Of Wimseys and Wellesleys: No Title for You!

Today I'm going to focus on the critical role of legitimacy in determining who can and can't inherit a title.

Legitimacy in this case cannot be conferred retroactively, and is based on one's parents' marital status at one's birth, not conception. If a duke marries his pregnant mistress as she's going into labor, the child (if a son!) can inherit as long as the vicar completes the ceremony before the birth. If they marry when the infant is a few hours old, that baby is out of luck. This is one of the most common fictional errors with respect to titles and inheritance--a peer legitimizing a bastard son or grandson. Couldn't happen. The law made no provision for it.

A case in point is Wellington's oldest brother Richard. As a young man, he took up with a French actress, with whom he had five children...and only afterward married her. The fact that he eventually married their mother did nothing whatsoever to confer legitimacy upon those children. It probably made them more socially acceptable--both of the daughters made reasonably good marriages, one to a baron, the other first to a baronet and second to the younger son of a duke. But there was no way the eldest son could inherit his father's titles. Once illegitimate, always illegitimate.

Richard Wellesley held two titles: that of Earl of Mornington, which he'd inherited from his father, and Marquess Wellesley, granted for his services as Governor-General of India at the end of the 18th century. Upon his death, the latter title became extinct, since he had no legitimate sons to pass it on to. But since the Mornington title came from his father, it did not die out but went to Richard's brother, William, second oldest of the family, and then to his son and grandson. At that point, in 1863, William's direct male line died out, and the earldom passed to the descendants of the third Wellesley brother, Wellington himself. And there it remains to this day--as mentioned a few weeks ago, the eldest son of the eldest son of the present Duke of Wellington uses Earl of Mornington as his courtesy title.

Of Wimseys and Wellesleys: Dukes

This week we at last reach dukes, the highest rank short of royalty in the British peerage. (I'm going to leave royal dukes out of it, because A) the Wellington and Denver dukedoms that are the subject of this series aren't royal, and B) they're not generally an issue in fiction, because most authors of, say, Regency romances aren't going to create fictional royal dukes.)

The first thing you need to know about dukes is that they're rare. Currently there are only twenty-seven extant dukedoms in the British peerage (you can find a list of them here). To become a duke, in general you either needed to be an extraordinarily influential and powerful aristocrat...or else have the good fortune to be Charles II's bastard son. (He created the Dukedoms of Monmouth, Richmond, Lennox, Southampton, Grafton, and St Albans for his offspring.) The closest thing to merit-based dukedoms that I know of are Wellington and Marlborough, and it's not like the first holders of those titles were of anything approaching humble birth.

Dukes, being a cut above the rest of the peerage, are addressed differently. They are not called "my lord," and if you encounter a reference to "Lord Wellington" in a novel set during the Waterloo campaign (i.e. after he was granted his dukedom in 1814), the author missed that detail. If you someday have the chance to, say, travel in the TARDIS to observe the Battle of Waterloo (a fantasy of mine, I admit), you should address Wellington as "Your Grace," unless you feel yourself to be on familiar, equal terms with him, in which case "Duke" or "Wellington" would be appropriate. Or "sir," but in the "Yes, sir" sense, not the knightly one.

Of Wimseys and Wellesleys: Heirs' Courtesy Titles

This post was up for at least a few hours last week but disappeared during Blogger's issues, so I'm reposting it now.

First of all, a quick clarification from my previous post about heirs apparent vs. heirs presumptive. I stated that an heir apparent is the eldest legitimate son, or occasionally the eldest son's eldest son, of the current title holder. I should've said eldest living legitimate son. If a duke has two sons, and the elder dies without fathering a legitimate son of his own, the younger son then becomes the heir apparent. They key is that the heir apparent has to be the direct descendant of the current title holder, who will definitely inherit as long as he doesn't predecease him. If the current peer is your brother or uncle, you can only be the heir presumptive, because it's at least theoretically possible you could be displaced by your brother or uncle's son.

But...if you are the heir apparent of a duke, marquess, or earl, you probably have an heir's courtesy title derived from one of your father's subsidiary titles. High-ranking peers almost always have more than one title, generally through accumulating lower-ranking titles on their family's climb through the ranks of the peerage. So the peer's heir apparent bears the next highest of his father's titles and is addressed accordingly. And if the heir apparent has an eldest son of his own, he gets the next title on the list as his courtesy title, and so on.

It's probably simpler to give an example, and the currently living generations of the Wellington family provide an extensive and tidy one:

- The current Duke of Wellington (the 8th duke) was born in 1915 (the Wellesleys are a long-lived bunch--"the" Wellington lived to be 83, pretty impressive for his time).

- His eldest son, the current heir apparent, was born in 1945 and is styled the Marquess of Douro.

- Lord Douro's eldest son, born in 1978, is styled the Earl of Mornington. If you've been following this series and have a good head for details, you'll recall that was the title of the original Duke of Wellington's father. Wellington's oldest brother had no legitimate children, and his second brother's legitimate male line died out at some point in the 19th century (YES, I'm feeling too lazy to look up the exact date--there are limits to even my pedantry), so the title fell to the Wellington branch of the family.

- Last year Lord Mornington's wife had twins, one of whom is a boy, styled Viscount Wellesley.

Probably a good thing they have so many titles to go around, since all the men above are named Arthur Wellesley. (Of course they are. Feel free to hum "Tradition.")

Note that there is no rule that a duke's heir apparent must be a marquess, that a marquess's must be an earl, and so on. In our fictional example, Lord Peter's nephew, the heir apparent of his brother the Duke of Denver, is Viscount Saint-George. The heir's courtesy title is just the next highest ranking of his father's titles, whatever that happens to be.

Make sense?

Of Wimseys and Wellesleys: Heirs Apparent and Presumptive

Today's post is a quick side note before we take up heirs' courtesy titles and how to address dukes: the difference between an heir apparent and an heir presumptive.

An heir apparent is an heir who will definitely inherit a title as long as he doesn't predecease its current holder--which, in the British system we're focusing on, means the oldest legitimate son of the current title holder. (Or, if the oldest son predeceases his father but fathers a son of his own before he dies, that grandson would be the heir apparent.)

An heir presumptive is the person who will inherit a title as long as he isn't displaced by the birth of an heir apparent. Generally speaking, a peer who has no legitimate sons has some other relative--a brother, a nephew, or cousin--who'd inherit the title if he died. Note that this heir must be a legitimate descendant in the direct male line of the original title holder (titles that can be passed through daughters exist, but are very much the exception rather than the rule). If there aren't any left, the title becomes extinct. An heir presumptive can't become an heir apparent even if it's certain the current title holder will never father more children--say, if he's elderly, senile, and impotent. For all the law knows, he might make a miraculous recovery and marry a younger woman who'd then give birth to a son displacing the heir presumptive.

Of Wimseys and Wellesleys: Lords (but not Dukes)

Today we tackle how to address all lords--i.e. all peerages below the rank of duke.

My real life example for this series, Arthur Wellesley, was granted a viscountcy in 1809 after his victory at the Battle of Talavera. I don't know why he became a viscount rather than a baron (plenty of men were granted baronages for military and naval achievements during the era), but my guess it was some combination of the fact he was born to the aristocracy rather than the gentry, his family's good political connections, and that it was becoming evident by that point that he was a damn good general. :-) (I'm pretty sure I would've wanted to strangle Wellington on a regular basis if I'd known him for his political views and elitism, but AFAIC he was second to none on a battlefield.)

At the lower ranks of the peerage, a lord's title is often the same as his last name. John Smith becomes Baron Smith, addressed as Lord Smith. E.g. the other major British hero of the Napoleonic era was ennobled as Viscount Nelson. This wasn't an option in Wellesley's case because his oldest brother was Marquess Wellesley (we'll see more of him later when I get around to who can and can't inherit and how titles become extinct). Since Wellesley himself wasn't available to be consulted, being occupied fighting the French, the College of Heralds (who keep track of such things) consulted his brother William, who pulled out the map and found a town in Somerset called "Wellington," near where their ancestors came from before going to Ireland. At that point our hero became Viscount Wellington of Talavera and Wellington, and William wrote to say, "I trust that you will not think that there is anything unpleasant or trifling in the name of Wellington." To which the new Lord Wellington replied that he thought William had chosen most fortunately. His wife was less pleased, mentioning in her diary that "Wellington I do not like for it recalls nothing."

I describe the name selection process at such length because it'd feel so odd, to me at least, to have your name changed for you, as an adult, and to just have to live with it whether you liked it or not. William could've saddled his brother the goofiest name on the map, and there wouldn't have been much Wellington (or, in this version of things, Lord Catbrain or Lord Netherwallop or or Lord Hoo) could've done about it. OK, those probably wouldn't have flown with the College of Heralds, but STILL.

Anyway. I digress. Up until 1814, Wellington kept getting regular promotions, as it were, becoming the Earl of Wellington, the Marquess of Wellington, and finally the Duke of Wellington. Until he became a duke, the proper address for him didn't change. He was Lord Wellington, addressed as "Wellington" or "sir" by those who were more or less his social equals and as "my lord" by inferiors. He signed his letters "Wellington." His wife was Lady Wellington, and she signed herself "Catherine Wellington." "Wellesley" almost disappears as far as they're concerned. (Their children are a different story, and a post for another week. It's about time I tackled heir's courtesy titles.)

Incidentally, when a peer holds a military rank in addition to his title, you call them Rank Lord Title--i.e. General Lord Wellington, Admiral Lord Nelson.

Of Wimseys and Wellesleys: Knights (and Baronets)

For previous entries in this series, follow the tag at the end of the post.

Say the word "knight," and it conjures an image of a man in plate armor, ready to joust for the honor of his lady fair. But there were still knights in the 18th and 19th century (and to this day). Just minus the armor.

A knighthood is an honor given to untitled men (but in the 18th and 19th centuries generally of at least genteel birth) as a reward for service to the Crown. I haven't done a detailed study, but my impression is that most reasonably successful generals and admirals of the Napoleonic era were at least made knights. Wellington's first major honor was being knighted in 1804 in recognition of his early successes as a major-general in India. So from that point until he was granted a peerage in 1809, he was addressed as Sir Arthur Wellesley. As with the younger son's courtesy titles we've discussed in the past two weeks, the "Sir" goes with the first name. He's Sir Arthur, not Sir Wellesley.

Wives of knights, however, don't follow the same pattern. In 1806, Wellesley married Catherine Pakenham, whom he'd courted as a young man before leaving for India. In the intervening time they'd grown into different people, extremely mismatched different people who had a thoroughly unhappy marriage. But that's neither here nor there. We're just here to learn what to call them. And in this case the right answer is Lady Wellesley. Not Lady Catherine, not Lady Arthur. Lady Wellesley.

Incidentally, at this point there were two Lady Wellesleys. (Ladies Wellesley?) The other, Hyacinthe, was married to the oldest Wellesley brother, Richard, who'd been granted the title of Marquess Wellesley for his service as Governor-General of India, superseding his former title of Earl of Mornington (inherited from his father). This situation wasn't as confusing as you might think, for two reasons. The first is Hyacinthe's background: she was a French actress who was Richard's mistress for years and years before he actually married her. As such, despite her status as marchioness she wasn't accepted in good society or even within the extended family the same way that the well-bred and well-behaved Catherine was. The second is common sense--just like you might have two friends named Bob Smith, and avoid any confusion by talking about Work Bob and Bob from High School, English society of 200 years ago was perfectly capable of saying "Lady Wellesley, the marchioness," or "Lady Wellesley, Kitty Pakenham that was," or whatever to make their meaning clear.

Note that knighthoods are not inherited honors. If Wellesley had been killed while he was still a knight, his firstborn son would NOT have become Sir Arthur in his turn.

A side note about baronets: While I don't have any Wimsey or Wellesley examples of them, you'll see them a good bit in 18th and 19th century fiction. In Jane Austen's work alone, Sir Thomas Bertram in Mansfield Park and Sir Walter Elliott in Persuasion are both baronets. Baronets follow the exact same form of address as knights--the key difference between them is that the eldest son of a baronet DOES inherit the honor.

Of Wimseys and Wellesleys: Courtesy Titles, Part 2

Today we look into what happens when the daughters and younger sons of last week's post get married.

I'll start with the sons of dukes and marquesses, since they're more straightforward. Obviously, their names don't change upon marriage. Lord Peter is still Lord Peter. But when he marries Harriet Vane (a commoner, daughter of a country doctor), she becomes Lady Peter. Not Lady Wimsey, because younger sons' courtesy titles attach to the first name, not the surname. And not Lady Harriet, because it's his title, not hers. Incidentally, their children don't have titles, courtesy or otherwise. They're just very well-bred and well-connected commoners.

Daughters of dukes, marquesses, and earls are more complicated. The rule, as I understand it, is that when a woman with a courtesy title marries, she takes her husband's title if it's higher in precedence than hers, but keeps her own if hers is higher. This means that if she marries a man without a title, she doesn't become Mrs. Husband's Name. Instead, she's Lady HerFirstName HisLastName. In the case of the fictional Wimsey family, Lord Peter's sister, Lady Mary, marries Charles Parker, a police detective and one of her brother's closest friends, and becomes Lady Mary Parker. (NOT Lady Parker.) Her husband's name doesn't change. Basically, a man can convey his courtesy title to his wife, but a woman can't pass hers to her husband. Is this sexist? Of course it is. If you're going to write historical fiction, you'll run into far worse instances of it.

Wellington's one sister also married commoners (untitled gentlemen might be a better term), becoming first Lady Anne FitzRoy (wife of the Hon. Henry FitzRoy, son of a baron) and then after his death Lady Anne Smith (wife of Charles Culling Smith).

If Lady Anne or Lady Mary had married a peer (a holder of an actual rather than a courtesy title), then she would've taken his title even if it were a lower rank of the peerage (baron, viscount), because substantive title always trumps courtesy title. I.e. if Lady Mary Wimsey had married Baron Stuffy, she'd be Lady Stuffy rather than Lady Mary.

It's when courtesy title holders marry each other that things get really complicated. Then, if I understand this correctly, you go by their relative precedence. Dukes' daughters trump dukes' younger sons, who in turn trump marquesses' daughters who trump their younger sons and so on. So Lady Mary Wimsey, as a duke's daughter, has precedence over any man's courtesy title. Therefore, no matter who she marries, unless he has an actual title of his own, she'll outrank him and continue to go by Lady Mary. But if Lady Anne Wellesley, an earl's daughter, had married the younger son of a duke or marquess, she would've become Lady HisFirstName HisLastName, because dukes and marquesses trump earls.

At least, I'm almost sure that's how it works. But I'm open to correction if not.

Of Wimseys and Wellesleys: Courtesy Titles, Part 1

Both of the protagonists of my little series on titles and forms of address are younger sons--Lord Peter is the second son of a duke, Wellington the third son of an earl. And younger sons make useful protagonists for fiction. Eldest sons of peers, destined to assume their father's titles, have careers in estate management and the House of Lords marked out for them by accident of birth. While an aristocrat's younger son is backed by his family's influence and support, he has a wider range of professions open to him, a certain freedom the head of his family lacks.

So they're great to write about. But the rules for what to call them (and their sisters) can be a little tricky. You must learn the ways of the courtesy title.

A courtesy title is given to certain close relatives of a peer. They remain legally commoners, lacking such perks as a seat in the House of Lords, but they're addressed as lord or lady...you guessed it...as a courtesy. We'll hold off on the special courtesy titles given to eldest living sons of peers for the time being, revisiting them when we meet Lord Peter's nephew and Wellington acquires a peerage and a son. Today we'll concentrate on daughters and younger sons.

All daughters and younger sons of dukes or marquesses (the two highest ranks of the peerage) are addressed as Lord or Lady Firstname. Therefore, as the second son of the Duke of Denver, Peter Wimsey is Lord Peter or Lord Peter Wimsey. He is NEVER Lord Wimsey. The "Lord" goes by the first name. Also, any man who is NOT the younger son of a duke or marquess is NEVER Lord Firstname. That's probably the most common error I see in fiction, calling John Biscuit, the Earl of Pastry, Lord John instead of Lord Pastry. That's wrong. WRONG. Don't do it. Daughters follow the same pattern, so Lord Peter's sister is Lady Mary Wimsey. (NOT Lady Wimsey.)

So, in a way, you're always on a first name basis with daughters and younger sons of dukes. You show that someone is intimate with your character by dropping the Lord or Lady. There's a nice bit in Dorothy Sayers' wonderful Gaudy Night where Harriet Vane, Lord Peter's eventual wife, calls him Lord Peter in front of others as they're solving a mystery together even though she's called him, and thought of him, as just Peter for ages. Ever polite, he matches her by calling her Miss Vane throughout the scene.

Earls' children are tricky. The daughters bear the courtesy title of Lady, just like dukes' and marquesses' daughters, but the younger sons do not bear the title of Lord. So Wellington, as a younger son of the Earl of Mornington, was NOT addressed as Lord Arthur before he started accumulating titles of his own. His sister, however, WAS Lady Anne. I don't know how this quirk got into the system, but that's the rule. In everyday speech younger sons of earls are just plain Misters, but they too have a courtesy title of sorts--"the Honorable." So, should you find yourself flung back in time and needing to talk to Wellington as a very young man, before he became an officer, call him Mr. Wesley (NOT Wellesley--the family changed their name around the time he started his rise in the world, and I'll discuss how easy it was to change your name in a future post), or Mr. Arthur Wesley if you need to distinguish him from his brothers. The Honorable only comes into play if you need to address a letter or otherwise make formal written reference to him. Then he's The Honorable Arthur Wesley (often abbreviated to Hon.).

Got that? Good. If your characters are the children of the two lower ranks of the peerage (viscounts and barons), sons and daughters are both Honorables. Simple. It's just earls who are confusing.

Stay tuned next week for what to call these younger sons and daughters and their spouses after marriage. Then we'll start to trace Wellington's rise with a post about knighthoods, and maybe I'll fit in that digression about name changes. Beyond that, we still have plenty of ground to cover.

Of Wimseys and Wellesleys - a (mostly) new series

The following is the first in a series of posts originally posted at the blog I had under my legal name before I was published, but since they're relevant to historical romance writers, I decided to repost them here, where they'll have a wider readership and hopefully be of interest to other readers and writers who like to geek out over the small details.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the writer of a historical novel set in 18th or 19th-century Britain must be in want of a duke. Even if, like me, you declare yourself a populist, a good small-r republican who doesn't understand what's so fascinating about inherited aristocracy, they have a way of poking their graceful dukely heads up and insisting upon a role in your stories. Or if you can resist the siren song of the duke, you may find yourself writing a less exalted but still lordly creature like an earl or a viscount. And your peer of the realm will have, or acquire along the way, a family.

In every case there is a correct and incorrect way to refer to your peer and his family--his widowed mother, his wife, his daughters, the cousin who's next in line for the title until he fathers a son of his own, etc. And a great many writers get it wrong. They just stick "Lord" or "Lady" willy-nilly into their characters' names. If their hero is John Smith, Earl of Smithton, they'll call him Lord John on one page, Lord Smith the next, and maybe Lord Smithton somewhere in the next chaper. (Hint: only one of the options is correct.)



Admittedly, British titles and forms of address are a confusing and convoluted system, especially for us Americans who have no equivalent in our culture. But I believe it pays to get them right. The more little details you get correct, the richer and more believable your fictional world will be. Also, you'll earn the appreciation and praise of readers like me who've memorized the system and find the errors to be nails on a chalkboard.

There are sites, readily searchable via Google, that explain the rules. But because stories are easier to remember than rules, at least for me, I've decided to do a blog series exploring proper forms of address using one fictional example and one historical one.

Representing fiction will be Lord Peter Wimsey, protagonist of Dorothy Sayers' Golden Age detective novels. He's the younger son of a duke, and over the course of the series, we meet a good chunk of his family--his widowed mother, his brother the current duke and his wife and children, their sister who starts the series single and marries another secondary character, and, last but far from least, Lord Peter's eventual wife. Between them all, they cover most of the possible forms of address within a duke's family, but they're fairly straightforward and tidy for all that.



For complexity we'll look to history, to the life and family of Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington. He didn't inherit his title (obviously, since he's the first duke). He was the third surviving son of an earl, and for his military accomplishments was made first a knight, then a viscount, an earl, a marquess, and at last a duke. Know what to call him, his wife, and their two sons at every point of his career and you'll be well on your way to mastering the entire system. And once you throw in the extended family--divorce scandals, a peer who didn't get around to marrying his wife till AFTER all five of their children were born, name changes for the sake of inheritance, and everything else that could complicate the lives and fortunes of a big and often dysfunctional turn-of-the-19th century aristocratic family--well, in my experience there's nothing like juicy 200-year-old gossip to help you remember who could and couldn't inherit a title and how you ought to speak of a duke's children as opposed to an earl's or a viscount's.

So, until I run out of material, I'll be running a biweekly series on the Wimseys and Wellesleys and using them for examples of how to get your own dukes and their families right. I welcome questions and corrections--I think I've mastered most of the rules, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm still missing a nuance here and there.

Next time, we'll start with both our protagonists as children and learn the difference between younger sons of dukes and earls.