Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 1 Vol 1.djvu/160

 138 ARUNDEL. Earls. L 10G7. ARUNDEL( a ) (co. Sussex). 1. Roger pe Montgomery (who, in right of Ids 1st wife, Isabel de Bki.l&smb, was (1070-S2) Count op Alescos in Maine), having, during the invasion of England, remained, as Regent, in Normandy, came over thence, for the first time, with King William, in Dee. 10(57, and, at the Christmas festival, was a: an EARL, receiving, among other large grant! from the Conqueror, alwut one third of the county Sussex, including the city of Chichester and the Castle of AnUNDKt,.( b ) By this last grant he may be considered to have become KARL OF ARUNDEL, according to the remarkable admission( c ) in 1433 on the claim to that Earldom. . (") The old Sussex tradition is that — " Since William rose and Harold fell, There have been Earls of Arundel." (See " N. & Q.," 6th s., ix, 341.) And such (unless, perhaps, for a year or so) is the case if only for "of" we read "at," leaving it as an open question whether the earlier Earls were not (more properly) Earls of a greater territory, though styled as "of Arundel " from their chief residence. In treating of these Earls the Editor has followed Vincent in considering Roger de Montgomery (to whom the Conqueror gave the Castle of Arundel) to have been the first Earl of Arundel. Whether or no he and his sons (undoubted possessors of Arundel) are numbered among such Earls, is not, however, very material. ( b ) This formed the Honour of Arundel ', which consisted of the rapes of Arundel and Chichester, being two out of the six rapes into which Sussex is divided. It con- tained, besides the city of Chichester and the Castle of Arundel (as abovemuned), 844 Knights' fees (or 57,400 acres), ten Hundreds (with their forests, woods and chases), three Lordships (Halnaker, Petworth and Midhurst), eighteen parks and seventy-seven manors. See Tierney's " Hist, of Arundel," p. 12. ( c ) The claim to the Earldom as being one by tenure of the Cistle of Arundel was made by John Fitz Alan, alitu Arundel, who had been sum. to Pari, in 1429 a^ Lord AitUNDKL. In 1433 (11 Hen. VII he petitioned to be sum. to Pari, and considered .is Eurl of Arundel, "a dignity or name united and annexed to the Castle and Lordship of Arundel, fortime whereof memory of man was not to the contrary." This was "a peculiar and distinct claim " (as stated in the First Report on the Dignity of a Peer, page 406), " not connected with any general, but asserting a special right, and which, being founded on prescription, was to be supported by evidence of constant and immemorial enjoyment of the asserted right, which right if not shown to have been so constantly enjoyed, the title by prescription failed. This claim, though opposed by John (Mowbray), Duke of Norfolk, wet) ad.nilted by the Crown, notwithstanding that the assertion of the constant annexation of the title to the Castle of Arundel could not hue been sustained, had it been (which it was not) made the subject of an enquiry." See " Courthope," p. 30. The claim then of 1433 was, as is stated above, " admitted by the Crown, or bo far admitted as that the assertion in the p e t itio n is ina'e the consideration (with others not connected with the question) for the King's acceding to it, with a saving clause nevertheless of the right of the King, of the Duke of Norfolk (who, being the heir general of the Earls of Arundel, had opposed the Earl's claim) and of every other person ; which saving clause, as is remarked in the First Report on the Dignity of a Peer, wus that species of saving which is deemed in law illusory, opemtiny nothing." See Couithope's "Observations on Dignities," p. xx, and sec also Tierney's History of Arundel (vol. i, p. 106), where the judgment is set out reciting * that Richard Fitz Alan was seized of the Castle, Honour and Lordship [of Arundel] in fee ; that, l>y reason of his possession thereof, he was, without other reason or creation, EARL OF ARUNDEL, &c." ; and stating also, that " the King, contemplating the person of the present claimant, now Earl of Arundel, etc., has, with the advice and assent of the Prelates, Dukes, Earls and Barons in this present Pari, asssembled, admitted John, now Earl of Arundel, to the place and Beat anciently belonging to the Earls of Arundel in Pari, and council.'' Almost similar words are used in the Act of Pari, obtained in 1027, which, in form of a petition to the King recites that the Earldom of Arundel had been real and &X* from the time whereof the memory of man was not to the contrary, and had, from the time aforesaid, been used and enjoyed by the Petitioner and such of his ancestors