| The Lordship of England: Royal Wardships and Marriages in English Society and Politics, 1217-1327 Subjects: Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1154-1399; Monarchy -- Great Britain -- History; Feudalism -- England; Guardian and ward -- Great Britain; Marriage -- Great Britain; England -- Social life and customs -- Medieval period 1066-1485; This thorough examination of the feudal powers of English kings in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries is the only study to analyze the actual pattern of royal grants and the grantees' use of their rights, and to place them in the social context of marriage, kinship, and landholding within the English elite. The royal rights, known as feudal incidents, included custody of a tenant's lands when he died leaving minor heirs, the arrangement of the heir's marriage, and consent to the widow's remarriage. Scott Waugh shows how the king exercised those rights and how his use of feudal incidents affected his relations with the tenants-in-chief. He concludes that royal lordship was of fundamental importance in reinforcing the power and prestige of the monarchy and in offering the king a valuable source of patronage. |