HOWARD, CHARLES, Lord Howard of Effingham was the son of Lord William Howard, and grandson of Thomas Howard, second duke of Norfolk. Under his father, who was lord-high-admiral of England, he served with much distinction both by land and sea; and when the Spanish Armada was approaching the shores of England in 1588, he was himself promoted to the office which his father had so ably filled. It was mainly owing to his valour and nautical skill that that mighty armament was foiled, and Elizabeth evinced her sense of his services, by granting him a life-pension. In 1596, he held the joint command along with Essex of the English expedition against Cadiz, and on returning home was again rewarded for his services by the queen, who created him Earl of Nottingham. This act of Elizabeth's is the more creditable to her, that Essex, piqued at not being entrusted with the supreme command, had ungenerously tried to poison her mind against one of her most able and faithful servants. In 1599, when danger again threatened on the side of Spain, and Essex's conduct in Ireland seemed to indicate rebellion, Howard was made lieutenant-general of the kingdom, with the command-in-chief of all the forces, naval and military. In the six weeks during which he held this office, he crushed his old rival and brother-in-arms, who had raised the standard of revolt in Ireland; but instead of trampling upon his fallen foe, he treated him with a noble generosity and forbearance, of which that foe had shown himself little worthy. Elizabeth's death made no change in Howard's position at court. Her successor frequently availed himself of his services in delicate and important affairs. Some years before his death, Howard resigned his office of lord-high-admiral in favour of Villiers Earl of Buckingham, receiving in exchange a pension of £1000. He died, December 14, 1624, in the eighty-seventh year of his age, after one of the most useful and honourable careers that ever fell to the lot of an English seaman to pass through.