His Bilboa blade, by Marchmen felt,
Hung in a broad and studded belt;—
Hence, in rude phrase, the Borderers still
Called noble Howard ‘Belted Will.’”
He was, as we have stated, the third son of the fourth Duke of Norfolk, and grandson of the famous Earl of Surrey:—
“Who has not heard of Surrey’s fame?”
His father lost his title, his estates, and his head on Tower Hill, and bequeathed him to the care of his elder brother, as “having nothing to feed the cormorants withal.” He was married, in 1577, to the Lady Elizabeth Dacre, daughter of Thomas, and sister and co-heiress of George, Lord Dacre of Gillesland, the ages of both together being short of eight-and-twenty—he being fourteen years old, and she a few months younger. During the whole of the reign of Elizabeth, however, he and his brother Arundel, and several other members of his family, were greatly oppressed—subjected repeatedly to charges of treason, and kept in a state of poverty, “very grievous to bear.” On the accession of James I. their prospects brightened; Lord William was received into special favour, and, in 1605, was appointed to the perilous post of King’s Lieutenant and Lord Warden of the Marches, when the northern shires of England were exposed to perpetual inroads of Border caterans. The onerous and very difficult duties imposed upon him he discharged with equal fearlessness and severity. His boast was so to act that the rush-bush should guard the cow; so that, to quote “quaint old Fuller,” “when in their greatest height, the moss-troopers had two fierce enemies—the laws of the land, and Lord William Howard, who sent many of them to Carlisle, that place where the officer does his work by daylight.”
Although formidable to his enemies, Lord William Howard was fervent and faithful to his friends. His attachment to his lady was of the “truest affection, esteem, and friendship;” and his love of letters and the refined pursuits of leisure and ease rendered him conspicuous even among the many intellectual men of the period. He was the friend of Camden and other men of note. For Camden he copied the inscriptions on the Roman remains in his district; and he collected together a fine library of the best authors (part of which still exists), and, in addition, he himself edited the “Chronicle of Florence of Worcester.” He collected a number of valuable MSS., which now form a part of the Arundel Collection in the British Museum. An excellent portrait of this great man, of whom the Howards may well feel proud, is preserved at Castle Howard. His dress is a close jacket of thick black figured silk, with rounded skirts to mid-thigh, and many small buttons. The rest of his dress is also of black silk. His sleeves are turned up, and he has a deep white falling collar. He wears a dress rapier, and is bareheaded. The dress in which he is painted is, curiously enough, ascertained, from the steward’s accounts of the time, to have cost £17 7s. 6d. There is also a portrait by the same artist (Cornelius Jansen) of the Lady Elizabeth, his wife. To the courage of the soldier “Belted Will” added the courtesy of the scholar, and, although the “tamer of the wild border” has been pictured as a ferocious man-slayer, history does him but justice in describing him as a model of chivalry, when chivalry was the leading characteristic of the age. He died in 1640, surviving the Lady Bessy—“Bessie with the braid apron”—only one year, their union having continued during sixty-three years, and leaving by her ten sons and five daughters, the eldest of the sons being the direct ancestor of the Earls of Carlisle. Their sons and daughters, with their wives and husbands and children, are said, all at one time, to have lived with them; the family numbering fifty-two persons. The sobriquet of “Belted Will” was “not, it is understood, derived from the breadth of the baldric, a broad belt, the distinguishing badge of high station, but rather meant ‘bauld,’ or bold, Willie; and that the term ‘Bessie with the braid apron’ did not refer to that portion of a lady’s dress, but to the breadth, or extent, of her possessions.”
Their eldest son, Sir Philip Howard, died in his father’s lifetime, leaving by his wife Margaret, daughter of Sir John Carryl, a son, Sir William Howard, who succeeded his grandfather, Lord William, in the enjoyment of his estates. He married Mary, eldest daughter of William, Lord Eure, by whom he had issue five sons—William (who died in the lifetime of his father), Charles, Philip, Thomas, and John—and five daughters. He was succeeded by his second son, Charles, who, for many loyal services to his king, was, in 1661, created Baron Dacre of Gillesland, Viscount Howard of Morpeth, and Earl of Carlisle. He also enjoyed many high appointments and privileges. He married Anne, daughter of Edward, Lord Howard of Escrick, and had issue by her two sons, Edward and Frederick Christian, and three daughters. Dying in 1684, his lordship was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward Howard.
Edward, second Earl of Carlisle, married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Berkeley, by whom he had issue three sons and two daughters. His lordship died in 1692, and was succeeded by his only surviving son, Charles, as third earl, who, during the minority of his kinsman, the Duke of Norfolk, held the office of Deputy Earl Marshal: many important posts were conferred upon, and trusts reposed in, him. He married Lady Elizabeth Capel, daughter of the Earl of Essex, by whom he left issue two sons—Henry, who succeeded him, and Charles, a general of the army—and three daughters.
Henry, who succeeded his father, in 1738, as fourth Earl of Carlisle, married, first, Lady Frances Spencer, only daughter of Charles, Earl of Sunderland, by whom he had issue three sons, who predeceased him, and two daughters; and, secondly, in 1743, Isabella, daughter of William, fourth Lord Byron, by whom he left issue one son—Frederick, who succeeded him—and four daughters.