Brit dopers: what's the scoop on people with titles?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I know you all still have a fair share of Lords and Ladies and such running around your country. I’m no expert in British politics, but I gather they don’t run the country anymore. At least not like they used to.

Having been reading a few biographies of such people back when they did run the country, I’m curious about what it’s like currently. Are titled people just like everyone else? Is Bob in the next cubicle really Sir Bob?

How about the impoverished peerage? I’ve read about poor 18th century Ladies whose husband dies and the gambling debts have left her penniless. Working is just Not Done, so she must throw herself on the good nature of an aunt or cousin. What’s it like now? Is it possible that Sue the Cleaning Lady is Duchess Sue?

Or are they all still more or less rich people who don’t deign to mix with us commoners?

I need to know this information in preparation for buying my own title. :smiley:

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Yanno I swear I read this as “Titties”

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From what I’ve read, not being a Lord (or even English), younger sons and other relatives of Peers for which the family can’t provide simply go out and work like most everybody else. P.G. Wodehouse is a good example of that. His grandfather was the Earl of Kimberly, and his father, a younger son of the Earl, was a civil official in India. P.G. himself didn’t even get the chance to go to Oxford, though he won a partial scholarship, because his family could not afford to make up the balance. So, before finding success as a writer, he went to work in a bank.

Would it not be the same for Peer on hard times?

4

From what I’ve read, not being a Lord (or even English), younger sons and other relatives of Peers for which the family can’t provide simply go out and work like most everybody else. P.G. Wodehouse is a good example of that. His grandfather was the Earl of Kimberly, and his father, a younger son of the Earl, was a civil official in India. P.G. himself didn’t even get the chance to go to Oxford, though he won a partial scholarship, because his family could not afford to make up the balance. So, before finding success as a writer, he went to work in a bank.

Would it not be the same for Peer on hard times?

(Note: Except for Baronets, a “Sir” would most likely be a Knight. Knighthood not being hereditary, he would have to have been knighted in his lifetime and therefore have been a very prominent person to begin with, such as a renowned author, artist, entrepreneur, or whatever. So “Sir Robert” is not likely to be Bob in the next cubicle. By this logic it seems you’d be more likely to find an impoverished Peer in the next cubicle than you would a Knight.)

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Sorry for the semi-simulpost. Can a passing moderator delete my first post? Or to anyone passing by, please feel free to report my first post to the moderators.

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[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]
(Note: Except for Baronets, a “Sir” would most likely be a Knight.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I more or less knew that. My mistake. Please pretend I wrote “Could Bob in the next cubicle really be Bob, Marquess of Sillybonker?”

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[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]
(Note: Except for Baronets, a “Sir” would most likely be a Knight. Knighthood not being hereditary, he would have to have been knighted in his lifetime …
[/QUOTE]

Excuse the semi-highjack. I thought some knighthoods were hereditary. I had a college friend whose name contained a sir (which he didn’t really like) due to a family knighthood dating from I think the Boer War. Is the family claiming something they’re not entitled to?

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[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

(Note: Except for Baronets, a “Sir” would most likely be a Knight. Knighthood not being hereditary, he would have to have been knighted in his lifetime and therefore have been a very prominent person to begin with, such as a renowned author, artist, entrepreneur, or whatever. So “Sir Robert” is not likely to be Bob in the next cubicle. By this logic it seems you’d be more likely to find an impoverished Peer in the next cubicle than you would a Knight.)
[/QUOTE]

From what I’ve read, knighthood isn’t hereditary, but I believe a knight’s spouse gets to call herself “Lady So and So”. For instance, Vivien Leigh always went by “Lady Olivier”.

Does that work for the husbands of Dames as well?

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[QUOTE=pendgwen]
I thought some knighthoods were hereditary. I had a college friend whose name contained a sir (which he didn’t really like) due to a family knighthood dating from I think the Boer War. Is the family claiming something they’re not entitled to?
[/QUOTE]
Probably a baronetcy. There are lots of them.

No

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[QUOTE=Athena]
Yeah, I more or less knew that. My mistake. Please pretend I wrote “Could Bob in the next cubicle really be Bob, Marquess of Sillybonker?”
[/QUOTE]

Back to the OP:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but titles don’t actually go with the person, they go with the property. That’s what makes them feudal. If your workmate is the Marquess of Sillybonker, that means he owns, well, Sillybonker. If he sold it, he’d lose his title.

Now, Sillybonker might in fact be 100 square miles of useless bogs and a crumbling Elizabethan manor… but do you think an actual big-time landowner would take an office job? No, Bob would probably just take out a mortgage and live in the one habitable wing of his old house and hope that someday the government would pave a highway through his territory, so he could rent out the land for a petrol station.

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[QUOTE=Alessan]
Back to the OP:

Correct me if I’m wrong, but titles don’t actually go with the person, they go with the property. That’s what makes them feudal. If your workmate is the Marquess of Sillybonker, that means he owns, well, Sillybonker. If he sold it, he’d lose his title.

[/QUOTE]

Depends, at least in Spain. Yes, I know the OP asked specifically about England, but I’m assuming one reason is because he knows we have more people from Britain than Elsewhere With Titles.

My family’s title as “lords of Tinyvillage” went with the property. To hear my father’s living relatives speak about it, it was considered a triple duty: as stewards of the fortifications, as representatives of the people before the king, and as captains of the people in times of war. Living in the one fortication large enough to hold more than a handful of people was both perk and part of that stewardship. They had to make sure it was big enough to hold everybody in Tinyvillage plus their stock, and also that there would be enough food to feed everybody for at least 30 days (there is a well in the middle of the courtyard and another in the kitchen).

A lot of the Marquises and Counts and Dukes created by the Borbons didn’t get new property. The fortified house to which that family title was attached was sold to the “Marquis of Royal Defenses” (Marqués de la Real Defensa); there isn’t any place called “Royal Defenses”, his greatgrandpa got that title for defending the king (lent him money when the king needed it to pay the soldiers and quell a revolt; instead of money back with interest, got a fancy title).

12

Huh.

I never knew that Marquis was the french spelling of Marquess I am an idiot, yes. and the property that a Marquess ownes is called a **Marquessates. **

No wonder you never never read about them in the Regency romance novels, its just an odd word and an odd title, which is lesser than an Earl and if you are an earl, you probably are a Marquess already and would not refer to the lesser title. Y’Follow?

I could have sworn that the wife of a marquess was called a Marchioness.(sp?) unless I am totally not withit this smorning. ( and I am as I have a migraine that I am fighting off.)
I am wondering, as I flit through the joys of Wikipedia this morning and reading about peerage and stuff. Some titles died off when there was no heir. What happened to the estate? Did the crown reclaim it as their own? Does it get reassigned to the next royal butt kisser a few years/decades down the road?

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[QUOTE=Shirley Ujest]
I am wondering, as I flit through the joys of Wikipedia this morning and reading about peerage and stuff. Some titles died off when there was no heir. What happened to the estate? Did the crown reclaim it as their own? Does it get reassigned to the next royal butt kisser a few years/decades down the road?
[/QUOTE]

I think the difference arise between inheritance of a peerage, which can only go to a direct descendent, and the estate itself which can be passed to others. In that situation, the peerage becomes extinct. Only if the peer dies intestate and with no traceable heirs for the estate does the Crown get involved.

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[QUOTE=Alessan]
Correct me if I’m wrong, but titles don’t actually go with the person, they go with the property. That’s what makes them feudal. If your workmate is the Marquess of Sillybonker, that means he owns, well, Sillybonker. If he sold it, he’d lose his title.
[/QUOTE]

In the case of UK titles, you’re wrong. (As Nava says, it’s different in some other European countries.) If the Marquess of Sillybonker sold Sillybonker, he would still be the Marquess of Sillybonker. Indeed, it doesn’t necessarily follow that he or an ancestor ever needed to own Sillybonker to have been given that title in the first place. The placenames used in peerage titles could and can be chosen for all sorts of reasons, although where someone owns land has always been a more obvious one.

[QUOTE=Shirley Ujest]
I am wondering, as I flit through the joys of Wikipedia this morning and reading about peerage and stuff. Some titles died off when there was no heir. What happened to the estate? Did the crown reclaim it as their own? Does it get reassigned to the next royal butt kisser a few years/decades down the road?
[/QUOTE]

Because titles and land are not connected, they can be inherited by different people. Moreover, the rules for succession to a particular title are usually more restrictive than those for succession to property - specifically, unlike most titles, land can pass through female lines and to relatives other than the direct descendants of the original holder. This means that, while it is not uncommon for a peer to leave no heir to inherit the title, it is just as freakishly rare for them as for anyone else to have no heirs whatsoever to inherit their land. If they do leave absolutely no relatives, that land then gets reclaimed by the Crown. But that’s true of anyone else in that situation. (Of course, historically there have been plenty of cases of peers whose lands have been confiscated by the Crown for political reasons, but that’s not the same thing.)

And, as a further consequence of titles and lands not being connected, it is perfectly possible for aristocratic families to lose their fortunes and for the peer to end up doing a very ordinary job. Such cases do exist (although Google isn’t being of any help in refreshing my memory).

Not that this is true for most hereditary peers. Most remain wealthy, some with substantial estates, some with solid upper-middle class/professional jobs. Some doubtless did get their jobs based on their titles. But most of them are otherwise indistinguishable from the far-greater numbers of their contemporaries who are also well-educated, well-connected and have some inherited money.

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[QUOTE=Shirley Ujest]
and the property that a Marquess owns is called a **Marquessates. **
[/quote]
Actually it’s the peerage title that’s known as a marquessate. One would say: “she was granted a marquessate” or “he inherited a marquessate”. Any property owned would more likely be referred to as the estate.

Wrong way round. A marquess outranks an earl. It goes: duke, marquess, earl, viscount, baron.

Correct

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[QUOTE=GorillaMan]
I think the difference arise between inheritance of a peerage, which can only go to a direct descendent, and the estate itself which can be passed to others. In that situation, the peerage becomes extinct. Only if the peer dies intestate and with no traceable heirs for the estate does the Crown get involved.
[/QUOTE]

Not always true. My wife claims to be descended from the Earl of Derwentwater. The title was forfeited after the jacobite revolution as he was on the losing side. All of the land was taken by the crown and the profits were partly used to build the hospital at Greenwich. Everytime we go to Greenwich she says it should be hers by right and when can we move our stuff in?
The old family seat was last used as a borstal, with another family home being a hotel. One day we will go and stay there for the weekend and try and take it back.

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Thanks for all the replies.

I’m still fuzzy about the OP, though. Do people with titles show up in normal (that is, non-hoity toity) society? Can people with titles utter the words “Would you like fries with that?”

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[QUOTE=JacobSwan]
Not always true. My wife claims to be descended from the Earl of Derwentwater. The title was forfeited after the jacobite revolution as he was on the losing side.
[/QUOTE]

Well, to put it more specifically, the estate was escheated, when the traitor was executed…

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[QUOTE=Athena]
Do people with titles show up in normal (that is, non-hoity toity) society?
[/QUOTE]

They do, but only rarely, and in such cases are far less likely to actually use the title. On the other hand, it’s not exactly uncommon to encounter people with titles in everyday life, but you’re unlikely to even know about it unless you’re introduced in a formal environment.

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[QUOTE=GorillaMan]
Well, to put it more specifically, the estate was escheated, when the traitor was executed…
[/QUOTE]

That was the 3rd Earl, who is only a half relative. According to family lore the 2nd Earl, before assuming the title, got a local girl pregnant and married her in secret. His father, the 1st Earl, found out and had the marriage annuled and forced him to marry someone of higher stock. The girl gave birth to a son who should have been the rightful 3rd Earl. My wife is descended from this branch, so I don’t take much offence at you calling my relatives a Traitor. The title shouldn’t have been his to lose in the first place.
Now that the hereditary peers are mostly gone from the House of Lords, I’d love to be able to find some actual evidence of this.