Lord William Howard (19 December 1563 – 7 October 1640) was an English nobleman and antiquary, sometimes known as "Belted or Bauld (bold) Will". Early life Howard was born on 19 December 1563 at Audley End in Essex. He was the third son of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, and, his second wife, Margaret (née Audley) Dudley. His elder brother was Lord Thomas Howard, later 1st Earl of Suffolk and his sister was Lady Margaret Howard (wife of Robert Sackville, 2nd Earl of Dorset). His father, who was executed in 1572, had previously been married to his mother's cousin, Lady Mary FitzAlan, second daughter and sole heiress, in her issue, of Henry FitzAlan, 19th Earl of Arundel and Lady Katherine Grey (second daughter of Thomas Grey, 2nd Marquess of Dorset). From that marriage, Lord William had one elder half-brother, Philip Howard, 20th Earl of Arundel. After his mother's death around 1563, his father married, thirdly, Elizabeth (née Leyburne) Dacre (widow of Thomas Dacre, 4th Baron Dacre and the eldest daughter of Sir James Leyburne of Cunswick). His paternal grandparents were Lord Henry Howard, styled Earl of Surrey (the eldest son of Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk) and Lady Frances de Vere (third daughter of John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford and, his second wife, Elizabeth Trussell, daughter and heiress of Sir John Trussell). After his grandfather's execution in , his grandmother married Thomas Staynings of East Soham. His mother, the widow of Lord Henry Dudley (the youngest son of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland), was the daughter of Thomas Audley, 1st Baron Audley of Walden and, his second wife, Lady Elizabeth Grey (third daughter of Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset). Career After his marriage in 1577, he proceeded to the University of Cambridge. Lord William was a learned and accomplished scholar, praised by William Camden, to whom he sent inscriptions and drawings from relics collected by him from the Roman wall, as "a singular lover of valuable antiquity and learned withal." Sir Walter Scott referred to him as "Belted Will" in the Lay of the Last Minstrel. Being suspected of treasonable intentions together with his half-brother, Philip, Earl of Arundel (husband of his sister-in-law Anne Dacre), he was imprisoned in 1583, 1585 and 1589. He joined the Church of Rome in 1584, both brothers being dispossessed by the queen of a portion of their Dacre