MAR'QUIS, or MAINTESS, the degree of nobility which in the peera-ge of England ranks next to duke. Marquises were originally commanders on the borders or frontiers of countries, or on the sea-coast, which they were bound to protect. In England the title of marquis was used in this sense as early as the reign of Henry III:, when there were marquises or lords-marchers of the borders of Scotland and Wales; and the foreign equivalent of markgraf was common on the continent. The first English marquis in the modern sense was Robert de Vere, earl of Oxford, who was created marquis of Dublin by Richard II., to the no small offense of the earls who had to jield him precedence. The oldest existing marquisate is that of Winchester, created by Edward VI. in 1551. The title was first introduced into Scotland in 1599, when the marquises of Huntly and Ham ilton were created.
The coronet of a marquis, as worn in the United Kingdom, is a circle of gold, with four strawberry leaves (or oak leaves), and as many pcarIs alternating with them, and placed on pyramidal points of the same height with the leaves. The mantle is scarlet, with three and a half doublings of ermine. A marquis is styled " the most honorable ;''' his wife is a marchioness; his eldest son takes by courtesy the next lower title in the peerage, except where that is identical with the title of the marquisate, in which ease he must take the next lower still, as in the case of the marquis and earl of Salisbuiy, wnose eldest son bears the courtesy-title of viscount Cranhorne. The younger sons of a mar quis arc styled " lord," and daughters " lady," with the addition of Christian name and surname.