Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/118

 112

NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. vm. AUG. 9, 1913.

cannot at the same time be two earldoms of the same denomination, it would be point- less to insist on Thomas de Brotherton's earldom being the same as the Bygod earldom. In that case the king could not, so long as the Bygod earldom existed, grant any Earldom of Norfolk to any one ; and on this ground the case would un- doubtedly have been decided.

It is only fair to refer to two passages which might be supposed to favour the opposite theory. Near the end of his judgment Lord Halsbury used the expres- sion, " even if it had been possible to create two earldoms for the same county. " Lord Davey, immediately following the passage quoted above, said :

" Indeed, it may be doubted whether, having regard to the original conception of an earldom as an office, the lawyers of that day would have admitted the possibility of there being two earls of the same county."

Lord Davey expressly limits his statement to what " the lawyers of that day " might have thought. This very case shows that their opinion Would not be binding now, because everybody admits that they held that there could be a valid surrender of a peerage, the impossibility of which is the foundation of the judgment. Lord Hals- bury's remark may rnean no more, and in any case is balanced by his suggestion to counsel, " It is quite possible that there might be two Earldoms of Norfolk," to which counsel replied, " Yes, it is quite possible" (Official Report, p. 4).

On the whole, it is submitted that the true view is that expressed in Lord Mow- bray's Supplementary Case, p. 32 :

" The Crown can create and there is nothing to prevent it fifty Earls of Norfolk by successive Patents on successive days."

If this be so with regard to the somewhat special dignity of an earl, it cannot be other- wise in the case of dignities generally.

F. W. READ.

We are not authorized to conclude that the earldom itself existed in the times before the Conquest, but we find that the claims of inheritance to the dignity of Earl of Lincoln were derived originally from Anglo- Saxon ancestors. Camden, it is true, com- mences his enumeration of the Earls of Lincolnshire with the Saxons Egga and Morcar, the former of whom, he says, flourished in the year 716, and the latter he describes as the maternal uncle of William de Roumare, the first Norman Earl of Lincoln.

The former name, Egga, is not merely apocryphal, but purely fictitious. It occurs only among the witnesses to the spurious foundation charter of Croyland Abbey, a document fabricated by the monks of a subsequent age. Morcar is a person whose existence is better ascertained. He was the son of Algar, Earl of Mercia, and brother to Edgiva, the queen of the unfortunate Harold.

In the course of the chequered history of the ancient Earldom of Lincoln, we find it divided between coparceners ; we find it more than once transferred in an arbitrary manner ; we find it retained in the hands of the Crown and let to farm ; and throughout its early history, instead of a quiet succession from father to son, it exhibits an almost constant dependence on the rights of female inheritance. At the same time we have further to remark that, during all its vicissi- tudes, it never became extinct, until it finally merged again in the Crown, and its rights and estates became parcel of the Duchy of Lancaster. The following list is given of the Earls :

1140. William de Roumare, son of Lucy, Countess of Chester, and a descendant of the Anglo-Saxon Lords of Lincolnshire, made Earl of Lincoln by King Stephen in 1140; died before 1168, his grandson and heir being then under age.

1141. Gilbert de Gant, became Earl on his marriage with the Countess Roheis, another descendant from .the same Anglo- Saxon race ; Was Earl contemporaneously with William de Roumare; died 1156 with- out male heir.

1216. Gilbert de Gant, nephew and heir male to the preceding, but having no right of inheritance to this dignity ; made Earl of Lincoln by Prince Louis of France, but never obtained full possession of the dignity.

1217. Ranulph de Blondeville, Earl of Chester, great-grandson of the Countess Lucy just mentioned ; confirmed Earl of Lincoln in 1217 ; died 1232, having shortly before his death transferred this earldom by charter to his fourth daughter

1232. Hawise de Quency, widow of Robert de Quency.

1232. John de Lascy, Constable of Chester, having married Margaret, daughter of the Countess Hawise, confirmed Earl of Lincoln by royal charter, 23 November, 1232; died 1258.

1258. Henry de Lacy, son and heir; also Earl of Salisbury in right of his wife, Margaret de Longespee; died 1272.