It would not be in place here to discuss the growth of the office with the growth of the administration, just as the constableship developed in its descent from Miles of Gloucester through the Bohuns. The one point to keep in mind is that the office of marshal descended from Gilbert temp. Hen. I., to Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk, at whose death in December (1306), the marshalship, by his own arrangement, reverted to the king.
It was the king’s intention to bestow it on his young son Thomas “of Brotherton”; but as he was at the time only six years old, it was given, ‘during pleasure,’ 3rd September, 1307, to Robert de Clifford,[614] and, a few months later, to Nicholas de Segrave (12th March, 1308), also ‘during pleasure.’[615] These appointments are important for their bearing on a note by Dr. Stubbs that
William le Mareschal had served as marshall at the coronation, but was superseded in 1308 by Nicholas Segrave, with whom he went to war in 1311. It was probably his dismissal that offended Lancaster in 1308; see ‘M. Malmesb.,’ p. 103; and he may be considered as a strong adherent of the earl (of Lancaster).[616]
It is the case that William Marshall had carried the great gilt spurs at the coronation of Edward II. (Feb., 1308), but we do not find his name on the Patent Rolls among the appointments to the “Marshalsea of England.” He can, therefore, only have been chosen to act at the coronation, and was doubtless selected, in preference to the temporary Marshal, as being hereditary Marshal of Ireland. Summoned to Parliament as a baron in 1309, he became one of the ‘Ordainers’ in 1310.
Robert de Clifford, whom Segrave replaced, was afterwards concerned in Gaveston’s death (or, at least, pardoned as being so),[617] but was clearly a strong supporter of the king at the beginning of 1308. And as appointments and favours were bestowed upon him for two or three years afterwards, one cannot think that he was out of favour, or that he can be alluded to in the passage cited by Dr. Stubbs from the Monk of Malmesbury:
(1309) unde magnates terræ cœperunt hæc pro malo habere et præcipue comes Lancastriæ, quia unus ex familiaribus suis, procurante Petro, ejectus erat ab officio suo.[618]
It could not in any case apply, as Dr. Stubbs suggests, to William le Mareschal. Professor Tout not only dates Segrave’s appointment a year too late, but goes so far as to say that, against him,—
William Marshal, a peer of Parliament and a collateral representative of the great Marshal family, claimed the office as devolving on him by hereditary right.[619]
It is obvious that the only person who could make such a claim was the disinherited brother of the late earl of Norfolk.
On February 10, 1316, the Marshalship of England became once more an hereditary office, being bestowed on Thomas ‘de Brotherton,’ then earl of Norfolk, and the heirs male of his body.[620]