One of the most distinguished of the top-flight political personages, appearing in each of the six novels in the Parliamentary series. He was most successful as President of the Council, where his broad knowledge of events and personalities made him the ideal mediator. His youngest son was Lord James Fitz Howard

."...the very front and head of the aristocratic old Whigs of the country a fussy, popular, clever, conscientious man, whose digestion had been too good to make politics a burden to him, but who had thought seriously about his country, and is one who will be sure to leave memoirs behind him" - Phineas Finn