Word Finder - earldom

definition

The rank of being an earl.

definition

The territory controlled by an earl.

Earl Thomas was executed for treason, and though his attainder was reversed he left no issue, and was succeeded in the earldom by his brother Henry.

An earldom followed in 1619.

Thomas Howard, a politic mind, loyal to the powers that be, was released from the Tower of London in 1489, his earldom of Surrey and his Garter restored.

In 1254 Prince Edward, afterwards King Edward I., was created earl of Chester, and since this date the earldom has always been held by the heirs apparent to the English crown with the single exception of Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester.

The earldom of Chesterfield passed at his death to his godson, already mentioned, as 5th earl, and so to the latter's son and grandson.

The subsequent earls and dukes of Lancaster were all recognized as stewards of England, the office apparently being treated as annexed to the earldom, or honor, of Leicester.

Siward held the earldom till his death in 1055, when it was given to Tostig, son of earl Godwine, and after his banishment to Morkere, son of iElfgar, earl of Mercia.

The bishop returned to his earldom and soon organized a rebellion with the object of handing over England to his eldest nephew, Duke Robert.

In return for this aid the younger Henry granted to William the earldom of Northumberland, a possession which the latter had vainly sought from the English king, and which was possibly the cause of their first estrangement.

Soon after John's accession in 1199 the Scottish king asked for the earldom of Northumberland, which Richard I., like his father, had refused to restore to Scotland.

He now stood forth as her champion; Mary took refuge with him at Dunbar, presented him, among other estates, with the castle there and the chief lands of the earldom of March, and made him the most powerful noble in the south of Scotland.

But Philip Howard, the son and heir, succeeded to the ancient earldom of Arundel in 1580, on the death of his maternal grandfather, while the Lord Lumley, his uncle by marriage, surrendered to him his life interest in the castle and honour of Arundel.

An act of 1627, one of several such aimed at aggrandizing families by diverting the descent of dignities in fee from heirs general, entailed the earldom and castle of Arundel upon Thomas, earl of Arundel and Surrey and the heirs male of his body "and for default of such issue, to the heirs of his body."

In answer to his petition for the dukedom, the king had, on the 6th of June 1644, given him a patent of the earldom of Norfolk, in order, as it would seem, to flatter him by suggesting that the title of Norfolk would at least be refused to any other family.

Queen Elizabeth continued his employment in diplomacy, and had he been richer he might have had an earldom.

Two of his sons succeeded in turn to the earldom of Nottingham, extinct on the death of Charles, the third earl in 1681.

Sir William Howard of Lingfield, younger brother of the great admiral, carried on the Effingham line, his great-grandson succeeding to the barony on the extinction of the earldom.

In 1688 his widow was created countess of Stafford for life, and his eldest son, Henry, had the earldom of Stafford, with special remainder to his brothers.

This earldom ended in 1762, but the attainder was reversed by an act of 1824 and in the following year Sir George Jerningham, the heir general, established his claim to the Stafford barony of 1640.

Dying unmarried, when the earldom therefore became extinct, Charles was succeeded as Viscount O'Neill by his brother John Bruce Richard (1780-1855), a general in the British army; on whose death without issue in 1855 the male line in the United Kingdom became extinct.

Hugh, who was probably one of William the Conqueror's companions, was made earl of Chester in 1071; he had special privileges in his earldom, and he held land in twenty counties.

In November 1232 the earldom of Chester was granted to his nephew John the Scot, earl of Huntingdon (c. 1207-1237), and in 1246, nine years after John had died childless, it was annexed to the English crown "lest so fair a dominion should be divided among women."

The earldom, and the viscounty of the United Kingdom, being limited to heirs male, became extinct, but the barony, being to heirs general, passed to his daughter, Sophia Charlotte (1762-1835), who married the Hon.

Already on his wife's death in 1292 he had resigned the earldom of Carrick to his son, the future king, who presented the deed of resignation to Baliol at Stirling in August 1293, and offered the homage which his father, like his grandfather, was unwilling to render.

Feudal law required that the king should take seisin of the earldom before regranting it and receiving the homage, and the sheriff of Ayr was directed to take it on Baliol's behalf.

The title of Granville descended to his son Robert, who died without issue in 1776, when the earldom of this creation became extinct.

Henry was connected with the royal house of Scotland through his mother Margaret, a sister of William the Lion; an alliance which no doubt assisted him to obtain the earldom of Hereford from John (1199).

His nephew and heir, Humphrey X., who inherited the earldom of Northampton from his father, was territorially the most important representative of the Bohuns.

He married in 1113 Matilda, daughter and heiress of Waltheof, earl of Northumbria, and thus became possessed of the earldom of Huntingdon.

She was married in childhood to Lionel, son of Edward III., who was recognized in her right as earl of Ulster, and their direct representative, the duke of York, ascended the throne in 1461 as Edward IV., since when the earldom of Ulster has been only held by members of the royal family.

The 4th earl (1601-1635) distinguished himself on the English side in O'Neill's rebellion and afterwards, and obtained the English earldom of St Albans in 1628, his son Ulick receiving further the Irish marquessate of Clanricarde (1646).

He received the earldom of Hereford with the special duty of pushing into Wales.

In 1265, after Montfort's fall, Edmund received the earldom of Leicester, and two years later was created earl of Lancaster.

In 1069 Robert of Comines, a Norman to whom William had given the earldom of Northumberland, was murdered by the English at Durham; the north declared for Edgar Atheling, the last male representative of the West-Saxon dynasty; and Sweyn Estrithson of Denmark sent a fleet to aid the rebels.

His descendant William, of Elmley, married Isabel, sister and eventually heiress to William Mauduit, earl of Warwick, and their son succeeded in 1268 to Warwick Castle and that earldom, which remained with his descendants in the male line till 1445.

The earldom of Dysart must not be confounded with that of Desart (Irish), created (barony 1733) in 1793, and held in the Cuffe family, who were originally of Creech St Michael, Somerset, the Irish branch dating from Queen Elizabeth's time.

In May Harley obtained the earldom of Oxford and was made lord treasurer, while in July St John was greatly disappointed at receiving only his viscountcy instead of the earldom lately extinct in his family, and at being passed over for the Garter.

At the commencement of the following reign his attainder was reversed and his brother Henry restored to the earldom; and Henry being appointed guardian to the young king Edward III., assisted him to throw off the yoke of Mortimer.

The earldom in the 10th century apparently included several other counties, and its most famous holder was the ealdorman Brihtnoth, who fell at the battle of Maldon in 991.

Between the Conquest and the 14th century the earldom of Kent was held successively by Odo, bishop of Bayeux, William of Ypres and Hubert de Burgh (sheriff of the county in the reign of Henry III.), none of whom, however, transmitted the honour, which was bestowed by Edward I.

On the occasion of the opening of the Royal Courts Lord Selborne received an earldom.

His life was prosperous, for from his first prize at the university till his acquisition of an earldom, he went on a course of almost unbroken success.

He regained his earldom and held it till his death, although he was once in serious danger from the avarice of theking (1239), who was tempted by Hubert's enormous wealth to revive the charge of treason.

His earldom died with him, though he left two sons.

His son, Donald of the Isles, was memorable for his rebellion in support of his claim to the earldom of Ross, in which, however, he was unsuccessful.

In that year the earldom of Caithness was granted to Magnus, second son of the earl of Angus, whom the king of Norway apparently confirmed in the title.

In 1471 James bestowed the castle and lands of Ravenscraig in Fife on William, earl of Orkney, in exchange for all his rights to the earldom of Orkney, which, by act of parliament passed on the 20th of February of the same year, was annexed to the Scottish crown.

In 1564 Lord Robert Stewart, natural son of James V., who had visited Kirkwall twenty-four years before, was made sheriff of the Orkneys and Shetlands, and received possession of the estates of the udallers; in 1581 he was created earl of Orkney by James IV., the charter being ratified ten years later to his son Patrick, but in 1615 the earldom was again annexed to the crown.

After the execution of the regent Morton, the 4th earl, in 1581 this earldom was bestowed upon Maxwell, but in 1586 the attainder of the late earl was reversed and he was deprived of his new title.

His son John, the 8th lord (c. 1586-1613), was at feud with the Johnstones, who had killed his father in a skirmish, and with the Douglases over the earldom of Morton, which he regarded as his inheritance.