# Once-Noble Families In Decline-Have Any Regained Titles, Status? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 3, 2012, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692 "2012-04-03T14:22:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/1 "2012-04-03T14:22:22Z")
In Thomas Hardy’s tragic novel “Tess of The D’Urbervilles”, a nosey antiquarian clergyman finds out that a family in his parish (the Darbyfields) are actually descended from a noble family. He confronts the paterfamilia and tells him this-the family has almost nothing-just a silver spoon with the D’urberville crest on it. This revelation sets the tragedy in motion-Tess winds up being married to the evil guy who buys the title. At any rate, has this happened to some of the nobility? Can they regain their titles, estates, etc., by proving their pedigree? Take some noble Norman family-who were big when the Windsors were peasants-could they stage a comeback? I like to think that one of these “lager louts” arrested for being drunk and disorderly at a football game, might turn out to be the scion of some famous family-sort of a “Beverly Hillbillies” scenario. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/2 "2012-04-03T14:54:21Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > At any rate, has this happened to some of the nobility? Can they regain their titles, estates, etc., by proving their pedigree? Not in Spain. There are some titles (not all) which are linked to a specific house or piece of land; buying the house or land gets the title. This is the case for example with my family’s “knight-captainship”: it belongs to whomever owns the stronghouse. There is no doubt nor has there ever been about my father’s eldest cousin by his eldest uncle being the head of the bloodline, but when my great-grandmother sold the old house, the title went with it to another family. Anybody who builds the house gets the title as well. If the original buyer had demolished the house, the title would have disappeared along with it (getting it demolished now would involve a lot of legal complications, since it’s a historical building due to its age). ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/3 "2012-04-03T15:48:04Z")
The Juli in the mid to late Roman republic were an impoverished (well, not exactly rich) patricians gens who were no longer at the heart of affairs until the arrival of one Gaius Julius Ceaser, who you might have heard of. More recent examples will the Spencers who were under such hardships that their daughters had to work as teachers aides until they married into the Royal family. ---
**Author:** ![spikebrennan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@spikebrennan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spikebrennan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/4 "2012-04-03T18:16:56Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > In Thomas Hardy’s tragic novel “Tess of The D’Urbervilles”, a nosey antiquarian clergyman finds out that a family in his parish (the Darbyfields) are actually descended from a noble family. He confronts the paterfamilia and tells him this-the family has almost nothing-just a silver spoon with the D’urberville crest on it. > This revelation sets the tragedy in motion-Tess winds up being married to the evil guy who buys the title. > At any rate, has this happened to some of the nobility? Can they regain their titles, estates, etc., by proving their pedigree? > Take some noble Norman family-who were big when the Windsors were peasants-could they stage a comeback? > I like to think that one of these “lager louts” arrested for being drunk and disorderly at a football game, might turn out to be the scion of some famous family-sort of a “Beverly Hillbillies” scenario. King Simeon II of Bulgaria had a good run at attempting to accomplish this. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/5 "2012-04-03T18:25:01Z")
Not exactly your scenario, but William Hogarth’s series of paintings (and engravings) _Marriage a la Mode_ is essemntially the story of a noble family approaching impoverishment that marries off its younger son to the daughter of a wealthy but untitled merchant in an effort to stave off the scenario that the OP envisions. the first entry in Hogarth’s satirical series is filled with images and omens of foreboding that are realized in the later parts of the series, as the loveless match tragically dissolves > **[Marriage A-la-Mode (Hogarth)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_%C3%A0-la-mode_(Hogarth))** > > Marriage A-la-Mode\[fn 1\] is a series of six pictures painted by William Hogarth between 1743 and 1745, intended as a pointed skewering of 18th-century society. They show the disastrous results of an ill-considered marriage for money or social status, and satirize patronage and aesthetics. The pictures are held in the National Gallery in London. > This series was not received as well as his other moral tales, A Harlot's Progress (1732) and A Rake's Progress (1735), and when the paintings were fi... It’s not a true story, of course, but it was doubtless inspired by parallel real-life cases (or else the series would have no satirical “bite”) Certainly Hogarth’s contemporary commentator, the physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, thought there were parallel cases, as his commentaries make clear. But he doesn’t name them. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/6 "2012-04-03T19:01:22Z")
According to family lore, I am a male-line descendant of a minor French noble who fled the French Revolution, moved to the US, and changed his name. Attempting to prove this yields plenty of leads and no solid evidence. Even if the story is actually true _and_ could be proven and a determination made as to the theoretical heir of the title according to applicable laws of descent (probably either me or some cousin), it’s moot because French noble titles were kind of abolished. It’s a fun story though. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/7 "2012-04-03T19:24:06Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > More recent examples will the Spencers who were under such hardships that their daughters had to work as teachers aides until they married into the Royal family. On the contrary, pre-1981 the Spencers were seriously wealthy and were still among the richest landed families in England. That was partly through sheer dumb luck, as the 7th Earl, Diana’s grandfather, held the earldom and, more importantly, the estates for over fifty years. As a result, they had to pay only one set of death duties during the period when this was the biggest problem for most landed families. So the 8th Earl’s youngest daugher did not become a nursery teacher for the money. Instead that was simply what rich, posh girls did to occupy a few years before they found a husband. Especially if they were too thick to get a temporary job in, say, publishing. What however the Spencers are an excellent example of is as a family who _spuriously_ claimed that they were descended from a once-powerful noble family fallen on hard times. In the Spencers’ case, it was the Despencers. They were hardly alone in doing so. [QUOTE=ralph124c] At any rate, has this happened to some of the nobility? Can they regain their titles, estates, etc., by proving their pedigree? [/QUOTE] In the case of noble families in Britain, primogeniture, both of titles and of land, made such a scenario pretty much impossible. Primogeniture of land tended to keep estates together anyway and it was actually rather difficult for even the most dissolute of peers to piss away their entire estates. And, in any case, the cachet of a noble title was always sufficiently great (helped by the fact that, thanks to primogeniture, there were relatively few of them) that their fortunes could be easily restored by marriage to a rich heiress. (The _Marriage A-la-Mode_ scenario.) Examples of British peers losing everything and remaining poor were therefore almost unheard of before the twentieth century. Yes, plenty of noble families died out and their estates became dispersed. But that same process usually caused the titles to become extinct along with them. The flipside of that, however, was that there might be lots of descendants who inherited nothing, either in terms of titles or land. It often took only a few generations for the cadet lines of a family to slide quite far down the social scale. So there was no shortage of people below the ranks of the gentry who could claim noble descent. Plenty of poor boys who made good actually did have noble or gentry ancestors. Which only added pressure on those who did not to pretend that they did. But such a descent in itself brought nothing apart from bragging rights. It should also be said that there are dozens of examples of British aristocratic families who lost their titles and their lands as a result of being attainted for political reasons and who later got them back when the attainder was reversed. But this almost always happened within a generation and usually only required the son to grovel to the king. So not exactly examples of ruined families making second fortunes. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/8 "2012-04-04T03:53:23Z")
**APB** correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t Diana’s father open up his estates for the public because it was not paying enough. The current PM is a decendent of William IV through an illegitimate line although he has been born to privilege, though not to political power. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/9 "2012-04-04T04:25:43Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > **APB** correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t Diana’s father open up his estates for the public because it was not paying enough. That doesn’t mean he was poor, though, or that he had fallen on hard times. He had an asset worth millions and he decided to use it to generate some extra income to support the very considerable expenses of his style of life. That’s pretty much the opposite of “poor”. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 5:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/10 "2012-04-04T05:31:42Z")
> [@spikebrennan](#): > > King Simeon II of Bulgaria had a good run at attempting to accomplish this. Juan Carlos managed to get the Spanish throne back for his family by playing nice with Franco & convincing him they shared the same politcal views. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/11 "2012-04-04T06:52:34Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > That doesn’t mean he was poor, though, or that he had fallen on hard times. He had an asset worth millions and he decided to use it to generate some extra income to support the very considerable expenses of his style of life. That’s pretty much the opposite of “poor”. Exactly. The various royal families of Britain have been charging tourists admission to their properties since at least the 1740s:[ > [@Wikipedia](#): > > By the 1740s, Windsor Castle had become an early tourist attraction; wealthier visitors who could afford to pay the castle keeper could enter, see curiosities such as the castle’s narwhal horn, and by the 1750s buy the first guidebooks to Windsor, produced by George Bickham in 1753 and Joseph Pote in 1755. As the condition of the State Apartments continued to deteriorate, even the general public were able to regularly visit the property. ]([Windsor Castle - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windsor_Castle#20th_century))Nowadays you can still visit many royal residences as a tourist or even (if you work there or if you’re wealthy enough) as a long-term as a paying guest—most residences are technically owned by the state rather than the royal family, but the former pays for some or all of their upkeep and the latter have the right to charge admission fees and rent. The Republic site has [a good overview of the ownership status of various royal residences](http://www.republic.org.uk/What%20we%20want/In%20depth/Royal%20property/index.php). (Naturally it has some polemics advocating nationalization of these properties, but the parts about who currently owns and operates what is factual.) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/12 "2012-04-04T07:11:40Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > Juan Carlos managed to get the Spanish throne back for his family by playing nice with Franco & convincing him they shared the same politcal views. True, but that held no relationship with his pedigree. Part of the political manoeuvering included getting the rightful heir (Don Juan Carlos’ father, Alfonso XII’s son) to renounce his right to the throne; Don Juan and Franco hated each other’s guts, but I don’t think Franco ever accused Don Juan of being a bastard except perhaps in private. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/13 "2012-04-04T14:48:18Z")
> [@APB](#): > > And, in any case, the cachet of a noble title was always sufficiently great (helped by the fact that, thanks to primogeniture, there were relatively few of them) that their fortunes could be easily restored by marriage to a rich heiress. This is also a plot element in nearly all of Anthony Trollope’s novels, written in mid-Victorian times. > [@robert\_columbia](#): > > According to family lore, I am a male-line descendant of a minor French noble who fled the French Revolution, moved to the US, and changed his name. Your family lore seems to have incorporated _Huckleberry Finn_. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![chela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chela/32/21582_2.png) [@chela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chela)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/14 "2012-04-04T15:04:04Z")
IIRC the Greeks kicked out their Monarchs, strippd them of their lands etc, but the exiled King Constantine still uses his title. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/15 "2012-04-04T15:34:03Z")
> [@chela](#): > > IIRC the Greeks kicked out their Monarchs, strippd them of their lands etc, but the exiled King Constantine still uses his title. In most jurisdictions you can call yourself whatever you want. I could claim to be Psychonaut, King of Greece and there’s nothing Constantine could do about it. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2012, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/16 "2012-04-04T17:31:43Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > This is also a plot element in nearly all of Anthony Trollope’s novels, written in mid-Victorian times. > > Your family lore seems to have incorporated _Huckleberry Finn_. 😃 “Minor” as in not 18? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2012, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/17 "2012-04-05T18:27:52Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > it’s moot because French noble titles were kind of abolished. They haven’t been abolished, they’re simply mostly irrelevant from a legal point of view (I say “mostly” because there are some rare instances where courts might have to deal with nobility titles). ---
**Author:** ![SecretaryofEvil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@SecretaryofEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecretaryofEvil)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2012, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/18 "2012-04-07T18:44:23Z")
Hell, the male descendants of the former Italian royal family (the house of Savoy) weren’t legally allowed to even set foot in Italy until 2002. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/19 "2012-12-21T12:50:43Z")
So, what no example for the OP. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692/20 "2012-12-21T15:22:11Z")
How many european countries recognize any special rights or distinction with aristocratic titles any more? Seems to me most countries outside of Britain has some sort of upheaval which either resulted in the title and land being stripped, or at least the titles being legally irrelevant. (Spain seems to be an exception?) I suppose too, most estates fall into the category of mundane personal assets once the title dissappears, so regular inheritance laws apply. I suppose you are just as likely to find you inherit a million dollars from your great-uncle thrice-removed Kurt, a commoner who struck it rich in the salted herring business and his spinster daughter who now just died. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-noble-families-in-decline-have-any-regained-titles-status/617692.md?page=2)