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Marquis

Marquis, or Marquess, a title and rank of nobility, is the second in the order of the British peerage, and therefore next to duke. The word Marchio, in the Saxon and early Norman periods of our history, was applied to the Baron or Earl whose office it was to preserve the frontier (as on the borders of Wales or Scotland), usually called the Marches, free from the inroads of an enemy : so in Germany the Count or Graf of the border is called Markgraf, or Margrave. As distinguished from other titles of honour, it was unknown in this country till, in 1386, Richard II. created his favourite, Robert de Veré, Earl of Oxford, Marquis of Dublin, and gave him precedence between the degrees of Duke and Earl.

The first marquis in England was Robert de Vere, the ninth earl of Oxford, who by Richard II, 1st December 1385, was created marquis of Dublin for life, and assigned him his seat in Parliament below the Dukes and above the Earls. On the 13th of October following the patent of this marquisate was recalled, Robert de Vere then having been raised to a dukedom. John de Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, the second legitimate son of John of Gaunt, was created to the second marquisate as marquis of Dorset, 29th September 1397. He was deprived of the title in 1 Hen. IV., and when in 1402 the Commons prayed tho King in Parliament for restoration of the honor, the Earl, while thanking the Lords and Commons for their goodwill, humbly begged the King not to restore the title, as "le nome do Marquys feust estraunge nome en cest Ruialme."

From that time it occurs very sparingly in the lists of the Peerage, and seems most frequently to have been little more than a step to the higher honours of the Dukedom, and otherwise to have been peculiarly liable to extinction ; for in the long period of 500 years from the date of that first creation, only in twelve instances has the title of Marquis existed as the chief honour of its possessor for ? longer term than five years. The first Marquis was created Duke of Ireland in the year following his advance to the Marquisate.

It appears from the circumstances attending a second experiment, that in those early times there existed a prejudice against this newly invented honour. John de Beaufort (the eldest legitimated son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster) was created by the same King, in 1397, Marquis of Dorset; and, the dignity being taken from him in the first year of Henry IV. by Act of Parliament, from that time it was not in use till the reign of Henry VI., who again bestowed on a member of the family of Beaufort the title of Marquis of Dorset, which was soon afterwards merged in that of Duke of Somerset, and both were forfeited in 1463. The title of Dorset was, however, destined to be the first iu which the marquisate should take root in the House of Lords ; Thomas Grey, Lord Ferrers, of Groby, stepson of Edward IV., was by that King, in 1475, created Marquis of Dorset, which continued to be the distinguishing honour of his family till his grandson, father of the Lady Jane Grey, was created Duke of Suffolk in 1551, and attainted in 1554.

In the same year that the Marquis of Dorset was advanced to the dukedom, there being then one other existing Marquis in the person of William Parr, brother to King Hexry VIII.'s sixth wife, which title having become extinct in 1571, William Paulet, Earl of Wiltshire, was created Marquis of Winchester, and though, after one hundred and thirty-eight years, his successor was advanced to the Dukedom of Bol ton, the latter title being now extinct, the Marquis of Winchester continues at the head of the Peers of his rank to the present day, the next to him, indeed, bearing date only from 1784. Except for about twenty years in and after the reign of Charles I., when there were five Marquises, no more than three noblemen have ever borne this title cotem- poraneously in England till the second quarter of a century of the reign of George III., since which period its ranks have been filled up to about an equal number with the Dukes.

This degree of nobility first appeared in Scotland in 1476, when James III. created his second son, at his baptism, Marquis of Ormonde; "an empty title/' says Douglas, and it does not appear what precedence was allotted to it, as that of Earl of Ross, which the young prince received four years afterwards, entirely superseded it. The title does not appear again in Scotland till, in the year 1599, James VI. advanced the Earls of Huntly and Arran to the dignity of Marquis ; since that time it has been IxM-ne successively by two or three of the first families on their passage to the superior rank of Dukes, till the Union fixed the Marquises of Tweeddale and Lothian in the second grade ; to which the titles of Huntly and Queensberry have since been added, by the extinction of their respective dukedoms.

In Ireland the title was still more rare, indeed almost unknown, till near the close of the last century, but there are now eleven Marquises in the Irish Peerage.

The Marquis's style is "Most Honourable the Marquis of ," and is styled "my lord marquis." His wife, who also is " most honourable," is a marchioness, and is styled " my lady marchioness." The coronation robe of a Marquis is a mantle of crimson velvet, lined with white taffeta, and trimmed with a cape of ermine reaching from the neck to the elbow, distinguished by four rows of black spots on the right, and three on the left shoulder. His parliamentary robe, but for a similar distinction, would be the same as that of a Duke - scarlet, and has three uud a half doublings of ermin. His cap and coronet also resemble the Duke, differenced only by four of the strawberry-leaves on the rim being exchanged for as many golden balls.

The oldest son of a Marquis, though in law only an Esquire, takes by conrtesy his father's second title, and ranks next after the Earls. The Marquis's daughters and younger sons have by courtesy the titles of Ladies and Lords before their Christian and surnames, and all his children are styled Right Honourable.