Lordship of Denbigh

The Lordship of Denbigh was a marcher lordship in North Wales created by Edward I in 1284 and granted to the Earl of Lincoln. It was centred on the borough of Denbigh and Denbigh Castle. The lordship was held successively by several of England's most prominent aristocratic families in the 14th and 15th centuries. Title to the lordship was disputed for much of the second half of the 14th century between two powerful noble families: the Mortimer Earls of March and the Montagu Earls of Salisbury. Eventually, the lordship returned to the crown when Edward, Duke of York, who had inherited the lordship through his grandmother, acceded to the throne in 1461 as Edward IV. In 1563, Elizabeth I revived the lordship and granted it to her favourite Lord Robert Dudley, later becoming the Earl of Leicester. Leicester mortgaged it to raise money and the lordship was finally returned to the crown when Elizabeth redeemed the mortgage in 1592/3.

The crown disposed of much of the lordship's lands over the following centuries. Although the lordship still technically exists, with the monarch as its holder, its remaining lands, chiefly common land (for example, on Denbigh moors), are vested in the Crown Estate. The Crown Estate also conducts the annual Lordship of Denbigh Estray Court which continues to exercise a historic jurisdiction over the area's stray sheep.