Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Howard, Henry (1684-1720)
HOWARD, HENRY (1684–1720), Roman catholic bishop-elect, born 10 Dec. 1684, was second son of Lord Thomas Howard of Worksop, by Elizabeth Marie, daughter of Sir John Saville of Copley, Yorkshire, and therefore grandson of Henry, sixth duke of Norfolk [q. v.] He entered the English College at Douay, where he studied with his brothers Thomas, Edward, and Philip. Thomas and Edward Howard afterwards became successively eighth and ninth dukes of Norfolk. On 7 Sept. 1706 he took the mission oath, and at Advent 1709 was ordained priest. He had passed with praise, it was afterwards asserted, through the courses of philosophy and theology. In 1710 he joined the Pères de la Doctrine Chrétienne at Paris, at the time that the Jansenist controversy was raging there. The English Jesuits were strongly orthodox; and they persuaded Howard to remove in the same year (May 1710) to the Jesuit seminary of St. Gregory. Here he resided till July 1713, when he came to England on a mission, and is said, while living at Buckingham House, to have effected many conversions.
On 2 Oct. 1720 he was appointed coadjutor to Bishop Bonaventure Giffard [q. v.] of the London district, with the title of Bishop of Utica in partibus (Brady, Episcopal Succession, iii. 156). He died, however, of a fever caught while visiting the poor, before his consecration, on 22 Nov. 1720, and was buried at Arundel. ‘Such charity,’ said Bishop Giffard, ‘such piety, has not been seen in our land of a long time.’ There is a portrait at Greystoke believed to represent either Henry Howard or his brother Richard.
In the ‘Howard Papers’ it is asserted (p. 313) that Henry Howard died at Rome. The statement obviously refers to his brother Richard Howard (1687–1722), also a priest in the Roman communion, who died at Rome, where he was a canon of St. Peter's, on 22 Aug. 1722.
[Gillow's Bibl. Dict. iii. 426; Knox's Douay Diaries, pp. 54, 88, 90; Causton's Howard Papers; Howard's Memorials of the Howard Family.]