Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 1 Vol 5.djvu/88

 86 LINCOLN. land there in the rebellion of 11 IS. but subsequently taking a leading part nu the other side. He was, however, reconciled to King Henry !. in ll'JS. and was made, by King Stephen, in 1135, one of the Lords Marcher*, and in 1138 joint Justiciar (.1' Normandy, being, shortly afterwards (11*01 V, cr. KARL (IF LINCOLN, (") probably ( a ) A complete list of the Earldoms conferred by King Stephen {nine, all of which were conferred in the short space of three years. ll::--tl . i., given in Appendix D. (entitled '• Tltc ' risen! ' Earls "J to Mr. .1. Horace Hound's '■ Geffrey tic MandeviUe, a stud;/ of the anarch;/," a truly wonderful work, of the greatest learning and acumen, which effectually disposed of many delusions which hang over Stephen's troublous reign. Among others (1) is the term " Fiscal," as applied to the Earls of Stephen's creation under the [erroneous] impression that they were provided for " by pensions on the Exchequer." whereas " the term liscns was used, at the time, in the sense of Crown, desmcsnc" and •' no such beings as riscnl Earls ever existed;'' another such delusion (2) is that " to abolish the lineal Karldoms [i.e., the Karldoms of Stephen's creation] was among the first of Henry's reforms," whereas not " a single man who enjoyed Comital rank at the death of Stephen can be shewn to have lost that rank under Henry U." Another delusion and one that, in an account of the Peerage, is more especially noteworthy is f3j "a most extraordinary " one. It is based on the radically false assumption of the poverty of Stephen's Earls," whence it is assumed that the}- were " taken from the ranks," whereas " they belonged, in the main, to that class of magnates from whom, both before and after his time, the Earls were usually drawn." The names Albini, Aumale, Beaumont, Bigod, Clare [2], Ferrers, Mantle- ville. and Koumare (being those of King Stephen's Earls) '"are those of the noblest and wealthiest houses in the Buronnye of Stephen's realm." To the nine Earldoms, created by Stephen himself, should be added six created by the Empress Maud, in or shortly after 1141 "the titles conferred by the rival com- petitors to the Crown," being "chosen from those portions of the Kealm in which their strength respectively lay. Nor do they seem to have encroached upou the sphere of one another by assigning to the same county rival Earls," while also the Earls themselves (as had previously been the case in the Earldoms of Buckingham, Chester, Gloucester, Huntingdon, Leicester, Northampton, and Warwick, these seven being with Surrey, which was an exception to this rule, the eight existing Earldoms at the accession of King Stephen) "took their title wherever possible from the countries in which lay their chief territorial strength," or, if that county was already disposed of, from M the nearest county remaining vacant at that time." "It may have been observed " [adds Mr, Bound] that 1 assume throughout that each Earl is the Earl of a County. It would not be possible here to discuss the point in detail, so I will merely give it as my own conviction that while Comital Rank was at this period so far a pergonal dignity that men spoke of Earl Hugh, Earl Gilbert or Earl Geoffrey, yet that an Earl, without a County, was a conception that had not yet entered into the minds of men." The 15 Earldoms created Dtmittti the hekin of Stei'Hen. — (9 by the King himself and (> by the Empress Maud, the latter being denoted by an* asterisk), are, when arranged alphabetically (from the list given by Mr. Bound) as under. [Albemarle, see York.] 1. Arundel, or CitKii ester, or Sussex (William tie Albini) before Xtnas, 1141. t. Bedford (Hugh DH Beaumont), 1 138 1" ["The dignity together with the fief itself lost in 1111 "]. [Cambridge. "A shadowy Earldom of Cambridge, known to us only from an Iuspeximus, temp. Edward III, need not be considered here."] [CuicuESTKii, see Arundel]. 3. 'Cornwall (Reginald Fitz Roy), nil I 4. Derby (Robert de Ferrers), 1138. 5. *Devon (Baldwin de Jledcers) before June 1111. 6. *Dorset, or Somerset (William de Uokun) before June 11-11. [This Earldom does not occur subsequent to 1142]. 7. Essex (Geoffrey de Mandcvillc), 1140. H. * Hereford (Miles of Gloucester), July 1141. 0. Hertford (Gilbert de Clare) before Xtnas 1141. [Kent. This Earldom often attributed to William of Ypret, being considered to have been one of Stephen's creations, was never so conferred neither did the said William ever receive an English Earldom.]