The Howe Dynasty

In December 1774, Benjamin Franklin met Caroline Howe, the sister of British General Sir William Howe and Richard Admiral Lord Howe, in a London drawing room for "half a dozen Games of Chess." But as historian Julie Flavell reveals, these meetings were about much more than board games: they were cover for a last-ditch attempt to forestall the outbreak of the American War of Independence.

Aware that the distinguished Howe family, both the men and the women, have been known solely for the military exploits of the brothers, Flavell investigated the letters of Caroline Howe, which have been blatantly overlooked since the nineteenth century. Using revelatory documents and this correspondence, The Howe Dynasty provides a groundbreaking reinterpretation of one of England's most famous military families across four wars.

Contemporaries considered the Howes impenetrable and intensely private-or, as Horace Walpole called them, "brave and silent." Flavell traces their roots to modest beginnings at Langar Hall in rural Nottinghamshire and highlights the Georgian phenomenon of the politically involved aristocratic woman. In fact, the early careers of the brothers-George, Richard, and William-can be credited not to the maneuverings of their father, Scrope Lord Howe, but to those of their aunt, the savvy Mary Herbert Countess Pembroke. When eldest sister Caroline came of age during the reign of King George III, she too used her intimacy with the royal inner circle to promote her brothers, moving smoothly between a straitlaced court and an increasingly scandalous London high life.

With genuine suspense, Flavell skillfully recounts the most notable episodes of the brothers' military campaigns: how Richard, commanding the HMS Dunkirk in 1755, fired the first shot signaling the beginning of the Seven Years' War at sea; how George won the devotion of the American fighters he commanded at Fort Ticonderoga just three years later; and how youngest brother General William Howe, his sympathies torn, nonetheless commanded his troops to a bitter Pyrrhic victory in the Battle of Bunker Hill, only to be vilified for his failure as British commander-in-chief to subdue Washington's Continental Army.

Britain's desperate battles to guard its most vaunted colonial possession are here told in tandem with London parlor-room intrigues, where Caroline bravely fought to protect the Howe reputation in a gossipy aristocratic milieu. A riveting narrative and long overdue reassessment of the entire family, The Howe Dynasty forces us to reimagine the Revolutionary War in ways that would have been previously inconceivable.

“"In this brilliantly conceived and vividly written biography . . . Flavell skillfully alternates vivid descriptions of overseas battles with developments in England, and brings new insights to William's alleged affair with the 'captivating Bostonian' Elizabeth Lloyd Loring. History buffs won't want to miss this richly textured account."”

"Spanning almost a century of the Georgian era, The Howe Dynasty presents a richly detailed and lively saga of one of its most distinguished families. Challenging and insightful, it reflects impressive scholarship, grounded in exhaustive archival research on both sides of the Atlantic... The Howe Dynasty shows how women whose supreme function in life was to produce male heirs could nonetheless find a voice through informal ‘networking,’ establishing crucial contacts in the drawing room or on the hunting field that could be mobilized to secure favors and control opinion." -- Stephen Brumwell, What to Read this Week - The Wall Street Journal
"[A] vibrant biography of the accomplished, beguiling family… Flavell’s scholarship and deft storytelling add nuance, sympathy and granularity to the family portrait." -- Rick Atkinson - The New York Times Book Review
"Flavell, an independent scholar, meticulously combs manuscripts held in numerous archives on both sides of the Atlantic… Melding family, political and military history, Flavell’s sympathetic account… shows the historical value of Caroline’s intriguing vantage point on the American Revolution." -- Mark G. Spencer - Times Literary Supplement

Born in Massachusetts, Julie Flavell has pursued a lifelong interest in  Anglo-American relationships as reflected in her first book, When London Was Capital of America. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Flavell lives in Britain.

"If real power is to be 'in the room where it happened,' then the Howe family had it all and more. . . . Julie Flavell not only brings the Howes to life, she makes us love them, scold them, forgive them, and ultimately root for every member to succeed. History is rarely such fun." --Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire"William and Richard Howe were two of the most controversial British commanders during the American Revolution. . . . Until now, historians have been unable to recover their role in the story because their correspondence was destroyed in a nineteenth-century fire. Julie Flavell has come close to doing so by exploring the vast correspondence of their formidable sister, Caroline Howe. The result is a highly readable record from inside the Howe family of the political and military story, told from a woman's perspective." --Joseph J. Ellis, author of American Dialogue: The Founders and Us"Innovatively combining attention to women's drawing-room culture with military history, Julie Flavell effectively defends the Howe brothers from critics, both their own contemporaries and modern historians. Scholars of the Revolution will find this book eye-opening." --Mary Beth Norton, author of 1774: The Long Year of Revolution"The Howe Dynasty offers new insights into the Howe brothers, the most inscrutable of the British commanders in the American Revolutionary War. . . . This is one of the best and most compelling accounts of the role and influence of women in eighteenth-century Britain." --Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, author of The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire"Completely enthralling, wonderfully well written, and like Caroline Howe herself, wise and witty in equal measures, this story of extraordinary women and stoical, driven men is a triumph and, even more important, a delight." --Trevor Burnard, Wilberforce Professor of Slavery and Emancipation, University of Hull

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