Fitzalan-Howard family, Dukes of Norfolk

Sir John Howard (d. 1485), from an old Norfolk family, became in right of his mother a co-heir of the vast Mowbray estates (see also Berkeley, Earls of Berkeley) and was created Duke of Norfolk in 1483. The East Anglian properties were extended in the time of the 3rd Duke (d. 1554) but forfeited on the attainder of the 4th Duke in 1572. Partially restored in the early 17th century, they were thereafter much reduced by sale.

The 4th Duke married in 1556 Lady Mary Fitzalan, daughter and heiress of the 12th Earl of Arundel, through whom Arundel Castle and the Sussex, Surrey and other estates of the Fitzalan family descended to the Howards. The Sussex estates were later enlarged and consolidated, notably by the 11th and 12th Dukes in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Thomas, Earl of Arundel (grandson of the 4th Duke) married in 1606 Alathea, deaughter and eventual heiress of the 7th Earl of Shrewsbury (see Chetwynd-Talbot, Earls of Shrewsbury), bringing valuable estates in the West Riding of Yorkshire (Sheffield), Derbyshire (Glossop) and Nottinghamshire (Worksop) into the Howard family. Worksop later descended to a younger son of the 6th Duke, Lord Thomas Howard (d. 1689), who married Mary Savile of Copley (Yorkshire, West Riding), but their son Thomas succeeded his uncle as 8th Duke in 1701 and brought Worksop back into the senior line. It was the principal family seat in the 18th century but was sold to the 4th Duke of Newcastle in 1839. The Glossop estate was settled from time to time on younger sons. Edward George Howard, younger son of the 13th Duke, was created Baron Howard of Glossop in 1869.

The Cumberland (Greystoke) estate was inherited from Lord Dacre of Gilsland in the late 16th century, but descended in a junior line. Charles Howard, of The Deepdene (Surrey) and Greystoke, succeeded a cousin as 10th Duke of Norfolk in 1777, but on the death of the 11th Duke in 1815 the Greystoke estate again passed to a junior branch. The 11th Duke married in 1771 Frances, daughter and heir of Charles Fitzroy-Scudamore of Holme Lacy (Herefordshire), but the Holme Lacy estate did not remain in the Howard family after the death of Frances, Duchess of Norfolk in 1820.

Through the marriage of the 15th Duke to Gwendolen Constable-Maxwell, Baroness Herries, in 1904, the Dukes of Norfolk acquired the former Constable estates in the East Riding of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire (Everingham and West Rasen) and former Maxwell estates in Dumfriesshire and Kirkcudbrightshire (Caerlaverock and Kinharvie). The Terregles (Dumfriesshire) estate of the Herries family, however, had passed to a junior branch of the Constable-Maxwell family, later the Constable-Maxwell-Stuarts of Traquair.

On the death of the 17th Duke in 1975 he was succeeded in the dukedom and the Arundel Castle estates by his kinsman, the 4th Baron Howard of Glossop, son of the 3rd Baron by Mona Stapleton, Baroness Beaumont in her own right, of Carlton Towers (Yorkshire, West Riding).

Estates in 1883: Duke of Norfolk: 21,446 acres in Sussex; 19,440 acres in West Riding of Yorkshire; 4,460 acres in Norfolk; 3,172 acres in Surrey; 1,274 acres in Derbyshire; 47 acres in Suffolk; 25 acres in Staffordshire and 2 acres in Nottinghamshire; worth a total of £75,596 a year. Lord Herries: 6,858 acres in East Riding of Yorkshire; 2,800 acres in Lincolnshire; 5,814 acres in Dumfriesshire; 3,423 acres in Kirkcudbrightshire; worth a total of £19,152 a year.