"In Clent cow pasture under a thorn,
Of head bereft, lies Kenelm king-born."
A. M.
ISABEL, QUEEN OF THE ISLE OF MAN.
(Vol. iv., p. 423.)
The lady about whom FANNY inquires, was the wife of William Lord Fitz-Warine, who died in 35 Edward III. (1361), as to whom see Dugd. Bar. i. 447. The register of interments and sepulchral inscriptions in the church of the Grey Friars, London, printed in the fifth volume of Collectanea Topogr. et Geneal. (the entry is at p. 278.), which I presume to be the authority for the statement in Knight's London, does not afford further information as to this lady, who is reckoned amongst the four queens said by Weever (following Stowe) to have been interred in this church. Mr. J. G. Nichols, in his note to the entry referred to, does not add any information about the lady Isabel.
There was a Sybil, who was daughter of William Montacute, Earl of Salisbury and King of Man and Derby, one of the most distinguished characters in the heroic age of Edward III. She married Edmund, the younger of the two sons of Edmund Earl of Arundel, by Alice, sister and heir of John, last Earl of Warren and Surrey, who died in 1347 (Dugd. Bar. i. 82.). William Montacute was created Earl of Salisbury 16th March, 1337, and died in 1343, and was entombed in the church of the Friars Carmelites, London (Weever, 437.). He was connected with the family of John Earl of Surrey, for it appears from a grant made by the king in 11 Edward III. to William Earl of Salisbury, that he was entitled in reversion to certain hereditaments then held by John de Warren, Earl of Surrey, and Joan his wife (Collect. Top. et Gen. vii. 379.). The valiant Montacute, lord of Man, did not die without heirs male, for his son William was his heir; otherwise we might have supposed the dominion of the isle to have devolved on his daughter Sybil or Isabel, who, surviving Edmund her husband, may have married the Lord Fitz-Warine. Can evidence of such connexion be found? I have not met with anything to connect his family with the lordship of the Isle of Man, and am not aware that "Isabel Queen of Man" is mentioned in any record save the sepulchral register of the Grey Friars. I wish some clue could be found to a satisfactory answer.
The other branch of the question proposed by FANNY, viz., when did the Isle of Man cease to be an independent kingdom? can be answered by a short historical statement. So early as the reign of John, its sovereigns rendered fealty and homage to the kings of England. Reginald, styled King of Man, did homage to Henry III., as appears by the extract given from the Rot. Pat. 3 Hen. III., by Selden. During a series of years previously, the kings of Man, who seem to have held this isle together with the Hebrides, had done homage to the kings of Norway, and its bishops went to Drontheim for consecration. Magnus, last sovereign of Man of the Norwegian dynasty, died in 1265. From that period the shadowy crown of Man is seen from time to time resting on lords of different races, and its descent is in many periods involved in great obscurity. After the death of Magnus, the island was seized by Alexander III. of Scotland. A daughter and heiress of Reginald sued for it against John Baliol before Edward I. of England as lord paramount of Man (Rot. Parl. 31 Edw. I.). In 35 Edw. I., we find Anthony Bek, the warlike Bishop and Count Palatine of Durham, in possession of the isle; but the king of England then claimed to resume it into his own hands, as of the ancient right of the crown. Accordingly, from sundry records it appears that Edw. II. and Edw. III. committed its custody to various persons, and the latter king at length conferred his right to it upon William Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, in consideration, probably, of that valiant Earl having by his arms regained the island from the Scots, who had resumed possession, and of the circumstance that his grandmother, the wife of Simon de Montacute, was sister and heiress of one of the former kings of Man, and related to the lady who had claimed it as her inheritance on the death of Magnus. The son and heir of the grantee sold the isle to Scrope, Earl of Wiltshire, about 16 Rich. II. In the time of Hen. IV., Sir William Scrope forfeited his possessions (Dugd. Bar. ii. 250.); and the isle again came to the crown. It was granted to Percy, Earl of Northumberland, by the service of bearing the Lancaster sword on the left shoulder of the king on the day of coronation; was forfeited by Percy; and was thereupon granted by the same king to Sir John Stanley and his heirs, under which grant the Earls of Derby succeeded during many years. It was a subject of a grant to the Stanleys by Queen Elizabeth, and of an act of parliament in the reign of James I., under which the isle became vested in the Duchess Dowager of Athol, as heir of the body of James, seventh Earl of Derby, and ultimately became vested by purchase in the crown. It may be said that during the time of authentic history, the Isle of Man was not an independent kingdom, until the regality was granted by the crown, as already mentioned.
WM. SIDNEY GIBSON.
Newcastle-on-Tyne.