Sir Theophilus Howard was named in the Second Charter of Virginia made by King James I on 23 May 1609. The members of this extensive list were "incorporated by the name of The Tresorer and Companie of Adventurers and Planters of the Citty of London for the Firste Collonie in Virginia".
He was the dedicatee of Shelton's translation of Don Quixote, the first translation of the work in any language. The translation of the first part of Don Quixote was published in London in 1612, while Cervantes was still alive. It is not known why Shelton chose Howard as a dedicatee, although he was possibly a distant relative.[5] He was also the dedicatee of John Dowland's last book of songs "A Pilgrimes Solace", also published in 1612.[6]
Howard's parents received a pension from Spanish diplomats. In 1617, they were offered a Dutch pension. Howard discussed the deal with the Spanish ambassador Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, Count of Gondomar. He persuaded his parents not to take the Dutch offer, and Gondomar gave him a valuable diamond jewel.[8]
^Kelly, L. G.. "Shelton, Thomas (fl. 1598–1629)." L. G. Kelly in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed., edited by Lawrence Goldman, January 2008. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/25318 (accessed 24 November 2014, subscription or UK public library membership required).
^Robert Chambers, Domestic Annals of Scotland, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1858), pp. 450-1: Bannatyne Miscellany, vol. 3 (Edinburgh, 1855), pp. 209–212.
^Óscar Alfredo Ruiz Fernández, England and Spain in the Early Modern Era: Royal Love, Diplomacy, Trade and Naval Relations (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), p. 111.
^Green, R. (1834). The History, Topography, and Antiquities of Framlingham and Saxsted, in the County of Suffolk. p. 174.
^Cockayne, G.E. (1896). Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, Or Dormant. Vol. 7. p. 312.
^Lady Frances Erskine, Memoirs Relating to the Queen of Bohemia by One of Her Ladies (c. 1770), p. 108.