I’m moderately well-read on American colonial history, and it recently struck me - I believe that the only titled folk I’ve come across in my reading have been governors, military officers and the like who were assigned to the American colonies. I’ve never run across a son of a planter who was knighted or the like.
From reading about Drake and Morgan and the like, it appears that the most direct route to knighthood for a commoner was military combat and/or plunder for the monarch. And there were battles fought on the American continent. Did any colonial militia officer get titled for his exploits in the French and Indian War, etc.?
Or was there some sort of policy in England that colonials shouldn’t be knighted?
I don’t think it was policy so much as proximity. The British empire was always rather London-centric. If you didn’t live near the capital, you could not get people to lobby for you.
The colonial governors were appointed by the Crown. The titled ones mostly had their titles before they were appointed to govern. And being exiled to govern some colonial backwater was often regarded more as a punishment than as an award.
As far as I know, the only (future USA) American to receive a full-fledged peerage was Count Rumford. His title was conferred by the Holy Roman Emperor, not the King of the UK. Smithsonian had an article about him a couple of years ago.
After the US broke away, the UK made some effort to make Canada more “like home”. A fair number of Canadian bigshots received knighthoods and baronetcies, and a few were even made Lords (although I think it was usually in the UK parliament, not the Canadian parliament). In heraldry, a Nova Scotia baronet has a distinctive badge on his coat of arms, which is different from the badge of a British baronet. Since the late 60’s or early 70’s, however, the Canadian government has tried to discourage its citizens from taking titles.
Well, some of these governors and military officers who were knighted were themselves colonials, like Sir Henry Clinton, who was born in Newfoundland and grew up in New York City, and was commander in chief of the British forces during the Revolution, or Sir William Franklin, royal governor of New Jersey, who was the illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin.
Then there were people like Count Rumford, soldier, scientist (and the inventor of the drip coffeemaker) who was born Benjamin Thompson in Massachusetts, and who was knighted by the English crown and made a Count by the Elector of Bavaria.
There wasn’t an official policy against knighting people from the American colonies, it just didn’t happen much, largely because most colonists didn’t have the connections or pull to get themselves noticed by the government and get knighted.
Baron von Steuben was an American citizen after the Revolution; his home was about 50 miles from where I used to live, in a small town that was in the service area of the agency I worked for.
Lafayette was in a class by himself – Marquis under the French monarchy, and our first (and for 190 years only) honorary citizen.
There were peerages connected with several Middle Atlantic and Southern colones, including persons who did settle here. There was a note in local N.C. history trivia about a woman in the mid-20th Century who was the descendant of a Count Palatine under the colonial government here – since the local nobility was not “of Great Britain” or “of England, Scotland, or Ireland” but “of Carolina,” her view was that it was not one of the prohibited “foreign titles of honor” but a legitimate American noble title which she could and did continue to use.
Finally, Max Aitken, London newspaper publisher, native of Canada and legal resident of the nation for life, was created Lord Beaverbrook for his services to the U.K. in WWI.
It seems to me that the Randolph’s (sp?), George Washington’s neighbors in Virginia, and Gen. Sterling, who commanded one wing of Washington’s army at the Battle of Brooklyn, were both sprigs of British nobility. Benedict Arnold (of evil reputation) was, I think, knighted after he turned coat and as part of the purchase price for his treachery. For the most part, however, the colonial gentry/small time nobility fled to Canada, notably to St. Johns, Newfoundland, during the Revolution, and without compensation for land and chattels left behind. One of the New York Tory families was the Delaney clan. Delaney Street? A Delaney was Wellington’s aide and was killed at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
Am I right in thinking that the U.S. Constitution forbids citizens from accepting titles of nobility because it involves swearing an oath to a foreign power?
I am pretty sure that naturalised citizens are required to renounce any claim to titles of nobility at the time they take the oath.
I have heard that the only way for an American citizen to legitimately get a title is to inherit one, like Christopher Guest did. He inherited the title Baron Haden-Guest of Saling from his father and until recent reforms sat in the House of Lords.
The above is absolutely true regarding renunciation of titles of nobility. Americans can have honorary titles, as long as no actual privilege derives from them. In fact, on page 6 of the INS form N-400, Application for Naturalization, it specifically asks if you hold any titles of nobility, along with all the other stuff (like insanity, criminal convictions, tax dodging, and illegal voting) that can disqualify a person from naturalization. You can find the form on INS’ Web site if you’re curious.
If the primary route to nobility (other than inheritence) was military service, that might also explain why a lot of colonists didn’t achieve it. You might remember that the official reason Britain imposed the infamous tax that spawned the whole Revolution was to recoup the British Army’s costs in maintaining protective garrisons in the colonies. With an organized standing army already present (albeit the dregs of the British Army, since the better units were off fighting in Europe), colonists were probably much more focused on economic pursuits.
I thought that Lafayette was just an honorary citizen of a couple of states, but not of the whole country. However, under the Constitution, once you are a citizen of one state, it’s good in all the others.
I believe Lafayette was honored during the time of the Confederation Congress.