the.com/marquess
A noble ranked just high enough to look down on earls and up at dukes.
means A British nobleman ranking above an earl and below a duke, the second-highest rung of the peerage.
from From the French marquis, in turn from Old French marchis — literally a lord set to guard the marches, the borderlands of a realm. The frontier was the dangerous edge, so the noble who held it earned extra prestige; trace it back through Medieval Latin marchensis to the Germanic root mark, meaning a boundary or border (a cousin of the same 'mark' in Denmark). The English spelling 'marquess' kept the foreign flavour while distinguishing the home-grown title from the continental marquis.
- border guard
- Title born from defending dangerous frontier lands called marches
- rank order
- Fourth tier: below duke, above earl and viscount
- spelling chaos
- Spelled marquis everywhere except stubbornly British peerage
- wife's title
- His marchioness outranks every countess in the room
- rarest rank
- Fewest of all five British peerage grades