Earl of Shrewsbury with Pedigree

Earl of Shrewsbury

The Earl of Shrewsbury is the senior Earl in the Peerage of England. The title was created in 1442 for John Talbot, an English general in the Hundred Years War. An earlier creation occurred in 1074. These earls were sometimes styled Earl of Shropshire

Roger of Montgomery, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury

Roger of Montgomery, was one of the great Anglo-Norman magnates in the period after the Norman conquest of England. He was one of William the Conqueror's principal counselors. He did not fight in the initial invasion of England in 1066, instead staying behind to help govern Normandy. Afterwards he was entrusted with land in two places critical for the defense of England, receiving the Rape of Arundel at the end of 1067 (or in early 1068), and in November 1071 he was created Earl of Shrewsbury.

Roger first married Mabel of Bêlleme, who was heiress to a large territory on both sides of the border between Normandy and Maine. By her he had 10 children:

Roger, died before 1066
Robert of Bellême, 3rd Earl of Shrewsbury
Hugh of Montgomery, 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury
Roger the Poitevin
Philip, died 1099 while on crusade at Antioch
Arnulf of Montgomery
Emma, Abbess of Almenchêches
Matilda, who married Robert, Count of Mortain
Mabel, who married Hugh of Châteauneuf-en-Thimerais
Sibyl, who married Robert Fitzhamon
Roger then married Adelaide of Le Puiset, by whom he had one son, Everard, who entered the Church.

After his death, Roger's estates were divided. The eldest surviving son, Robert, received the bulk of the Norman estates (as well as his mother's estates); the next son, Hugh, received the bulk of the English estates and the earldom of Shrewsbury. After Hugh's death the elder son Robert inherited the earldom.

Earls of Shrewsbury, First Creation (1074)

Roger of Montgomery, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury (d.1094) , son of Roger the Great, married Matilda, daughter of Robert, Count of Mortain
Hugh of Montgomery, 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury (d. 1098), son of above
Robert of Bellême, 3rd Earl of Shrewsbury (1052-1113),son of 1st Earl, above.

Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury In the early 15th century John Talbot (d. 1453) became the first Talbot Lord of Sheffield in right of his wife Maud, the Lady Furnival, but took his later title, Earl of Shrewsbury, from his maternal estates in Shropshire, inherited from the Stranges of Blackmere; at the end of his long military career in France he directed that his body should be buried at Whitchurch in the same county. He inherited on the death of his elder brother, the Talbot estates of Goodrich Castle in Herefordshire, property on the Welsh borders and elsewhere.

The fourth and fifth Earls of Shrewsbury were both prominent at Court under the early Tudors and the Talbot patrimony reached its greatest extent in the time of Francis, the fifth Earl, who had large grants of monastic and chantry lands, notably Rufford, Worksop Manor and Worksop Priory, Glossop and Rotherham.

The arrangements made by the sixth Earl (d.1590) to provide landed estates for his younger sons and dowers for his daughters, are illustrated by various settlements. The Rufford estates were permanently alienated by the marriage of his daughter Mary to Sir George Savile and Handsworth and other Sheffield properties were long in dower to his widow, Bess of Hardwick. This Earl's wealth from his estates in at least seven counties and from lead and iron smelting in Derbyshire and Herefordshire were well known, but his expenditure as warder of Mary, Queen of Scots, depleted his fortune. His successor, Earl Gilbert (1552-1616), had three daughters and co-heiresses. The marriage of Alathea, the youngest, to Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel whose mother was Anne, one of the sisters and co-heiresses of George, Lord Dacre of Gilsland. Alathea is the ancestress of all subsequent Dukes of Norfolk. From her, the Dukes inherited the old titles of Baron Talbot, Strange and Furnival, until these fell into abeyance on the death of the ninth Duke.

In 1856 the Earldoms of Shrewsbury and Waterford passed to a branch of the family who also hold the titles of Earl Talbot and Viscount Ingestre, both created 1784, and Baron Talbot of Hensol, created 1733, in the Peerage of Great Britain. The 1st Earl of Shrewsbury was created Earl of Waterford, in the Peerage of Ireland, and Hereditary Lord High Steward of Ireland, in 1446, and the two earldoms have been united since. The Earldom of Waterford is sometimes called the "Premier Earldom of Ireland on the Roll", as the oldest Irish Earldom, that of Kildare, has been a subsidiary title of the Duke of Leinster for centuries and the Earl held the oldest Irish earldom held by anyone ranked as an earl. If Viscount Mountgarret proves his presumed claim to the 1328 Earldom of Ormonde, the Earls of Shrewsbury would lose this distinction, but they derive higher precedence from their English earldom in any event.