Earl of Albemarle

Earl of Albemarle is a title created several times from Norman times onwards. The word Albemarle is the Latinised form of the French county of Aumale in Normandy (Latin: Alba Marla meaning "White Marl", marl being a type of fertile soil), other forms being Aubemarle and Aumerle. It is described in the patent of nobility granted in 1697 by William III to Arnold Joost van Keppel as "a town and territory in the Dukedom of Normandy."

During the period in which England and France contended for the rule of Normandy (through the end of the Hundred Years' War), the kings of England not infrequently created peers as Counts and Dukes of Aumale. The last, to Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick(d.1439), was in 1422; Aumale, anglicized as Albemarle, was not revived in the peerage until 1660.

In that year, Charles II bestowed the title of Duke of Albemarle on General George Monck. The title became extinct in 1688, on the death of Christopher, 2nd Duke of Albemarle.