Maud Marshal

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. Also known as Matilda Marshal, Maud was the eldest daughter of the Marshal family. She had two husbands: Hugh Bigod, 3rd Earl of Norfolk, and William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey.

Family Maud's exact birthdate is unknown, but at the latest she was born in the year 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 co-heiress to her parents' extensive rich estates.

Maud's 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 Leinster, Princess 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 Maud and Bigod had the following children: Roger Bigod, 4th Earl of Norfolk (1209–1270) Hugh Bigod (1212–1266), Justiciar of England. Isabel Bigod (–1250), married firstly Gilbert de Lacy of Ewyas Lacy, by whom she had issue; and secondly John Fitzgeoffrey, Lord of Shere, by whom she had issue. Ralph Bigod (born , date of death unknown), married Bertha de Furnival, by whom he had one child.

Bigod died in 1225. One of Maud's first acts as a widow was to transfer some Bigod lands to her son Roger. John de Warenne, 6th Earl of Surrey (August 1231 – September 1304)

Maud's second husband died in 1240 and she became a wealthy double dowager, with dower rights accrued from both of her marriages.