2nd Duke of Norfolk (1422-1432)
2nd Earl of Nottingham, 8th Baron Mowbray and Baron Segrave (1408-1432)
'Earl Marshal' and Marshal of England
Born 1390/92 Died 1432
John Mowbray was born sometime between the years 1390 and 1392 at Epworth in Lincolnshire, being the younger son of Thomas Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk. Following his father's death in 1399 it was his elder bother Thomas who succeeeded, but only as Earl of Nottingham, the title of Duke of Norfolk being witheld by the new king Henry IV.
The younger Thomas, taking offense at his treatment at the hands of Henry turned against the king and took a leading part in Scrope's Rebellion, and with the failure of that rebellion was captured and executed for treason at York on the 10th June 1408. Therefore with the death of his elder brother the titles of Earl of Nottingham and 'Earl Marshal' together with the Mowbray and Segrave baronies passed to John.
John was notable in that, unlike his brother, he made an effort to accommodate Henry and this conciliatory policy brought him greater benefits in the longer term. He was thus able to recover the actual office of Marshal of England to complement his inherited style of 'Earl Marshal', and was sufficiently well regarded to be selected as one of those who sat in judgment on Richard of Conisburgh, Earl of Cambridge, and the other participants in the Southampton Plot of 1415.
Thereafter he served in France with Henry V, taking part in the siege of Harfleur where he fell ill and which prevented him from later participating in the victory at Agincourt. He continued to serve in France in subsequent years and with Henry's death in 1422 he was appointed a member of the English council. In 1424 he joined Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, on his campaign in Hainault, and was later rewarded when at the Parliament of 1425 he was restored to the dignity of Duke of Norfolk.
Thereafter he continued to serve in the war against France during the course of which he may well have received some fatal wound as he died at Epworth (at the Cistercian priory his father had founded on the 19th of October 1432, when he cannot have been more than forty years old.
John married Catherine or Katherine Neville, daughter of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland at Raby in Durham on the 12th January 1411 by whom he had an only son, also named John Mowbray who duly became the 3rd duke after his death.
SOURCES
- Mowbray family at http://www.mowfam.freeserve.co.uk/page34.htm
based on information from Burke's Extinct Peerages, pp 386 - 388. and
The Mowbray Journal, eds. William Mowbray and Stephen Goslin, 1976-79
- THOMAS, JOHN, 2ND DUKE OF NORFOLK
from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica at http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/
- Charles Arnold Baker The Companion to British History (Longcross Press, 1996)