Edward Howard

Artist Info

Edward HowardLondon, 1624 - 1712, New Windsor

LC name authority rec. n82207870

LC Heading: Howard, Edward, 1624-1712

Biography:

Howard, Edward (bap. 1624, d. 1712), playwright, was baptized at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, on 2 November 1624, the fifth son of Thomas Howard, first earl of Berkshire (1587–1669), and Elizabeth (d. 1672), daughter of William Cecil, second earl of Exeter. He was brother of Sir Robert Howard (1626–1698) and cousin of James Howard (c.1640–1669), both playwrights.

Howard married first Anne (fl. 1648–1655) and second Lucy (Monk or Monck) in or before 1677. He appears to have had no children, with either of his wives (Howard, 281–3).

Howard's works suffered at the hands of contemporary critics. His heroic poem The British Princes (1669) was ridiculed by the earl of Rochester among others; Howard himself was caricatured as Poet Ninny in Shadwell's Sullen Lovers (1668); and his plays proved rather unsuccessful. The Usurper, a tragedy probably first staged at the Theatre Royal on 2 January 1664, was a scarcely veiled attack on the regicides. Pepys, who went to see it on 2 December 1668, judged it ‘a pretty good play, in all but what is designed to resemble Cromwell and Hugh Peters, which is mighty silly’ (Pepys, 9.381). The London Gentleman and The Change of Crownes were entered in the Stationers' register on 7 August 1667. The former was probably neither published nor acted. The latter remained unprinted until 1949, having been suppressed soon after what was probably its first performance on 15 April 1667 by order of Charles II, who resented the actor John Lacy's (ad libbed) abuse of the court in the part of Asinello. As a result Lacy suffered a short period of imprisonment and was congratulated by Howard on his release, whereupon:

Lacy cursed him as that it was the fault of his nonsensical play that was the cause of his ill usage. Mr Howard did give him some reply, to which Lacy [answered] him, that he was more a fool than a poet; upon which Howard did give him a blow on the face with his glove; on which Lacy, having a cane in his hand, did give him a blow over the pate. (Van Lennep, 107)

The Womens Conquest, a comedy performed at Lincoln's Inn Fields in or before 1670, was ridiculed in Buckingham's The Rehearsal. Partly based on Ben Jonson, The Six Days Adventure, or, The New Utopia, possibly first performed at the same theatre on 6 March 1671, was also demolished by the critics. In the words of one satirist:

thy play's

Laugh'd at by the box, pit, gallery, nay stage

And grown the nauseous grievance of this age!

(Lord, 341)

Howard's last and mediocre venture into drama was The Man of Newmarket, performed at Drury Lane in March 1678.

Together with William Richards, Howard on 24 April 1671 brought a claim for £183 against one Thomas Crosse. In 1678 he sold the manor of Erchfont, Wiltshire, until then his seat of residence, to William Pynsent. On 15 November 1683 the petition of Edward Howard of Berkshire, ‘praying his Majesty to bestow some future subsistence on him’, was referred to the lords of the Treasury (CSP dom., 1683–4, 91). In December 1684 he was accordingly granted a pension of £200 to commence from October 1683. He was still receiving this pension at Michaelmas 1692. His will, in which he is described as ‘until recently of New Windsor’, is dated 26 May 1710; it was proved by his widow, Lucy, the sole beneficiary and executor, on 19 December 1712.

J. P. Vander Motten

Sources H. S. H. [H. S. Howard], ‘The dramatist sons of Thomas, earl of Berkshire’, N&Q, 187 (1944), 281–3 · H. J. Oliver, Sir Robert Howard (1626–1698): a critical biography (1963) · will, TNA: PRO, PROB 11/530, sig. 237 · J. A. Winn, John Dryden and his world (1987) · Pepys, Diary, vol. 8–9 · W. Van Lennep, ed., The London stage, 1660–1800, pt 1: 1660–1700 (1965) · G. de F. Lord and others, eds., Poems on affairs of state: Augustan satirical verse, 1660–1714, 7 vols. (1963–75), vol. 1 · CSP dom., 1683–5 · J. Milhous and R. D. Hume, eds., A register of English theatrical documents, 1660–1737, 1 (1991) · DNB

Wealth at death unspecified estate, both real and personal: will, TNA: PRO, PROB 11/530, sig. 237

J. P. Vander Motten, ‘Howard, Edward (bap. 1624, d. 1712)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://proxy.bostonathenaeum.org:2055/view/article/13892, accessed 27 Oct 2015]