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But these things do happen; and one instance must form a theme for this story though not, thank Heaven, to the overshadowing of more vital and important subjects, such as drink, policemen, horses and earldoms. During a certain war a troop calling itself the Gentle Riders rode into history and one or two ambuscades.
By this alliance he became the wealthiest and most powerful subject of the Crown, possessing in right of himself and his wife six earldoms, with all the jurisdiction which under feudal tenure was annexed to such honors. In 1311 he became involved in the combination formed by several nobles to induce the king to part with Piers de Gaveston.
The great families of Fitzgerald and Butler obtained their earldoms of Kildare, Desmond, and Ormond, out of this dangerous crisis, but the premier earldom of Ulster disappeared from our history soon afterwards.
"Truly," said the maiden, "a widowed Countess owns yonder Castle; at the death of her husband, he left her two Earldoms, but at this day she has but this one dwelling that has not been wrested from her by a young Earl, who is her neighbour, because she refused to become his wife." "That is pity," said Owain.
Roger of Montgomery held the earldoms of Shrewsbury and Sussex, and Waltheof to his midland earldom of Northampton and Huntingdon now added the rule of distant Northumberland. The men who had fought most stoutly against William were the men whom he most willingly received to favour. Eadric and Hereward were honoured; Waltheof was honoured more highly.
Canute had divided England into four great earldoms, each ruled, under him, by a jarl, or earl a Danish, not a Saxon title.
That no serious trouble ever came from the so-called palatine earldoms is itself evidence of the powerful monarchy ruling in England. This centralization was one of the great facts of the Conquest. In it resided the strength of the Norman monarchy, and it was of the utmost importance as well in its bearing on the future history of England.
Moreover, the other Bohun co-heiress became in 1376 the wife of Thomas of Woodstock, the youngest of Edward's sons, the Gloucester of the next reign. The three Bohun earldoms of Hereford, Essex, and Northampton were thus absorbed by the old king's children and grandchildren. John of Gaunt, like Lionel, lost his wife early and sought a second bride abroad.
The wisdom of his policy in the destruction of the great earldoms which had overshadowed the throne was shown in an attempt at their restoration made in 1075 by Roger, the son of his minister William Fitz-Osbern, and by the Breton, Ralf de Guader, whom the King had rewarded for his services at Senlac with the earldom of Norfolk.
Longchamp was loyal to the king, but his exactions and scorn of Englishmen roused a fierce hatred among the baronage, and this hatred found a head in John. While richly gifting his brother with earldoms and lands, Richard had taken oath from him that he would quit England for three years.
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