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 386 BUCKINGHAM BUCKINGHAM (county of) or BUCKINGHAM- SHIRE Observations. — This is one of the most perplexing of our early titles of honour. Bishop Stubbs observes with truth that it is ' obscure in its origin,' and adds that it is ' probably to be referred to William Rufus ' [Const. Hist., vol. i, p. 361), but, proceeding to speak of the reign of Stephen, he writes, ' two or three Earldoms of uncertain creation, such as those of Buckingham and Lincoln, which were possibly connected with hereditary Sheriffdoms, appear about the same period.' [Ibid. p. 362). The Lords' Reports (vol. iii, pp. 154-155) throw no light upon the problem. There appears to be some charter evidence for the existence of the Earldom of Buckingham under William Rufus, but the main authority is that of Ordericus. His statement that the Conqueror coJiferred that Earldom is believed not literally to bear that meaning, and Walter Giffard was, by that name, a Domesday Commissioner, nor is he recognised as an Earl in Domesday (1086). But the description by Ordericus of him as * Comes Bucchingehamensis' in 1097, and again at his death in 1102, outweighs any description of him, elsewhere, by the writer as ' Gualterus Giffardus ' merely; yet the fact that this latter is his (Qy. his son's) style in the Charter of Liberties of Henry I (iioi) further complicates the question. His son is referred to in the Cartulary of Abingdon (vol. ii, pp. i33-i34)as Walterus Comes, J unior, cognomine Giffardus;' on the other hand, in the same work (vol. ii, p. 85) writs of Henry I are addressed to him merely as ' Walter Giffard.' At the battle of Brenneville (1119) he is distinctly mentioned by Ordericus as one of the three Earls on the side of Henry I. {ex inform. J. H. Round). '/'■ ■' EARLDOM. -^ I. Walter Giffard, Lord of Longueville in Nor-, p mandy, s. and h. of Walter Giffard,('') Lord of Longue- ^ ' ' ville (who accompanied the Conqueror in the Norman invasion, 1066), by Ermengarde, sister of William, Bishop next br. to Earl Reginald. As to the estates he was successful, the deed, which arranged for their so shifting, being upheld; as to the Peerage, however, as might have been expected, he failed, but (for consolation) was cr. Baron Sackville of Knole, Kent, 2 Oct. 1876, with a spec, rein., failing the heirs male of his body, to his two younger brothers (the only persons to whom the contingency of inheriting the Barony of Buckhurst could arise) in like manner. There are some few cases of a grantee sitting in a peerage conferred with a rem. to certain specified issue, e.g., that of the Hon. Thomas Viliiers, who was cr. Baron Hyde, in 1756, with rem. to the heirs male of his body by Charlotte, his then wife (heiress of the Hyde family), with a final rem. to the heirs male of her body; that of the Marquess of Londonderry [I.] who was cr., in 1823, Earl Vane, with rem. to the heirs male of his body by his then wife Frances Anne, heiress of the Vane family, &z. In the case of the Dukedom of Somerset, cr. 1547, though the younger son was preferred to the elder, the final rem. was to the heirs male of the body of the grantee generally. C) This Walter Giffard (the first) was a cousin of William the Conqueror, being