(Vol. v., p. 132.)
Mr. WM. SIDNEY GIBSON has correctly referred to the authority for this
designation; but it may be well, before pursuing the inquiry, to place
before the reader the very words of the register of the Grey Friars of
London:
"Versus quasi medium chori jacet dominus Willelmus Fitzwarryn
Baro, et Isabella uxor sua quondam Regina Man."
_Collectanea Top. et Geneal._ v. 278.
MR. GIBSON has also correctly added, that in my note to this entry I
have not afforded any information about the lady Isabel. It is true that
I searched for such information in vain; and the information I gave in
lieu was the date of the death of William Lord Fitz-Warine, viz., the 35
Edw. III. (1361), and the name of the lady he is known from record (Ex.
22 Edw. III. no. 39.), to have married, namely, _Amicia_, daughter and
heir of Sir Henry de Haddon. As there is not the slightest ground for
imagining that this Amicia was ever "Queen of Man," it must therefore be
concluded, supposing that the register of the Grey Friars gives a
faithful reflection of the epitaph, that the Lord Fitz-Warine had a
second wife. I am not inclined to adopt MR. GIBSON'S suggestion that
this lady was _Sibilla_, daughter of William de Montacute, first Earl of
Salisbury, because the lordship of Man descended to the second earl, and
he possessed it until the 16 Ric. II. (1393). It seems therefore that
the only "Queen of Man" that could be the wife of William Lord
Fitz-Warine, must have been the widow of the first Earl of Salisbury,
who died in 1343. The wife of that earl and the mother of his heir was
_Katharine_, daughter of William Lord Granson, as Mr. Beltz gives that
name, correcting the more prevalent form of Grandison. The question
therefore to be decided is--Did this lady survive him, or did he marry a
second wife named _Isabella_? In either case, I think it is clear that
the lady buried at the Grey Friars was the Dowager Countess of
Salisbury. Mr. Beltz has given a memoir of Sir William Fitz-Warine in
his _Memorials of the Garter_, but he was not aware of the baron's
connexion with "the Queen of Man." Dying of the plague on the 28th Oct.
1361, it was probably in haste that his body was interred in the church
of the Grey Friars, and the queen may have fallen a victim to the same
pestilence. There is an effigy in the church at Wantage which is
ascribed to this Lord Fitz-Warine; and it is accompanied by one of a
lady, probably Amicia Haddon, on whose death, some time before his own,
that monument may have been erected. These effigies are engraved in the
series by Hollis. There is a peculiarity attending the barony of this
William Fitz-Warine. He was first summoned by writ in 1342 [qu. if 1343,
and thus after his marriage with the Dowager Countess of Salisbury?];
and though he left a son and heir, Sir Ivo Fitz-Warine, that son was
never summoned to parliament. A similar course has been observed in
other cases where the title to a barony was _jure uxoris_, in which
condition may be included the state of the second husband of a countess,
there being instances of men in that position being summoned to
parliament _as barons_, whilst the countesses their wives were living,
and no longer. Thus it is possible that Fitz-Warine was summoned,
because he had married the countess and "queen;" and his son Ivo was not
summoned, because he was the son of Amicia Haddon.
With regard to the titles of King or Queen of Man, they do not appear to
be recognised by records, but merely by the chroniclers. Dugdale has
quoted from the history of Thomas de la Marc, that William, Earl Of
Salisbury, having in 16 Edw. III. (1342) conquered the Isle of Man (from
the Scots), the king gave him the inheritance, and _crowned him king
thereof_; and Walsingham and Otterbourne (p. 153.) relate that the
Vice-Chamberlaine, Sir William Scrope, in 16 Ric. II. (1393) purchased
the sovereignty of the Isle of Man _cum corona_. But the word _dominus_,
not _rex_, is employed in Latin records, and _seigneur_ in French. On
the seal of the first Earl of Salisbury he is styled _dominus de dynbi
et mannie_, and on his counterseal _dominus de man et de dynbi_; and on
a counter or privy seal of the second earl he is styled _dominus mannie
et de dynbi_ (_i.e._ Denbigh, not "Derby," as misprinted in p. 132.
_antea_). These seals have been recently engraved in the Salisbury
volume of the Archæological Institute. The second earl in his will, made
the 20th April, 1397, styles himself "Earl of Salisbury and Lord of the
Isles of Man and Wiht," although he had then sold the lordship of Man
some years before. In the Harleian charters is a bond from the purchaser
to the famous Sir Richard Whityngton, citizen and mercer of London,
dated 29th Aug. 1393, in which he is described as "William le Scrope,
Seigneur de Man et des Isles;" and in the truce with France on the 10th
March, 1394, "Monsieur Gwilliam le Scrope" is recorded to have assented
to the proceedings "pour le seigneury de Man," as one of the _allies_ of
the King of England. (_Foedera_, iii. part iv. p. 95.) It is not easy to
determine when or where these potent subjects really assumed the rank or
title of "king" and "queen;" and it must be recollected that the King of
England himself was at the same period content to call himself only
"Lord of Ireland," as the Earl of Salisbury was "Lord of Man."
It may stimulate MR. GIBSON, as a north countryman, to further
researches in this matter to remind him that it is to Katharine,
Countess of Salisbury, at the Castle of Wark in Northumberland, that Mr.
Beltz has traced the anecdote related by Froissart of the especial
admiration which King Edward III. conceived for a Countess of Salisbury;
connected with which are some of the legendary stories of the origin of
the Order of the Garter (see _Memorials of the Garter_, pp. 63. et
seq.). It would be a remarkable fact to ascertain that the object of the
king's gallantry became afterwards even a nominal queen.