John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk

John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk, born around 1425, was a prominent English nobleman, soldier, and politician who became the first of his family to hold the dukedom. He was the son of Sir Robert Howard and Margaret de Mowbray, the eldest daughter of Thomas Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk of the first creation. Through both parents, he claimed descent from English royalty: on his father’s side from an illegitimate son of Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall, son of King John; on his mother’s side from Thomas of Brotherton, son of Edward I, and from Edmund Crouchback, Edward I’s brother.

Howard succeeded his father in 1436 and his grandfather the following year. He began his career in the household of his cousin John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, becoming embroiled in that duke’s feuds with William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk. Elected to Parliament as a knight for Suffolk in 1449, he held various local offices during the 1450s and was once described as “wode as a wilde bullok.” He may have served in the disastrous Guyenne expedition of 1452, which ended at Castillon.

A staunch Yorkist during the Wars of the Roses, he was knighted by Edward IV at Towton in 1461 and appointed Constable of Norwich and Colchester castles, entering the royal household as a carver. He served as High Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk in 1461, campaigned against Lancastrians in 1462–64, and acted as deputy Earl Marshal at a famous tournament in 1467. That same year he was an ambassador to Burgundy to arrange the marriage of Edward IV’s sister Margaret to Charles the Bold, and he later escorted her to her wedding.

By 1467 he was a Knight of the Body and in 1468 became Treasurer of the Royal Household for two years. When Edward lost the throne in 1470, Howard went into exile. He had become wealthy, holding sixteen manors around Stoke-by-Nayland, and purchased forfeited lands from the Earl of Oxford. Summoned to Parliament from 1470 as Lord Howard, he was made a Knight of the Garter in 1472 and accompanied Edward’s French expedition in 1475.

In 1483 he bore the royal banner at Edward IV’s funeral, supported Richard III’s accession, and at Richard’s order took the young Richard of Shrewsbury from sanctuary to the Tower of London. He served as Lord High Steward, bore the crown at Richard’s coronation, and was created Duke of Norfolk on 28 June 1483, also becoming Earl Marshal and Lord High Admiral.