Richard Howland

Richard Howland (1540–1600) was an English churchman and academic, Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and of St John's College, Cambridge, and bishop of Peterborough.

He was the son and heir of John Howland, of the city of London, and Anne Greenway, of Cley in Norfolk. He was born at Newport Pond, near Saffron Walden, Essex, and baptised 26 September 1540. He was admitted pensioner at Christ's College, Cambridge, on 18 March 1558, but he migrated to St. John's College, where he graduated B.A. in 1561. He was elected a fellow of Peterhouse on 11 November 1562, and proceeded M. A. in 1564. His subsequent degrees were B.D. 1570, D.D. 1578. He was incorporated M.A. of Oxford on 9 July 1567. In 1569 he became rector of Stathern, Leicestershire, on the presentation of the master and fellows of Peterhouse.

Initially Howland was a follower of Thomas Cartwright, and signed the unsuccessful petition to Lord Burghley in 1571 asking that Cartwright might be allowed to return to Cambridge. He then changed his opinions, and after a sermon in a puritan vein in Great St. Mary's by John Millen or Milayn, a fellow of Christ's, in October 1573, he controverted its teaching in the same place during the afternoon. Howland gained the confidence of Burghley, then chancellor of the university, and became his chaplain. By Burghley's influence he was appointed to the mastership of Magdalene College, then almost in a state of bankruptcy, in 1576.

When John Whitgift resigned the mastership of Trinity in June 1577, on his election to the see of Worcester, he strongly recommended Howland, a personal friend, to Burghley, as his successor. The queen, however, had already selected John Still, the master of St. John's, and it was arranged that Howland should be transferred from Magdalene to St. John's as Still's successor. He was admitted Master 20 July 1577, finding a college full of religious dissensions but with new statutes. In 1578 he served the office of vice-chancellor, in which capacity he, at the head of the university, waited on the queen on her visit to Audley End, on 27 July 1578, and presented her with a Greek Testament and a pair of gloves, making a suitable oration. In 1583 he was again vice-chancellor. The following year Whitgift, by this time archbishop, recommended his old friend for either of the vacant sees of Bath and Wells or of Chichester, or, failing these, for the deanery of Peterborough; in 1584 the queen nominated him to the see of Peterborough. He was consecrated by Whitgift at Lambeth on 7 February 1585. The choice of a successor threatened to involve the college in a fierce internal struggle and it was arranged that Howland should continue to hold the mastership with his bishopric; he resigned in February 1586.

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