the bombing of strategic German dams on the night of May 16-17, 1943. During the mission, 8 of the squadron’s 19 planes were lost and 53 of its 133 members were killed. These were indeed brave lads who specialized in low level skip bombing. After two years of trying to destroy the formidable battleship DKM Tirpitz, sister ship of the Bismark, the allies sent in the Dambusters. Weathering an absolute blizzard of anti-aircraft fire, they sank the behemoth with two 12,000-pound bombs on November 12, 1944.

19. Properly styled, “His Grace, The Most Noble Miles Francis Stapleton Fitzalan Howard, Duke of Norfolk, Premier Duke and Earl of England, Baron Beaumont, Baron Howard of Glossop, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, Companion of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath, Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Earl Marshal, and Hereditary Marshal of England.” His Grace was born in 1915 and married Anne Mary Maxwell in 1949. He succeeded to the Beaumont and Glossop baronies in 1975 on the death of his formidable mother, Lady Ethel. He and Lady Anne had five children among whom the eldest son, Edward William Howard is the current Duke. The family remains staunchly Roman Catholic.

20. General Howard died on March 18, 1995 at the age of 81. He published his memoirs, Roar of the Tiger, in 1991.

21. Howard was an officer on the heavy cruiser USS New Orleans which participated in a record 15 battles in the Pacific. It survived Pearl Harbor and played a leading role in the Battle of the Coral Sea. When the aircraft carrier USS Lexington was mortally wounded, the New Orleans stood hard by her burning decks at great danger to itself and was able to rescue a good part of her crew. The New Orleans was hit often and hard and twice had to be drydocked for major repairs. She returned to action each time.