Marquess

Marquess

Marquess: the second order in the peerage of England, being below a duke, but above an earl. The title seems to have been originally given to certain officers to whom was committed the government of the Marches, or borders of Wales. We find the word Marchio used in this sense as early as the reign Henry III. The first Marquess in the modern sense of the word as Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, whose elevation for life to the marquisate of Dublin by King Richard II. (in the year 1386) gave no small offence to the earls, who were obliged to yield him precedence. In Sept. 1397, the same king made John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, Marquess of Dorset, which title was taken from him in the next reign. The oldest existing marquisate is that of Winchester, created by King Edw. VI. in 1551. A special coronet belong to the Marquess.