The territorial lordship through which successive rulers held and governed the Isle of Man under the English Crown.

The surviving grants define the Lordship in unusually extensive terms. The patent of 1609 recited a grant of the “Isle, Castle, Peel, and Lordship of Mann” together with its rights, members and appurtenances. It also included royalties, regalities, franchises, liberties, ports, courts, wardships, marriages, escheats, forfeitures, wrecks, mines, fisheries, fairs, markets and other revenues and jurisdictions.

The same patent dealt separately with former monastic and ecclesiastical property, including lands and revenues associated with Rushen, Douglas and other religious houses and rectories. The grant therefore embraced both territorial possession and a wide range of governmental and fiscal rights.

From 1405 the Stanley family held Mann, first as kings and later as Lords of Mann. The title passed through the Earls of Derby and, through inheritance, to the Dukes of Atholl. The constitutional structure beneath the Lord continued to include a Governor, Council, Deemsters and Keys.

The 1792 Commissioners described the Lords Proprietors as deriving their authority from the grants and exercising sovereign control of government subject to restrictions introduced over time. Manx legislation was enacted through concurrence between the Lord Proprietor, the Governor and Council, and the Keys.

The Crown’s purchase in 1765 transferred the sovereign and customs rights then held by the Duke and Duchess of Atholl. Other proprietary interests remained with the family until later settlements, so the transfer did not amount to a single extinction of every Atholl right in Mann.