In Europe, or elsewhere, how many “royal” families are there and do the governments or a government body control who gets what title and property? Assuming a birth/survival rate higher than replacement, who gets bumped from titles or money? If the King has 10 kids, do the king’s grand-nephews and 2nd cousins get zilch? Or do things just get diced up smaller and smaller?
[Side question: Did the Napoleanic (sp?) code push for such forced division among all heirs, royal or not? Or leave it up to families?]
Titles are easy. If you have more men who need to be royal dukes, then just create a new title. For exanple, the title of Duke of Windsor was created in 1937 when Prince Edward (formerly King Edward VIII, and Prince of Wales before that) needed to be given a title as a royal duke.
Most titles of nobility don’t come with land grants anymore. In fact, most peers created nowadays (in the UK, at least) are life peers. Their title lasts only until their death and isn’t hereditary.
Whenever a title goes extinct, i.e., there is no legitimate heir to it, it reverts back to the Crown, who can give it out some years later at its discretion.
The title of “Duke of York” has done that innumerable times since its creation. First, the Duke of York became King Edward IV in 1461. Then James II in 1688. Queen Victoria was the daughter of the Duke of York, who died before his older brother. Then George V in 1911, and then George VI in 1936. There may be another instance or two in there. Each of them was either himself created Duke of York and then became King/Queen or inherited it from a father or grandfather who was Duke of York.
Remember that only one person can hold a title. If the Comte d’Artois has 10 children, only the eldest son becomes Comte d’Artois. The others get some sort of honorific but not the title. The Duke of Kent in the U.K. is the son of the previous Duke of Kent, and has a brother who is Prince Michael of Kent. Wills and Harry, though 2nd and 3rd in line for the throne, AFAIK have no titles of their own but are respectively Prince William of Wales and Prince Harry of Wales.
The Crown is fairly creative in coming up with appropriate titles. For example, Lord Richard Mountbatten commanded British forces in Burma, among other places, during World War II, and became Earl Mountbatten of Burma afterwards. Newspaper magnate Max Aitken, originally from Beaver Brook, New Brunswick, became Lord Beaverbrook, and Sir Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff during WWII, became Lord Alanbrooke.
Almost any geographic area can be used for an Earldom or Duchy. There’s a famous fictional character who is Duke of Holdernesse, which is the peninsula just north of the Humber estuary in North Yorkshire. Renfrew, Banff, Sunderland, Ystrad Tywi, Ceredigion, Carmarthen, Cheshire: all are available or have been recently used.
For Barons (“Lord Suchandsuch”) and Viscounts, the surname is usable, and if it happens to be one already in use, a distinguisher is added: Lord Smith of Oxford as opposed to Lord Smith of Bristol, for example.
That’s Lord Louis Mountbatten. And after that he was made Marquess of Milford Haven.
When Margaret Thatcher, for example, was ennobled, she chose the title “Baroness Thatcher.” And Andrew Lloyd Webber became “Baron Lloyd-Webber” (the hyphen being necessary in the title to avoid confusion).
Children of the Sovereign and the Heir Apparent bear the style “His/Her Royal Highness” and the title “the Prince/the Princess” before their Christian name. A peerage is created at the discretion of the monarch. Elizabeth’s second son was born HRH the Prince Andrew. When he got married, the Queen made him HRH the Prince Andrew, Duke of York.
Children of the males in the above group bear the style “His/Her Royal Highness” and the title “Prince/Princess” before their Christian name. Example: HRH Princess Beatrice.
At one time, the monarch’s great-grandchildren bore the style “His/Her Serene Highness” and the title “Prince/Princess”, but they stopped that a couple of centuries ago. I seem to recall reading that Tony Blair introduced legislation to strip the Queen’s grandchildren of their titles and styles, but I don’t remember if it passed.
The Queen gets rent from tenants in the Duchy of Lancaster. The Heir Apparent gets rent from tenants in the Duchy of Cornwall. Other HRHs get an apartment in Kensington Palace and an allowance from the government. More distant relatives get zilch, although social connections give them lucrative business opportunities.
Traditionally, it was left up to the heads of the families (ie, the monarch). However, various revolutions and democratic movements have tried to make their countries’ royals less burdensome for the taxpayers.
Does this mean that for that period, the monarch officially carries that title as one of his or her many titles? And if this is the case, what if you have a title which is restricted to heridity in the male line, but the reigning monarch at the time is a queen?
This is sort of not true these days with regard to Germany. Though the aristocracy there no longer has any legal privileges or significance, the descendants of titled nobility usually tack the rank before the “von”, so it becomes, for example, “Hans Graf (=Count) von Plettesheim”. And all members of the family do it, so if there are 8 children, they all use the surname Graf von Plettesheim, (or Graefin von Plettesheim for females). In this sense everyone in the family bears the title.
Strictly speaking, however, the law says that “Graf von Plettesheim” functions as a simple last name, since legally there are no more Counts in Germany. Accordingly, even females are supposed to use the male version of the title in their last name. However, that provision is rarely enforced, due no doubt to the inherent ridiculousness of a woman calling herself “Johanna Count of Plettesheim”.
No, it just means that the name becomes “available” for use with a new Peerage. The Duchy of Buckingham was an ancient peerage. It became extinct. No more Dukes of Buckingham in Parliament. Then Queen Elizabeth I had a friend, George Villiers, who needed a title. So she created a new Duchy of Buckingham.
I remember in Mark Twain’s account of Captain Stormfield’s visit to Heaven, a character mentioned “Princes of the Blood” – apparently in reference to contemporary British usage – relatives of the sovereign, not quite part of the royal family but considered a cut above the regular nobility. What ever happened to that?
This varied from country to country, and from century to century.
In Britain, nobility is an office. When the Second Earl Spencer died, his eldest son took the seat in Parliament as the Third Earl Spencer. The rest of his children were legally commoners. (Weathy and well-connected, but legally common.)
In Slavic countries, nobility was a status held by the entire family. If the father was a count, all of the children were counts and countesses.
Italy compromised. When the Count of Monte Cristo died, his eldest son became the next Count of Monte Cristo. Other descendants were called “John Smith, a noble of the Counts of Monte Cristo”.
What MBH said. The Crown is the repository for the titles, as the “fount of honours.” The Queen is not, e.g., the Marquess of Buccleuch (which I think is extinct); that title is at her disposal to bestow (and however she wants to; the restrictions are not binding on her, since it was her ancestors who imposed them on the titleholder).
By the way, something fascinating: Under certain circumstances the fact that she happens to be a woman is ignored by a legal fiction. E.g., in the Channel Islands, she is their suzerain as Duke of Normandy (not Dutchess).
That’s correct. Both titles (the marquessate of Milford Haven and the Earldom Mountbatten of Burma) are held by members of the Mountbatten family.
The Milford Haven title was created for Prince Louis of Battenburg (husband of Princess Victoria of Hesse, one of Queen Victoria’s grandchildren). Though German born, he’d been a naturalised British subject for many years. He, like many other members of the British royal family with Germanic sounding names, was forced to Anglicise his name towards the end of WWI in the wake of the mounting anti-German hysteria in the UK. He was created Marquess of Milford Haven, with the Anglicised surname Mountbatten. His elder son George succeeded as 2nd Marquess. The current Marquess is the 4th, great-grandson of the original Marquess.
At the time of the creation of the marquessate Prince Louis’ younger son took the appropriate style for a marquess’ younger son i.e. Lord Louis Mountbatten. He was known by that title until he was created a viscount: the Viscount Mountbatten of Burma. He was later promoted a step in the peerage and also given an earldom of the same name. Those titles were created with a special remainder, allowing them to be inherited by Mountbatten’s daughters. They are now held by his elder daughter who is the Countess Mountbatten of Burma.
OK, now the flip side, then, of the question I asked: So Lizzie is, among other things, (non-gender-specific) Duke of Normandy and Duke of Landcaster. Could she, if she so chose, give the title of Duke of Normandy to somebody else (and presumably relinquish it for herself, in the process)?
I think she could, but she’s unlikely to, because there’s a duchy attached to the title. In the case of the title of Duke of Normandy, that title would presumably make you sovereign of the Channel Islands. And the Duchy of Lancaster has enormous financial assets, generating a lot of revenue for HM, so she would not want to give that away.