Chapter 10

Livy xxiii. 14-17, 41-46; xxiv. 27-32, 35-39; xxv. 5-7, 23-31; xxvi. 26, 29-32; xxvii. 1-5, 21-28; Polybius viii. 5-9, x. 32; Appian,Hannib.50; Florus ii. 6.

2.M. Claudius Marcellus, an inveterate opponent of Julius Caesar. During his consulship (51B.C.) he proposed to remove Caesar from his army in March 49, but this decision was delayed by Pompey’s irresolution and the skilful opposition of the tribune C. Curio (seeCaesar, Julius). In January 49 he tried to put off declaring war against Caesar till an army could be got ready, but his advice was not taken. When Pompey left Italy, Marcus and his brother Gaius followed, while his cousin withdrew to Liternum. After Pharsalus M. Marcellus retired to Mytilene, where he practised rhetoric and studied philosophy. In 46 his cousin and the senate successfully appealed to Caesar to pardon him, and Marcellus reluctantly consented to return. On this occasion Cicero’s1speechPro Marcellowas delivered. Marcellus left for Italy, but was murdered in May by one of his own attendants, P. Magius Chilo, in the Peiraeus. Marcellus was a thorough aristocrat. He was an eloquent speaker (Cicero,Brutus, 71), and a man of firm character, although not free from avarice.

See Cicero,Ad fam.iv. 4, 7, 10, andAd Att.v. 11 (ed. Tyrrell and Purser); Caesar,B. C.i. 2; Suetonius,Caesar, 29; G. Boissier,Cicero and his Friends(Eng. trans., 1897).

3.M. Claudius Marcellus(c.43-23B.C.), son of C. Marcellus and Octavia, sister of Augustus. In 25 he was adopted by the emperor and married to his daughter Julia. This seemed to mark him out as the heir to the throne, but Augustus, when attacked by a serious illness, gave his signet to M. Vipsanius Agrippa. In 23 Marcellus, then curule aedile, died at Baiae. Livia was suspected of having poisoned him to get the empire for her son Tiberius. Great hopes had been built on the youth, and he was celebrated by many writers, especially by Virgil in a famous passage (Aeneid, vi. 860). He was buried in the Campus Martius, and Augustus himself pronounced the funeral oration. The Theatrum Marcelli (remains of which can still be seen) was afterwards dedicated in his honour.

Horace,Odes, i. 12; Propertius iii. 18; Dio Cassius liii. 28, 30; Tacitus,Annals, ii. 41; Suetonius,Augustus, 63; Vell. Pat. ii. 93.

1The authorship of this speech has been disputed.

MARCESCENT(Lat.marcescens, withering), a botanical term for withering without falling off.

MARCH, EARLS OF,title derived from the “marches” or boundaries (1) between England and Wales, and (2) England and Scotland, and held severally by great feudal families possessed of lands in those border districts. The earls of March on the Welsh borders were descended from Roger de Mortemer (so called from his castle of Mortemer in Normandy), who was connected by marriage with the dukes of Normandy. His son Ralph (d.c.1104) figures in Domesday as the holder of vast estates in Shropshire, Herefordshire and other parts of England, especially in the west; and his grandson Hugh de Mortimer, founder of the priory of Wigmore in Herefordshire, was one of the most powerful of the barons reduced to submission by Henry II., who compelled him to surrender his castles of Cleobury and Wigmore. The Mortimers, however, continued to exercise almost undisputed sway, as lords of Wigmore, over the western counties and the Welsh marches.

I.Welsh Marches.—Roger de Mortimer(c.1286-1330), 8th baron of Wigmore and 1st earl of March, being an infant at the death of his father, Edmund, was placed by Edward I. under the guardianship of Piers Gaveston, and was knighted by Edward in 1306; Mortimer’s mother being a relative of Edward’s consort, Eleanor of Castile. Through his marriage with Joan de Joinville, or Genevill, Roger not only acquired increased possessions on the Welsh marches, including the important castle of Ludlow, which became the chief stronghold of the Mortimers, but also extensive estates and influence in Ireland, whither he went in 1308 to enforce his authority. This brought him into conflict with the De Lacys, who turned for support to Edward Bruce, brother of Robert Bruce, king of Scotland. Mortimer was appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland by Edward II. in 1316,and at the head of a large army drove Bruce to Carrickfergus, and the De Lacys into Connaught, wreaking vengeance on their adherents whenever they were to be found. He was then occupied for some years with baronial disputes on the Welsh border until about 1318, when he began to interest himself in the growing opposition to Edward II. and his favourites, the Despensers; and he supported Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford, in refusing to obey the king’s summons to appear before him in 1321. Forced to surrender to the king at Shrewsbury in January 1322, Mortimer was consigned to the Tower of London, whence he escaped to France in August 1324. In the following year Isabella, wife of Edward II., anxious to escape from her husband, obtained his consent to her going to France to use her influence with her brother, Charles IV., in favour of peace. At the French court the queen found Roger Mortimer; she became his mistress soon afterwards, and at his instigation refused to return to England so long as the Despensers retained power as the king’s favourites. The scandal of Isabella’s relations with Mortimer compelled them both to withdraw from the French court to Flanders, where they obtained assistance for an invasion of England. Landing in England in September 1326, they were joined by Henry, earl of Lancaster; London rose in support of the queen; and Edward took flight to the west, whither he was pursued by Mortimer and Isabella. After wandering helplessly for some weeks in Wales, the king was taken on the 16th of November, and was compelled to abdicate in favour of his son. But though the latter was crowned as Edward III. in January 1327, the country was ruled by Mortimer and Isabella, who procured the murder of Edward II. in the following September. Rich estates and offices of profit and power were now heaped on Mortimer, and in September 1328 he was created earl of March. Greedy and grasping, he was no more competent than the Despensers to conduct the government of the country. The jealousy and anger of Lancaster having been excited by March’s arrogance, Lancaster prevailed upon the young king, Edward III., to throw off the yoke of his mother’s paramour. At a parliament held at Nottingham in October 1330 a plot was successfully carried out by which March was arrested in the castle, and, in spite of Isabella’s entreaty to her son to “have pity on the gentle Mortimer,” was conveyed to the Tower. Accused of assuming royal power and of various other high misdemeanours, he was condemned without trial and hanged at Tyburn on the 29th of November 1330, his vast estates being forfeited to the crown. March’s wife, by whom he had four sons and eleven daughters, survived till 1356. The daughters all married into powerful families, chiefly of Marcher houses. His eldest son, Edmund, was father of Roger Mortimer (c.1328-1360), who was knighted by Edward III. in 1346, and restored to his grandfather’s title as 2nd earl of March.

Edmund de Mortimer(1351-1381), 3rd earl of March, was son of Roger, 2nd earl of March, by his wife Philippa, daughter of William Montacute, 1st earl of Salisbury. Being an infant at the death of his father, Edmund, as a ward of the crown, was placed by Edward III. under the care of William of Wykeham and Richard Fitzalan, earl of Arundel. The position of the young earl, powerful on account of his possessions and hereditary influence in the Welsh marches, was rendered still more important by his marriage in 1368 to Philippa, only daughter of Lionel, duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III. Lionel’s wife was Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of William de Burgh, 6th Lord of Connaught and 3rd earl of Ulster, and Lionel had himself been created earl of Ulster before his marriage. The earl of March, therefore, not only became the representative of one of the chief Anglo-Norman lordships in Ireland in right of his wife Philippa, but the latter, on the death of her father shortly after her marriage, stood next in succession to the crown after the Black Prince and his sickly son Richard, afterwards king Richard II. This marriage had, therefore, far-reaching consequences in the history of England, giving rise to the claim of the house of York to the crown of England, contested in the War of the Roses; Edward IV. being descended from the third son of Edward III. as great-great-grandson of Philippa, countess of March, and in the male line from Edmund, duke of York, fifth son of Edward III.

Mortimer, now styled earl of March and Ulster, became marshal of England in 1369, and was employed in various diplomatic missions during the next following years. He was a member of the committee appointed by the Peers to confer with the Commons in 1373—the first instance of such a joint conference since the institution of representative parliaments—on the question of granting supplies for John of Gaunt’s war in France; and in the opposition to Edward III. and the court party, which grew in strength towards the end of the reign, March took the popular side, being prominent in the Good Parliament of 1376 among the lords who, encouraged by the Prince of Wales, concerted an attack upon the court party led by John of Gaunt. The Speaker of the Commons in this parliament was March’s steward, Peter de la Mare; he firmly withstood John of Gaunt in stating the grievances of the Commons, in supporting the impeachment of several high court officials, and in procuring the banishment of the king’s mistress, Alice Perrers. March was a member of the administrative council appointed by the same parliament after the death of the Black Prince to attend the king and advise him in all public affairs. On the accession of Richard II., a minor, in 1377, the earl became a member of the standing council of government; though as father of the heir-presumptive to the crown he wisely abstained from claiming any actually administrative office. The most powerful person in the realm was, however, John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, whose jealousy of March led to the acceptance by the latter of the lieutenancy of Ireland in 1379. March succeeded in asserting his authority in eastern Ulster, but failed to subdue the O’Neills farther west. Proceeding to Munster to put down the turbulency of the chieftains of the south, March died at Cork on the 27th of December 1381. He was buried in Wigmore Abbey, of which he had been a benefactor, and where his wife Philippa who died about the same time was also interred. The earl had two sons and two daughters, the elder of whom, Elizabeth, married Henry Percy (Hotspur), son of the earl of Northumberland. His eldest son Roger succeeded him as 4th earl of March and Ulster. His second son Edmund (1376-1409) played an important part in conjunction with his brother-in-law Hotspur against Owen Glendower; but afterwards joined the latter, whose daughter he married about 1402.

Roger de Mortimer, 4th earl of March and Ulster (1374-1398), son of the 3rd earl, succeeded to the titles and estates of his family when a child of seven, and a month afterwards he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland, his uncle Sir Thomas Mortimer acting as his deputy. Being a ward of the Crown, his guardian was the earl of Kent, half-brother to Richard II.; and in 1388 he married Kent’s daughter, Eleanor. The importance which he owed to his hereditary influence and possessions, and especially to his descent from Edward III., was immensely increased when Richard II. publicly acknowledged him as heir-presumptive to the crown in 1385. In 1394 he accompanied Richard to Ireland, but notwithstanding a commission from the king as lieutenant of the districts over which he exercised nominal authority by hereditary right, he made little headway against the native Irish chieftains. March enjoyed great popularity in England though he took no active part in opposing the despotic measures of the king; in Ireland he illegally assumed the native Irish costume. In August 1398 he was killed in fight with an Irish clan, and was buried in Wigmore Abbey. March’s daughter Anne married Richard earl of Cambridge, son of Edmund duke of York, fifth son of Edward III.; their son Richard, duke of York, was father of King Edward IV., who thus derived his title to the crown and acquired the estates of the house of Mortimer.

Edmund de Mortimer(1391-1425), 5th earl of March and Ulster, son of the 4th earl, succeeded to his father’s claim to the crown as well as to his title and estates on the death of the latter in Ireland in 1398. In the following year Richard II. was deposed and the crown seized by Henry of Lancaster. The young earl of March and his brother Roger were then kept in custodyby Henry IV., who, however, treated them honourably, until March 1405, when they were carried off from Windsor Castle by the opponents of the Lancastrian dynasty, of whom their uncle Sir Edmund Mortimer (see above) and his brother-in-law Henry Percy (Hotspur) were leaders in league with Owen Glendower. The boys were recaptured, and in 1409 were committed to the care of the prince of Wales. On the accession of the latter as Henry V., in 1413, the earl of March was set at liberty and restored to his estates, his brother Roger having died some years previously; and he continued to enjoy the favour of the king in spite of a conspiracy in 1415 to place him on the throne, in which his brother-in-law, the earl of Cambridge, played the leading part. March accompanied Henry V. throughout his wars in France, and on the king’s death in 1422 became a member of the council of regency. He died in Ireland in 1425, and as he left no issue the earldom of March in the house of Mortimer became extinct, the estates passing to the last earl’s nephew Richard, who in 1435 was officially styled duke of York, earl of March and Ulster, and baron of Wigmore. Richard’s son Edward having ascended the throne in 1461 as Edward IV., the earldom of March became merged in the crown.

See Thomas Rymer,Foedera, &c. (London, 1704-1732); T. F. Tout,The Political History of England, vol. iii., ed. by William Hunt and R. L. Poole (London, 1905); Sir William Dugdale,Monasticon anglicanum(3 vols., London, 1655-1673); William Stubbs,Constitutional History of England, vol. ii.

II.Scottish Marches.—The Scottish earls of March were descended from Crinan, whose son Maldred married Algitha, daughter of Ughtred, earl of Northumberland, by Elgiva, daughter of the Saxon king Æthelred. Maldred’s son Cospatrick, or Gospatrick, was made earl of Northumberland by William the Conqueror; but being soon afterwards deprived of this position he fled to Scotland, where Malcolm Canmore, king of Scotland, welcomed him and granted him Dunbar and the adjoining lands. Two generations of Cospatricks followed in lineal succession, bearing the title of earl, but without territorial designation. Cospatrick II. witnessed the charter of Alexander I. founding the abbey of Scone in 1115. The 3rd earl, also named Cospatrick, a liberal benefactor of Melrose Abbey, died in 1166, leaving two sons, the younger of whom was the ancestor of the earls of Home. The elder son, Waltheof, was the first of the family to be styled “Comes de Dunbar,” about the year 1174. His importance is proved by the fact that he was one of the hostages for the performance of the Treaty of Falaise for the liberation of William the Lion in 1175. Waltheof’s son Patrick Dunbar (the name Dunbar, derived from the family estates, now becoming an hereditary surname), styled 5th earl of Dunbar, although his father had been the first to adopt the territorial designation, was keeper of Berwick Castle, and married Ada, natural daughter of William the Lion. His grandson Patrick, 7th earl, headed the party that liberated King Alexander III. in 1255 from the Comyns, and in the same year was nominated guardian of the king and queen by the Treaty of Roxburgh. He signed the Treaty of Perth (July 6, 1266) by which Magnus VI. of Norway ceded the Isle of Man and the Hebrides to Scotland. His wife was Christian, daughter of Robert Bruce, the competitor for the crown of Scotland.

Patrick Dunbar, 8th earl of Dunbar and 1st earl of March, claimed the crown of Scotland in 1291 as descendant of Ada, daughter of William the Lion. He was one of the “seven earls of Scotland,” a distinct body separate from the other estates of the realm, who claimed the right to elect a king in cases of disputed succession, and whose authority was, perhaps, to be traced to the seven provinces of the Pictish kingdom. He was the first of the earls of Dunbar to appear in the records as “comes de Marchia,” or earl of March. Like most of his family in later times, he was favourable to the English interest in Scottish affairs, and he did homage to Edward I. of England. His wife Marjory, daughter of Alexander Comyn, earl of Buchan, took the other side and held the castle of Dunbar for Baliol, but was forced to surrender it to Edward in 1296. In 1298 he was appointed the English king’s lieutenant in Scotland.

Patrick Dunbar(1285-1369), 9th earl of Dunbar and 2nd earl of March, son of the preceding, gave refuge to Edward II. of England after Bannockburn, and contrived his escape by sea to England. Later, he made peace with Robert Bruce, and by him was appointed governor of Berwick Castle, which he held against Edward III. until the defeat of the Scots at Halidon Hill (July 19, 1333) made it no longer tenable. His countess, known in Scottish history and romance as “Black Agnes,” daughter of Thomas Randolph, earl of Moray (Murray), and grandniece of Robert Bruce, is famous for her defence of Dunbar Castle against the English under the earl of Salisbury in 1338, Salisbury being forced to abandon the attempt after a fierce siege lasting nineteen weeks. This lady succeeded to the estates and titles of her brother, John Randolph, 3rd earl of Moray. The earldom of Moray passed after her death to her second son, John Dunbar, who married Marjory, daughter of King Robert II. Black Agnes also bore to the earl of March two daughters, the elder of whom, Agnes, after being the mistress of King David II., married Sir James Douglas, lord of Dalkeith, from whom were descended the first three earls of Morton; the younger, Elizabeth, married John Maitland of Lethington, ancestor of the duke of Lauderdale, whose second title was marquess of March.

George Dunbar(d. 1420), 10th earl of Dunbar and 3rd earl of March, great-nephew of the 8th earl and warden of the marches, accompanied Douglas in his foray into England in 1388, and commanded the Scots after Otterburn. He afterwards quarrelled with the Douglases, because his daughter was passed over in favour of a daughter of Archibald, “the Grim Earl of Douglas,” as wife for David, duke of Rothesay, son of Robert III. When Douglas seized March’s lands the latter fled to England, where he was welcomed by Henry IV., to whom he was related. He fought on the English side at Homildon Hill; and, having revealed to Henry the defection of the Percies, who were in league with Douglas and Owen Glendower, he fought against those allies at the battle of Shrewsbury (July 23, 1403). Becoming reconciled with Douglas, he returned to Scotland in 1409, and was restored to his earldom by the regent Albany. He died in 1420.

George Dunbar, 11th earl of Dunbar and 4th earl of March, was one of the negotiators for the release of James I. of Scotland in 1423 from his captivity in England, and was knighted at that king’s coronation. In 1434, however, on the ground that the regent had had no power to reverse his father’s forfeiture for treason, March was imprisoned and his castle of Dunbar seized by the king; and the parliament at Perth declared his lands and titles forfeited to the crown. The earl, being released, retired to England with his son Patrick, whose daughter and heiress Margaret was ancestress of Patrick, 5th earl of Dumfries, now represented by the marquess of Bute.

The earldom of March in the house of Dunbar having thus been forfeited to the crown, James II. in 1455 conferred the title, together with that of warden of the marches, on his second son Alexander, duke of Albany; but this prince entered into treasonable correspondence with Edward IV. of England, and in 1487 the earldom of March and the barony and castle of Dunbar were again declared forfeited and annexed to the crown of Scotland.

The title of earl of March was next held by the house of Lennox. In 1576 the earldom of Lennox became extinct on the death without male issue of Charles (father of Lady Arabella Stuart), 5th earl of Lennox; and it was then revived in favour of Robert Stuart, a grand-uncle of King James VI., second son of John, 3rd earl of Lennox. But in 1579 Esmé Stuart, a member of a collateral branch which in 1508 had inherited the lordship of Aubigny in France, came to Scotland and obtained much favour with James VI. The earldom of Lennox (soon afterwards raised to a dukedom) was taken from Robert and conferred upon Esmé; and Robert was compensated by being created earl of March and baron of Dunbar (1582). Robert died without legitimate issue in 1586, when the earldom of March again reverted to the crown. In 1619 Esmé, 3rd duke of Lennox, was createdearl of March; and his son James was created duke of Richmond in 1641. On the death without issue of Charles, 6th duke of Lennox and 3rd duke of Richmond, in 1672, his titles devolved upon King Charles II. as nearest collateral heir-male. In 1675 Charles conferred the titles of duke of Richmond and Lennox and earl of March on Charles Lennox, his natural son by Louise de Keroualle, duchess of Portsmouth, from whom the earldom of March has descended to its present holder the duke of Richmond and Gordon. (SeeRichmond, Earls and Dukes of; andLennox.)

The title of earl of March in the peerage of Scotland, by another creation, was conferred in 1697 on William Douglas, second son of William, 1st duke of Queensberry. His grandson William, 3rd earl of March, became 4th duke of Queensberry on the death without surviving male issue of his cousin Charles, 3rd duke of Queensberry, in 1778. Dying unmarried in 1810, the several titles of the duke passed to different branches of the house of Douglas. The earldom of March is stated by Sir Bernard Burke and other authorities to have devolved upon Francis, 8th earl of Wemyss, great-great-grandson of David, 3rd earl of Wemyss, whose wife was Anne, daughter of the 1st duke of Queensberry and sister of the 1st earl of March; and the title is now assumed by the earl of Wemyss. On the other hand, Francis, 8th earl of Wemyss, not having been an heir of the body of the 1st earl of March, Sir Robert Douglas says inThe Peerage of Scotlandthat on the death of the 4th duke of Queensberry in 1810 “the earldom of March, it is supposed, became extinct.”

See Andrew Lang,History of Scotland(4 vols., London, 1900-1907); Sir Bernard Burke,A Genealogical History of Dormant and Extinct Peerages(London, 1866); Sir Robert Douglas,The Peerage of Scotland(2 vols., Edinburgh 1813); Lady Elizabeth Cust,Some Account of the Stuarts of Aubigny in France(London, 1891).

(R. J. M.)

MARCH, AUZIAS(c.1395-1458), Catalan poet, was born at Valencia towards the end of the 14th century. Little is known of his career except that he was twice married—first to Na Ysabel Martorell, and second to Na Johanna Scorna—that he died on the 4th of November 1458, and that he left several natural children. Inheriting an easy fortune from his father, the treasurer to the duke of Gandia, and enjoying the powerful patronage of Prince Carlos de Viana of Aragon, March was enabled to devote himself to poetical composition. He is an undisguised follower of Petrarch, carrying the imitation to such a point that he addresses hisCants d’amorto a lady whom he professes to have seen first in church on Good Friday; so far as the difference of language allows, he reproduces the rhythmical cadences of his model, and in theCants de morttouches a note of brooding sentiment peculiar to himself. Though his poems are disfigured by obscurity and a monotonous morbidity, he was fully entitled to the supremacy which he enjoyed among his contemporaries, and the success of his innovation no doubt encouraged Boscán to introduce the Italian metres into Castilian.

His verses were first printed in Catalan in 1543, but they had already become known through the Castilian translation published by Baltasar de Romani in 1539.

MARCH, FRANCIS ANDREW(1825- ), American philologist and educationalist, was born on the 25th of October 1825 in Millbury, Massachusetts. He graduated in 1845 at Amherst, where his attention was turned to the study of Anglo-Saxon by Noah Webster. He was a teacher at Swanzey, New Hampshire, and at the Leicester Academy, Massachusetts, in 1845-1847, and attempted the philological method of teaching English “like Latin and Greek,” later described in hisMethod of Philological Study of the English Language(1865); at Amherst in 1847-1849; at Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1852-1855; and in 1855 became a tutor at Lafayette College, where he became adjunct professor of belles-lettres and English literature in 1856, and professor of English language and comparative philology—the first chair of the kind established—in 1857. He lectured on constitutional and public law and Roman law in 1875-1877, and also taught subjects as diverse as botany and political economy. In 1907 he became professor emeritus. At Lafayette he introduced the first carefully scientific study of English in any American college, and in 1870 publishedA Comparative Grammar of the Anglo-Saxon Language, in which its Forms are Illustrated by Those of the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Gothic, Old Saxon, Old Friesic, Old Norse and Old High German, andAn Anglo-Saxon Reader; he was editor of the “Douglass Series of Christian Greek and Latin Classics,” to which he contributedLatin Hymns(1874); he was chairman of the Commission of the State of Pennsylvania on Amended Orthography; and was consulting editor of theStandard Dictionary, and in 1879-1882 was director of the American readers for the Philological Society’s (New Oxford)Dictionary. He was president of the American Philological Association in 1873-1874 and in 1895-1896, of the Spelling Reform Association after 1876, and of the Modern Language Association in 1891-1893. Among American linguistic scholars March ranks with Whitney, Child and Gildersleeve; and his studies in English, though practically pioneer work in America, are of undoubted value. His article “On Recent Discussions of Grimm’s Law” in theTransactions and Proceedingsof the American Philological Association for 1873 in large part anticipated Verner’s law. With his son, Francis Andrew March, jun. (b. 1863), adjunct-professor of modern languages in 1884-1891 and subsequently professor of English literature at Lafayette, he editedA Thesaurus Dictionary of the English Language(1903).

SeeAddresses in Honor of Professor Francis A. March, LL.D., L.H.D., delivered at Easton, Pennsylvania, on the 24th of October 1895.

MARCH,a market town in the Wisbech parliamentary division of Cambridgeshire, England, 30 m. N. by W. of Cambridge. Pop. of urban district (1901), 7565. It lies in the midst of the flat fen country, on the old course of the river Nene. It is an important junction on the Great Eastern railway and the starting-point of a line worked by that company jointly with the Great Northern to Lincoln and Doncaster. The church of St Wendreda, in Early English and later styles, is remarkable for a magnificent Perpendicular timber roof, beautifully carved. There are agricultural implement and engineering works, and corn mills.

MARCH,the third month of the modern calendar, containing thirty-one days. It was the Romans’ first month until the adoption of the Julian calendar, 46B.C., and it continued to be the beginning of the legal year in England until the 18th century. In France it was reckoned the first month of the year until 1564, when, by an edict of Charles IX., January was decreed to be thenceforth the first month. Scotland followed the example of France in 1599; but in England the change did not take place before 1752. The Romans called the monthMartius, a name supposed to have been conferred on it by Romulus in honour of his putative father, Mars, the god of war; but Ovid declares the month to have existed before the time of Romulus, though in a different position in the calendar. The Anglo-Saxons called MarchHlyd-monath, “loud or stormy month,” orLencten-monath, “lengthening month,” in allusion to the fact that the days then rapidly become longer. There is an old saying, common to both England and Scotland—which has its equivalent among the Basques and many European peoples—representing March as borrowing three days from April; the last three days of March being called the “borrowing” or the “borrowed days.” As late as the end of the 18th century the first three days of March were known in Devonshire as “Blind Days,” and were deemed so unlucky that no farmer would sow seed then.

The chief festival days of March are the 1st, St David; the 12th, St Gregory; the 17th, St Patrick; and the 25th, Lady Day, one of the quarter days in England.

MARCH(1) (from Fr.marcher, to walk; the earliest sense in French appears to be “to trample,” and the origin has usually been found in the Lat.marcus, hammer; Low Lat.marcare, to hammer; hence to beat the road with the regular tread of a soldier: cf. “beat,” of a policeman’s round), the movement of military troops with regular rhythmical steps, often with thetime marked by the beat of drum, the sound of pipes or bugles or the music of a military band; hence the advance or movement of a body of troops from one point to another, and the distance covered in so doing. The word is also naturally applied to the music composed for marching to, and to the steady regular advance or progress of non-military bodies or persons, or of events, &c. In the military sense, “marching” is walking in formed bodies of troops, either during drill evolutions on parade or on the “line of march” from one place to another. In both senses the word is used with mounted troops as well as with dismounted men. Formerly all evolutions were carried out at the so-called “parade-march” pace of about 75-80 paces to the minute, and in one or two armies of the 18th century the parade step cadence was as slow as 60. These cadences are now, however, reserved in all armies for ceremonial occasions, and the usual manœuvre and marching pace (“quick march”) is about 120, the “double” march pace (pas gymnastique) about 180. The “quick” march, translated into miles and hours, is about 31⁄2or 35⁄8miles an hour in all armies, though a few special bodies of light troops such as the ItalianBersaglieriare trained to move at a much faster rate for hours together, either by alternate “quick” and “double” marching or by an unvarying “jog-trot.” The paces recognized for cavalry are the walk, the trot, the canter and the gallop; the usual practice on the line of march being to alternate the walk and the trot, which combination gives a speed of about 5 miles an hour for many hours together. A “day’s march,” or more simply a “march,” is usually reckoned to be 15-16 miles for a large body of troops, a “forced” march being one of 20 miles or over, or one in which, from whatever cause, the troops are on foot for more than about seven hours. For large bodies of troops the rate of movement on the line of march rarely exceeds 3 miles an hour. The immense assistance afforded by music to marching troops has been recognized from the earliest times of organized armies, and a great deal of special march-music has been written for military bands, formerly often in3⁄4or6⁄8time (one bar representing one pace with the foot), but now almost invariably in common or2⁄4time, which is more suitable for the “quick march.” The music itself is usually a combination of simple, lively melody and well-marked accents for the drums, with little attempt at contrapuntal writing. The fife or piccolo, the natural bugle (in Italy and elsewhere the chromatic key-bugle is used), and the drum are the principal instruments, the “band,” as distinct from the “drums” and “bugles,” having in addition to drum and fifes clarinets (saxophones in France and Belgium) and saxhorns of all types. In Scottish regiments, and in a few isolated cases elsewhere, bagpipes provide the marching music. The importance of music on the march is attested further by the almost universal practice of singing or whistling marching songs, and even playing them on concertinas, &c., in the absence of the band and drums.

2. Frommarche, the French form of a common Teutonic word represented in English by “mark” (q.v.), a boundary or frontier region between two countries or districts. The word appears to have been first used in this sense in the 8th century, and the earliest “mark” or “march” districts were tracts of land on the borders of the Carolingian Empire. Wherever Charlemagne pushed forward the frontiers of the Frankish realm he provided for the security of his lands, new and old alike, by establishing mark districts on the borders. The defence and oversight of these were entrusted to special officers, afterwards called margraves, or counts of the mark, who usually enjoyed more extensive powers than fell to the lot of an ordinary count. It is at this time that we hear first of the Spanish mark (marca hispanica) and the Bavarian mark (marca bajoariae). These mark districts were practically obliterated during the reigns of the feeble sovereigns who succeeded Charlemagne, but the system was revived with the accession of Henry the Fowler to the German throne early in the 10th century and with a renewal of the work of conquering and colonizing the regions east of the Elbe, and in eastern Germany generally. Under Henry and his son, Otto the Great, marks were again set upon the borders of Germany, and this time the organization was more lasting. The mark districts increased in size and strength, especially those which fell under the dominion of an able and energetic ruler, and some of them became powerful states, retaining the name mark long after the original significance of the word had been forgotten. It is interesting to note that the two most important of the modern German states, Austria and Prussia, both had their origin in mark districts, the mark of Brandenburg, the nucleus of the kingdom of Prussia, being at first a border district to the east of the duchy of Saxony, and the east mark, or mark of Austria, being a border district of the duchy of Bavaria. In Italy march districts made their appearance about the same time as in other parts of the Frankish Empire. The best known of these is the march of Ancona, which with other marches and adjoining districts, was known later as the Marches, a province lying about the centre of Italy between the Apennines and the Adriatic Sea. After forming part of the states of the Church the Marches were united with the kingdom of Italy in 1860 (seeMarches, The).

In England in the same connexion the plural word “marches” was the form commonly adopted, and soon after the Norman Conquest the disturbed districts on the borders of Wales began to be known as the Welsh marches. Lands therein were granted to powerful nobles on condition that they undertook the defence of the neighbouring counties of England. These lords of the marches, or lords marcher, as they were often called, had special privileges, but they were generally so fully occupied in fighting against each other and in seeking to increase their own wealth and power that the original object of their appointment was entirely forgotten. The condition of the marches grew worse and worse, and during disturbed reigns, like those of Henry III. and Edward II., lawlessness was rampant and rebellion was centred therein. A more satisfactory condition of affairs, however, prevailed after the conclusion of the Wars of the Roses; and the establishment by Henry VIII. in 1542 of a council of Wales and the marches was followed by a notable diminution of disorder in this region. About the time of Elizabeth the Welsh marches ceased to have any but an historical importance. In 1328 Roger Mortimer, a member of one of the most powerful of the marcher families, was created earl of March (comes de marchia Waliae), and in the reign of Edward III. (1354) the marches were declared to be no part of the principality, but directly subject to the English crown. It is difficult to define the boundaries of the Welsh marches, as their extent varied considerably from time to time, but under Edward I. and again under the Lancastrian kings the marcher lordships included more than half of the area of Wales; they embraced practically the whole of the principality except the counties of Anglesea, Carnarvon and Merioneth in the north and Carmarthen and Cardigan in the south, together with parts of the English border counties, Monmouth, Hereford and Shropshire.

The debateable ground between England and Scotland was also known as the marches, although its condition began to attract the attention of the southern kingdom somewhat later than was the case with Wales. Arrangements were made for garrisoning them and at one time they were divided into three sections: the east, the west, and the middle marches, the oversight of each being entrusted to a warden. Roughly speaking, they embraced the modern counties of Northumberland and Cumberland, together with a tract on the Scottish side of the border. The need for protecting them ceased soon after the accession of James VI. of Scotland to the English throne, and they have now only an historical and legendary significance. About 1200 Patrick de Dunbar, earl of Dunbar, called himself earl of March, taking the name from the merse, or march, a tract of land in Berwickshire.

In France under theancien régimethere was a county of La Marche, and in north-east Germany there was the county of La Marck, now part of the kingdom of Prussia.

MARCHE,orLa Marche, one of the former provinces of France. It owes its name to its position, it having been in the 10th century a march or border district between the duchy of Aquitaine and the domains of the Frankish kings in centralFrance. Sometimes it was called theMarche Limousine, and originally it was a small district cut partly from Limousin and partly from Poitou. Its area was increased during the 13th century, after which, however, it remained unaltered until the time of the Revolution. It was bounded on the N. by Berry; on the E. by Bourbonnais and Auvergne; on the S. by Limousin; and on the W. by Poitou. It embraced the greater part of the modern department of Creuse, a considerable part of Haute Vienne, and a fragment of Indre. Its area was about 1900 sq. m.; its capital was Charroux and later Guéret, and among its other principal towns were Dorat, Bellac and Confolens.

Marche first appears as a separate fief about the middle of the 10th century when William III., duke of Aquitaine, gave it to one of his vassals named Boso, who took the title of count. In the 12th century it passed to the counts of Limousin, and this house retained it until the death of the childless Count Hugh in 1303, when it was seized by the French king, Philip IV. In 1316 it was made a duchy for Prince Charles, afterwards King Charles IV., and a few years later (1327) it passed into the hands of the family of Bourbon. The family of Armagnac held it from 1435 to 1477, when it reverted to the Bourbons, and in 1527 it was seized by Francis I. and became part of the domains of the French crown. It was divided into Haute Marche and Basse Marche, the estates of the former being in existence until the 17th century. From 1470 until the Revolution the province was under the jurisdiction of the parlement of Paris.

See A. Thomas,Les États provinciaux de la France centrale(1879).

MARCHE,a town of Belgium in the province of Luxemburg, 33 m. S.W. of Liége and about 28 m. S.E. of Namur. Pop. (1904), 3540. It dates from the 7th century, when it was the chief town of thepagus falmiensis, as it still is of the same district now called Famène. Formerly it was fortified, and a treaty was signed there in 1577 between Philip II. and the United Provinces. In 1792 Lafayette was taken prisoner by the Austrians in a skirmish near it.

MARCHENA,a town of southern Spain, in the province of Seville, on the Cordova-Utrera and Marchena-La Roda railways. Pop. (1900), 12,468. Marchena occupies a sandy valley near the river Corbones, a left-hand territory of the Guadalquivir. Formerly it was surrounded with walls and towers, a large portion of which still remains. Among the principal buildings is the palace of the dukes of Arcos, within the enclosure of which is an ancient Moorish building, now the church of Santa Maria de la Mota. At the eastern end of the town is a sulphur spring. There is some trade in wheat, barley, olives, oil and wine. Marchena (perhaps theCastra Geminaof Pliny) was taken from the Moors by St Ferdinand in 1240.

MARCHENA RUIZ DE CASTRO, JOSÉ(1768-1821?), Spanish author, was born at Utrera on the 18th of November 1768 and studied with distinction at the university of Seville. He took minor orders and was for some time professor at the seminary of Vergara, but he became a convert to the doctrines of the Frenchphilosophes, scandalizing his acquaintances by his professions of materialism and his denunciations of celibacy. His writings being brought before the Inquisition in 1792, Marchena escaped to Paris, where he is said to have collaborated with Marat inL’Ami du peuple; at a later date he organized a revolutionary movement at Bayonne, returned to Paris, avowed his sympathies with the Girondists, and refused the advances of Robespierre. He acted as editor ofL’Ami des loisand other French journals till 1799, when he was expelled from France; he succeeded, however, in obtaining employment under Moreau, upon whose fall in 1804 he declared himself a Bonapartist. In 1808 he accompanied Murat to Spain as private secretary; in this same year he was imprisoned by the Inquisition, but was released by Joseph Bonaparte, who appointed him editor of the officialGaceta. In 1813 Marchena retired to Valencia, and thence to France, where he supported himself by translating into Spanish the works of Montesquieu, Rousseau, Voltaire and Volney. The Liberal triumph of 1820 opened Spain to him once more, but he was coldly received by the revolutionary party. He died at Madrid shortly before the 26th of February 1821. The interest of his voluminous writings is almost wholly ephemeral, but they are excellent specimens of trenchant journalism. HisFragmentum Petronii(Basel, 1802), which purports to reconstruct missing passages in the current text of Petronius, is a testimony to Marchena’s fine scholarship; but, by the irony of fate, Marchena is best known by his ode to Christ Crucified, which breathes a spirit of profound and tender piety.

MARCHES, THE(It.Le Marche), a territorial division of Italy, embracing the provinces of Pesaro and Urbino, Ancona, Macerata, and Ascoli Piceno, with an area of 3763 sq. m., and a population of 1,088,763 in 1901. It is bounded by the Emilia on the N., the Adriatic on the E., the Abruzzi on the S., and Umbria and Tuscany on the W. The four provinces follow one another in the order given from north to south and have a certain amount of coast-line. The chief rivers, all of which run into the Adriatic eastwards and north-eastwards, are the Metauro (anc.Metaurus,q.v.) and the Tronto (anc.Truentus), the latter forming the southern boundary of thecompartimentofor some distance. Except for the river valleys and the often very narrow coast strip, the general level is more than 500 ft. above the sea. The lower hills are very largely composed of loose, clayey, unstable earth, while the Apennines are of limestone. The province of Pesaro and Urbino falls within the boundaries of the ancient Umbria (q.v.), while the territory of the other three belonged to Picenum (q.v.). The railway from Bologna to Brindisi runs along the coast-line of the entire territory. At Ancona it is joined by the main line from Foligno and Rome; at Porto Civitanova is a branch to Macerata, San Severino and Fabriano (a station on the line from Ancona to Rome and the junction for Urbino); at Porto S. Giorgio is a branch to Fermo and, at Porto d’Ascoli, a branch to Ascoli Piceno. But, with the exception of the railway along the coast, there is no communication north and south, owing to the mountainous nature of the country, except by somewhat devious roads.

Owing largely to themezzadriaormétayersystem, under which products are equally divided between the owners and the cultivators of the land, the soil is fairly highly cultivated, though naturally poor in quality. The silk industries, making of straw-plait and straw hats, rearing of silkworms and cocoons, with some sugar-refining, tobacco, terra-cotta manufacture, brickworks and ironworks, furnish the chief occupations of the people next after agriculture and pastoral pursuits. Another important branch of activity is the paper industry, especially at Fabriano. Chiaravalle possesses one of the largest tobacco factories of the Italianrégie. Limestone quarries and sulphur mines supply building stone and sulphur to the regions of central Italy; chalk and petroleum are also found. As regards maritime trade the province possesses facilities in the port of Ancona (the only really good harbour, where are also important shipbuilding works), the canal ports of Senegallia (Sinigaglia), Pesaro, Fano and other smaller harbours chiefly used by fishing boats. Fishing is carried on by the entire coast population, which furnishes a large contingent of sailors to the Italian navy.

For the early history of the territory of the Marches seePicenum. From the Carolingian period onwards the name Marca begins to appear—first the Marca Fermana for the mountainous part of Picenum, the Marca Camerinese for the district farther north, including a part of Umbria, and the Marca Anconitana for the former Pentapolis. In 1080 the Marca Anconitana was given in investiture to Robert Guiscard by Gregory VII., to whom the countess Matilda ceded the Marches of Camerino and of Fermo. In 1105 we find the emperor Henry IV. investing Werner with the whole territory of the three marches under the name of March of Ancona. It was afterwards once more recovered by the Church and governed by papal legates. It became part of the kingdom of Italy in 1860.

The pictorial art of the Marches from the 13th century onwards has become the object of considerable interest since the important exhibition held at Macerata in 1905, when many interesting works, scattered all over the district in small towns and villages, were brought together. The result was something of a revelation,for, though the influence of Umbria was always considerable, there were many independent elements (see F. M. Perkins inRassegna d’ Arte, 1906, 49 sqq.).

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