John Mowbray
JOHN MOWBRAY:
(1) - (1390-1432), 2nd duke of Norfolk, brother of THOMAS MOWBRAY, now became earl marshal and earl of Nottingham. He sat in judgment upon Richard, earl of Cambridge, and the other rebels in 1415, and went to France with Henry V. He took part in the siege of Harfleur, but illness prevented him from fighting at Agincourt. He saw service in France in subsequent years, and after Henry's death he was a member of the English governing council. In 1424 he followed Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, on his campaign in Hainaut, and in 1425 he secured his recognition as duke of Norfolk. He died on the 19th of October 1432 at Epworth, where his father had founded a Cistercian priory. By his wife Catherine, daughter of Ralph Neville, 1st earl of Westmorland, he left an only son, the 3rd duke.
(2) - 3rd duke of Norfolk (1415-1461), became warden of the Scottish marches; he also served as a soldier and an ambassador in France. Upon the outbreak of the fierce rivalry between the houses of York and Lancaster about 1450 he joined Richard, duke of York, to whom he was related; he aided, the Yorkist cause in Norfolk and in London, and it was he who in November 1453 demanded an inquiry into the administration of Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset. In 1459 he appeared on the Lancastrian side and took the oath of allegiance to Henry VI. and to his son Edward at Coventry, but soon he was again figuring as an active Yorkist. He was a member of the deputation which in March 1461 asked the duke of York (Edward IV.) to take the crown, and he fought at the second battle of St Albans and also at Towton, where one authority says he saved the day for the Yorkists.
(3) - , 4th duke of Norfolk (1444-1476), who had already been created earl of Surrey,. a title formerly held by his ancestors, the Fitzalans, was the only son of the preceding. The names both of John and of his father appear frequently in the Paston Letters, as both dukes in turn seized Caister castle, which had been left by Sir John Fastolf to John Paston, and the 4th duke held it against the Pastons for some years. On his death in 1476 the dukedom became extinct, but the earldom passed to his daughter Anne (1472-1481), who married Richard, duke of York, the younger son of Edward IV. Richard was created duke of Norfolk and made earl marshal, but when he was murdered in 1483 the dukedom again became extinct, the earldom having reverted to the crown on the death of Anne.
The illustrious family of Howard (q.v.), members of which have been dukes of Norfolk from 1483 to the present day, with the exception of two periods during which the title was forfeited, was connected with the family of Mowbray.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
