Charles Howard, 1st earl of Nottingham

Charles Howard, 1st earl of Nottingham (born 1536—died December 14, 1624, near Croydon, Surrey, England) was an English lord high admiral who commanded England’s fleet against the Spanish Armada. Although he was not as talented a seaman as his subordinates Sir Francis Drake and John Hawkins, Howard’s able leadership contributed greatly to this important English victory.

Howard, the son of William, 1st Baron Howard of Effingham, was a cousin of Queen Elizabeth I. In 1569 he helped suppress a rebellion of the Roman Catholic lords of northern England. He succeeded to his father’s title of Lord Howard of Effingham in 1573 and in 1585 became lord high admiral.

In mobilizing his forces against the Armada, Howard, on the flagship Ark, led the main body of the fleet to join Sir Francis Drake’s advance force off the southwest coast of England (May 1588). As the Spanish fleet approached, Howard harassed it from a distance with long-range cannon and slowly shepherded it up the English Channel. His cautious tactics proved successful, but he was open to criticism for stopping to capture a crippled vessel at the moment when the rest of the Armada, its close formation broken by English fireships, was being mauled by Drake off the coast of France (August 7–8, 1588).

In 1596 Howard and Robert Devereux, 2nd earl of Essex, commanded the expedition that sacked Cádiz, Spain. The queen made Howard earl of Nottingham in 1597, and in the summer of 1599 he was given the exceptional office of lord lieutenant general of England, which he held until 1619. He helped put down Essex’s uprising against Elizabeth (1601) and served as a commissioner at Essex’s trial. It was to Howard that Elizabeth, on her deathbed, named James I as her successor. The venerable earl served on ambassadorial missions and investigatory commissions throughout most of James’s reign.