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, 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, and William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey. Maud was also known as Matilda Marshal.

Family

Maud's birthdate is unknown other than being at the latest 1192. 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. She was a member of the Marshal Family. Maud had five brothers and four younger sisters and was the longest lived of the siblings. 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, known as "Strongbow", and Aoife of LeinsterPrincess of Leinster and Countess of Pembroke.

Marriages and issue

Sometime before Lent 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 Magna Carta. He came into his inheritance in 1221, thus Maud became the Countess of Norfolk at that time. Together they had children: Hugh Bigod died in 1225. One of Maud's first acts as a widow was to transfer some Bigod lands to her son Roger. Maud married her second husband, William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey before 13 October that same year. Together they had two children: Maud's second husband died in 1240 and she became a wealthy double dowager, with dower rights accrued from both of her marriages. 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, 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 Walter and Anselm.

Maud Marshal in literature

Maud Marshal is the subject of a novel by Elizabeth Chadwick, 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 US as For the King's Favor; The Greatest Knight; and The Scarlet Lion.

Ancestors