Note 80 — Chapter II · THE MARK.

To a very late period, the most powerful of our nobles were the Lords Marchers or Lords of the Marches of Wales and Scotland. Harald was lord of the Marches against the Welsh. And so the hereditary Markgraves or Counts of the Mark, Marchiones, have become kings in Germany and Italy. Our only Markgraviats by land could be against the Welsh on the west, the Picts and Scots on the north. There were undoubtedly others among the Saxons while their kingdoms remained unsettled: but not when once the whole realm became united under Æðelstán. The consolidation of the English power has put down all but transmarine invaders; hence the sea is become our Mark, and the commanders of our ships, the Margraves. But, as Blackstone rather beautifully says, “water is a wandering and uncertain thing,” and our Margraves therefore establish no territorial authority. The reader is referred to Dönniges, Deutsches Staatsrecht, p. 297, seq., for a very good account of the Marches of the German Empire.