I’m trying to figure out what the exact benefit is with regard to being awarded a peerage by King Charles. If Nigel Figginbotham is, effective tomorrow, Nigel, Viscount of Pepperidgeshire, is that just … something he can put on a business card? Is there a cash flow associated with this particular Viscomptiture that is now his?
I know that at one time a peerage equaled a position in the House of Lords, but it seems to me that those days are over.
All peerages granted since 1964, except for a few during the Thatcher era and another few for the royal family, have been life peerages, which come with an automatic seat in the House of Lords.
OK, but does the monarch, like, make up the title? As in, his name is Nigel, he’s from Pepperidgeshire, and he’s pretty low-rent but he curried favor with the outgoing PM, so he is Nigel, Viscount of Pepperidgeshire? Or has the Viscomptiture of Pepperidgeshire always existed, waiting for the Sovereign to appoint someone to it?
And again, money?
They get to choose their own name. Normally Baron (referred to as Lord) or Baroness whatevernameyoulike of Whateverplaceyoulikeprobablywhereyou’refrom. It just has to be unique
Margaret Thatcher, for example, became Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven (the area in which she was born)
There’s no salary involved, but you get to claim about £300 in expenses for every day you attend the House of Lords.
Of course, you are also eligible to serve as a Minister in the government of the day, should the Prime Minister choose to appoint you. That’s obviously a paid position which also comes with a pension.
My dad told me once about some rich industrialist who “was given” a peerage. He chose as his lordly name the name of the main street his biggest factory was on, so that people would think the street was named after him.
As I gathered from the brou-ha-ha surrounding Conrad Black, variously lord of Cross Harbour or Sing-sing, apparently it’s a privilege you can buy. However, Canadians can only be granted titles with the assent of the Canadian government, and in this case the guy who had launched a paper specifically to attack the Liberal Party in power, could not understand why the government withheld permission. To obtain a peerage he renounced his Canadian citizenship to get around this.
In his case, the reason to become a peer included the word “pretentious”.
Of course it’s worth pointing out that not every quasi-famous Brit, particularly politicians, wants a peerage. Winston Churchill in particular was offered a Dukedom after World War II which NEVER happens anymore to people who aren’t royals - Dukes are the highest rank of the nobility. It would mean he’d have to leave his beloved House of Commons to sit in the far less powerful House of Lords, so he turned it down.
The overwhelming majority of modern peers get either their surnames as titles or, if that’s not unique, they get a place tacked on after their name. (This list of peerages granted since 2010 shows that they’re almost all surname-based.) A small number ask to get something else as their title. (Ian Paisley became Lord Bannside as his wife was already Baroness Paisley of St George’s and he wanted her title to remain completely unique. If he had become Lord Paisley of Antrim or whatever, she might have appeared at first glance to merely be a baroness by marriage.)
I’m reminded of the Groucho Marx line: "I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.”
Also, at the time of the House of Lords reform act in 1999, the government gave life peerages to all of the hereditary peers who were first to hold their title; the three non-royal peers and the Earl of Snowdon accepted, so those four continued to sit in the Lords.
Where would The Duke of Earl fit in all this?
I’m more concerned about a fellow from Kentucky with an iron in the fire. The Duke o’ Paducah.
It is conventional for ex-Prime Ministers to be offered a peerage, eventually, though not all of them accept (Edward Heath didn’t). Most senior politicians will be offered one eventually. Some go as working peers, to support their party in the Lords, some just accept it as thanks for public service; they may be in poor health by then and unable to play much active part.
Some, like Laurence Olivier, got one for services to the nation in general.
Which he said, but didn’t invent.
And of course, he was not refusing to join but resigning.
I am actually an official Duke of Paducah, and I have the papers to prove it.
One can only hope the King is a little more discriminating in whom he awards a peerage.
Also Sir Winston’s eldest son planned on having a political career, which would’ve been limited if he couldn’t dit in the House of Commons. Clementine was given a life peerage after her husband died, because of this she wen from being Lady Churchill to Baroness Churchill.
Right alongside Screaming Lord Sutch.
And IIRC, Churchill couldn’t really afford to be a Duke. Apparently, such a title/role comes with a lot of expensive expectations.
I feel that my ideal title would be “Hazard”
Being the Duke of Hazard might help me in romancing pretty blonde ladies.
It also meant that his son Randolph would, in those days, have had at best limited chances of a career in the Commons, since he would inherit the Dukedom (renunciation of inherited peerages wasn’t allowed until the early 60s).
As it happened, Randolph’s political career was stymied by his own personality anyway (I believe it was Evelyn Waugh who said, on hearing that Randolph’s suspected cancer was in fact benign, “What a triumph of medical science, to find the one part of Randolph that was not malignant and remove it”)