Someone will soon be lording it up in Little Gaddesden after the title Lord of the Manor was put up for sale in auction.
Whoever buys the lordship, which can be used on passports and credit cards, will need deep pockets as it is expected to fetch between £4,000 and £5,000 at a London sale next Tuesday (May 20).
The owner will also be eligible for membership to the M
anorial Society of Great Britain and be able to attend an annual event at The House of Lords.
Manorial auctioneers selling the title said: "Think of the acquisition of a Lordship as the acquisition of a tiny piece of history when you become the latest in a chain of known owners going back many hundreds of years."
Lordships of the manor are the oldest land titles in England and its previous privileges included being able to collect taxes for the King and for some crimes they could arrest, try and punishing tenants.
Today the powers have diminished, although some Lords have been able to indulge in rights to common land, manorial waste and mines in the manor, however these depend on the area.
The history of the manor of Little Gaddesden can be tracked back to the Domesday Book, which was put together in 1086 for William the Conqueror.
William gave the manor to his half brother, Robert Count of Mortain, who was also responsible for Berkhamsted castle.
However, Robert rebelled against the King's son, William Rufus, around 1870 and the land was forfeited to the crown.
The manor next fell into the hands of Richard Earl of Cornwall, King of the Romans, who was Henry III's son.
Later the Earl's grandson, Edmund, granted it to the monastery he founded in Ashridge in 1286.
The Lordship remained with this foundation until the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry V111 in the 1530s.
Over the following years various dignitaries held the title until it was acquired by an ancestor of the Duke of Bridgewater, Thomas Egerton (Lord Ellesmere), in 1605.
Dukedom of Bridgewater died out in the 1850s and the vast estate was bequeathed to Earl Brownlow who sold it to the present owner.
The auction will be held in Stationers' Hall, London, at 2pm on Tuesday.
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