Early Stuart Portraits Catalogue

John Howe (1630-1705), Puritan divine

Presbyterian minister; Christ’s College, Cambridge, 1648; BA, Brasenose College, 1650, and MA, Merton College, Oxford, 1652; domestic chaplain to Oliver Cromwell 1656-58; ejected from his parish of Great Torrington, Devon, by the Act of Uniformity 1662; chaplain to Visc. Massereene of Antrim 1671-75; Presbyterian pastor in London from 1675; travelled with Ld. Wharton in Holland where he stayed in Utrecht 1685-87; from 1688 the leading English non-conformist; a prolific, devout writer.

‘very tall and exceedingly graceful ... a good presence and a piercing but pleasant eye: and there was that in his looks and carriage, that discovered he had something within that was uncommonly great, and tended to excite veneration’ (E. Calamy, Memoirs of the life of the late Revd John Howe, 1724).
D. Piper, Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery 1625-1714,1963, p 73, mentions a ‘characteristic wart between his right eye and nose’, apparent in engravings after Kneller by R. White, J. Cochran and J. Caldwall, and after Riley by T. Trotter.


This extended catalogue entry is by John Ingamells, one of a limited number of entries drafted in 2010 for the incomplete catalogue, Early Stuart Portraits 1625-1685, and is as written then. For the most up-to-date details on individual Collection works, we recommend reading the information provided in the Search the Collection results on this website in parallel with this text.