Howell’s well-known name is mixed up repeatedly in the various passages of the Duke of Buckingham’s foreign life. Howell was the son of a clergyman, at Abernant, in Carmarthenshire; was accordingly entered at Jesus College, Oxford, the great emporium of the Jones’s, Williams’s, Morgans, and Howells. He was, like many of his countrymen, “a true cosmopolite,” born, says Anthony Wood, neither to “house, land, lease, or office.” He had not the misfortune of having a position in life to lose, so he went to London, and became, through the interest of Sir Robert Mansel, steward to a glass-house in Bond Street, glass being a monopoly; whilst his elder brother rose to be Bishop of Bristol. Glass being by no means in its perfection, the proprietors of the work sent James Howell abroad, in order to hire foreign workmen, and to buy the best materials for a manufacture which they wished to improve; and James Howell joyfully accepted the mission. He travelled into France, Holland, Flanders, Spain, and Italy; and, setting off in 1619, encountered George Villiers in his French tour, came across him in Spain, and heard of him all the good and bad that he has detailed in his letters to England. He gave up his stewardship, and posted again into Spain, in 1623, and was in that country when Charles I. and Buckingham were at Madrid. Like persons in the pit of a great theatre, Howell, in his half-commercial, half-diplomatic capacity, saw a great deal which the actors in that brilliant scene overlooked. His ostensible reason for going to Spain was to reclaim a rich English ship which had been seized by the Viceroy of Sardinia; his real occupation was that of watching the Royal “wooer,” and his scarcely less conspicuous companion, Buckingham. Meantime, Howell was made a Fellow of Jesus College; and, in accepting this honour, he said he “should reserve his Fellowship, and lay it by as a warm garment against rough weather, should any fall on him.” And certainly he was destined to experience the changes and chances of fortune in no ordinary degree. He returned to London, and was appointed secretary to Lord Scrope, who was made Lord-President of the North. Howell, therefore, was transplanted to York; and, whilst there, was chosen member for Richmond, an honour for which he had not canvassed. He sat, therefore, in the parliament which opened in 1627--a session so important to Buckingham, and so fraught with consequences to the country.