Fawr said:
I would like to see the Marches split into
Cheshire (Chester)
Gloucestershire (Gloucester)
Shropshire (Shrewsbury)
Herefordshire (Hereford) - maybe combine with Glou/Salop
Pembroke (Pembroke/Carmarthen)
Cheshire was so important I wouldn't combine it with Shropshire. For the early part of the period (until just before 1300) the Marches were a significant power base. The greatest lords mostly came from the marches (Rupert fitzHenry (Glou) (brother to Maude), Both regents for Henry III (Chester/Pembroke), The regent for Edward III(Glou), ...). One of the sources for their power was the need for armed men to be ready to act at short notice, and the other was the fact that the lords on this border extended their influence beyond what their Kings anticipated.
Well, you could easily combine Gloucestershire with Worcestershire since 1) The Diocese of Worcester consisted of both shires, and 2) Except for a brief period during the Anarchy (which Henry II refused to recognize), Worcester didn't have an Earl of its own until the very end of the game. Gloucester however remained an important Earldom from 1122 on, whose Earls also held the Lordship of Glamorgan in Wales (making them powerful on both sides of the March).
Also, if you're going to combine Herefordshire with another shire, it should be Shropshire. Again, the Bishopric of Hereford included Shropshire, and after the fall of the Montgomerys (1102), Shropshire was a "royal" shire with no Earl of its own. Hereford, however, continued as an Earldom even after the fall of FitzOsbern's family (de Pitres, de Bohun, etc.)
Cheshire, on the other hand, was part of the "West Mercian" diocese of Coventry-Lichfield-Chester; also, like its Bishops, its Earls held alot of land in Staffordshire and further into "Mercia", so its harder to justify combining it with other marcher shires.
So above would give you: Gloucester & Worcester in the south (1 Earl, 1 Bishop), Hereford & Shrewsbury in the center (1 Earl, 1 Bishop), and Chester in the north (1 Earl, 1 "Shared" Bishop).
As for Pembrokeshire, I'm not sure. Unlike the other Marcher shires, which had always been part of England, Pembroke was originally the Welsh Dyfed under the Princes of Deheubarth; so technically, it was within Wales proper, as was its Diocese of St. Davids. Its Earls were also Lords of Gwent in Wales (hence the name "Strongbow"). So it seems more like a "Welsh" Earldom & Lordship that was just ruled by Anglo-Normans (who however so frequently intermarried with the Welsh that many historians call them "Cambro-Normans").
