1622.] LORD WILLIAM HOWARD. 351 



It Is a somewhat ungrateful task to throw the h'ght 

 of historical evidence upon wild and picturesque 

 legends which, in successive generations, have charmed 

 the ear of eager childhood, when told by some hoary 

 grandsire or some ancient grand-dame to a listening 

 group around a winter hearth. But legends these really 

 are, so far, at least, as this Lord William Howard is con- 

 cerned. Yet how interesting it would be if the doughty 

 deeds done by his horses on the northern race-courses 

 had been handed down to posterity, instead of those 

 traditions in which he never took hand, act, or part. 



At the time when the Langwathby races are first 

 mentioned, Lord William Howard and the Lady Eliza- 

 beth, his wife, had ten surviving children — seven sons 

 and three daughters. They lived in patriarchal fashion. 

 For many years none seem to have left the paternal 

 roof, with the exception of the married daughters. 

 The sons married one after another ; but they and 

 their wives and children lived on at Naworth Castle, 

 until, in the later years of Lord William's life, some of 

 them appear to have resided on the lesser mansion 

 houses or on their father's estates. The household 

 books exhibit, to some extent, the rural sports and 

 pastimes pursued by Lord Howard's family in the 

 North of England, which need not be recapitulated 

 here. Unfortunately, the references to the turf con- 

 tained in those quaint volumes are rather few and far 

 between, yet in the absence of fuller information they 

 must be received with welcome. " Belted Will " died 

 at Naworth Castle on the 7th of October, 1640, in 

 the seventy-seventh year of his age. 



