Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 1.djvu/282

 232 COMPLETE PEERAGE arundel Earldom. (°) At all events he was frequently so styled, though, occasionally, he is styled Earl of Chichester. Dugdale and many later writers con- sider him to have been Earl of Sussex. (") On the dismemberment of Mercia, in 1070, another Earldom was conferred on him, by the grant of nearly the whole of Shropshire (with, apparently, Palatine authority), together with the Castles of Shrewsbury and iVIontgomery, and the Lordship of the West Marches. (*") He was thenceforth generally known as Earl OF Shrewsbury, though occasionally (according to modern views, more correctly) as Earl of Shropshire. He is the " Comes Rogerus " of the Earls extending upwards towards (even if not including) primeval man. The words "memory of man " must, of course, be read in their strict legal significance, as indic- ating the reign of Richard I, so that the Act of 1627 (and, possibly, the admission of 1433 also) would not apply to any Earl of Arundel, prior to 1 189. The Redesdale Committee remarks on these proceedings that they " ought to be considered as an anomaly influenced by political views, and decided apparently without much discussion, and without the assistance of the Judges. " Moreover the assertion of fact by the claimant as to the Earldom having always depended on posses- sion of the Castle in the past " seems not to have been true, and not to have been made the subject of enquiry when the question was decided. " For a similar case of a charter creating a peerage, and setting out, as facts, unfounded statements of the grantee, see the Barony of Lisle, cr. 1444, in the same reign. (*) In the Berkeley Case (1861) it was argued for the petitioner that Arundel was and is an earldom by tenure. But this contention was discussed and rejected by Lord St. Leonards, Lord Chelmsford, and Lord Redesdale in their judgments on the Berkeley claim (viii H.L.C. 52, 101-2, 104, 137-8, 144-5). They agreed that, whatever might have been the original itatui of the dignity, it has not been held by tenure since the Act of 3 Car. I has governed its descent, {ex inform. J. H. Round.) V.G. (*") In an article, in the Archaeological yournal, on the " Earls of Sussex, " by J.R. Planch6 (Somerset Herald, 1866-80), the writer (after stating that without the third penny of the pleas of the county " the greatest authorities have denied that a man could be an English Earl, " argues that Earl Roger, having the custody of Chichester, may (as did the Earl in the time of King Edward) have had a third of the annual rental of the city of Chichester, and might, therefore, with good reason, be consid- ered Earl of Chichester. Planch6 states, however, that, on the other hand (to quote a parallel case) William de Warenne, who, in the Domesday survey, held the borough of Lewes and the Rape of Pevensey, receiving a third of the profits thereof, is never styled Earl (either of Lewes, or of Sussex) but simply William de Warenne. The fact, however, appears to be that Roger de Montgomery was an earl [i.e. Earl of some one county or more) and that (as was usual in those early times) his Earldom was indifferently styled either from his county of Sussex, or of Shropshire, or from the Castles of Arundel, Chichester, Shrewsbury, or Montgomery, which were, respectively, the " caput " of the Earldom. (See J. H. Round's Geoffrey de Mandeville.) A parallel case, in which the Earl of a county is indifferently styled either from the capital or from his stronghold therein, is that of William, Earl of Gloucester, who, on 29 Sep. 1155, attests a charter to Shrewsbury Abbey as Earl of Bristol (Eyton's Itin, of Henry II, p. 12). [ex inform. J. H. Round.) f^) The (palatine) Earldom of Chester (by gift of the county thereof), was, with similar power and privileges, granted, at the same time, to Gherbod the Fleming.