EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUDIES Vol. 41, No. 1 Spring 2010 A Note on British Titles of Rank With Special Reference to the Works of Evelyn Waugh by Donald Greene[1] Late of the University of Southern California Most Americans and nowadays some Britons are vague about the use of British titles. Since an untitled man may be referred to as either “Mr. Smith” or “Mr. John Smith,” and his wife as “Mrs. Smith,” “Mrs. John Smith,” or “Mrs. Mary Smith,” it is assumed that “Lord” and “Lady” may be used in the same indiscriminate way. This is not so: their use is clearly defined. “Lord Smith” may be anything from a marquess to a baron; “Lord John Smith” can only be the younger son of a duke or marquess. “Lady Smith” may be anything from a marchioness to the wife of a knight; “Lady Mary Smith” is the daughter of a duke, marquess, or earl; “Lady John Smith” is the wife of a younger son of a duke or marquess. Waugh, like other English novelists before him—Fielding, Jane Austen, Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope—is perfectly familiar with these usages and never makes a mistake with them; they provide useful clues to the social position of his characters. He would have been shocked by references in recent criticism and biography to “Lady Teresa Marchmain” and “Lady Diana Mosley,” designations which those ladies could never have borne. A recent biography promotes Waugh’s mother-in-law, the Honourable Mrs. Aubrey Herbert, to “Lady Herbert,” and demotes Waugh’s schoolfellow, Lord Molson, to “Lord Hugh Molson,” thus depriving him of his seat in the House of Lords; as the younger son of a duke or marquess, “Lord Hugh” could only have been a commoner. It is true that these matters of nomenclature can be complex. Yet after centuries of use, it is not likely that they will be abandoned in Britain. Serious readers of Waugh may find the following notes useful. A study of the relevant pages in the annual Whitaker’s Almanack, listing the current holders of peerages, baronetcies, and knighthoods, would be useful, as would Simon Winchester’s Their Noble Lordships (London: Faber & Faber, 1981; New York: Random House, 1982) and Cyril Hankinson, My Forty Years with Debrett (London: Robert Hale, 1963). 1.) All peerages are created by the sovereign (nowadays on advice of the prime minister). There are five grades of peers: in descending order of rank, duke, marquess (the spelling now preferred to the French “marquis”), earl, viscount, baron. Historically, there are five different peerages: those of England and of Scotland, creations before the union of those two kingdoms by the Act of Union of 1707, after which Englishmen and Scots raised to the peerage were peers of Great Britain; peers of Ireland, created before Ireland was united with Great Britain by the Act of Union of 1801. After that date, most new creations were peers of the United Kingdom, though a few creations of peers of Ireland still took place. 2.) Dukes and duchesses are “of” some territorial designation; viscounts and barons are not. Marquesses and earls may or may not be “of”; if the “of” is not used, the family name may be taken as the title of the peerage, though by no means always; similarly, viscounts and barons often choose their family names as their peerage title. If a title is already in use, an “of” with some other designation may be added to it. The numbering of holders of a hereditary peerage begins anew each time a peerage is created. Thus after the Earldom of Oxford became extinct in 1703 with the death of the twentieth earl of the De Vere family, the title was revived in 1711 for Robert Harley, who became the first Earl of Oxford of the second creation. Likewise, after the title became extinct in the Harley family in the nineteenth century, Herbert Henry Asquith was created, in 1925, first Earl of Oxford of the third creation. The “of” does not necessarily indicate important possessions or influence in the region indicated. It was said that the Dukes of Devonshire, whose most important seat, Chatsworth, is in Derbyshire, owned property in every county of England but Devonshire. Conversely, the principal seat and sphere of influence of the file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...c144/My%20Documents/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/Newsletters/Newsletter_41.1.htm[04/12/2013 14:45:07] EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD Earls of Derby is in Lancashire. The Dukes of Norfolk live in Sussex, and so on. There are historical reasons for these seeming anomalies. 3.) Most peerages descend by male primogeniture, but a few, mostly Scottish, together with ancient English baronies, may, in absence of a male heir, be inherited by a woman. These ladies are “peeresses in their own right.” By the Peerage Act, 1963, for the first time peeresses in their own right were permitted to sit and vote in the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament. 4.) Peers of England, Scotland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, not being minors, were entitled to membership in the House of Lords. After 1707, Scottish peers, who had hitherto sat in the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, then abolished, elected sixteen of their number to sit in the House of Lords in Westminster as “representative peers.” Similarly, peers of Ireland sat in the Irish House of Lords in Dublin; after its abolition in 1801, they too elected representative peers to sit in the Westminster House of Lords. Since the Peerage Act of 1963, Scottish peers may now sit in the Westminster House of Lords. Peers of Ireland may not (unless, as many of them do, they have a subsidiary British or United Kingdom peerage), but they may be elected to the House of Commons, as other peers may not. The most famous such Irish peer was Queen Victoria’s prime minister, Viscount Palmerston, who sat in the House of Commons.[2] 5.) Only the head of a peerage family is legally a peer, with the right (except for peers of Ireland) of membership in the House of Lords (of which the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the twenty-four senior bishops of the Church of England, are also members). A peer’s wife (though referred to as a “peeress”) and children, unless they have acquired peerages in their own right, are legally commoners. Thus the first woman to sit in Parliament, the American-born Viscountess Astor, wife of the second Viscount, was elected to the House of Commons in an English constituency. 6.) Courtesy titles. Nearly all dukes, marquesses, and earls hold other peerages of a lower grade, and their oldest surviving sons are “by courtesy” addressed by the title of the second- ranking peerage (which may not necessarily be the grade immediately below that of the head of the family). If there is more than one such subordinate peerage, the oldest son of the oldest son is addressed by the next senior title: thus the oldest son of the Duke of Devonshire is “by courtesy” Marquess of Hartington, and his oldest son is Earl of Burlington. The younger sons of dukes and marquesses are “Lord” with their given and family names. Nevertheless they remain commoners, and the actual peerage indicated by the courtesy title continues to be held by the head of the family. Many holders of courtesy titles have had successful careers in the House of Commons: for instance, the Marquess of Hartington, heir to the seventh Duke of Devonshire, who declined three offers of the prime ministry, normally held by a member of the House of Commons, and Lord John Russell, younger son of the sixth Duke of Bedford, who in later life accepted an earldom, and moved to the House of Lords; from having been Lord John Russell, he became Lord Russell. 7.) In 1958, for the first time, life (non-hereditary) peerages, in the grade of baron or baroness, were permitted to be created. Since 1963 peers have been permitted to renounce their titles, for themselves though not for their heirs. The first two to do so were Anthony Wedgwood-Benn, Viscount Stansgate, who, as Tony Benn, pursued a lively career in the House of Commons as a left-wing firebrand, and Quintin Hogg, Viscount Hailsham, who after a time as a commoner, was again raised to the peerage, this time as a life peer, Baron Hailsham, on being appointed Lord Chancellor, a post which, as Speaker of the House of Lords, requires a peerage. Likewise, the fourteenth Earl of Home, in order to become prime minister, disclaimed his earldom (though retaining knighthood), becoming Sir Alec Douglas-Home. After his tenure as prime minister, he too accepted a life peerage as Baron Home, and returned to the House of Lords. 8.) Daughters of dukes, marquesses, and earls are “Lady” with their given and family names. If they marry a commoner, they substitute their husband’s family name for their own, but retain the “Lady Mary” or whatever it is. On marrying a peer, they take the normal designation of a peer’s wife. Thus Waugh’s friend Lady Diana Manners, daughter of the Duke of Rutland, on marrying Mr. Alfred Duff Cooper, became Lady Diana Cooper. When her husband was raised file:////uol.le.ac.uk/...c144/My%20Documents/Evelyn%20Waugh/Evelyn%20Waugh%20Studies/Newsletters/Newsletters/Newsletter_41.1.htm[04/12/2013 14:45:07] EVELYN WAUGH NEWSLETTER AND STUD to the peerage as Viscount Norwich, she became Viscountess Norwich (thus, as Waugh twitted her, dropping a notch or two in the official table of precedence).