I live in the UK, and sites like “Elite Titles” and English Titles claim they can officially afford you the title of Lord or Baron, among many others, for £200 or so, and for £1000 they can get you a strip of land that would make you “Lord Jones of Mayfair” or whatever. They say you can put the title on all your legal documents - credit cards, bank accounts, even your passport.
How is that possible? These can’t be real titles can they? I thought in the UK titles could only be afforded by the monarch, on royal paper, stamped with the royal seal. I could understand if these titles were just private titles given to you only by the companies themselves, but how would they let you become “Lord Jones” on your passport?
Pay me $50, and I’ll send you a shiny certificate proclaiming you to be the Grand Poobah of America. You can sign your name as The Great Philosopher, Grand Poobah of America. People will point and laugh, and there would be no actual legal effect, but you could sure sign your name that way.
That sounds something like that International Star Registry, where you pay this company (I forget what the cost is), and they issue you a “Certificate” and a map showing you where the star is that bears your name.
This sounds to me kinda’ like those firms that sell phony academic degrees by mail.
Put them all together, and you could refer to yourself as something like the Earl of Alpha Centauri, PhD.
Is there any reason you couldn’t do that right now, without paying these people? I’m fairly ignorant about US practices, but I would imagine the only protected “real” titles are to do with education: MD, engineer etc.
You can use any name/title you want as long as you don’t do it for illegal purposes. Kinda reminds me of all these dopey lawyers who call themselves Esquire.
There are only 3 ways to get an bona fide title of nobility; inherit one, convince the relevant monarch to grant you one, or marry someone who has (I think Spain is the only country where this works for men). They cannot be bought or sold.
In England it is possible to buy a Lordship of the Manor, with or without the manor in question, but it’s not the same thing as a peerage or knighthood.
I think this is the credited response. If I pay you $x and you “grant” me the right to call myself a Conquistador, then you have fulfilled your end of the bargain.
But the truth is that I can call myself whatever I want for free so long as it isn’t fraudulent. Others can also feel free to laugh at me for doing so.
Well, here’s the thing. There’s the actual peerage and honours…the Earl of Derby, the Duke of Norfolk, Sir Elton John, that sort of thing. These are given by the Queen upon the recommendation of the Prime Minister (so really, by the Prime Minister), in the case of life peerages and honours, and passed down from father to son in the case of hereditary peerages. These are, by law, an “inalienable incorporeal hereditament”. The Duke of Norfolk is the Duke of Norfolk unless or until he dies or he’s attained or whatever.
Now, there’s another feudal honor called “Lordship of the Manor”. It’s kind of complicated to go into, but traditionally, it had to do with the legal relationship between the owner of land and its tenants, first tenancy by villeinage, and then tenancy by copyhold. However, that was all gotten rid of by the 19th century, and the title, “Lord of the Manor of X”, became pretty much worthless except as a matter of prestige, got separated from the actual land, and generally got bought and sold.
Some of these sites offer actual Lordships of the Manor for sale, and others just tell you how to legally change your name to “Earl John of Smith”.
The Earl of Bradford has gotten himself all worked up about the sale of false titles online, and has created a website debunking the myths and blowing the whistle on these false title sites, and you can find his website doing so here:
Just an extremely minor correction of detail to Captain Amazing’s excellent post.
The Queen does have the right to object to nominations for honours by the Prime Minister – unlike most of the other advice he gives her, she has discretion here. Normally she will accept his Honours List totius porcus, but there were a few cases where someone was nominated whose main contribution to British public life seemed to be giving large sums to the P.M.'s party, and she objected – successfully. There are also a few – very few, but some – honours that are in the monarch’s personal gift, and the P.M. has no say (or no mor say than any other subject) in their bestowal.
Yes, and there’s a fair number of these that aren;t used (the Land is owned by a Corp or someone who has other tiles or needs the money) so as long as they are talking “Lord” and a moderately hefty chunk of change, it could be legit.
To those who keep saying this: if what these sites are saying is true (I suppose that’s by no means guaranteed) it’s not like the Star Registry. They don’t just print you a nice certificate and say that you can call yourself ‘Lord Smith’ and that’s OK with them. They claim that this is a title that can go on legal records, including your passport, which as far as I’m aware has to bear your legal name on it. So there’s something more going on here.
Thanks, that’s a very useful post. So the only legal title someone can buy is a “Lordship of the Manor”, but that goes after the name and doesn’t entitle you to call yourself “Lord Smith”?
If that’s true then it seems these sites that offer ‘Earl’ and ‘Baron’ and so forth are doing one of two things:
Simply telling you how to legally change your name to “(Mr) Earl John Smith”, or;
Lying when they claim you can get these titles onto your passport (and in fact looking again the only reference I can see to the title going on a passport is actually contained in a quote from a ‘satisfied customer’, not a claim by the site itself).
Just as a note, a quote I liked from that site: “I will put it very simply: You cannot purchase a genuine British title.” That’s certainly been up for debate.
I don’t know know why you’re hung up on the passport; you can get any name on a passport as long as it’s a name you can prove you use and are known by. A driver’s license is standard for this, and if you have changed your name, you can submit documents with your application linking your old name to the new name.
And one further point. Even if John Smith legitimately becomes the Lord of the Manor of Blackacre, he does not become “Lord Smith” or “Lord John Smith” or “Lord Blackacre”. He’s still John Smith. He can describe himself as Lord of the Manor of Blackacre, but that is no more a name or a “title” than describing himself as a Chartered Accountant or as Secretary of the Blackacre Tennis Club.
