MAR 
MARSH’S I'SLAND, the larged of a group of thir¬ 
teen i(lands at the Great Falls in Penobfcot-river, all ly¬ 
ing within feven miles of one another. Marlh’s idand is 
about five miles long and two and a half wide, and elli- 
mated to contain about 5000 acres. 
MAR'SH-LAND, f. The welt divifion of the county 
of Norfolk is fo called. Land which abounds in marfhes. 
—Your low meadows and mar/i-lands you need not lay 
up till April, except the fpring be very wet, and your 
marfhes very poachy. Mortimer. i 
MARSH-MAL'LOW,/. in botany. See Althaea. 
It is in all refpedts like the mallow, but its leaves are 
more foft and woolly. Miller. 
MARSH-MAR'IGOLD, f. in botany. See Caltha. 
This flower confifts of feveral leaves, w’hich are placed 
circularly, and expand in form of a rofe, in the middle-of 
which riles the pointal, which becomes a membranaceous 
fruit, in which there are feveral cells, for the mod part 
bent downwards, collected into little heads, and full of 
feeds. Miller. 
And fet foft hyacinths with iron-blue. 
To (hade marjk-marigolds of (Lining hue. Dryden. 
M ARSH-ROCK'ET, in botany. See Sisymbrium. 
MARSH TRE'FOIL. See Menyanthes. 
MAR'SHAL, or Mar'eschal, f. Primarily denotes 
an officer who has the care or the command of horfes. 
Nicod derives the word from polemarchus, mailer of the 
camp; Matthew Paris from martis fenefcallus. In the old 
Gaulith language, march fignified horfe; whence marefchal 
might fignify him who commanded the cavalry. Spel- 
man, Skinner, and Menage, derive it from the German 
maer ,-a mare, or horfe, and /chalk, fervant; which makes 
fome imagine the title was firlt given to farriers, or thofe 
who (hod and bled horfes; and that, in fucceflion of time, 
it palled to thofe who commanded them. 
That the marflial was an officer of confiderable note in 
Germany, France, and elfewhere, mult incontrovertibly 
be acknowledged ; but the exaft time of the firlt inftitu- 
tion of his office cannot now be fo well afccrtained. At 
firlt, the marflial, or marefcallus, was probably an officer of 
inferior rank, to whole direction and management fove- 
reign princes confided the care of their horfes. Some 
have fuppofed the marefcallus and the comes faluli to have 
been the fame officer under different titles ; w'hillt others, 
allowing the functions of thefe officers to have been origi¬ 
nally different, contend that they were united in, and for 
a long time after their inftitution continued to be exer- 
cifed by, one and the fame perfon. In the early times of 
the weftern empire, whilft the comes jlabuli remained a 
mere officer of the houfehold, and uninvelted with a mi¬ 
litary employment, no mention of a marefcallus occurs 
among the officers of the crown. In thofe times the ma- 
refcalli were only minilterial to the comes fiabuli ; and the 
fame difference fubfilted between them as between menial 
fervants and their mailers. The comes fiabuli was a high 
officer of the emperor, who appointed him to that office, 
and committed to him the fuperintendency of the impe¬ 
rial ftables and ftud; whereas the roarefcalli were perfons 
acting under him in a fervile llation, and employed in 
dreffing, feeding, and training, a limited number of the 
emperor’s horfes. Afterwards the promotion of the 
comes ftabuli, or con/able, to the military dignity of com¬ 
mander-in-chief of the army, opened the way for the ma- 
refcalli, or mar/ials, to emerge out of their obfcurity, and 
to rife to a more exalted llation than they had before en¬ 
joyed ; for, on account of their lkill in the feveral 
branches of horfe'manlhip and the management of ca¬ 
valry, the comes ftabuli felefted one of them to recon¬ 
noitre the pofition and to watch the motions of the ene¬ 
my ; to affign the quarters and lodging for the foldiery ; 
to llation the piquet-s, and diredl the foragers. The of¬ 
fice of Marefcallus, thus raifed from lervility, foon at¬ 
tained to great dignity and power; infotnuch that the 
leading of the van of the army, the command of the ca¬ 
valry, and the making of the firlt attack on the enemy, 
were annexed to it. The French, from almolt the ear- 
Vol, XIV. No. 984.. 
MAR 4^1 
lied times of their monarchy, had both conftable* and 
marflial. The marffial is mentioned in the Leges Silicas, 
in the capitularies of Charlemagne, and by feveral of the. 
contemporary writers of that age; but, from his firlt in- 
llitution in France, was confidered as fubordinate to the 
conftable, whole minifter he was both in war and peace. 
We find the term “ Marffial” uled in the duchy of Nor¬ 
mandy for an officer veiled both with authority ancPju- 
rifdiftion, and that officer grown up there to the meridian 
of his dignity and power, before William’s invafion of 
out illand; and therefore, if we had'not any pofitive evi¬ 
dence of the faft, yet it would be highly probable that he 
brought the name and office into England at the time of 
' the coTtqueft, in the fame manner as the princes of the 
Norman lineage carried both to Sicily and Naples; and of 
this we are allured by the chronicle of Normandy, which 
exprefsly tells us, that the Conqueror made Roger de 
Montgomery and William Fitz-Olborne marjhals .-in Eng¬ 
land. This office, next to that of the ccnjlable, was con¬ 
ferred for feveral generations in the family of the Clares, 
earls of Pembroke; after which, reverting to the crown, 
it was held by different great perfonages, till the 25th of 
Henry VIII. when it was granted to Thomas Howard, 
duke of Norfolk, and his heirs male forever, with power 
to exercile it by deputy; iince which time, it hath, with 
fome interruptions arifing from attainders, and other 
confequences of civil diffenfions, continued in that fa¬ 
mily. See Earl-Marshal, p.4.22. 
MAR'SHAL, f. An officer who regulates combats in 
the lifts : 
Dares their pride prefume againft my laws, 
As in a lifted field to fight their caufe? 
Unmalk’d the royal grant; nor mar/tal by. 
As kingly rites require, nor judge to try. Dryden. 
Any one who regulates rank or order at a feaft, or any 
other affembly : 
Through the hall there walked to and fro, 
A jolly yeoman, mar/ial of the fame, 
Whole name was Appetite; he did bellow • 
Both guefts and meats, whenever in they came. 
And knew them how to order without blame. Fa. Queen. 
An harbinger; a purfuivant; one who goes before a 
prince to declare his coming and provide entertainment. 
—-Her face, when it was faireft, had been but as a mar- 
/lal to lodge the love of her in his mind, which now was 
fo well placed as it needed no help of outward harbinger. 
Sidney. 
Our ancient records take notice of fome officers by the 
name of marfhals, who are mentioned only in general to 
have been fervants of the king’s boulehold ; and we find 
by the patent-rolls, that king Henry III. had no lefs a 
number of marlhals than feven continually attending 
upon him in his court; for which lervice, each of them 
was paid by the keeper of the wardrobe, the yearly wages 
of twenty marks. This, indeed, will not feem extraordi¬ 
nary, when it is confidered, that the being “ marflial,” or 
having the “ marlhalfea” of a thing, meant no more than 
being the director, or having the overfight, charge, or or¬ 
dering, of it. Accordingly, Mr. Madox lpecities feveral 
officers of the king’s houfehold under the feveral deno¬ 
minations of marlhals of his horfes, of his birds, and of 
his meafures. 
Marshal of France, the higheft preferment in the 
French armies. The dignity of marflial came to be for 
life, though at its firft inftitution it was otherwife. At 
firlt they were but two in number; and their allowance 
was but five hundred livres perannum in time of war, and 
nothing in time of peace ; but in the reign of Francis I. 
a third was added ; Henry II. created a fourth ; Louis 
XIV. increafed them to twenty ; the emperor Napoleon 
to twenty-two. See a lift of them under the article 
London, vol. xiii. p, 199. 
Marshal of the King’s Bench, an officer who has 
cultody of the prifon called the king’s bench. He gives 
attendance upon the court, and takes into his cultody all 
5 P prifoners 
