Word Finder - earls

definition

(nobility) A British or Irish nobleman next in rank above a viscount and below a marquess; equivalent to a European count. A female using the style is termed a countess.

definition

Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Tanaecia. Other butterflies in this genus are called counts and viscounts.

But perhaps the most celebrated of the early earls was;Ralph, Ranulf, or Randulph, de Blundevill (c. 1172-1232), who succeeded his father Hugh de Kevelioc as earl in 1181, and was created earl of Lincoln in 1217.

Since 1399 the earls of Chester have been also princes of Wales, although the act of Richard II.

The third descended to the earls of Arundel, falling to the share of the duke of Norfolk in 1415, and being divided in 1502 between the families of Howard and Berkeley.

From the earls of Cork it descended by marriage to the dukes of Devonshire.

In the same way earls and barons must only be fined by their peers, and a similar privilege is extended to the clergy, who, moreover, were not to be fined in accordance with the value of their benefices, but only of their other property.

Its head, the duke of Norfolk, is the first of the dukes and the hereditary earl marshal of England, while the earls of Suffolk, Carlisle and Effingham and the Lord Howard of Glossop represent in the peerage its younger lines.

By his first wife, Margaret, daughter and heir of Sir John Plays, Sir John Howard had a son who died before him, leaving a daughter through whom descended to her issue, the Veres, earls of Oxford, the ancient Norfolk estates of the Howards at East Winch and elsewhere, with the lands of the houses of Scales, Plays and Walton, brought in by the brides of her forefathers.

The bride was Mary, sole heir in her issue of her father Henry, the last of the Fitzalan earls of Arundel.

The Mowbray match had already brought to the Howards the representation of an elder line of the Fitzalan earls, who sat in the seats of their ancestors, the Aubignys and Warennes, great earls near akin to their sovereigns.

And now the younger line, earls of Arundel and Lords Mautravers, were also to have a Howard to represent them.

Thomas, son of the fourth duke of Norfolk's marriage with the daughter and heir of Thomas, Lord Audley of Walden, founded the line of the present earls of Suffolk and Berkshire and of the extinct Lords Howard of Escrick.

But three earls of his own house - Carlisle, Suffolk and Berkshire - and the Lord Howard of Escrick, an ex-trooper of Cromwell's guard and an anabaptist sectary, gave their votes against him, his nephew Mowbray being the only peer of his name in the minority for acquittal.

From this time, probably, East Anglia was governed by English earls, the most famous of whom were zEthelstan, surnamed Half - King (932-956) and his sons, lEthelwold (956-962), and tEthelwine, surnamed Dei amicus (962-992).

Its charter is said to date from 121 8, and it was the seat of the courts of the earls of Strathearn till 1 747, when heritable jurisdictions were abolished.

The 1st viscount was also the ancestor of the Earls Annesley in the Irish peerage.

It was later granted to the earls of Salisbury, who seem to have allowed it to fall into disrepair, for in 1315 and in 1319 the abbot of Sherborne was appointed to inquire into its condition.

Above the entrance are the arms of the Maxwells, earls of Nithsdale, to whose descendant, the duchess of Norfolk, it belongs.

Yet, when Edward was forced by home affairs to quit Scotland, Annandale and certain earldoms, including Carrick, were excepted from the districts he assigned to his followers, Bruce and other earls being treated as waverers whose allegiance might still be retained.

Two days later Isabella, countess of Buchan, claimed the right of her family, the Macduffs, earls of Fife, to place the Scottish king on his throne, and the ceremony was repeated with an addition flattering to the Celtic race.

Henry de Bohun figures with the earls of Clare and Gloucester among the twenty-five barons who were elected by their fellows to enforce the terms of the Great Charter.

It fell into the hands of the northern earls in 1563, and a garrison was maintained there after the rebellion was crushed.

Many of the Scots princes received their education as wards of the Lords Erskine and the earls of Mar, the last to be thus educated being Henry, the eldest son of James VI.

His cousin and heir, the 6th earl (1657-1666) was uncle of the 8th and 9th earls (1687-1722), both of whom fought for James II.

Being under the rule of the earls of Northumbria, York is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey.

Coming by marriage into the hands of the earls of March and Plantagenets, the manor was finally vested in the crown.

Throughout the 12th and 13th centuries the castle was strengthened and enlarged under successive earls palatine of Pembroke, who made this fortress their chief seat.

At this castle Mary queen of Scots was detained in 1569 under the custody of the earls of Huntingdon and Shrewsbury.

Actually, only some foreign counts could be said to be equivalent to English earls; but "earl" is always translated by foreigners by words (comte, Graf) which in English are represented by "count," itself never used as the synonym of "earl."

The great earldoms of the West-Saxon period were allowed to lapse; the new earls, for the most part closely connected with William by the ties of blood or friendship, were lords of single shires; and only on the marches of the kingdom was the whole of the royal jurisdiction delegated to such feudatories.

In 1075 the king's attention was claimed by a conspiracy of the earls of Hereford and Norfolk, in which the Englishman Waltheof, earl of Northampton, was implicated to some degree.

The earls of the Beauchamp line played a great part in English history.

In 1075 the king's refusal to sanction his marriage with the sister of Roger, earl of Hereford, caused the two earls to revolt.

To the south-east of the church, and divided from it by a screen, is the Derby chapel, the exclusive property of the earls of Derby, whose vault is contained within.

Burlington House, in Piccadilly, built in 1872 on the site of a mansion of the earls of Burlington, houses the Royal Society, the Chemical, Geological, Linnaean and Royal Astronomical Societies, the Society of Antiquaries and the British Association for the Advancement of Science, of which the annual meetings take place at different British or colonial towns in succession.

The result was that Edgar and Earls Edwin and Morkere and " the best men of London " repaired to Berkhampstead, where they submitted themselves and swore fealty to the Conqueror.

In the summer of 1388 the Scots invaded England by way of Carlisle, sending a small body under the earls of Douglas, Mar and Moray to invade Northumberland.

Hotspur was killed, the earls of Douglas and Worcester, Sir Richard Venables of Kinderton, and Sir Richard Vernon were captured, and the rebel army dispersed.

There are slight remains of a castle of the O'Donnells, earls of Tyrconnell, where the English, on attempting to besiege it, were defeated and lost heavily in their retreat across the river, in 1597.

Lord's Island was the residence of the earls of Derwentwater.

In 1070 Malcolm Canmore gave it to Cospatric, earl of Northumberland, ancestor of the earls of Dunbar and March.

Under the Norman earls of Cornwall this was rebuilt, embattled and furnished with munitions of war.

After 825 we hear of no more kings of Essex, but occasionally of earls.

In the 18th century the manor passed by marriage to the Courtenays, afterwards earls of Devon, and Robert de Courtenay in 1220 gave the king a palfrey to hold an annual fair at his manor of Okehampton, on the vigil and feast day of St Thomas the Apostle.

To the north of the town is Knowsley Park, the demesne of the earls of Derby, with a mansion of various dates from the 15th century onward, containing a fine collection of pictures.

There are some remains of the ecclesiastic establishments at Bonamargy, where the earls of Antrim are buried, Kells, Glenarm, Glynn, Muckamore and White Abbey.

The 18th-century town house, and some remains of the ancient mansion of the once powerful earls of Ross still exist.

He was opposed by the legate Pandulf (1218-1221), who claimed the guardianship of the kingdom for the Holy See; by the Poitevin Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, who was the young king's tutor; by the foreign mercenaries of John, among whom Falkes de Breaute took the lead; and by the feudal party under the earls of Chester and Albemarle.

He was dragged from the sanctuary at Bury St Edmunds, in which he had taken refuge, and was kept in strait confinement until Richard of Cornwall, the king's brother, and three other earls offered to be his sureties.

In 1534 Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, better known as Silken Thomas (so called because of a fantastic fringe worn in the helmet of his followers), a young man of rash courage and good abilities, son of the Lord Deputy Kildare, believing his father, who was imprisoned in the Tower of London, to have been beheaded, organized a rebellion against the English Government, and marched with his followers from the mansion of the earls of Kildare in Thomas Court, through Dame's Gate to St Mary's Abbey, where, in the council chamber, he proclaimed himself a rebel.

Soon after this it became the absolute property of the de Veres, who were subsequently created Earls of Oxford.