Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Un ballo in maschera was actually based (loosely) on the assassination of King Gustavus III of Sweden, a fascinating story in and of itself. But owing to the delicacy of the subject matter (the killing of reigning monarchs was a very touchy subject in the mid-19th Century), he was forced to manufacture a non-European setting for it. As finally completed and staged, it’s set in a fictional Boston, Mass., during the colonial era. But this Boston was not settled by Puritans, but instead is a transplanted cosmopolitan European city in America, with a royal governor Riccardo, Count of Warwick. An earlier draft of the story, though, had him as “Duke of Boston.” (And, like most of Verdi, the plot reduces to love and jealousy – what other motivation could there possibly be? :dubious: )
Baron (or Lord) Baltimore didn’t exactly have it made in the Old World. Being Catholic & all. But he wrote a pretty good Catechism. (No, I know he didn’t really write that book I studied on weekends–being a public school kid.)
*Moctezuma’s Children; Aztec Royalty under Spanish Rule, 1520-1700 * by Donald E. Chipman explains how the Moctezumas fared after the Conquest.
www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/chimoc.html
The “nobility” thing didn’t last in Mexico. But I wonder if the famous Mexican archaeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma is related on his mother’s side?
My memory fails me: didn’t Thomas Jefferson grant asylum to French Nobles during the French Revolution & subsequent Terror?
Beaver Island (MI) had a king for a while.
At that time, the USA welcomed pretty much any immigrants to the country. The increased population was wanted to grow the economy and expand the frontier. So they would have been welcomed for that reason alone. The fact that they probably got away with at least some of their wealth just made them more welcome.
I don’t know that Jefferson granted any actual ‘political asylum’ though – can’t recall that the French Revolutionary government(s) ever formally applied for extradition of any of their fleeing nobles.
The Marquis de Lafayette was, of course, the first “honorary citizen” of the U.S., in token of his services during the Revolution. Other noted Europeans who aided in the American Revolution and settled here, many noble, include James de le Ray de Chaumont, Casimir Pulaski, and the “Drillmaster of the Revolution,” Baron von Steuben, who spent the rest of his life on a tract of land north of Rome, NY, granted him for his services.
We should not forget Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal.
Don and Dona (imagine the tilde over the ‘n’) were also adopted by some of the early Anglo settlers in Los Angeles during the last days of Mexican control of the region. By that time, it seemed to mean not much more than “Mr” or “Mrs”, just as those titles once signified considerable status and no longer do today.
I guess we could call the Governor General of Canada the Viceroy then.
The provinces also have their own Governor Generals, don’t they?
I came in to remind everyone of King James of Beaver Island, but I see that No Me Ayudes Compadre had recalled that bit of “history.”
Yes, provincial Governors General are known as Lieutenant Governors. (BTW, the pronunciation is LEF-tennant.)
As for “viceroy”; well, I suppose you could use it. Sometimes you do hear of the office being called “vice-regal,” and the term “viceroy” may have been used in the past. But regardess of its suitability (or not), “viceroy” is never used in practice today, and I don’t think it would be–I really don’t think today’s Canadians would stand for something sounding that aristocratic.
Also–just a minor correction–“Governor” is the noun and “General” is the adjective, so the correct plural is “Governors General.” The person occupying the office is a governor, not an Army officer.
There is a probably moribund difference between Viceroy and the assorted Governor roles, including Governor General, in terms of the personal embodiment of sovereignty and the exercise of elements of the royal prerogative – and I’m not totally clear on the details there, or when they would have applied while still significant. Someone who’s a real expert on British or Spanish constitutional law might want to sort out the distinction; for our purposes in this thread, suffice it to say that there was a difference in empowerment and delegated authority, and it no longer has any practical meaning.
The first thing that comes to my mind is Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour PC, OC, KCSG.
He was a Canadian, but to obtain his title from our Queen,he had to renounce his Canadian citizenship which he currently is trying to retrieve.
Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt could be considered a curious case of US-specific nobility:
As the former Robert Lichtenberg acquired the surname (not: title) “Prinz von Anhalt” by adult adoption for pay (in consideration of a pension to the elderly adopter) he is not regarded as one of them by the German nobility, but his new name did give him his entrée to American high society, which he leveraged into marriage to Zsa Zsa Gabor.
For the Brits, I suspect that social snobbery was one reason for the lack of New World titles. Compared to the long-established English/Scottish (later United Kingdom) peerages, the Irish peerage was already considered to be second-rate, so any New World titles would probably have been regarded as fit only for jumped-up shopkeepers. Thus there was little desire for creating any.
The later Canadian titles referred to by earlier posters are as much an expression of nostalgia (in the peerage of the United Kingdom :rolleyes: ) by Canadians who had essentially emigrated to Britain as “real” Canadian titles. (And IMHO Conrad Black is an egotistical idiot.)
The noun viceroy is not used in Australia to describe the office of the Governor-General. However the adjective viceregal is used reasonably commonly.
Wasn’t one Canadian Prime Minister made a viscount after he retired (British PMs were traditionaly made earls upon retirement)?
Possibly. Certainly a former Australian PM was created a viscount: Stanley Bruce, created Viscount Bruce of Melbourne.
The constitutional difference between the Viceroy and the Governors General is that Viceroys were created under the royal prerogative, while Governors General were statutory officers.
The best example of that distinction was in India during the British Imperial period, where there were both offices, a Governor General and a Viceroy, but held by the same person. Some parts of India were governed under the authority of the Government of India Act. The head of the executive acting on behalf of the Crown was the Governor General, a statutory office created by the Act, passed by the British Parliament. The Governor General had large powers, but they were defined by the Government of India Act.
However, the British also governed large portions of India by treaties with the various Indian royalties (how voluntary those treaties had been is another issue). The Indian royalties surrendered some of their sovereignty to the British Crown by treaty, but retained some local powers. Since a treaty is an instrument of the royal prerogative, the British would appoint a Viceroy under the royal prerogative to exercise those sovereign powers under the treaty. The Viceroy’s powers would be set out in the prerogative instrument appointing him to the office, his Commission, which would be enacted by the Crown on the advice of the Cabinet, without parliamentary involvement.
In practice, although the same person held both offices, he was normally referred to as the Viceroy, probably because it was the grander sounding title.
Similarly, when the English were governing Ireland as a feudal dependency of the Crown, the king would appoint a Viceroy to exercise the royal powers in Ireland. However, when Ireland became a self-governing dominion in 1922, as the Irish Free State, the representative of the Crown became a statutory officer, called the Governor-General: Constitution of the Irish Free State, Article 60.
In Canada, the term Governor General is used for the statutory office, created by the Constitution Act, 1867, s. 10.