Howard, Henry, Earl of Northampton (1540 -1614)

Henry Howard was the second son of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517 1547), and Frances de Vere, daughter of the 15th Earl of Oxford. He was educated at King's College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge taking his M.A. in 1566 and incorporating M.A. at Oxford 19 April 1568. His estates which had been sequestered after his father's execution, were restored by Elizabeth, and he became a person of importance under James I, being successively Warden of the Cinque Ports, Constable of Dover Castle and, in 1608, Lord Privy Seal. He was created Baron of Marnhull and Earl of Northampton 13 March 1604, and the following year was made a Knight of the Garter. He never married, and his books remained in the Arundel House library, and passed with it to the Royal Society, in 1667, by the gift of Henry Howard, 6th Duke of Norfolk. The Royal Society printed a catalogue of the collection in 1910 under the title Catalogue of a collection of early printed books in the Library of the Royal Society, and sold the non scientific part of the Arundel library at Sotheby's 4 May 1925, the Manuscripts having been previously transferred to the British Library in 1831, where they form the Arundel MSS.