Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 28.djvu/95

Howe  at Queen's College, Oxford, on 29 Oct. 1772, but left without a degree after three years' residence, and took up his abode at his mother's house at Ipswich. His mother died in 1778. In 1781 he succeeded his uncle, Henry Frederick Howe, third baron Chedworth, in his title and estates, but he continued to live in comparative seclusion, and seldom visited his large landed properties in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire. Late in life he lived in the house of a surgeon named Penrice at Yarmouth, and devoted himself to a study of Shakespeare. He died unmarried on 29 Oct. 1804, and the barony became extinct. He was buried, as he had directed, beside his mother in St. Matthew's churchyard, Ipswich, on the fifth day after his death. The inscription on his monument in St. Matthew's Church describes him as a man of unusually cultivated tastes and of whig sympathies.

He neglected his relatives in his will, and left much to his friend Penrice, the Yarmouth surgeon with whom he resided. Charles James Fox, 'the illustrious statesman and true patriot,' received a legacy of 3,000l.; many theatrical and other friends were liberally remembered; and large legacies were left to his executors and trustees, by whom the Howe estates in Gloucestershire were divided and sold in 1811 for 268,635l. Chedworth's relatives unsuccessfully disputed his will on the ground of insanity. To prove his sanity, Penrice edited for publication Chedworth's 'Notes upon some of the Obscure Passages in Shakespeare's Plays; with Remarks upon the Explanations and Amendments of the Commentators in the Editions of 1785, 1790, 1793,' London, 1805 (, Bibliographical Catalogue of Books Privately Printed, London, 1834, p. 100).

Chedworth published in his lifetime two pamphlets, respectively entitled 'Two Actions between John Howe, Esq., and G. L. Dive, Esq., tried by a Special Jury before Lord Mansfield at the Assizes holden at Croydon, August 1781,' 2nd edit., London, 1781; and 'A Charge delivered to the Grand Jury at the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace for the County of Suffolk,' Ipswich [1793]. Many years after Chedworth's death a friend, Thomas Crompton, published 'Letters from the late Lord Chedworth to the Rev. Thomas Crompton, written from January 1780 to May 1795,' London, 1828.

[Gent. Mag. 1804, lxxiv. 1242-4, 1806, lxxvi. 672, 1030-2, 1201-7, 1811, vol.lxxxi. pt,ii.p.80; Gloucestershire Notes and Queries,i.393; Burke's Dormant and Extinct Peerages, 1883, p.288; Haslewood's Monumental Inscriptions in the Parish of St. Matthew, Ipswich, pp.16, 273; Burial Register of St. Matthew's, Ipswich; Brit. Mus. Cat. of Printed Books; Gael's paper on Stowell House and Park in the Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archæological Society, 1877-8, ii. 47-52.]  HOWE or HOW, JOHN GRUBHAM (1657–1722), commonly known as 'Jack How,' politician, born in 1657, was second son of John Grubham How of Langar, Nottinghamshire, and member of parliament for Gloucestershire from 1661 to 1679. His mother was Annabella, third and youngest illegitimate daughter and coheiress of Emanuel Scrope, lord Scrope of Bolton and earl of Sunderland. She was legitimised by act of parliament in 1663, died on 20 March 1703-4, and was buried on 30 March in Stowell Church, Gloucestershire, where a monument was placed on the north wall of the chancel to her memory by Howe. Early in life he figured as 'a young amorous spark of the court.' In 1679 he brought an accusation against the Duchess of Richmond, which on investigation proved to be false, and he was forbidden to attend the court. At this period he wrote verses, and, according to Macaulay, was notorious for his savage lampoons. With the Revolution he entered upon a political career. He sat for Cirencester in the Convention parliament, January 1689 to February 1690, and in its two successors 1690-5 and 1695-8. The county of Gloucester returned him in 1698, and again in January 1701. At the subsequent election (December 1701) the whigs concentrated all their efforts against him and ejected him from the seat. In Anne's first parliament (1702) Howe was returned for four constituencies, Bodmin, Gloucester city, Gloucester county, and Newton in Lancashire (, Parl. Repr. of Cornwall, p.237), and chose his old seat for Gloucestershire. A petition by Sir John Guise, his opponent for the county, against his return was defeated by 219 votes to 98, 'a great and shameful majority' in the opinion of Speaker Onslow, After 1705 he ceased to sit in parliament.

At the beginning of William III's reign Howe urged severe measures against such politicians as Carmarthen and Halifax, who had been identified with the measures of James II. He was then a strong whig, and in 1689 was appointed vice-chamberlain to Queen Mary. Early in March 1691-2 the queen dismissed him from that post, and he at the same time lost the minor position of keeper of the mall. In the following November he was summoned before the court of verge for 'cutting and wounding a servant of his in Whitehall,' and on pleading guilty was pardoned (December 1692). 