Thomas Fleming, Earl of Wigtown (died c. 1382) was the second person to hold the title

earl of Wigtown The title of Earl of Wigtown (or Wigton or Wigtoun) was created twice in the Peerage of Scotland. The first creation was in 1341 for Malcolm Fleming, and was surrendered in 1372, when the second Earl sold the Earldom and territory to Archibal ...

. He was the grandson of the previous earl, Sir Malcolm Fleming, through the latter's only son John (d. 1351). His mother was a woman named Marjorie. Thomas had been the heir to the earldom since the death of his father in 1351. During King

David II of Scotland David II (5 March 1324 – 22 February 1371) was King of Scots from 1329 until his death in 1371. Upon the death of his father, Robert the Bruce, David succeeded to the throne at the age of five, and was crowned at Scone in November 1331, becom ...

's captivity in England, Thomas was frequently used as a hostage, and spent many years in captivity, especially after the Treaty of Berwick in 1357. Thomas subsequently had grave financial problems, probably due to the ransom he had to pay the English crown to be released. In 1367, Thomas was regranted the earldom, but was stripped of the rights of

regality A regality was a territorial jurisdiction in old Scots law which might be created by the King or Queen only, by granting lands to a subject ''in liberam regalitatem'', and the tract of land over which such a right extended. A lord of regality h ...

enjoyed by his grandfather. Thomas sold the earldom to

Archibald the Grim Archibald Douglas, Earl of Douglas and Wigtown, Lord of Galloway, Douglas and Bothwell (c. 1330 – c. 24 December 1400), called Archibald the Grim or Black Archibald, was a late medieval Scottish nobleman. Archibald was the bastard son of ...

Lord of Galloway The lords of Galloway consisted of a dynasty of heirs who were lords (or kings) and ladies who ruled over Galloway in southwest Scotland, mainly during the High Middle Ages. Many regions of Scotland, including Galloway and Moray, periodically ...

and

Earl of Douglas This page is concerned with the holders of the forfeit title Earl of Douglas and the preceding feudal barons of Douglas, South Lanarkshire. The title was created in the Peerage of Scotland in 1358 for William Douglas, 1st Earl of Douglas, son ...

in 1372. The recreation of the

Lordship of Galloway The lords of Galloway consisted of a dynasty of heirs who were lords (or kings) and ladies who ruled over Galloway in southwest Scotland, mainly during the High Middle Ages. Many regions of Scotland, including Galloway and Moray, periodically ...

for Archibald the Grim in 1369 had posed some conceptual problems for the earldom, as it fell within the old territories of the lordship. The Douglases were, moreover, much more successful than the Flemings at crushing resistance to the Bruce dynasty in the south-west. Thomas thus had the unusual fortune of being demoted from the rank of a

magnate The magnate term, from the late Latin ''magnas'', a great man, itself from Latin ''magnus'', "great", means a man from the higher nobility, a man who belongs to the high office-holders, or a man in a high social position, by birth, wealth or ot ...

to that of a

baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knig ...

. Thomas subsequently seems to have given away just about all of his remaining lands. He died without issue in or before 1382.

References

*Oram, Richard D., ‘Fleming, Malcolm, first earl of Wigtown (d. in or before 1363)’, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 14 Nov 2006
* Paul, James Balfour, ''The Scots Peerage'', Vol. VIII, (Edinburgh, 1911) {{DEFAULTSORT:Fleming, Thomas 14th-century births 1380s deaths Earls of Wigtown History of Galloway Fleming, Thomas 14th-century Scottish earls