Maud Marshal, Countess of Norfolk, Countess of Surrey (1192 – 27 March 1248) was an Anglo-Norman noblewoman and a wealthy co-heiress of her father William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke

William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke

Sir William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke , also called William the Marshal , was an Anglo-Norman soldier and statesman. He was described as the "greatest knight that ever lived" by Stephen Langton...

, and her mother Isabel de Clare suo jure 4th Countess of Pembroke. Maud was their eldest daughter. She had two husbands: Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk

Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk

Hugh Bigod was the eldest son of Roger Bigod, 2nd Earl of Norfolk, and for a short time the 3rd Earl of Norfolk.In 1215 he was one of the twenty-five sureties of Magna Carta of King John...

, and William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey.

Maud was also known as Matilda Marshal.

Family

Matilda's birthdate is unknown other than being post 1191. She was the eldest daughter of William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke and Isabel de Clare, 4th Countess of Pembroke, herself one of the greatest heiresses in Wales and Ireland. Maud had five brothers and four younger sisters. She was a co-heiress to her parents' extensive rich estates.

Her paternal grandparents were John FitzGilbert Marshal and Sybilla of Salisbury, and her maternal grandparents were Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke

Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke

Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke , Lord of Leinster, Justiciar of Ireland . Like his father, he was also commonly known as Strongbow...

, known as "Strongbow", and Aoife of Leinster.

Marriages and issue

Sometime before Lent

Lent

In the Christian tradition, Lent is the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer – through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial – for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and...

 in 1207, Maud married her first husband, Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk. It was through this marriage between Maud and Hugh that the post of Earl Marshal of England came finally to the Howard Dukes of Norfolk. In 1215, Hugh was one of the twenty-five sureties of the Magna Carta

Magna Carta

Magna Carta is an English charter, originally issued in the year 1215 and reissued later in the 13th century in modified versions, which included the most direct challenges to the monarch's authority to date. The charter first passed into law in 1225...

. He came into his inheritance in 1221, thus Maud became the Countess of Norfolk at that time. Together they had five children:

• Roger Bigod, 4th Earl of Norfolk
  Roger Bigod, 4th Earl of Norfolk
  Roger Bigod was 4th Earl of Norfolk and Marshal of England.He was the son of Hugh Bigod, and Matilda, a daughter of William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke and Marshal of England. After the death of his father in 1225 Roger became the ward of William Longespée, 3rd Earl of Salisbury...
  
   (1209–1270), married Isabella of Scotland. He died childless.
• Hugh Bigod
  Hugh Bigod (Justiciar)
  Hugh Bigod was Justiciar of England from 1258 to 1260. He was a younger son of Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk.In 1258 the Provisions of Oxford established a baronial government of which Hugh's elder brother Roger Bigod, 4th Earl of Norfolk was a leading member, and Hugh was appointed Chief...
  
   (1212–1266), Justiciar of England. Married Joan de Stuteville, by whom he had issue.
• Isabel Bigod
  Isabel Bigod
  Isabel Bigod, Lady of Shere was an English noblewoman, the only daughter of Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk. She was the wife of Gilbert de Lacy, of Ewyas Lacy, and John FitzGeoffrey, Lord of Shere.- Family :...
  
   (c. 1215–1250), married firstly Gilbert de Lacy of Ewyas Lacy, by whom she had issue; she married secondly John FitzGeoffrey
  John FitzGeoffrey
  John FitzGeoffrey, Lord of Shere and Justiciar of Ireland was an English nobleman.John FitzGeoffrey was the son of Geoffrey Fitz Peter, 1st Earl of Essex and Aveline de Clare, daughter of Roger de Clare, 3rd Earl of Hertford and his wife Maud de Saint-Hilaire. He was Justiciar of Ireland...
  
  , Lord of Shere, by whom she had issue.
• Ralph Bigod (born c. 1218, date of death unknown), married Bertha de Furnival, by whom he had one child.
• William Bigod

Hugh Bigod died in 1225. Maud married her second husband, William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey before 13 October that same year. Together they had two children:

• John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey (August 1231 – c. 29 September 1304), in 1247 married Alice le Brun de Lusignan
  Alice le Brun de Lusignan
  Alice de Lusignan, Countess of Surrey was a uterine half-sister of King Henry III of England and the wife of John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey...
  
  , a half-sister of King Henry III of England
  Henry III of England
  Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...
  
  , by whom he had three children.
• Isabella de Warenne (c. 1228 – before 20 September 1282), married Hugh d'Aubigny, 5th Earl of Arundel
  Hugh d'Aubigny, 5th Earl of Arundel
  Hugh d'Aubigny, 5th Earl of Arundel was the last in the Aubigny male line to hold the Arundel Castle. He was the son of William d'Aubigny, 3rd Earl of Arundel, and younger brother of William d'Aubigny, 4th Earl of Arundel....
  
  . She died childless.

Maud's second husband died in 1240. Her youngest son John succeeded his father as the 6th Earl of Surrey, but as he was a minor, Peter of Savoy, uncle of Queen consort Eleanor of Provence

Eleanor of Provence

Eleanor of Provence was Queen consort of England as the spouse of King Henry III of England from 1236 until his death in 1272....

, was guardian of his estates.

Death

Maud died on 27 March 1248 at the age of about fifty-six years and was buried at Tintern Abbey with her mother, possibly her maternal grandmother, and two of her brothers.

Maud Marshal in literature

Maud Marshal is the subject of a novel by Elizabeth Chadwick

Elizabeth Chadwick

Elizabeth Chadwick is an author of historical fictions. She is a member of Regia Anglorum, a Medieval reenactment organisation.-Biography:Elizabeth Chadwick was born in Bury, Lancashire. She moved with her family to Scotland when she was four years old and spent her childhood in the village of...

, titled To Defy a King. In the book she is called Mahelt rather than Maud. She and her first husband Hugh Bigod appear as secondary characters in books chronicling their parents's lives: The Time of Singing (UK: Sphere, 2008) published in the USA as For the King's Favor; The Greatest Knight; and The Scarlet Lion.