The Howe Dynasty

by Julie Flavell

  74Wallace Brown, “The British Press and the American Colonies,” History Today, vol. 24 (1974), pp. 326, 329.

  75See, for example, BNA: Pue’s Occurrences, Nov. 13, 1756; Leeds Intelligencer, Feb. 24, 1756.

  76Brumwell, Paths of Glory, p. 114; Browning, The Duke of Newcastle, pp. 232–35, quote on p. 234; Anderson, The War That Made America, p. 102; Daniel A. Baugh, “Byng, John (bap. 1704, d. 1757),” ODNB Online [accessed July 7, 2020].

  77Gerald Newman, The Rise of English Nationalism: A Cultural History, 1720-1830 (London, 1987), p. 170.

  78Mackay and Scott, The Rise of the Great Powers, pp. 181, 187–89, 190–91, 191–92.

  79BNA: Derby Mercury, Feb. 25, 1757; Brumwell, “Howe, George Augustus, third Viscount Howe (1724?–1758).”

  80H. C. B. Rogers, The British Army of the Eighteenth Century (London, 1977), p. 71.

  81Cumberland to Loudoun, St James’s, March 21, 1757, in Stanley Pargellis, ed., Military Affairs in North America, 1748-1765: Selected Documents from the Cumberland Papers in Windsor Castle (New York and London, 1936), p. 326.

  Four: World War

  1Robin May and Gerry Embleton, Wolfe’s Army (London, Auckland, and Melbourne, 1997), p. 22.

  2Fred Anderson writes, “[F]rom 1756 onward, the Anglo-American armies became arenas of intercultural contact.” See Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766 (New York, 2000), pp. 288ff.

  3Rogers, The British Army of the Eighteenth Century, p. 26.

  4Peter E. Russell, “Redcoats in the Wilderness: British Officers and Irregular Warfare in Europe and America, 1740 to 1760,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, vol. 25 (1978), pp. 630–37; I am indebted to Dr. Stephen Brumwell for drawing my attention to the irregular Miquelet light troops mentioned in the account of Bassignano in BNA: Derby Mercury, October 11, 1745.

  5Ian M. McCulloch and Tim J. Todish, British Light Infantryman of the Seven Years’ War (Botley, Oxford, and New York, 2004), pp. 4–5, 14; Stephen Brumwell, Redcoats: The British Soldier and War in the Americas, 1755-1763 (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 15, 138, 142, 143, 145–47; Anderson, The War That Made America, p. 126.

  6Loudoun to Cumberland, Albany, November 22, 1756; Pargellis, ed., Military Affairs in North America, 1748-1765, p. 269.

  7Anderson, The War That Made America, p. 119; BNA: Derby Mercury, September 23, 1757; Brumwell, “Howe, George Augustus, third Viscount Howe (1724?–1758),” ODNB Online [accessed July 10, 2020].

  8McCulloch and Todish, British Light Infantryman, p. 20; Timothy J. Todish, ed., The Annotated and Illustrated Journals of Major Robert Rogers (New York, 2002), pp. 65, 70, 76, cite from p. 70.

  9Ibid., p. 110; McCulloch and Todish, British Light Infantryman, pp. 11–14, 20; Anderson, The War That Made America, p. 130.

  10Todish, ed., Journals of Major Robert Rogers, p. 110.

  11WCL-HC, March 26, [1758]. [George Augustus Howe, 3rd Viscount] Howe ALS to [Mrs. Juliana Page], Albany, [NY].

  12Todish, ed., Journals of Major Robert Rogers, p. 85.

  13BNA: Derby Mercury. March 31 and July 14, 1758.

  14Pierre Pouchot, Memoirs on the Late War in North America between France and England, Rev. Ed. Trans. by Michael Cardy, ed. and ann. by Brian Leigh Dunnigan (Youngstown, NY, 2004), p. 147.

  15BNA: Derby Mercury, July 14, 1758.

  16Anderson, Crucible of War, pp. 228–29.

  17Van der Kiste, King George II and Queen Caroline, p. 208.

  18Anderson, The War That Made America, pp. 126–28, cite from p. 127.

  19Mary Cone, Life of Rufus Putnam, with extracts from his journal and an account of the first settlement in Ohio (Cleveland, OH, 1886), p. 32.

  20Rene Chartrand, Ticonderoga 1758: Montcalm’s Victory Against All Odds (Botley, Oxford, 2000), pp. 26–28.

  21Fred Anderson, A People’s Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years’ War (New York and London, 1984), p. 161.

  22Anne MacVicar Grant, Memoirs of an American Lady: With Sketches of Manners and Scenes in America, as They Existed Previous to the Revolution, ed. James Grant Wilson (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 221–26.

  23Chartrand, Ticonderoga 1758, p. 32; Reminiscences of the French War: Robert Rogers’ Journal and a Memoir of General Stark (Freedom, New Hampshire, 1988), p. 201.

  24Chartrand, Ticonderoga 1758, pp. 32–37.

  25Ibid., pp. 37, 41.

  26Cited in William R. Nester, The Epic Battles for Ticonderoga, 1758 (Albany, NY, 2008), p. 132.

  27WCL, Henry Foster Diary, 1757–1782.

  28Anderson, The War That Made America, pp. 135–38; Brumwell, Redcoats, pp. 27–28.

  29Nester, The Epic Battles for Ticonderoga, 1758, p. 129; “Another Account of the Operations at Ticonderoga,” Camp at Lake George, July 14, 1758, E. B. O’Callaghan, ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York (15 vols., Albany, 1853–1887), vol. 10, p. 735.

  30William Cutter, Life of General Putnam, Major-General in the Army of the American Revolution (New York, 1850), p. 89.

  31Dorothy Marshall, Eighteenth Century England (Harlow, Essex, and New York, 1962; this impression, 1985), p. 288.

  32See, for example, BNA: The Scots Magazine, Aug. 7, 1758.

  33On rumors of Richard’s death, see BNA: Derby Mercury, July 11, 18, 1755.

  34Holden, “New Historical Light on the Real Burial Place of George Augustus Lord Viscount Howe, 1758,” pp. 270–75. The British press reported that “The Body of the Right Hon. Lord Viscount Howe was brought to Albany last Monday.” BNA: Pue’s Occurrences, Sept. 12, 1758.

  35Mr. Pitt to Mr. Grenville, Aug. 22, 1758, The Grenville Papers: being the correspondence of Richard Grenville, earl Temple, K.G., and the Right Hon. George Grenville (4 vols., London, 1852–1853), vol. 1, p. 262.

  36Syrett, pp. 19, 23.

  37BL-NP, 32883, fols. 58–59, Newcastle to Richard Howe (now Lord Viscount Howe), Aug. 23, 1758.

  38Syrett, p. 15; Namier and Brooke, The History of Parliament, vol. I, p. 252.

  39BL-NP, 32883, fol. 141, Newcastle to Mr Charlton, Aug. 28, 1758.

  40Ibid.; fol. 308, Charlotte Howe to the Duke of Newcastle, Battlesden, Sept. 5, 1758; fol. 452, Charlotte Howe to the Duke of Newcastle, Albemarle Street, Sept. 14, 1758.

  41“To the Gentlemen, Clergy, Freeholders, and Burgesses of the town and county of the town of Nottingham,” BNA: The Scots Magazine, Sept. 4, 1758.

  42HWC, vol. 37, p. 571fn.

  43BNA: The Scots Magazine, Sept. 4, 1758, “On reading Lady Howe’s address.”

  44BNA: The Scots Magazine, Sept. 4, 1758, “On the death of Lord Howe.”

  45Wilson, The Sense of the People, pp. 51, 187–89. See also Hannah Barker and Elaine Chalus, eds., Gender in Eighteenth-Century England: Roles, Representations and Responsibilities (London and New York, 1997), “Introduction” by Barker and Chalus; Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (London, 1992), pp. 252–63.

  46Annual Register, vol. 1, December 1758, p. 70fn. I am grateful to Sarah Deas of the Database of Court Officers Project (directed by Professor Robert Bucholz, Loyola University of Chicago) for drawing this source to my attention.

  47BNA: The Scots Magazine, Oct. 1, 1758, “On the death of Lord Howe.”

  48NA, PRO 30/8. William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham Papers, Lady Howe to William Pitt, Albemarle Street, September 15, 1758.

  49Willson, The Life and Letters of James Wolfe, pp. 384, 392–93.

  50James Thacher, American Medical Biography: Or, Memoirs of Eminent Physicians Who Have Flourished in America (2 vols., Boston, 1828), vol. 1, p. 363.

  51WCL-HC, William Howe to Richard Howe, Halifax, Nov. 23, 1758.

  52Barrow, pp. 31–32, 34–35; Willis, The Glorious First of June, p. 47.

  53Knight, “Howe, Richard, Earl Howe (1726–1799)”; Barrow, p. 35; Brumwell, Paths of Glory, p. 131.

  54Syrett, p. 16; Richard Middleton, The Bells of Victory: The Pitt-Newcastle Ministry
and the Conduct of the Seven Years’ War 1757-1762 (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 26, 40–42.

  55Towse, “Mordaunt, Sir John (1696/7–1780).”

  56Brumwell, Paths of Glory, p. 136.

  57Syrett, p. 17; Syrett gives March 10 as the wedding date, but Knight, op. cit., cites the date as February 16, 1758. Knight’s date is corroborated by Miss Raper’s diary: Grant, ed., The Receipt Book of Elizabeth Raper, p. 9.

  58BL-NP, 32733, fols. 144–45, Newcastle to Clay, Claremont, Oct. 27, 1753; fol. 122, Clay to Newcastle, Nottingham, Oct. 24, 1753; Anne French, ed., The Earl and Countess Howe by Gainsborough: A Bicentenary Exhibition (London, 1988), p. 11.

  59Grant, ed., The Receipt Book of Elizabeth Raper, p. 9.

  60BL-AP, 75610, CH/LS, Sunday 1759; Bristol, Aug [Wed] 1759.

  61Black, Pitt the Elder, pp. 146, 152–54.

  62Middleton, The Bells of Victory, pp. 69, 74, 84.

  63Syrett, p. 18.

  64Black, Pitt the Elder, pp. 169–79; Middleton, The Bells of Victory, pp. 74–75, 84.

  65Syrett, pp. 19–20; Knight, “Howe, Richard, Earl Howe (1726–1799).”

  66Alan Valentine, Lord George Germain (Oxford, 1962), p. 37.

  67Syrett, p. 21; Middleton, The Bells of Victory, p. 71; Valentine, Lord George Germain, pp. 29–30.

  68Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of George II, vol. 3, p. 125.

  69Piers Mackesy, “Germain, George Sackville, first Viscount Sackville (1716–1785),” ODNB Online [accessed July 11, 2020]; Middleton, The Bells of Victory, p. 75; Matthew Kilburn, “Edward Augustus, Prince, duke of York and Albany (1739–1767),” ODNB Online [accessed July 11, 2020].

  70Syrett, p. 22; Romney Sedgwick, “Letters from William Pitt to Lord Bute: 1755-1758,” in Richard Pares and A. J. P. Taylor, eds. Essays Presented to Sir Lewis Namier (London and New York, 1956), pp. 156–59.

  71Barrow, pp. 49, 57–59.

  72Syrett, pp. 22–23; Romney Sedgwick, “William Pitt and Lord Bute: An Intrigue of 1755-1758,” History Today, vol. 6, issue 10 (Oct. 1956).

  73Barrow, pp. 51–52; Syrett, p. 24.

  74Ibid., p. 53.

  75http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/armytage-sir-john-1732-58 [accessed July 11, 2020]; Barrow, p. 38.

  76“Copy of a paragraph which appeared in a London Paper.” West Yorkshire Archive Service, Calderdale: Armytage Family of Kirklees Hall, Clifton-cum-Hartshead, Records (Addnl), Ref. KMA: 1981, Miscellaneous Papers, (e) “Papers concerning Sir John Armytage who died at St Cas in 1758.”

  77HWC, vol. 9, p. 264.

  78Middleton, The Bells of Victory, pp. 83–84.

  79Syrett, p. 25; Middleton, The Bells of Victory, pp. 144–45.

  80Syrett, pp. 26–27; F. D. Cartwright, ed., The Life and Correspondence of Major Cartwright (2 vols., London, 1826), vol. I, p. 15.

  81Anderson, Crucible of War, p. 382.

  82Cartwright, ed., The Life and Correspondence of Major Cartwright, vol. I, p. 17.

  83Syrett, p. 27.

  84BL-AP, 75610, CH/LS, Jan. 11, 1760.

  85Syrett, p. 27; BL-AP, 75610, CH/LS, Tuesday 1760.

  86BL-AP, 75610, CH/LS, Sunday 1759. Internal contents date this letter to December.

  87Dan Snow, Death or Victory: The Battle for Quebec and the Birth of Empire (London, 2009), pp. 318, 326, 327, 335–38; Brumwell, Paths of Glory, p. 274.

  88Anstruther’s began as the 60th Regiment in 1755 and became the 58th two years later. Stephen Brumwell, “Rank and File: A Profile of One of Wolfe’s Regiments,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, vol. 79 (2001), pp. 4–5, 10; Ira D. Gruber, “Howe, William, fifth Viscount Howe (1729–1814),” ODNB Online [accessed July 12, 2020]; Kielmansegge, Diary of a Journey to England, p. 234.

  89Cite from Brumwell, Paths of Glory, p. 158.

  90Ibid., pp. 144–46, 149–57.

  91Anderson, Crucible of War, p. 254.

  92Willson, The Life and Letters of James Wolfe, pp. 404–5.

  93Brumwell, Paths of Glory, pp. 166–68.

  94Brumwell, “Rank and File: A Profile of One of Wolfe’s Regiments,” pp. 9, 13.

  95Snow, Death or Victory, pp. 412–17.

  96Gruber, “Howe, William, fifth Viscount Howe (1729–1814)”; BNA: Derby Mercury, Oct. 17, 1760.

  97BNA: Caledonian Mercury, Sept. 29, 1760.

  98BNA: Oxford Journal, Sat., Nov. 22, 1760.

  99Middleton, The Bells of Victory, pp. 166, 181; Anderson, Crucible of War, p. 419; Black, Pitt the Elder, pp. 180, 205.

  100Christopher Hibbert, George III: A Personal History (London, New York, Victoria, Toronto, 1998), pp. 33–34.

  101Middleton, The Bells of Victory, p. 186; BNA: Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, June 18, 1761, “List of the Officers Killed, Wounded, and Prisoners, at Belleisle, to June 4, 1761.”

  102BL-AP, 75610, CH/LS, July 9, Aug. 16, 1761.

  103Kielmansegge, Diary of a Journey to England, pp. 234–35.

  104Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England, pp. 348–49; Black, Pitt the Elder, p. 186.

  105Elena A. Schneider, The Occupation of Havana: War, Trade and Slavery in the Atlantic World (Williamsburg, VA, and Chapel Hill, NC, 2018), pp. 21, 73, 75, 77, 89.

  106David Syrett, The Siege and Capture of Havana 1762 (London and Colchester, 1970), p. xiv; Black, Pitt the Elder, p. 205; Schneider, The Occupation of Havana, pp. 126–28.

  107Syrett, The Siege and Capture of Havana, pp. xiv, xvi, xx, xxv, xxix, xxxiv, xxxv; Brumwell, “Rank and File: A Profile of One of Wolfe’s Regiments,” p. 20.

  108Syrett, Siege and Capture of Havana, pp. xxiv-xxv, xxix, 170, 180, 182, 194, 225, 245, 253, 290, map facing p. 316, 317, 321.

  109WCL, Richard and Francis Browne Papers 1756–1765, F[rancis] Browne to [Jeremiah Browne], Havana [Cuba], October 26, 1762. I am indebted to Stephen Brumwell for drawing my attention to the Browne Papers.

  110Marshall, Eighteenth Century England, pp. 332–35; Wilson, The Sense of the People, p. 198.

  111Stephen Brumwell, “Home from the Wars,” History Today, vol. 52 (no. 3), March 2002, http://www.historytoday.com.

  112“Parishes: Childrey,” in A History of the County of Berkshire: Volume 4, ed. William Page and P. H. Ditchfield (London, 1924), pp. 272–79. British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/berks/vol4/pp272-279 [accessed Sept. 10, 2015].

  113BNA: Oxford Journal, April 26, 1760.

  114Kelly, The Society of Dilettanti, p. 173.

  115Wilson, The Sense of the People, pp. 194–96, 198, 201.

  116BNA: Leeds Intelligencer, July 20, 1762.

  117BL-AP, 75612, CH/LS, March 13, 1773.

  118HWC, vol. 21, p. 245.

  119John Doran, ed., The Last Journals of Horace Walpole During the Reign of George III from 1771-1783 (2 vols., London and New York, 1910), vol. I, p. 433; HWC, vol. 21, pp. 4, 347, vol. 28, p. 274, vol. 32, p. 370, vol. 37, p. 569; Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of King George II, vol. 3, p. 50.

  120BL-AP, 75610, CH/LS, Sept. 3, 1763; LS/CH, Sept. 30, 1763; cite from T. Fry, Alexander Dalrymple and the Expansion of British Trade, p. 88.

  121HWC, vol. 12, p. 90.

  122Barrow, pp. 61, 405.

  123Cite from Brian Fitzgerald, ed., Correspondence of Emily, Duchess of Leinster (3 vols., Dublin 1949, 1953, 1957), vol. 2, p. 256; see also BL-AP, 75694, Rachel Lloyd, Housekeeper of Kensington Palace: Letters to Lady Spencer, Rachel Lloyd to LS, April 1, 1777.

  124BL-AP, 75661, CH/LS, Thurs., May 9, 1805.

  125Lord Howe was renting a house near Whitehall Stairs at the end of the war. BC: London Chronicle, May 17–19, 1763. BL-AP, 75610, CH/LS, May 1 [1763], manuscript marked “1762.”

  Five: The Peaceful Years

  1Peter Thorold, The London Rich: The Creation of a Great City, from 1666 to the Present (London, New York, Victoria, Toronto, 1999), p. 133; Black, The British Abroad, p. 9.

  2Heinde, Kielmansegg Family Papers, Charlotte Howe, Dowager Countess Howe to Frederich Count Kielmanse
gg, Richmond, June the 7th 1762. I am grateful to Professor Ira Gruber for providing me with his notes of the Kielmansegg manuscripts, referred to here and elsewhere in the text.

  3BL-AP, 75610, CH/LS, July 7, 1763.

  4French, ed., The Earl and Countess Howe, p. 11.

  5Hugh Belsey, “Gainsborough, Thomas (1727–1788),” ODNB Online [accessed April 6, 2020].

  6French, op. cit., pp. 19, 36; BNA: Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, July 14, 1763.

  7French, ed., The Earl and Countess Howe, pp. 19–20, 32–33, 37–38, 45.

  8Ibid., pp. 19, 29, 39.

  9Trumbach, The Rise of the Egalitarian Family, p. 78.

  10BNA: Newcastle Courant, Sunday, March 8, 1755.

  11BL-AP, 75610, CH/LS, May 1 [1763]; manuscript marked “1762.”

  12BNA: Caledonian Mercury, Nov. 8, 1760; Derby Mercury, Dec. 12, 1760.

  13http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/pitt-william-augustus-1728-1809 [accessed 6/7/20].

  14BL-AP, 75610, CH/LS, Nov. 28, 1763.

  15Heinde, Kielmansegg Family Papers, Juliana Howe to Fritz Count Kielmansegg, London, Nov. 22, 1763.

  16“Parishes: Childrey,” in A History of the County of Berkshire: vol. 4, ed. William Page and P. H. Ditchfield (London, 1924), pp. 272–79. British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/berks/vol4/pp272-279 [accessed Sept. 10, 2015].

  17HWC, vol 9, p. 140.

  18BL, Blenheim Papers, vol. DLXVII, fols. 159–63, Lady Susan Keck to the Duke of Marlborough, Great Tew, Jan. 29, 1753 [marked in pencil “1754?”].

  19Heinde, Kielmansegg Family Papers, Charlotte Howe, Dowager Countess Howe to Frederich Count Kielmansegg, London, May 11, 1762; cite from Charlotte Howe, Dowager Countess Howe to Fritz Count Kielmansegg, Richmond, June the 30th 1764.

  20BNA: Manchester Mercury, Aug. 19, Oct. 7, 1766; Oxford Journal, Aug. 3, 1765.

  21Black, The British Abroad, p. 9; BNA: Newcastle Courant, April 23, 1763.

  22Norman Davies, Europe: A History (Oxford, 1996; this ed. London, 1997), pp. 610, 648–49.

  23BL-AP, 75610, CH/LS, July 7, 1763.

  24Browning, The Duke of Newcastle, pp. 279, 285.

  25BL-AP, 75610, CH/LS, July 16, 1763; Black, The British Abroad, pp. 7, 181, 183.