(This question has been sparked by a novel, but is related to real-world traditions, namely courtesy titles in English nobility, so I figured out it would make better in GQ than in Café. Mods, please move if I’m wrong.)
I’m reading the mystery novel Whose Body? by English author Dorothy Sayers. Its protagonist is Lord Peter Wimsey, an English aristocrat and stereotypical gentleman whom Sayers created as her serial detective.
Now I also read about courtesy titles in British peerage, and this got me think about the title of teh fictitious “Lord Peter Wimsey.”
Peter’s mother is frequently referred to as the Dowager Duchess of Denver, from which I conclude that Peter’s father was the late Duke of Denver (whose dukedom, I suppose, is also fictitious, but let’s not bother about that). If Peter had been his father’s eldest son, he would have inherited the title and be Duke hinmself, but “Lord” is, as far as I know, not a form of address used for Dukes.
It is mentioned several times in the novel that Peter has in fact an elder brother, so I wondered whether the “Lord” in his name could refer to a courtesy title. As far as I know, courtesy titles in England are minor titles (i.e., lesser than the title the titleholder usually uses) which are actually held by a peer, but customarily used to refer to the peer’s sons even during the titleholder’s lifetime. So, if the Duke of Denver also held the title of Marquess Soandso, his eldest son would go by the Marquess title, which he (the son) would inherit as his own title upon his father’s death.
But that doesn’t explain Wimsey’s Lordship, does it? If there were courtesy titles involved, these would have passed to the eldest son of Peter’s elder brother upon their father’s death, since with this death, the title itself passed from father to eldest son. Peter imself, as younger son and later younger brother of the Duke, would never get a courtesy title.
Did Sayers simply goof the thing up, or am I getting something wrong about courtesy titles?
