MARQUESS, a title of honour used in England and on the Continent. Persons who have this title in England are the second in the five orders of English nobility. The dukes only are above them. In parliament all peers have the same privileges, by whatever title they are known. Marquesses in England have this privilege above earls, that their younger sons are addressed as " my lord," as Lord Clarence Paget, Lord Robert Cecil.
All titles of honour seem to have been originally the names of important offices, or to have denoted persons invested with a peculiar political character. Marquess is generally supposed, as we think justly, though other origins have been suggested, to have designated originally persons who had the care of the marches of a country. [Mencius.] In Germany the corresponding term is markgraf (margrave), which seems to be "lord of the marches." There were no English marquesses before the reign of Richard II. In the reign of Edward III. a foreign marquess, the Marquess of Juliers, was made an English peer with the title of Earl of Cambridge, and this circumstance probably suggested to King Richard the introduction of this new order of nobility. The person on whom it was conferred was his great favourite, Robert de Vera, Earl of Oxford, who was created Duke of Ireland and Marquess of Dublin in 1385. But the title had no long continuance in him, for three years after he was attainted and his honours forfeited.
In 1397 one of the illegitimate sons of John of Gaunt was created Marquess of Dorset ; but he was soon deprived of the title, and his son had only the earldom of Somerset. The title of Marquess of Dorset WAS however revived in the same family in 1443, when, also, William do Is Pole was made Marquess of Suffolk.
In 1470, John Nevil, Earl of Northumberland, brother to Richard Nevil, Earl of Warwick, the king-maker, was made 31arquess M on tacuto ; but he was soon after slain at the battle of Barnet, and the title became lost.
In 1475, Thomas Grey, Earl of Iluntingdon, son to the queen of King Edward IV. by her former husband, was made Marquess of Dorset; and in 1489, Maurice Berkeley, Earl of Nottingham, was made Marquess of Berkeley. Henry VIII. made Henry Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire, Marquess of Exeter ; and he made Anne Boleyn, a little before his marriage with her, Marchioness of Pembroke. William
Parr, Earl of Essex, brother of Queen Catherine Parr, was created Marquess of Northampton by King Edward VL; and William Powlctt, Earl of Wiltshire, Marquess of Winchester.
All these titles had become extinct in 1571, except that of Marquess of Winchester. This title still continues in the male representative of the original grantee, though for a century or more it was little heard of, being lost in the superior title of Duke of Bolton. • Queen Elizabeth made no new marquess, nor did King James I. till the fifteenth year of his reign, when his great favourite George Villiers was created Marquess of Buckingham. Charles I. advanced the Earls of Hertford, Worcester, and Newcastle to be Marquesses of those places ; and Henry Pierrepoint, Earl of Kingston, was made Marquess of Dorchester.
Charles II. advanced the Earl of Halifax to be Marquees of Halifax in 1682; and James II. made the Earl of Powis Marquess of Powis in 1687.
A new practice in relation to this title was introduced at the Revo lution. This was the granting of the title of marquess as a second title when a dukedom was conferred. Thus, when Schomberg was made Duke of Schomberg he was made also Marquess of Harwich ; when the Earl of Shrewsbury was made Duke of Shrewsbury ho was also made Marquess of Alter; and when tho Earl of Bedford was made Duke of Bedford he was also made Marquees of Tavistock. There were many other creations of this kind in the reign of William Ill., and several of marquesses only. It is not intended to name all the instances, either in this or the subsequent reigns. Of the existing dukes, eleven have marquessites in the second title, which is borne by the eldest son during the life of the father.
The only marquess who sits in the House of Peers as a marquess, and whose title dates before the reign of George III., is the Marquess of Winchester. The other marquesses, twenty-one in number, are all of recent creation, only seven dating from the last century, ono of whom, Tweeddale, sits as a Scotch representative only, though most of them are old peers under inferior titles.
The title seems not to have been known in Scotland till 1599, when Marquesses of Huntley and Hamilton were created.