In 2013, I wrote about David Drew Howe, the Maryland man who briefly stepped into the public eye by asserting a hereditary claim to the medieval title “King of Mann.” At the time, his story was circulating widely enough to merit attention: an American genealogical enthusiast announcing a royal lineage, a minor media stir, and a curious intersection of modern identity-seeking with the deep substrata of medieval succession law. The episode was unusual, but not unprecedented. Claims to forgotten titles surface from time to time, usually lasting only as long as the news cycle.
More than a decade has passed, and it’s worth offering a short coda to the episode—less because the underlying history has changed, and more because the man at the center of it deserves to have the story properly concluded.
In 2017, Howe publicly renounced the claim. Manx Radio reported his statement in full, noting that he was formally relinquishing any supposed rights or responsibilities associated with the title and reflecting on the “interesting” experience his earlier notoriety had brought him12. That decision effectively ends the chapter that began when his claim first appeared online in the mid-2000s.
There is no need to dissect or relitigate the genealogical problems behind the original assertion. Those issues were already clear in 2013, and they remain unchanged today. The medieval Kingship of Mann itself ended centuries ago, after the death of King Magnús Óláfsson in 1265, when sovereignty over the island passed to Scotland under the Treaty of Perth. Subsequent centuries transformed the title beyond recognition. By the early modern era, the Isle of Man was governed by the Stanley family as Lords of Mann under English authority, rather than as independent monarchs. The Lordship of Mann was ultimately revested in the British Crown in 1765, through the Act of Revestment, ending the island’s quasi-feudal proprietorship and placing its sovereignty firmly under the monarchy3.
Nothing in the intervening years has altered that legal and historical framework, and no recognized body—Manx, British, or academic—has ever affirmed the legitimacy of Howe’s claim. More importantly, Howe himself chose not to extend the matter any further.
What remains is the human dimension. Genealogy has a way of stirring deep impulses: the search for belonging, the desire to understand one’s place in a long historical chain, and sometimes the temptation to anchor identity in a lineage that promises meaning. It is easy to judge such stories too quickly, but more difficult—and more necessary—to recognize that behind every bold public claim is a person navigating the complicated terrain of heritage and self-understanding. Whatever the motivations, Howe stepped back from the claim with clarity and composure4. That deserves acknowledgment.
There is also a cultural angle. Modern society occasionally reanimates titles that no longer exist in law or tradition. They tend to reappear at the edges of media culture, where medieval symbolism, personal narrative, and entertainment intermingle. In 2015, he had his own reality TV show, Suddenly Royal5. Even after Howe’s abdication, light-hearted or nostalgic references have appeared in Manx media, often more curiosity than commentary.
These moments underline how easily the traces of the medieval world can slip into contemporary storytelling, even when the original institutions have long disappeared.
With Howe’s renunciation, the story of the “American King of Mann” has reached its natural conclusion. It now stands as a minor footnote in the long and tangled history of noble claims, a reminder of how medieval titles—stripped of their original context—can take on surprising new shapes in the modern world. This follow-up simply closes the file. The Isle of Man retains its rich history, the Crown retains its ancient title, and a man who once came briefly into public view for an unusual genealogical assertion has long since returned to private life.
The past is always nearer than we expect, and sometimes stranger. That alone justifies our continued attention to it.
References:
- https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/drew-howe-renounces-his-claim-to-manx-kingship ↩︎
- https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2017-03-13/iom-king-of-mann-announces-abdication-online ↩︎
- https://radar.brookes.ac.uk/radar/file/b86ba867-c96b-c287-3466-2d5a5c1b92f2/1/edge1997manx.pdf ↩︎
- https://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/self-proclaimed-king-of-mann-drew-howe-abdicates-his-throne-213755 ↩︎
- https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5028940/ ↩︎
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