William Howard

Sir William Howard in judge's robes. 1637 drawing by Henry Lilly, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, of stained glass portrait formerly in East Winch Church

Sir William Howard (by 1225 – 1308) of East Winch and Wiggenhall in Norfolk, England, was a lawyer who became a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. He is the founder and earliest confirmed male-line ancestor of the House of Howard (Dukes of Norfolk), as is firmly established by historical research.

Origins A pedigree compiled and signed by Sir William Dugdale, Norroy King of Arms of the College of Arms, and dated 8 April 1665, stated that a William Howard de Howard (born 1237) was the second son of Robert Howarth of Howarth, son of William, who was himself the son of Peter de Howard of Great Howarth, Lancashire. Dugdale states that William Howard de Howard was the progenitor of the subsequently noble Howard family. William Howard was knighted in c. 1278 and that he was appointed (Chief) Justice of the Common Pleas in 1297. He married firstly Alice de Ufford, the daughter of the Justiciar and Suffolk landowner Sir Robert de Ufford. If Dugdale was correct a young William Howard left Lancashire to settle in Norfolk and practise as a lawyer perhaps at the behest of his father-in-law.

Alternatively his father may have been from the town of Lynn in Norfolk, where he may have been a merchant. that he became Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, there is no surviving evidence to support that assertion.

In 1298 he purchased the manor house at East Winch from the Grancourt family, and steadily increased his landholding in the parish. Howard attended Parliament in 1302 as a Justice, by whom he had issue: Sir John Howard I (d.1311/33 and a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to King Edward I. and an illegitimate descendant of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, the second son of King John.