I have heard that only the Queen of England can make a noble, such as a baron and on up, but in Italy a duke can make a count, for instance. Is this sort of thing going on?
I don’t just mean a peer for life, but hereditary peerages, does the Queen make any more of these? Could the main heir of Napoleon create kings, since he would be emperor?
The OP is a little confused, but then this whole damned subject is pretty.
First off, the title of “duke” has no legal existence in Italy; the titled nobility was abolished along with the monarchy in 1946. Sure there are Italians (and people who are married to Italians, and people who has used to be married to Italians, and people who assure you that they were adopted by Italians, but the KGB stole the adoption papers…) who call themselves “Duke of This” and “Count of That”, but there’s no legal significance to doing so.
Leaving aside the topic of subinfeudation (which I haven’t enough time to write about, and which haven’t been in effect since about the 13[sup]th[/sup] century anyway), only a sovereign ruler (or a mediatized nobleman; mediatization is another topic too complex to get into right now; suffice that there weren’t any in Italy) can create titled nobles. The Queen of England is (in theory) such a sovereign. But, on the Continent (because of the long, slow breakup of the “Holy” Roman Empire), you got sovereign princes, dukes, grand dukes, and (IIRC, in one instance at least) counts. Thus, an English duke always owes allegiance to the British monarch[sup]1[/sup], but an Italian or German duke may be sovereign (e.g.,the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg).
The English crown hasn’t created any hereditary peerages outside of the House of Windsor in some years. Now that most peers of Britain are being excluded from sitting in the Lords, this may (or may not) change, as creating somebody Duke of Earl would certainly be cheaper than giving him a pension.
The Bonpartist pretender (whose name I can’t think of at the moment, but there is one) wouldn’t create kings, as kings are always supposed to be sovereign. He could create other titles, but people would look askance at a Prince of Burgundy created by someone who might be a mid-level publishing executive.
[sup]1[/sup][sub]Yeah, “English” and “British”. Don’t even ask about the parallel hierarchies of peers in the U.K.[/sub]
Fascinating information from Ak, raising further questions I will be looking up the answers to. You said that the current Bonaparte Pretender wouldn’t create any kings because kings are always sovereign, but Napoleon I created a brother the King of Holland, for instance, and so my question is did he want him to be sovereign? I think he acted like one but then Napoleon deposed him. And what of Queen . But also aren’t there many instances of emperors through history that ruled over kings, in other words were sovereign over them? And a further item that I have always wondered about, I know that in the last few hundred years kings have been aware during their own reigns that they were Louis XIV and Henry VIII, but what about some of the way back ones–in many cases is their number something they themselves were unaware of? (I know of one specific example in the ancient Swedish kings, a lot of made-up Erics that never existed, but why did later court numberers make them up?) So many questions! I almost understood mediatization when I found a book listing all titled nobles in a genealogy library, and I will keep working on it, along with subinfeudation. How about this: do we call a king’s court his court because kings used to travel about and judge throughout the realm instead of staying home in the palace? And if the title Court Chamberlain derives from the servant who used to clean up the king’s actual chamber who grew gradually into a responsible noble because of his proximity to the king, then why isn’t there an official called the Court Valet? Who would be an important state official. England still has a Chamberlain, isn’t he the one that is even more dressed up than the Queen and accompanies her to Parliament when she opens it? But he has no function other than as bearing the robes of ancient ceremony of his predecessors?
It is very simple: you are a Count if you have won crown once, a Duke if you have won Crown twice. 
So, uh, what about the parallel heirarchies of peers in the UK?
waterj2 asks:
ARRRRGH!!! 
(You knew that that was coming, right?)
Actually, it’s not that complex. As I think that Cecil the All-Wise mentioned once, the United Kingdom was, in 1900, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; Great Britain was the result of an earlier union between England and Scotland. Thus, prior to 1707, there were three independent kingdoms, England, Scotland, and Ireland (Ireland was actually subordinate to England, and had been more or less, since the 16[sup]th[/sup] century, but it was theoretically independent). Thus were English nobles, Scots nobles, and Irish nobles; each country had its own parliament, in which the peers sat as a matter of right.
When the Act of Union between England and Scotland was passed in 1707, it was agreed that all English peers would sit in the House of Lords of the new British parliament; the Scots peers would elect sixteen of their members to sit in the Lords for the life of the parliament (in 1961, all Scots peers were admitted to the Lords), and no new Scots peers would be created. All new peers, therefore, were peers of Great Britain; the old English and Scots peerages would be subject to natural wastage. Socially, English peers took precedence (by title and, within title, by date of the last creation of the peerage) over Scots peers, who took precedence over British peers (legally, they were all – heh, heh – peers).
In 1801, a similar thing was done at the unification of Great Britain. The Irish peerage elected twenty-eight members to the U.K.'s Lords for life, and no more Irish or British peers would be created. Thus, in theory, there were five parallel hierarches of peers: English, Scots, Irish, British, and United Kingdom. In theory, one could possess the title of “Duke of X” five times, once in each hierarchy (there were cases of some multiple identical titles, although I don’t think that there were ever all five).
With the creation of the Irish Free State (later the Republic of Eire) in 1922, the machinery for choosing Irish peers fell into desuetude (it was never actually abolished by the U.K., and Eire couldn’t, technically abolish it, as neither the Free State nor Northern Ireland was considered the legal successor to the old Kingdom of Ireland. Of course, Eire could and did ignore it, and the Irish peerage has no legal existence). No Irish peers as such now sit in the Lords.
The simple answer to the OP is that anyone could grant titles to anyone they wanted - the trick was getting those titles recognised by everyone else. Some pretenders have in the past granted titles to their supporters, so the Bonapartist pretender could no doubt do so as well. Whether anyone would want such a title is another matter.
As Akatsukami has pointed out, the Italian cases were affected by the fact that parts of the peninsula fell within the Holy Roman Empire. I think a number of Italian sovereign dukes, such as the grand dukes of Tuscany or the dukes of Ferrara, did have the right to grant lesser titles. I’m sure that elsewhere the rules governing that right varied. It is a mistake to assume that the Imperial or the British rules were normative. Some European monarchs still grant titles.
With regard to Britain, the present Queen can and has granted hereditary peerages to individuals outwith her immediate family. The earldom of Stockton was granted to Harold Macmillan in 1984. It does however seem unlikely (but not absolutely impossible) that any future Prime Minister will submit recommendations for such a honour.
don willard’s question about the ‘court valet’ is not as daft as it seems. There are two Chamberlains - the Lord Great Chamberlain of England and the Lord Chamberlain of the Household. The former is hereditary (although, if you thought the different types of peerages were complicated, the descent of the Lord Great Chamberlaincy is even more so), while the latter can be given to anyone the monarch wishes. The Lord Chamberlain of the Household is, in effect, the chief executive of the Royal Household. The odd parallel is that the servant who attended the Tudor monarchs on their closestools, the Groom of the Stool, later became one of the highest court offices and was always held by a senior peer. The tendency for offices close to the monarch to become political positions ended not so much when the monarch’s power began to decline as when his/her ministers started to create political offices with specific adminstrative functions. This becomes obvious from the eighteenth century onwards.
Yes, people usually do find out I’m not as daft as they thought.
Um, I think in Napoleon’s case he was trying to build an empire ruled by his entire family with himself as the pupper master.
And Napoleon III put Maximillian of Austria as Mexican Emperor, did he not?
Napoleon III persuaded the Emperor of Austria’s brother to take the Throne of Mexico as emperor, and he did. He and the troops got partway to Vera Cruz when they were stopped by the Mexicans, who have ever after celebrated this day as Cinco de Mayo. Then the French troops took over and put Maximilian on the throne as emperor with his wife, the Empress Carlotta, often called the Mad Empress. Then Napoleon III wouldn’t give any more support to Maximilian, even though Carlotta kept going back to France and pleading for help, eventually losing her mind into the bargain.
Napoleon III is generally regarded as someone who because he was Emperor wanted to do emperor-type things, and interfered pointlessly all over the world. The Mexicans shot Maxmilian and it was depicted in any number of famous paintings, I think. There was a movie on this and there should definitely be an exciting remake on PBS some day with Bradd Pitt as Napoleon III, Madonna as Empress Carlotta,
Joe Liebermann as Emperor Maximilian, Faye Dunaway as the Princess Mathilde (Napoleon III’s cousin), Carmen Electra as the Empress Eugenie (who invented the Empress Eugenie hat and whose couture all the girls emulated), and one of the Smack-Down wrestlers as the executioner.
Actually, I would like to hear about the parallel peerages. I didn’t know about that!
ROFLMAO… in a regal, lesser noble sort of way.
West Kingdom, Cynagua… where are you at, good sir?
I love getting an inside joke in the posts… hehehe
We have GQ threads about Lucky Charms and Sugar Smacks.
Please tell me this thread isn’t about Count Chocula.
From this site, here is a list of the sovereign entities that the Holy Roman Empire broke up into when it finally bit the dust in 1806:
I don’t see any Counties on the list, but there are several pieces of the Holy Roman Empire that had already left by that point. Anyone know anything more about this?
A little off the subject, but what is the ettiquette when one encounters a duke today? I know that you refer to him as “Your Grace,” but are you expected to bow, or courtsey?
Not a simple subject, but…
The Count Palatine (Pfalzgraf) was one. He was also an Imperial Elector (Kurfürst), which title was reckoned to outrank that of Fürst, which was reckoned to outrank that of Prinz, with Herzog and Großherzog falling between the latter two[sup]1[/sup].
The other was the Landgraf[sup]2[/sup] of Hesse-Hamburg.
It should be remembered that, although the title Roman Emperor wasn’t abolished until 1806, the Treaty of Westphalia[sup]3[/sup] effectively made all territorial states within the Empire sovereign.
[sup]1[/sup][sub]If you think that the German nobility consists largely of unbelievable snobs, you’re not the only one. The Uradel (old nobility) don’t consider the Briefadel (nobility by letters-patent, basically anyone whose ancestors have been noble for “only” five hundred years or so) to be worthy of marrying into their ranks.[/sub]
[sup]2[/sup][sub]Is Landgraf to be considered equivalent to “count”? Whilst the Teeming Thousands argue this one, I’m stepping out for a cup of coffee…and dinner…and to grind the brakes on my car…and to learn a new language…[/sub]
[sup]3[/sup][sub]Called “Null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane and empty of meaning for all time” by Pope Innocent X. As it turned out, he was wrong.[/sub]
For information on the heirarchy, etiquette, etc. try http://www.heraldica.org/here.htm#topics
For excruciating detail on the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire, try http://chivalricorders.org
And for information on pretenders and hoaxes, try http://www.caltrap.bbsnet.com/tableofcontents.htm