I’m talking about law here. I’m a US citizen and live in the US, and am not a citizen of any other country. I understand that countries such as the UK have a very long history of titles of royalty and nobility, including noble ranks such as Baron, Earl, or Duke, and forms of address such as “His Excellency”. Other than social ostracism, are there any consequences of styling myself “The Right Honorable Duke robert_columbia of Meadow Mews and Lord of Blue Manor” or somesuch?
Assume that I’m not actually claiming to be British or other nobility.
Btw, I’m not talking about changing my name, but about adopting pretentious titles or requesting that people refer to me with pretentious forms of address.
I am not talking about changing my name. I’m talking about adopting a title separate from my name. For example, Dr. John Smith’s name is John Smith, Dr. is a title.
Well, they do it all the time in the Society for Creative Anachronism… Sure, it’s “just pretend,” but it’s treated seriously. Kneeling before the King, etc.
The Constitution says that the U.S. (and state and local) government can’t award titles and patents of nobility, but the First Amendment’s free speech provisions suggest pretty strongly that we can say such things to each other if we want.
Of course, such titles of nobility have to be such where impersonation is a strict liability crime, meaning no defense is available if charged.
For example, a fellow inmate in a prison/jail can assist others with legal papers, drawing up lawsuits, even though they are not an attorney, as so called “Jailhouse Lawyer’s” are permitted by the Constitution, so they can not be charged with practicing law without a license.
Another example is in Ohio it is illegal to impersonate a police officer/sheriff, etc. However, it is an affirmitive defense if it was done for a lawful reason.
Say I see a mugging and to protect the person, I yell out “Police stop”. That would be my defense, if charged, I did it to protect. Under those facts, I don’t see being charged at all though, as in Ohio, if I am not mistaken, there is a “duty to rescue”.
If the repetition of nobility creates a social environment that creates an unjust enrichment for the person, it is questionable then, legally and civily.
When I lived in DC there was a local crazy named Robert who called himself “the Mayor of 14th Street.” I saw cops bust him most than once (they must have busted him pretty offten, because they all seemed to know him), and even the cops called him “Mr. Mayor”.
In the memoirs of some Canadian diplomat (first name “Marshall”) he recounted the tale of while visiting Russia, being seated at a Soviet state dinner with a whole number of fairly high up Army officers. Afte a bt of back-and-forth, they realized that Marshall was his name, not his title, and they had been paired with him by the KGB in error to outrank him. He says they spent the rest of the dinner telling him stories about how stupid the KGB was.
There are a lot of people who use titles like mayor, or even “doctor”. However, putting fake ltters after your name (P.Eng, MD, etc.) or using fake titles in such a way as to confuse or fool people could sometimes be considered fraudulent. What do you do when you enter a court? Drop the “Your Honour” or “Judge” title?
One of the guys I knew in college ordered a priest collar out of the back of a magazine. He said you would not believe the change in attitude when you wore that thing, especially 30 years ago. People hold doors for you, smile, offer their seat, insist you go to the front of the line… Of course, “Father” Guido Sarducci was arrested for that while trying to film some scenes around the Vatican. Apparently impersonating a priest is a crime in the Vatican.
(There’s some old movie where Mary Tyler Moore wants stop being a nun; in the opening bit, she crosses the street in New York n full nun duds; the cop whistles the traffic to a stop for her, and helps her across. A few minutes later she emerges from the building in civilian clothes, makes eye contact with the same cop, steps out onto the street and almost gets run over. The cop yells at her, “Are ya crazy, ya stupid lady? Tryin’ to get run over? Get off the road!”)
“Right Honorable” is a title for a member of parliament, a minister of the crown. Not sure what would happen if you tried to style yourself as member of congress or senator in the USA, but I’m sure on some level it’s not allowed.
According to David McCullough in Truman, at the Potsdam Conference in 1945, the President took great pleasure in introducing a U.S. marshal friend from Missouri to the Soviet delegation, which treated him with great respect, not realizing that marshal is a law enforcement and not military title in the U.S.
Agreed, the OP can legally call himself whatever noble title he wants as long as he’s not trying to defraud anyone.
This is all just wild ass guessing on my part with a sprinkling of common sense.
You can certainly start a club and call yourself The Grand Poobah and refer to yourself as such.
I see no reason why you shouldn’t be able to call yourself King robert_columbia. Prince called himself Prince, after all.
However, you’d run into problems if you represented yourself as something you weren’t in order to gain something. If you’re leading people to believe you’re a British Count or something, and they’re giving you stuff because of it (yes, some folks are dumb), then that just makes you a common or garden con man. So you could say “I refer to myself as Count r_b and request that you do the same”, but you can’t say, specifically, “I am a British Count”.
No, as the Wikipedia article says, in the UK “Right Honourable” belongs to members of the Privy Council, to barons, viscounts and earls (and their wives), and to a few people holding particular offices. Most MPs are not even “Honourable”, and ministers of the crown only join the Privy Council and become “Right Honourable” if they belong to the Cabinet.
Quite a few junior ministers, usually as ministers of state, do get appointed to the Privy Council. But, unlike with Cabinet ministers, it’s not automatic. A bunch of the incoming junior minsters were added in the 2010 dissolution honours list. Also, the Attorney General is never a Cabinet minister but is always a privy councillor.
To the OP, it is perfectly legal to call yourself Baron Lordship of Upper Slaughter even as a British Citizen, as long as you aren’t trying to commit fraud. The classic example isScreaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow, the ‘stage’ name of David Sutch, a musician who founded the Monster Raving Looney Party and stood in many parliamentary elections, dressed in crazy outfits, to poke fun at politicians. He often picked up quite a few protest votes.
Difference in practice between the UK and Canada. Here, if you’re a minister, you’re almost always in Cabinet, but in the UK, junior ministers are not necessarily in Cabinet, which tends to be a much smaller body than the Canadian Cabinet. One of the reasons for the difference is the federal structure in Canada: by custom, the Cabinet has to include representation from all the provinces, reflecting the federal nature of the country.
The Canadian practice is that “Right Honourable” is reserved for three officials: the Governor-General; the Prime Minister; and the Chief Justice of Canada. Past office-holders retain the honorific for life.
The honorific can on rare occasions be bestowed on senior Cabinet members to recognize their long service, for example the Right Honourable Herb Gray.
Well, you could cover that with just a ten member cabinet. British cabinets are bigger than that (currently 23 full members by my count, plus a few other odds and sods who attend).