Maud Marshal

Family

Maud's birthdate is unknown other than being at the latest 1192. She was the eldest daughter of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke and Isabel de Clare, 4th Countess of Pembroke, herself one of the greatest heiresses in Wales and Ireland. She was a member of the Marshal Family. Maud had five brothers and four younger sisters and was the longest lived of the siblings. She was a co-heiress to her parents' extensive rich estates.

Maud's paternal grandparents were John FitzGilbert Marshal and Sybilla of Salisbury, and her maternal grandparents were Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, known as "Strongbow", and Aoife of Leinster, Princess of Leinster and Countess of Pembroke.

Marriages and issue

Sometime before Lent in 1207, Maud married her first husband, Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk. It was through this marriage between Maud and Hugh that the post of Earl Marshal of England came finally to the Howard Dukes of Norfolk. In 1215, Hugh was one of the twenty-five sureties of Magna Carta. He came into his inheritance in 1221, thus Maud became the Countess of Norfolk at that time.

Together Maud and Bigod had the following children:

• Roger Bigod, 4th Earl of Norfolk (1209–1270)
• Hugh Bigod (1212–1266), Justiciar of England.
• Isabel Bigod (–1250), married firstly Gilbert de Lacy of Ewyas Lacy, by whom she had issue; and secondly John Fitzgeoffrey, Lord of Shere, by whom she had issue.
• Ralph Bigod (born , date of death unknown), married Bertha de Furnival, by whom he had one child.

Bigod died in 1225. One of Maud's first acts as a widow was to transfer some Bigod lands to her son Roger.

Maud married her second husband, William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey before 13 October that same year.

Together Maud and Warenne had two children:

• Isabella de Warenne ( – before 20 September 1282), married Hugh d'Aubigny, 5th Earl of Arundel.
• John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey (August 1231 – September 1304)

Maud's second husband died in 1240 and she became a wealthy double dowager, with dower rights accrued from both of her marriages.

Maud's youngest son John succeeded his father as the 6th Earl of Surrey, but as he was a minor, Peter of Savoy, uncle of Queen consort Eleanor of Provence, was guardian of his estates.

Death

Maud died on 27 March 1248 at the age of about fifty-six years and was buried at Tintern Abbey with her mother, possibly her maternal grandmother, and two of her brothers Walter and Anselm.

Maud Marshal in literature

Maud is the subject of a novel by Elizabeth Chadwick, titled To Defy a King. In the book, she is called Mahelt rather than Maud. She and her first husband Hugh Bigod appear as secondary characters in books chronicling their parents's lives: The Time of Singing (UK: Sphere, 2008) published in the US as For the King's Favor; The Greatest Knight; and The Scarlet Lion.

Ancestors

Source:

References

• Thomas B. Costain, The Magnificent Century, published by Doubleday and Company, Garden City, New York, 1959

References

1. Thomas B. Costain, ''The Magnificent Century'', pp. 103–104
2. 978-1-317-01390-7.
3. Tanner, Heather J.. (2019-01-09). "Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100–1400: Moving beyond the Exceptionalist Debate". Springer.
4. Collins, Carr Pritchett. (1959). "Royal Ancestors of Magna Charta Barons: Including Ancestry of John Talbot, 10th Earl of Shrewsbury, and Elizabeth Knox, Daughter of Rev. John Knox and His Wife, Margaret Stewart. The Collins Genealogy; the American Ancestry of Kit, Dick, and Christy Collins". Carr P. Collins.
5. Browning, Charles Henry. (2012-06-14). "Magna Charta Barons and Their Descendants". Genealogical Publishing Com.
6. Costain, ''The Magnificent Century'', pp. 103–104
7. Weis, ''Ancestral Roots'' gives an additional son, Simon Bigod. A man of that name appears as a witness to one of Earl Hugh's charters (Morris, HBII 2), but as the eighteenth name in a list of twenty, suggesting no close connection to the main branch of the family. He is also named among the knights who surrendered to King John at Framlingham Castle in 1216. He was probably a descendant of Hugh or William Bigod, half-brothers to Earl Roger II Bigod.
8. Hickey, Julia A.. (2024-04-30). "William Marshal's Wife: Isabel de Clare, Woman of Influence". Pen and Sword History.
9. Connolly, Sharon Bennett. (2021-07-07). "Defenders of the Norman Crown: Rise and Fall of the Warenne Earls of Surrey". Pen and Sword History.
10. Morris, Marc. (2005). "The Bigod Earls of Norfolk in the Thirteenth Century". Boydell Press.
11. Charles, Dr Bertie. "MARSHAL family, earls of Pembroke".