Marcher lord: Difference between revisions

A '''Marcher Lordlord''' ({{Lang-cy|Barwn y Mers}}) was a noble appointed by the [[List of English monarchs|Kingking of England]] to guard the border (known as the [[Welsh Marches]]) between England and Wales.

A Marcher Lordlord was the English equivalent of a [[margrave]] (in the Holy Roman empire) or a [[Marquess|marquis]] (in France) before the introduction of the title of "marquess" in Britain; (no Marcher Lordlord ever bore this rank). In this context the word ''march'' means a border region or frontier, and is cognate with the verb "to march,", both ultimately derived from [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]] ''*mereg-'', "edge" or "boundary".

The greatest Marcher Lordslords included the earls of [[Earl of Chester|Chester]], [[Earl of Gloucester|Gloucester]], [[Earl of Hereford|Hereford]], [[Earl of Pembroke|Pembroke]] and [[Earl of Shrewsbury|Shrewsbury]] (see also [[Earl of March#Earls of March in the Peerage of England|English Earlsearls of March]]).

The [[Anglo-Normans|Anglo-Norman]] lordships in this area were distinct in several ways: they were geographically compact and jurisdictionally separate one from another, and they had special privileges which separated them from the usual English lordships. Royal writ did not work in the Marches: Marcher lords ruled their lands by their own law&mdash;''sicut regale'' ("like a king") as Gilbert, Earl of Gloucester, stated,<ref name=nelson/> whereas in England fief-holders were directly accountable to the king. Marcher lords could build castles, a jealously guarded and easily revoked Royal privilege in England. Marcher lords administered laws, waged war, established [[Marketmarket town|markets in towns]]s, and maintained their own [[Court of equity|chanceries]] that kept their records (which have been completely lost). They had their own deputies, or [[sheriff]]s. Sitting in their own courts they had jurisdiction over all cases at law save high treason. "They could establish forests and forest laws, declare and wage war, establish boroughs, and grant extensive charters of [[Liberty (division)|liberties]]. They could confiscate the estates of traitors and felons, and regrant these at will. They could establish and preside over their own petty parliaments and county courts. Finally, they could claim any and every feudal due, aid, grant, and relief",<ref>[[#nelson|Nelson]], ch. 8</ref> although they did not mint coins. Their one insecurity, if they did not take up arms against the king, was of dying without a legitimate heir, whereupon the title reverted to the Crown in [[escheat]]. [[Cyfraith Hywel|Welsh law]] was frequently used in the Marches in preference to English law, and there would sometimes be a dispute as to which code should be used to decide a particular case.

Feudal social structures, which were never fully established in England, took root in the Marches, which was not legally part of the realm of England. The traditional view has been that the Norman monarchy granted these outright. A revisionist view is that such rights were more common in the 11th century throughout the Conquest, but were largely suppressed in England, and survived in the Marches. Settlement was encouraged: knights were granted their own lands, which they held in feudal service to the Norman lords. Settlement was also encouraged in towns that were given market privileges, under the protection of a [[Keep|Norman [[keep]]. Peasants came to Wales in large numbers: [[Henry I of England|Henry I]] encouraged [[Brittany|Bretons]], [[Flemings]], [[Normans]], and English settlers to move into the south of Wales.

On the local side, the able-bodied population was more directly essential to the local Lord and was able to extract from him carefully defined and highly local liberties. A point of friction was in the Lords' funded churches where they appointed churchmen to [[Benefice|living]]s held tightly under hierarchic control in the manner that had developed in [[Duchy of Normandy|Normandy]], where a highly organised church structure was well in the hands of the Dukeduke. The Welsh church, on the Celtic plan, closely connected with clan loyalties, brooked little authoritarian influence.

The Marcher Lordslords were progressively tied to the English kings by the grants of lands and lordships in England, where control was stricter, and where many marcher lords spent most of their time, and through the English kings' dynastic alliances with the great magnates. It was less easy to work in the opposite way, and establish a position among the hereditary marcher families, as [[Hugh the younger Despenser|Hugh Le Despenser]] discovered. He began by exchanging estates he held in England and by obtaining grants in the Welsh Marches from the Kingking. He even obtained the Isle of [[Lundy]]. When the last male heir of the de Braose family died, Despenser was able to obtain the de Braose lands around Swansea. In 1321 the Marcher Lordslords threatened to start a civil war and it was agreed that a parliament should be called to settle the matter.

While fierce hostility between the Marcher lords and the Welsh was a fact of life, nevertheless, much intermarriage occurred between the Norman-descended barons and princely Welsh families, (often as a means of cementing a local agreement or alliance). The [[Mortimers]], [[House of Braose|de Braose]]s, [[de Lacy]]s, [[Baron Grey de Ruthyn|Grey de Ruthyn]]s, [[Earl of Shrewsbury|Talbot]]s, and the [[Baron Strange|Le Strange]] families eventually acquired much Welsh blood through politically advantageous marriages with the Welsh nobility. [[Roger Mortimer, 1st Baron Mortimer]] (1231–1282) was a son of [[Gwladys Ddu]], daughter of [[Llewelyn the Great]] of [[Gwynedd]]. [[Matilda de Braose (Deheubarth)|Matilda de Braose]], a granddaughter of [[William de Braose, 4th Lord of Bramber]], married a Welsh prince. He was Rhys Mechyll, Prince of [[Deheubarth]]. Their daughter Gwenllian married Gilbert Talbot, progenitor of the Earlsearls of [[Shrewsbury]]. William de Braose was himself a descendant of Nesta verch Osborne of Wales through his mother [[Bertha of Hereford]]. Another member of the de Braose family, Isabella, daughter of ''Gwilym Ddu'' or [[William de Braose (died 1230)|''Black William'']] and [[Eva Marshal]] married Prince [[Dafydd ap Llywelyn]], whose mother [[Joan, Lady of Wales|Joan]] was an illegitimate daughter of King [[John of England]].<ref>Charles Cawley, Medieval Lands, Wales</ref> Queen consort [[Anne Boleyn]] descended directly from [[Gruffydd II ap Madog, Lord of Dinas Bran]] through his daughter, Angharad who married William Le Boteler of [[Wem]], Shropshire.

In 1563, [[Elizabeth I of England|Elizabeth I]] granted the former Marcher [[Lordship of Denbigh]] to her favourite [[Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester|Lord Robert Dudley]], later the Earlearl of Leicester.<ref name= Adams295>{{cite book |title=Leicester and the Court: Essays on Elizabethan Politics |last=Adams |first=Simon |year=2002 |isbn=978-0719053252 |pages=295|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-Nn5UY-RilEC&q=%22the+creation+of+the+shires+of+eastern+Wales%22&pg=PA253 |access-date=7 July 2012}}</ref> The grant claimed that Denbigh was given to him,

Although the Laws in Wales Acts had not been modified – and the claim to have the same rights as a Marcher Lordshiplordship could not therefore be legally possible – Leicester had such political power that he was able to make this a reality in practice.<ref name= Adams295/>

Early in the 21st century, businessman [[Mark Roberts (businessman)|Mark Roberts]] styled himself Lordlord Marchermarcher of [[Trellech|Trellick]] and purported to acquire the title of [[St. David's|Lord Marcher of St. David's]] from the [[University of Wales]], seeking to assert various associated economic rights including title in half the coastline of [[Pembrokeshire]]. Roberts contended that the [[Bishop of St David's|Bishops of St David's]] were never themselves conquered and retained their ancient temporal possessions. The last Welsh bishop had died in 1115 but the ensuing [[Normans|Norman]] bishops acquired the ancient jurisdictional rights by use and eventually by a distinct [[royal charter]]. Roberts claimed to be a [[corporation sole]] in succession to the bishops and to have the status of a [[rajah]] and effective [[state immunity]]. However, in May 2008, the [[High Court of Justice|High Court]] held that the [[Laws in Wales Act 1535]] had abolished the [[jurisdiction]]al [[Government-granted monopoly|franchise]] of Marcher Lord entirely and that Roberts had no such status.<ref>{{ cite web|title=To the manor bought |author=Frank Hinks |date=2008-09-04 |work=Legal Week |url=http://www.legalweek.com/Navigation/35/Articles/1159788/Commercial+and+Chancery+Bar+To+the+manor+bought.html |access-date=2008-09-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081118102010/http://www.legalweek.com/Navigation/35/Articles/1159788/Commercial%2Band%2BChancery%2BBar%2BTo%2Bthe%2Bmanor%2Bbought.html |archive-date=2008-11-18 |url-status=dead }} </ref><ref>[https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2008/1302.html Crown Estates Commissioners -v- Roberts & another (2008)]</ref>

==List of Marcher Lordshipslordships==