Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 1 Vol 4.djvu/346

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348

cr. a Peer [UK] 23 March 1886. as BARON KENSINGTON of Kensington, co. Middlesex. He m. 19 Sep. 1857, at St. Columba's, Crieff, Grace Elizabeth, 1st da. of Robert Johnstone Douglas. of Lockerbie, in Scotland, by Jane Margaret Mary, 5th da, and coheir of Charles (Douglas, 5th Marquess of Queensbury [S.] She Was bur. 28 Jan. 1943.

Principal estates.—These, in 1883, consisted of 6,537 acres in Pembrokeshire, 391 in Radnorshire, 337 in Carmarthenshire, and 203 in Cardiganshire. Total, 7,471 acres, worth £5,379 a year[1]. Principal residence.-St. Bride's, near Haverfordwest, co. Pembroke.


KENT[2] (county of.)

Earldom. I. 1067, to 1088.

ODO. BISHOP OF BAYEUX in Normandy, one of the two sons[3] of Herluin DE COXTEVILLE, by Herleve, mother of William THE CONQUEROR, was b. about 130[4] and (by the influence of his said uterine hr., then Duke of Normandy), was consecrated Bishop of Bayeux in 1019; is said to have contributed 100 vessels towards the invasion of England, distinguishing himself, armed with a rugged club[5] or "baston," at the battle of Hastings. 1066. He received in reward the Wardenship of Dover Castle and a grant of 439 manors (of which 181 were in Kent) being made EARL OF KENT, 1067, of which county he possessed the third penny of the pleas as would apper from a charter (Selden's Titles of honour, p. 527), of his brother to the Abbey of Battle."[6] This Earllom has been sometimes claimed as a Palatine Honour.[7] From March to Dec 1067 and again 1073-74 he was Joint Guardian of the Realm, being, in 1075, Chief Justiciar thereof. In 1074 he took part in suppressing a rebellion of the Earls of Hereford and Norfolk, as also, in 1078, one in Northumberland. He appears to have been scheming for his election as Pope and was arrested in the Isle of Wight by the King himself[7] in the autumn of 1082 and imprisoned at Ronen for five years. In Sep. 1087 he was restored to this Earldom (but not to the office of Chief Justiciar) by Willian II. whon, however, he betrayed, joining (with his br., Robert, Earl of Cornwall), in a rebellion in favour of Robert Courthouse, to whom (as Duke of Normandy) he became in 1085 Chief Minister, but having been defeated by the King at Rochester in May 1088 he was again deprived of his Earldom. He joined the Crusade and d. num. at Palermo in Sicily Feb. 1096/7[8] where he was buried under a splendid tomb.[9]

  1. ↑ (a) The value of this property would read very differently if that possessed in or near London was included, such having been excluded in the return of 1873. See vol. ii, p. 51, note "a" (circa finem) for some remarks on this subject.
  2. ↑ (b) See "Notices of the Earls of Kent. post Conquest," by J. R. Planché, which appeared in the "Brit. Arch. Assoc." (1853), vol. ix, p. 361, &c.
  3. ↑ (c) The other son was Robert, Comte de Mortain in Normandy, cr. Earl of Cornwall, in England, whom see.
  4. ↑ (d) See Planche's "The Conqueror and his companions" (vol. i, p. 15), as to this date (in lieu of one after 1036 suggested by Professor Freeman) and (vol. i, pp. 88-107), for a general account of this Earl.
  5. ↑ (e) Probably to evade "the edict of the council of Rheims, 1049, prohibiting the bearing of arius by the clergy." [Planche's "Conqueror," &c.]
  6. ↑ (f) Courthope.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 (g) See vol. i, pp. 221–222, sub "Chester," for some remarks thereon by Mr. J. Horace Round.
  8. ↑ (i) As an Earl cr. by the King and as the King's Vice Regent, not as a Clerk or Bishop. [Ord. Vit.] According to "William of Malmesbury" he d. at the siege of Antioch in 1098.
  9. ↑ (k) "If rosterity is indebted to Odo for anything it is probably for the origin of that curious and valuable record of the Norman invasion known as the Bayeux tapestry," inasmuch as he, "as Bishop of Bayeux, alone had the power to deposit and display the representation of a subject from profane history in a sacred edifice." [Planché's "Conqueror," &c., where, also, the author alludes to a paper read by him in 1866 at Hastings, to the Brit. Arch. Assoc. summing up the various opinions, &c., pub. during the last 100 years on the subject of this historic tapestry.]
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