:eek: A good batman would never fight an earl!
The “the” means that the earl is an actual peer of the realm, not the heir to a dukedom or marquessate who is using the earldom as a courtesy title.
I think this “The” usage is an imported carry-over from Southern California, where all the freeways are named with “The”.
But what if he was Kaiser Bill’s batman?
Heh, that’s funny, because the House of Lords itself isn’t that anal. Viscounts, Earls, Marquesses and Dukes get ‘the’ but regular Barons just get ‘Lord’. And the vast majority of Members of the House of Lords are mere Barons.
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Because at one point Their Majesties realized they could give someone a title without also granting them land. Those Earls of Themselves got the title, but no accompanying land. Giving someone a fancy title costs you a lot less than giving them a chunk of land. In the case of England, the title comes with the right to a seat in the House of Lords; in countries without one, all it really gets you is a pretty crown on your coat of arms.
A recent example: Adolfo Suárez was made Duque de Suárez, not inheritable and not landed; it was a personal recognition but didn’t come with anything that would have cost Juan Carlos I money and did not increase the amount of Grandees of Spain, therefore avoiding an outcry for increasing something that’s supposed to not even exist officially any more.
Eh? The Duque de Suárez is inheritable. It’s currently held by Adolfo’s granddaughter, Alejandra.
I’m no expert, but I have read a lot of British novels that included noble personages in them. So I thought that a British Duke would have at least one lesser title, such as Viscount or Earl, that could be given to the eldest son and heir apparent, and that all the other children of the Duke would at least be Honourables. Isn’t “Honourable” worth anything as nomenclature of address (possibly not technically a title)? Doesn’t it distinguish one as of noble birth as distinct from run-of-the-mill commoners?
That’s not how it was originally granted, but apparently the judges applied a law from 1912. To make things more fun, apparently and after some laws involved in this particular type of inheritance and location changed to strict primogeniture, and with Suárez still alive, his son (who wasn’t his firstborn) tried to get JCI to declare the son the heir.
What about the The Lord Haden-Guest?
Back when seats in the House of Lords were still hereditary, it was possible for the heir to a peerage to get a “Writ of Acceleration” which would let him sit in the House of Lords under one of his father’s subsidiary titles. However, this was an unusual event. According to Wikipedia, only 98 writs of acceleration were issued in 400 years.
Younger children of dukes and marquesses are “Lord/Lady Firstname Surname”. Younger children of other peers are “The Honourable”. This marks social distinction, but not legal distinction. They are still eligible to stand for election to the House of Commons, just like any ruddy peasant.
He is formally “the Right Honourable Christopher Haden-Guest, 5th Baron Haden-Guest, of Saling in the County of Essex”. He was active in parliament until the House of Lords Act of 1999 booted out most of the hereditary Lords.
Is Jamie Lee Lady Haden-Guest?
The children of earls are split. Daughters are ladies, but younger sons are only honourable. (Daughters outrank younger sons generally, and for some reason the split in titles happens midway through the earls’ kids.)
Yes, she is. Don’t know whether she ever uses the title, though.
Count Mapcase, I applaud the names you bestowed upon the young Counts. Sturdy and traditional!
I’m not sure about how the designation of rank was used by junior family members, but in Germany the entire family was considered noble, unlike in the UK where only the most senior (usually) male member is legally considered a peer. IIRC nearly all noble families in Germany use the prefix “von” or more rarely “zu” in their names, although there are a few very old noble families that do not. There also exists a small number of non-noble families that use “von” in much the same way “van” is used in the Netherlands. Unlike in the British peerage, where you usually can’t identify a family as aristocratic from the surname alone, in German names the prefix “von” is almost always a dead giveaway.
Interesting point is that it not just the peerage: that’s a point of difference between (historical) English general culture and Continental culture: the whole English system of inheritance, land ownership, social security, trade and geographic mobility pivoted on the fact that English rights and obligations were individual rather than family (when compared to continental countries).
A couple of points: the “lesser titles” to which you refer are titles in their own right which which either the original grantee received as part of the initial “package” when they were ennobled, or came to the family by other means. These lesser titles may be born by the eldest son, and in some cases by his eldest son, but this is only in the sense that they can use the title and its associated honorifics as their name and style. Yet they remain commoners, and can stand for Parliament and so on. This type of lesser title is only used by those in the direct line of succession to the main title
Younger sons and daughters of marquesses and dukes may style themselves as Lord or Lady Firstname Lastname, with “lastname” meaning the family surname and not the actual title which may be different. In either case the last name may be omitted, but never the first. So in the fictional Marchmain family, Sebastian Flyte can be Lord Sebastian Flyte, or just Lord Sebastian, but never Lord Flyte; similarly for his sister Lady Julia. Not that it ever happened, but if Sebastian Flyte had gotten married his wife could have signed herself Lady Sebastian Flyte, not unlike the old fashioned patriarchalist style of Mrs. John Doe. But she could not call herself Lady Own-firstname, unless she hadher own right to do so. Older brother “Bridey” (true name never revealed in the novel) bears his father’s subsidiary title of Earl, and is (Firstname Unknown) Flyte, Earl of Brideshead. But since the title actually belongs to his father Lord Marchmain, Bridey remains a commoner.
As pointless and arcane as all this is with regard to the lives of most of us, it does help to understand the family relationships among characters in British fiction and potential underlying plot factors such as who is actually a peer or can expect to become one, who is an elder versus younger sibling, and so on. In the Lord Peter Wimsey stories we know that he is a younger brother to either the current head of the Wimsey family, or to the latter’s heir.
Another historical difference I’ve noticed is that the German nobility included many families who possessed no designations of rank such as Freiherr or even Ritter. I’m not an expert so I won’t swear to it, but I think there were parallels between the British untitled gentry and the lower, untitled reaches of the German nobility, despite the fact that the former were technically commoners.
And if there were any potential confusion with a sister-in-law or other female in the family who had their own right to be Lady Own-firstname X, a wife becoming Lady X only as a result of her marriage would be referred to as Own-firstname, Lady X.
But in general usage, that distinction now tends to go by the board.