TIMELINE OF THE MOWBRAY FAMILY 1066-1481 & THE HOWARDS, THEIR SUCCESSORS
GEOFFREY DE MONTBRAI, Bishop of Coutances in Normandy. A warrior priest who was present at the Battle of Hastings in October 1066, Geoffrey was a great friend of William the Conqueror and officiated at his coronation in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day. He became one the Conqueror’s greatest feudal tenants-in-chief and subsequently one of the ten richest men in England, but returned to Coutances for his own safety after being involved in the rebellion against the Conqueror’s successor, William II.
Geoffrey was the brother of
ROGER DE MONTBRAI, who fought in 1066, and was possibly killed in the battle.
Roger was the father of
ROBERT DE MOWBRAY, Earl of Northumberland. Robert, a fearsome and lawless character, was a nephew of Bishop Geoffrey and spent thirty years in prison at Windsor after a second rebellion against William II. He died c.1129.
Robert was the cousin (?) of Nigel d’Aubigny, who was the father of
ROGER DE MOWBRAY, who changed his name from d’Aubigny when, while still a child, he came into the possession of the Honour of Mowbray (Montbrai) a huge collection of manors in both Normandy and England formerly in Mowbray hands, that had been bestowed on his father Nigel by Henry I for services rendered. Roger had a long and exciting life, became a famous crusader and died at Tyre in the Holy Land in 1188.
Roger was the father of
NIGEL DE MOWBRAY, whose younger son, Phillip, was the founder of the Scottish Mowbrays. Nigel died in Acre while on crusade in 1191.
Nigel was the father of
WILLIAM DE MOWBRAY, who was no admirer of King John and in 1215 was one of the 25 barons associated with Magna Carta. He supported Louis, the Dauphin of France against John’s successor, Henry III, and was captured at the Battle of Lincoln in 1217. He was ransomed and died at his home in Epworth in 1224.
William was the father of
NIGEL DE MOWBRAY, who died without issue in 1230.
Nigel was the elder brother of
ROGER DE MOWBRAY, who served in the Scottish and Welsh campaigns and died in 1266.
Roger was the father of
ROGER DE MOWBRAY, who was called to the Model Parliament of Edward I in 1295 and thus became the first Lord Mowbray and died in 1297.
Roger was the father of
JOHN DE MOWBRAY, 2nd Lord Mowbray, who gave good service to the Crown but then rebelled against Edward II and was hanged at York in 1322.
John was the father of
JOHN DE MOWBRAY, 3rd Lord Mowbray, who, still a child at the time of his father’s execution, was imprisoned in the Tower with his mother, but survived and married Joan Plantagenet, a great-granddaughter of Henry III. He served against the Scots and died of plague in 1361.
John was the father of
JOHN DE MOWBRAY, 4th Lord Mowbray, who died in 1368, as did his wife, Elizabeth Segrave, a great-granddaughter of Edward I. Both were aged only 28.
John was the father of
JOHN DE MOWBRAY, 5th Lord Mowbray, later Earl of Nottingham, who died aged no more than 22 in 1383.
John was the elder brother of
THOMAS MOWBRAY, Earl of Nottingham, Earl Marshal and later 1st Duke of Norfolk, banished for life by Richard II in 1398 and dying in Venice in 1399, aged 33. He had married Elizabeth Fitzalan, a daughter of Richard Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel. He appears in Shakespeare’s King Richard II. (By this time the family had simplified the name to Mowbray rather than De Mowbray.)
Thomas was the father of
THOMAS MOWBRAY, Earl of Nottingham, Earl Marshal, who rebelled against Henry IV and was beheaded in York in 1405 at the age of only 19. He appears in the second part of Shakespeare’s King Henry IV.
Thomas was the elder brother of
JOHN MOWBRAY, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, to whom the dukedom was restored in 1425. He married Katherine Neville, whose sister Cecily married Richard, Duke of York; thus John Mowbray was uncle through marriage of Cecily’s sons, the kings Edward IV and Richard III. He died in 1432 at Epworth and was buried nearby in the Carthusian priory founded at Low Melwood by his father.
John was the father of
JOHN MOWBRAY, 3rd Duke of Norfolk. By this time the Mowbrays were concentrating their affairs in Norfolk and Suffolk and had prolonged struggles over land and property with, among others, the up-and-coming Paston family. In 1461 he and his contingent, which included his cousin John Howard, arrived late during a snowstorm for the bloody battle at Towton in Yorkshire, one of the most notorious of the Wars of the Roses, and helped turn the tide in favour of the Yorkists. The duke survived the battle but died just a few months later.
John was the father of
JOHN MOWBRAY, the 4th and final Mowbray Duke of Norfolk, who was treated like a prince in his own territory and, like others, took advantage of the upheaval of the Wars of the Roses occasionally to help himself to other people’s lands and/or property. While still a young man, he complained of ill health in letters to his kinsman John Howard, and died in his early thirties leaving only one small daughter. As females were barred from holding a dukedom, upon his death in 1476 the Norfolk ducal title became extinct.
John was the father of the last of the Mowbray dynasty
LADY ANNE MOWBRAY, who after his death became Countess of Norfolk. Upon her marriage to her kinsman Prince Richard of York (Cecily Neville was the prince’s grandmother, while her sister Katherine Neville was Anne Mowbray’s great-grandmother), Anne became the daughter-in-law of King Edward IV and was thereafter styled Duchess of York and Norfolk, the Norfolk dukedom and her fortune having been conferred upon her husband in a new creation. At the time of their marriage she was 5 years old and he was 4. Her husband’s elder brother, the future King Edward V, was 6 and until he married, Anne would be the greatest lady in the land after her mother-in-law the queen, but died before she was 9 and had the distinction of being the only member of the Mowbray family to be buried in Westminster Abbey. It is possible, but not proven beyond doubt, that her husband perished in the Tower where he was last seen when he was 10 years of age with his brother, 12-year-old Edward V, in the reign of their uncle, Richard III; thus, these young boys became known as the Princes in the Tower.
Just before Christmas 1964 Anne Mowbray’s remains were found in a small brick vault on a building site near the Tower of London, two miles from her original burial place.
The complications caused by her father’s early death in 1476 with no male heir, the discovery of her remains nearly five hundred years later, and the arguments and bad feeling it caused in high places, can be found in the book Lady Anne Mowbray, The High and Excellent Princess, which is still available but currently being revised.
THE HOWARDS
The Mowbray fortune had been appropriated by Edward IV for his younger son and, in the event of the boy predeceasing him, was to be kept by the Crown and not revert to the rightful heirs. In the reign of Richard III it was restored to Lady Anne Mowbray’s nearest relatives, the elderly lords John Howard and William Berkeley, sons of her great-grandfather’s sisters Lady Margaret and Lady Isabel Mowbray, with John Howard becoming the first Duke of Norfolk in a new creation.
LORD JOHN HOWARD, 1st Duke of Norfolk in the new creation of 1483, was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 and his dukedom declared forfeit by the victorious Henry Tudor.
John was the father of
*THOMAS HOWARD, Earl of Surrey, later 2nd Duke of Norfolk. Seriously injured at Bosworth and imprisoned in the Tower, he eventually became a leading figure in the reign of King Henry VII, and gained a famous victory for Henry VIII over the Scots at Flodden in 1513, as a reward for which the dukedom was restored in 1514.
Thomas was the father of
THOMAS HOWARD, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, a leading statesman throughout the reign of Henry VIII, near the end of which he was deprived of the dukedom and imprisoned in the Tower on spurious charges of treason for not having reported his son’s supposed illegal use of certain heraldic devices, surviving only because Henry VIII died shortly before his execution was due to take place. He was released six years later, at the age of 80.
Thomas was the father of
HENRY HOWARD, Earl of Surrey executed in January 1547 for breaking the rules of heraldry which was deemed to be treasonous. In actual fact he had been within his rights, as he was exhibiting arms which had been granted to his ancestor Thomas Mowbray by Richard II in 1397.
Henry Howard was the father of
THOMAS HOWARD, 4th Duke of Norfolk, to whom the dukedom was restored by Queen Mary I, who had also pardoned his grandfather and late father. Thomas was a staunch Catholic who refused to conform to Protestantism and conspired to overthrow his second cousin Queen Elizabeth I in favour of Mary, Queen of Scots, whom he hoped to marry. He was executed and forfeited the Norfolk dukedom in 1572; it was not restored to the family until 1660.
*The 2nd Howard Duke was also the father of Lady Elizabeth Howard, later Boleyn, whose daughter Anne Boleyn was Henry VIII’s second wife, executed in 1536, and of Lord Edmund Howard, whose daughter Katherine Howard, Henry’s fifth queen, was executed in 1542.
The fortunes, and many grave misfortunes, of the Howard family may be found in Queen Katherine and the Howards, a Tudor family on the brink of disaster, which takes their story as far as the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Somehow they survived the centuries between then and now. Edward Fitzalan-Howard, born in 1956 is the 18th Duke of Norfolk of the Howard creation and hereditary Earl Marshal.