{39} Edward III Descents for Ralph Standish (1670-1755), Husband of Lady Philippa Howard

Standish Coat of Arms

Lady Philippa Howard was the youngest daughter of Henry, 6th Duke of Norfolk, and Jane Bickerton, his mistress-turned-duchess. Born in September 1678 at her mother's home in Weybridge, Surrey, she was only age five when her father died. She was also the first child to be born after her father had succeeded to the dukedom and made his secret second marriage public, so there was never any question regarding her legitimacy. This of course greatly increased her prospects on the marriage market, and, unlike her two elder sisters, Catherine and Anne, she escaped the fate of living out the rest of her days as a cloistered nun in Flanders. Considering how turbulent her life would become, however, the thought may have crossed her mind once or twice, if the quiet life of prayer far from the secular world, which her sisters were leading, wasn't preferable.

When Lady Philippa was ten years old, the King of England, James II, was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. William and Mary, the new monarchs, were Protestant, and Philippa's mother the Duchess, a Catholic, wasn't happy. Her mother had re-married Thomas Maxwell, an officer high in the favour of King James II, who made him a Major-General and one of the commanders of his Dragoons when he invaded Ireland in the following year. Fighting along with their stepfather was Philippa's eldest brother, the 20-year-old Lord George Howard. James II suffered defeat at the hands of his son-in-law William III at the Battle of the Boyne on 1 July 1690. Lord George Howard made peace with the new King William three weeks later, but Maj-Gen. Maxwell remained loyal to James, and returned with him back to exile at St Germain-en-Laye in France.

Battle of the Boyne, July 1690

No doubt Philippa returned to England with her mother, the dowager Duchess of Norfolk, early in 1691. The Duchess had sold her Weybridge home to Catharine, Countess of Dorchester, formerly mistress to King James II, so she retreated to Holmes Hall outside Rotherham, Yorkshire, one of the handful of non-entailed estates that her late husband the Duke had been able to leave to her. The dowager Duchess died there in August 1693, just three weeks before Lady Philippa's fifteenth birthday. Her stepfather Maj-Gen. Maxwell, died in battle, still fighting under the banner of King James II, in far-off Italy, on 4 October 1693. It was now up to her eldest brother Lord George Howard to determine her fate. Though he'd made his peace with King William, it seems Lord George remained a Jacobite at heart, as evidenced by the match he made for his sister in 1696.

The Standish family had been seated at Standish Hall, Lancashire, for centuries, a proud gentry dynasty which remained firmly Catholic. At the time of the Glorious Revolution, the head of the family was 50-year-old William Standish. In 1690 he plotted with other Lancashire gentlemen to support an invasion of northern England from Ireland by King James. Historian Stan Aspinall, in his excellent website Old Standish, describes what happened next, "The plot was discovered and eight local gentry arrested. William Standish escaped and was declared an outlaw, with a reward of £500 offered for his capture."High up in the chain of command in King James's army in Ireland, Maj-Gen. Maxwell must have at least known of the 1690 Lancashire plot, and likely even supported it. It seems also likely that his stepson Lord George Howard was aware of it as well. Standish was actually a kinsman of Howard, both being descended from the 4th Duke of Norfolk.

Standish Hall, Lancashire

Still an outlaw in 1696, William Standish "made a settlement of the manor [of Standish Hall] and the names of Lady Phillippa Howard and of Lord George Howard appear in the document. It was evidently part of a marriage settlement for in the following year William’s only son and heir married Lady Phillippa" [A detailed, if cluttered and unevenly formatted, website on the Standishes].

This was an incredible, if not dangerous, match for Lord George Howard to make for his eighteen year-old sister, and indicates that they were both confirmed Jacobites and already on familiar terms with their Standish kinsmen.  On their part, the Standishes were making the grandest match in the family's history: no previous family head had ever married into the peerage, let alone the daughter of Norfolk, the premier dukedom in England. (The Standish descent from the 4th Duke of Norfolk - see Line A below - was through the Corby Castle Howards, a junior branch of the family).

Ralph Standish was eight years older than Lady Philippa, and just as strong a Jacobite as his father, whom he succeeded in 1705. The couple had nine children, four sons and five daughters, but only three lived to adulthood, and only one - the youngest daughter Cecilia Standish - would go on and

Jacobite surrender at Preston, Lancashire - November 1715

have surviving issue of her own. Aspinall relays, "Ralph [Standish] was even more audacious, leading a group of local villagers to join the invading Jacobite army at Preston in November, 1715. He was captured there after the unconditional surrender and taken to London in chains: there to be tried for high treason ... she [Lady Philippa] leaves her young family; her youngest [of four children] is just two years old. She takes lodgings in Silver Street [in London], a rather dubious place next door to a brothel and begins to petion on Ralph’s behalf. She eventually gains admission to Newgate prison and sees Ralph but then catches a serious illness. Ralph worries about her condition and not without reason." Those who are like me and fascinated by this history, can find further details in Aspinall's book The Loyal Owls, which I intend to order soon (it's only £7.50).

Ralph Standish's life was spared, but it took the intervention of Lady Philippa's half-nephew Thomas, 8th Duke of Norfolk, and the Standishes were not meant to forget it. In October 1727, Ralph Standish's elder son wrote to him that the Duke of Norfolk wished "to borrow £2,000 from Mr. Standish." When Lady Philippa Standish died in August 1732, she had outlived all but two of her nine children. Five years later, Ralph Standish re-married, to Mary, daughter of Albert Hodgson of Leighton Hall, a fellow Lancashire Jacobite who'd been involved in the 1715 Rising. Ralph lived his final years in retirement and died at the age of 85 in October 1755, the last of the Standish line at Standish Hall, which was carried by his only surviving child Cecilia to the Towneley family.

RALPH STANDISH of Standish Hall, Lancashire, b. 1670, bur. 27 Oct. 1755 St Wilfrid Church, Standish, Lancashire, 2nd but eldest surviving son of William Standish of Standish Hall & Cecily Bindloss; m. (1) 1697, Lady PHILIPPA HOWARD, b. 19 Sept. 1678 Weybridge, Surrey, bap. the same day St James Church, Weybridge, d. 7 Apr. 1732 Standish Hall, bur. same day St Wilfrid Church, Standish, yst dau. of Henry Howard, 6th Duke of Norfolk & his 2nd wife Jane Bickerton; m. (2) 1737, as her 1st husband, MARY HODGSON (m. 2nd, George Towneley of Leighton Hall, b. 12 May 1706, d. 1786), dau. and eventual heiress of Albert Hodgson of Leighton Hall & Dorothy Oldfield (descended from Edward III).

Issue of Ralph & Lady Philippa (Howard) Standish:

St Wilfrid Church, Standish

1) WILLIAM STANDISH, b. Standish Hall, bap. 1 June 1698 St Wilfrid Church, Standish, bur. there 18 Dec. 1698.

2) HENRY STANDISH, b. Standish Hall, bap. 8 Feb. 1701 St Wilfrid Church, Standish, bur. there 4 September 1710.

3) RALPH STANDISH [later HOWARD], of Glossop House, Derbyshire, b. Standish Hall, bap. Mar. 1702 St Wilfrid Church, Standish, d. Apr. 1735 Kilkenny, Ireland; m. 4 June 1730, MARY BUTLER, dau. of George Butler of Ballyragget Castle & Hon. Catherine King. Issue.
[Ralph Standish Howard, his wife, and her descents from Edward III, will be covered in the next blogpost]

4) CHARLOTTE STANDISH, b. Standish Hall, bap. 16 Jan. 1704 St Wilfrid Church, Standish, bur. there 8 Jan. 1714.

5) GEORGE HOWARD STANDISH, b. Standish Hall, bap. 11 Feb. 1705 St Wilfrid Church, Standish, bur. there 3 May 1726. Unmarried.

6) MARY STANDISH, b. Standish Hall, bap. 4 May 1707 St Wilfrid Church, Standish, bur. there 26 June 1708.

7) ANNE STANDISH
8) PHILIPPA STANDISH
[There are no baptism entries at Standish for either of the above daughters, nor one for the youngest daughter Cecilia, below. They obviously were born elsewhere. One of the above daughters was still living in 1715, as historian Stan Aspinall states that Lady Philippa left her four children in 1715 when she went down to London to plead for her husband's life.]

9) CECILIA STANDISH, b. 1713 (Aspinall states that Lady Philippa's youngest child was two years old in 1715), d. 1778; m. 1736, WILLIAM TOWNELEY of Towneley Hall, Lancashire, b. 30 May 1714 Towneley Hall, bap. there 30 May 1714; d. 2 Feb. 1741, son and heir of Richard Towneley of Towneley Hall & Hon. Mary Katherine Widdrington. Issue, with living descendants - see Table XXXIV p. 27 in Ruvigny's Clarence volume.

Neither the Genealogics nor the Roglo databases have as yet any ancestry for Ralph Standish.
Lady Philippa Howard and her daughter Cecilia Standish appear on p. 291 of Ruvigny's Anne of Exeter volume. William Standish and his son Ralph appear on p. 403 of his Mortimer-Percy volume. That line, along with two others from Edward III, are given below.

Edward III had two sons A1 & B1 (see below)
A1) Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence (1338-1368) m. 1) Lady Elizabeth de Burgh (1332-1363, descended from Edward I), and had
A2) Lady Philippa Plantagenet of Clarence (1355-1377) m. Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March (1352-1381), and had
A3) Lady Elizabeth Mortimer (1371-1417) m. 1) Sir Henry 'Hotspur' Percy (1364-1403), and had
A4) Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland (1394-1455) m. Lady Eleanor Neville (1403-1472, descended from Edward III), and had
A5) Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland (1421-1461) m. Eleanor Poynings (1428-1484, descended from Edward I), and had

Elizabeth (née Stafford),
Duchess of Norfolk -
see Generation A8

A6) Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland (c.1449-1489) m. Lady Maud Herbert (c.1457-by 1487), and had
A7) Lady Eleanor Percy (c.1476-1531) m. Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham (see B6 below), and had
A8) Lady Elizabeth Stafford (1497-1558) m. Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk (1473-1554, descended from Edward I), and had
A9) Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516-1547) m. Lady Frances Vere (1517-1577, descended from Edward I), and had
A10) Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk (1538-1572) m. 2) Margaret Audley (1540-1564, descended from Edward III), and had
A11) Lord William Howard of Naworth Castle (1563-1640) m. Elizabeth Dacre (1564-1639, descended from Edward III), and had
A12) Sir Francis Howard of Corby Castle (1588-1659) m. 1) Margaret Preston (c.1600-1625, descended from Edward I), and had
A13) Elizabeth Howard (b. c.1620) m. Edward Standish of Standish Hall (1617-1682, descended from Edward I), and had
A14) William Standish of Standish Hall (1638-1705) m. Cecily Bindloss (see C12 below), and had
A15) Ralph Standish of Standish Hall (1670-1755) m. 1) Lady Philippa Howard

B1) John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster (1340-1399) m. 3) Katherine Roet (c.1350-1403), and had
B2) John Beaufort, 1st Earl of Somerset (1373-1410) m. Lady Margaret Holland (1383-1439, descended from Edward I), and had

2nd Duke of Somerset -
see Generation B3

B3) Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset (1406-1455) m. Lady Eleanor Beauchamp (1408-1467, descended from Edward I), and had 2 daus B4 & C4 (see below)
B4) Lady Margaret Beaufort (c.1437-1480) m. 1) Humphrey Stafford, Earl of Stafford (c.1425-1458, descended from Edward III), and had
B5) Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham (1455-1483) m. Lady Katherine Woodville (c.1458-1497), and had
B6) Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham (1478-1521) m. Lady Eleanor Percy (see A7 above)

C4) Lady Eleanor Beaufort (c.1440-1501) m. 2) Sir Robert Spencer of Ashbury (c.1435-1510), and had
C5) Margaret Spencer (b. c.1472) m. Thomas Carey of Moulsford (b. c.1460, descended from Edward I), and had
C6) William Carey of Aldenham (c.1496-1528) m. Lady Mary Boleyn (c.1499-1543, descended from Edward I), and had

Anne (née Knollys), Lady De La Warr -
see Generation C8

C7) Katherine Carey (c.1523-1569) m. Sir Francis Knollys of Rotherfield Greys (c.1512-1596), and had
C8) Anne Knollys (1555-1608) m. Thomas West, 2nd Baron De La Warr (by 1556-1602, descended from Edward I), and had
C9) Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr (1577-1618) m. Cecily Shirley (d. 1662, descended from Edward I), and had
C10) Hon. Cecilia West (c.1605-1638) m. 1) Sir Francis Bindloss, Heir of Borwick Hall (1603-1629, descended from Edward I), and had
C11) Sir Robert Bindloss, 1st Baronet of Borwick (1624-1688) m. Rebecca Perry (d. 1708), and had
C12) Cecily Bindloss (d. 1730) m. William Standish of Standish Hall (see A14 above)

Cheers,                                       -----Brad