Skip to main content

The King’s Cousins

March 2023
1min read

There were originally three Howe brothers, all Whigs, all distinguished in arms, all in turn holders of a viscountcy in the Irish peerage. Like the Scottish peerage today, the Irish one merely elected a few of their number to sit in the Lords at Westminster; the remainder were free to run for the British House of Commons. Of this convenience all three Howes availed themselves. Brigadier General George Augustus Howe, Third Viscount, the democratic and wellbeloved eldest brother who fell at Ticonderoga in 1758, had been Member for Nottingham. That borough at once elected his youngest brother, William, in his place. The middle brother, Richard, inherited the title as Fourth Viscount Howe (and was hence addressed as “Lord Howe”); he was also elected to the Commons for Dartmouth, and both surviving brothers remained M.P.’s through the Revolution. (For a parallel, imagine both Admiral Halsey and, say, General Eisenhower also serving as congressmen during the last war.) There was also a sister, Lady Howe, who had known and played chess with Benjamin Franklin, as the romanticized old engraving below shows; she was briefly involved in the peace-making efforts of the family.

It did the Howes no harm socially, to put it mildly, that their father, a former governor of Barbados, had married the daughter of the plump Baroness Kilmansegge, one of the German mistresses of George I; they were thus cousins by the left hand to King George III himself. Yet the Howes had genuine ability of their own. William won his own knighthood. Richard, “Black Dick” to an admiring fleet, led the bold relief of Gibraltar in 1782 and smashed the navy of Revolutionary France at the battle called “The Glorious First of June” in 1794. He died an earl, full of honors, in 1799; the Irish viscountcy passed to Sir William, who also had no sons, expiring with that enigmatic soldier in 1814.

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate

Stories published from "February 1964"

Authored by: Louis W. Koenig

Peace without victory was the crusade of Clement L. Vallandigham, the volatile extremist spokesman of the antiwar “Copperheads.” Too often his deeds had a suspicious odor of treason

Authored by: Francis Haines

One innovation profoundly changed—and prolonged—the culture of the Plains Indians

Authored by: John F. Kennedy

"Americans are united by their history and by a faith in progress, justice, and freedom," writes President Kennedy

Authored by: Frank Uhlig, Jr.

After the Civil War, American sea power became a pitiful joke. Then an aroused nation set out to build a first-class, modern navy, and in 1907 proudly sent it off around the world

Authored by: C. Peter Magrath

Grain elevators had false bottoms; freight rates had no ceilings. The farmers raised the roof, and government regulation crossed industry’s threshold

Authored by: Marshall B. Davidson

Not all Russian diplomats in America have had ice water in their veins and a ready “Nyet” upon their lips. One of the first of them left an illustrated record, subsequently “lost” for more than a century, which pictured a people he liked and a land he admired

Authored by: Thomas Fleming

He had a reputation as a bold, resourceful commander. Yet in battle after battle he had George Washington beaten—and failed to pursue the advantage. Was “Sir Billy” all glitter and no gold? Or was he actually in sympathy with the rebellion?

Authored by: Finis Farr

When the Negro Jack Johnson fought Jim Jeffries at Reno in 1910, more than the world heavyweight championship seemed at stake. To the many alarmed by Johnson’s unsavory reputation, Jeffries seemed nothing less than the “Great White Hope”

Featured Articles

Famous writers including Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts turned Sleepy Hollow Cemetery into our country’s first conservation project.

Native American peoples and the lands they possessed loomed large for Washington, from his first trips westward as a surveyor to his years as President.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.

A hundred years ago, America was rocked by riots, repression, and racial violence.

During Pres. Washington’s first term, an epidemic killed one tenth of all the inhabitants of Philadelphia, then the capital of the young United States.

Now a popular state park, the unassuming geological feature along the Illinois River has served as the site of centuries of human habitation and discovery.  

The recent discovery of the hull of the battleship Nevada recalls her dramatic action at Pearl Harbor and ultimate revenge on D-Day as the first ship to fire on the Nazis.

Our research reveals that 19 artworks in the U.S. Capitol honor men who were Confederate officers or officials. What many of them said, and did, is truly despicable.

Here is probably the most wide-ranging look at Presidential misbehavior ever published in a magazine.

When Germany unleashed its blitzkreig in 1939, the U.S. Army was only the 17th largest in the world. FDR and Marshall had to build a fighting force able to take on the Nazis, against the wishes of many in Congress.

Roast pig, boiled rockfish, and apple pie were among the dishes George and Martha enjoyed during the holiday in 1797. Here are some actual recipes.

Born during Jim Crow, Belle da Costa Greene perfected the art of "passing" while working for one of the most powerful men in America.