DORSET. 147 Earldom. TL 1411, to 11 20. TnoMAS Beaufort, br. of the, above, being yst. legitimated son of John (I'lantagenet, sii/lcd " of Gaunt ") Duke of Lancaster, was, S July Mil, cr. EARL OF DORSET. On 18 Nov. 1416, he was cr., for life only, DUKE OF EXETEK. He d., s.p., 27 Dec. 1120, when all his honours became extinct. See fuller account trader " Exeter " Dukedom, cr. 1416 ; ex. 1426. III. 1141. Marquessate. II. 1442. ^ 1. Edmund Beaufort, Count of Morteign, in") Norma ndy, nephew of the above, being yr. s. of John, 1st Marquess of Dorset abovenamed, was on 28 (or 18)( a ) Aug. 1411, cr. EAKL OF DORSET " with a grant of the same place( b ) in Pari, as Thomas, late Duke of Exeter and Earl of Dorset had used and enjoyed." [Hot. cart. 20 Hen. VI, No. 3.) He was, on 21 June 1442, cr. MARQUESS^) OF DORSET. By the death, 27 May 1441, of his elder br. John, Duke of Somerset, he became EARL OF SOMERSET (as heir male of his father) and, on 31 March 1448, he was cr. DUKE OF SOMERSET. He d. 22 May 1155, being slain at the battle of St. Albans. III. Earldom IV. 2. Henry (Beaufort), Duke of Somerset [1418], Marquess of Dorset [1442], Earl of Somerset [1397], and Earl of Dorset [1441], s. and h., 6. 1436, attainted by the Pari, that met 4 Nov. 1461. Jtestored 1163 (Rot. Pari. V. 511), but the restoration being declared void by the Pari, that met 29 April 1463, the attainder of 1461 again took effect. He was beheaded at Hexham 15 May 1461. > to j 1463. 2* M is Ho I g before this time, 1397, and that had endured but a few months. That one, the first Marquessate conferred in England, was Dublin, cr. 1 Dec. 13S5, cancelled the next year, when the recipient, Robert (de Vere), Earl of Oxford, was cr. Duke of Ireland, 13 Oct. 13S6 ; the second, was that of Dorset, or Somerset, conferred 1397 on John (Beaufort), Earl of Somerset (but from which he was degraded by Pari, in 1399) ; the third, that of Dorset (again), 1442, on Edmund (Beaufort), Earl of Dorset ; and the fourth, that of Suffolk, 1444, on William (De laPole), Earl of Suffolk. In 1470 the Marquessate of Montagu (5) was bestowed on John (Nevill), Lord Montagu (on his resigning the Earldom of Northumberland) ; in 1475 (6), that of Dorset (for the third time), on Thomas (Grey), Lord Ferrers of Groby (who had resigned the Earldom of Huntingdon) ; in 14S2, that of Berkeley (7), on Maurice (Berkeley), Earl of Nottingham ; in 1525, that of Exeter (8), on Henry (Courteuay), Earl of Devon ; in 1533, that of Pembroke (9), on the Lady Anne Boleyn, Queen Consort-Elect ; in 1547, that of Northampton (10), on William (Parr), Earl of Essex ; aud in 1551, that of Winchester (which, since 1571 was aud still is the premier existing Marquessate), on William (Paulet), Ear] of Wiltshire. The title of " Marquess " does not seem again to have been conferred till, in 1617, George (Villiers), Viscount Villiers, was made Earl and Marquess of Buckingham. The designation of " Marchio " had, from an early period, described the Lord Marcher or Governor of a frontier province. As early as the Coronation of Eleanor, Queen Consort of Henry III, John FitzAlan, Ralph Mortimer. John de Monmouth, and Walter Clifford, " Marchiones de Marchia Wallice," claimed, as the jus Marchiai to carry the canopy. ( a ) " Date ascribed in a patont of 12 Oct. 36 Hen. VI; 1457." [Courthopc]. ( b ) This appears to have been the first grant of precedency embodied in a patent ; an earlier instance of precedency (tho' not by patent) was that of the grantee's father John Beaufort, cr. Earl of Somerset, 10 Feb. 1397, whom the King "made sit in his place in Pari, between the Earls Marshal [Arundel] and Warwick " (Rot. Pari. Ill, P- 343), aud consequently above the Earls of Devon, Oxford, Salisbury, Stafford, Derby, and Huntingdon. See vol. i, p. 229, note "a" (sub " Banbury ") foi some account of " Precedency of Peers in Pari, by royal warrant." ( c ) This was the third Marquessate ever bestowed. See p. 146, note "g." L 3
