Juliana (Howard), Baroness Petre

British, 1769 - 1833

BiographyJuliana Barbara Howard was born at Darnall, Yorkshire, on June 25, 1769, the younger of two daughters of Juliana Molyneux and Henry Howard of Glossop, Derbyshire. She belonged to an insular network of Catholic families allied to the Dukes of Norfolk; in 1815 her brother Bernard Edward Howard, became 12th Duke. In 1786 her elder sister Mary Bridget married the son of their cousin Anne Howard. On January 16, 1788, one year and a day after Anne Howard's death, Juliana Howard married her widower, Robert Edward (1742-1801), 9th Baron Petre of Writtle. A fellow of the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries, Lord Petre was best known for his advocacy of the rights and causes of English Catholicism. Still in her teens, Lady Petre distinguished herself for style and beauty. On November 5, 1788 a new acquaintance praised her as "a smart woman, an air of fashion with something extremely pleasing in her features." During their thirteen-year marriage, she and her husband had two daughters and a son. They lived at Thorndon Hall, the neo-classical house Lord Petre had built in 1766 near Brentwood, Essex, and at Park Lane, London. Lord Petre died there on July 2, 1801, twelve days after a futile plea to the king to raise his family to a higher rank in the peerage. As the Dowager Lady Petre, his widow lived on for another thirty-two years, much sought after by family and friends. Following the succession of the 11th Baron Petre in 1809, she was nicknamed "Dow. Julia" or "Dowr. July" to distinguish her from her widowed sister. Her vivacity was undiminished in 1827 when she enlivened a dull party with risqué reminiscences of "her happy 'Blind Man's Buff' days with Lord Grey when she lost her gown and one shoe." Juliana, Lady Petre, died aged sixty-four on April 22, 1833, and was buried with her husband at Ingatestone, Essex.

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