Baron Mowbray

Baron Mowbray is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created by writ for Roger de Mowbray in 1283. The title was united with the Barony of Segrave in 1368, when John Mowbray, 1st Earl of Nottingham and 5th Baron Mowbray, succeeded to that title. His successor was named Duke of Norfolk. With the childless death of Anne Mowbray, 8th Countess of Norfolk, in c.1481, the Barony went into abeyance between the Howard and Berkeley families, and both styled themselves Baron Mowbray and Seagrave.[2]

Mowbray Barony held with Seagrave Barony, Stourton Barony
Arms of Stourton, Barons Mowbray: Sable, a bend or between six fountains
Creation date	1283 (abeyant 1481-84, forfeit 1485-1554, 1572-1604, abeyant 1777-1878)
Created by	Edward I (original creation) Edward IV (terminated abeyance) Mary I (restored) James I (restored) Victoria (terminated abeyance)
Peerage	Peerage of England
First holder	Roger de Mowbray, 1st Baron Mowbray
Present holder	James Stourton, 26th or 28th Baron Mowbray
Heir presumptive	four co-heiresses
Remainder to	heirs general of the body of the grantee
Subsidiary titles	Baron Seagrave Baron Stourton

Quartered arms of Stourton, Barons Mowbray: quarterly of six:[1] *1st: Sable, a bend or between six fountains (Stourton); *2nd: Gules, on a bend between six cross-crosslets fitchy argent an escutcheon or charged with a demi-lion rampant pierced through the mouth by an arrow within a double tressure flory counterflory of the first (Howard); *3rd: Gules, a lion rampant argent (Mowbray); *4th: Sable, a lion rampant argent ducally crowned or (Segrave);
*5th: Gules, three lions passant guardant in pale or armed and langued azure a label of three points argent (Plantagenet (Thomas of Brotherton, 1st Earl of Norfolk)); *6th Gules, a lion rampant within a bordure engrailed or (Talbot)

In 1639, Henry Frederick Howard, later 22nd Earl of Arundel, was summoned to Parliament as Baron Mowbray, which by modern usage would have represented a novel peerage, but an 1877 House of Lords ruling viewed this as affirmation of the prior termination of the abeyance of the original title. The Mowbray barony held by the Howard family fell into abeyance in 1777 with the death of Edward Howard, 9th Duke of Norfolk.[2]

In 1877 the senior co-heir, Alfred Stourton, Lord Stourton, petitioned the House of Lords to have the abeyance terminated in his favour, and though the original claim was for the resolution of the abeyance of the 1639 grant, a subsequently amended petition made a broader claim. A c.1484 royal letter in which John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, was given the assumed titles of Baron Mowbray and Seagrave was used as evidence that the abeyance of the 1283 peerage had been terminated in Howard's favour; there was no Berkeley representative in the hearing to point out that family had also used those assumed titles. The Committee for Privileges in the Mowbray-Seagrave Case ruled in Stourton's favour,[3] and in 1878 the original Barony of Mowbray, and then two weeks later the associated Barony of Seagrave, were called out of abeyance in favour of Lord Stourton.[2]

Thereafter, the Baronies of Mowbray and Seagrave were united with that of Stourton, and twice in the 20th century was briefly the premier barony of England when the only older title, the Barony of de Ros (created by writ in 1264), became abeyant before being called out of abeyance in favour of the senior co-heirs.