Here are some matters of interest on the history and heraldry of Britain:
Beau BrummellGeorge Bryan Brummell was called 'Beau' Brummell, because for some years he was the most elegant man in England, and the epitome of the Regency Period. Everyone, even the Prince of Wales, looked up to his taste in clothes, in manners, in company, and in horses. (He once said, pointing to the stout prince, "Who's your fat friend?")Born in 1778, his grandfather was a valet, and his father was secretary to Prime Minister Lord North. He went to Eton and (briefly) Oxford, then four years in the army, but on coming into a fortune set out on his true vocation. He led London fashion for twenty years. The most exquisitely fashionable and showy young men went by the names of dandy, Corinthian, fop, quiz, and many more. Beau Brummell was none of these: he was... Georgette Heyer can say it much better than I can. Here is how the high-spirited heroine Judith Taverner meets him in Regency Buck. It's fiction, but Georgette Heyer was scrupulously factual in her depictions, so we may be certain this is very like:
She liked what she saw. The gentleman was of medium height, with light brown hair brushed à la Brutus, and a countenance which, without being precisely handsome, was generally pleasing. There was a good deal of humour about his mouth, and his eyes, which were grey and remarkably intelligent, were set under a pair of most expressive brows. He was very well dressed, but so unobtrusively that Judith would have been hard put to it to describe what he was wearing. ...His later years were sad. In 1813 a quarrel with the Prince, and increasingly got into debt with gambling. In 1816 the insupportability of his debts forced him to flee the country. In France, he lived at Calais then at Caen, where he held a minor government post from 1830 to 1832. From 1837 he was confined to a lunatic asylum there, and died a pauper in 1840. When asked whether he ate vegetables, he replied, "I once ate a pea."
British royal successionOn the death of a British sovereign (= monarch) they are succeeded instantly by the next in line to the throne. This is despite the fact that it is at the coronation, which may be more than a year later, that they take the coronation oath and the lords choose to accept them and swear fealty to them.The order of succession is automatic, based on birth and sex, with adjustments for religion and marriage. The monarch is succeeded by her/his eldest son, if any. The order of succession goes downward before it goes sideways, so if the eldest son is dead (or otherwise ineligible, see below), that eldest son's children come next, before the monarch's second son. Then the second son's children. After all the sons have been gone through in order of age, the monarch's daughters in order of age. After all the downward branches have been exhausted (a trivial example is if the monarch had no children), the order goes to the monarch's brothers and their descendants, then sisters, and so on. In Anglo-Saxon times succession was more elective, and the throne tended to go to adult brothers rather than possibly unprepared sons, and after going through several brothers would return to the son of the first brother. With the Norman Conquest we get pretty much the modern common law system -- barring the odd usurper (such as Henry IV and Henry VII), beheading, forced abdication (James II), and exclusion on the grounds of religion (The Old Pretender). Also, in the early Norman days, there was civil war on the death of Henry I in 1135 because he had only a daughter, Matilda, and some wanted his nephew Stephen to become king to avoid having a Queen. (They succeeded.) The current system is officially laid down in the Act of Succession of 1701.
The current royal familyThe Royal Family today is basically the descendants of King George V, the present Queen's grandfather. More distant descendants of earlier monarchs no longer count. "Royalty" extends two generations down from a sovereign in the male line, and one generation down in the female line. Yes, a second way females are discriminated against. But even if grandchildren aren't "royal", they're still in the line of succession.Let's illustrate this using only Queen Elizabeth II's children:
Elizabeth II
1926-
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Charles Anne Andrew Edward
1948- 1950- 1960- 1964-
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William Harry Peter Zara Beatrice Eugenie
1982- 1984- 1977- 1981- 1988- 1990-
When she was born, Princess Anne was second in line, after Prince Charles, but when Prince Andrew was born, he became second and relegated Anne to third. When Prince William was born, he became second after Charles, and relegated Andrew to third place, Edward to fourth, Anne to fifth, and Peter and Zara to 6 and 7.Charles's children are princes, and Andrew's two daughters are princesses. If Prince Edward somehow manages to sire children with the lovely Sophie, they too will be royal, and be styled Prince or Princess. But Princess Anne doesn't pass royalness to her children. They're simply Master Peter and Miss Zara Phillips (their now divorced father being Captain Mark Phillips). Being a prince(ss) is a birth thing. They also acquire titles, conferred on them typically when they become adults or get married. The monarch's eldest son becomes Prince of Wales: Prince Charles was invested with this title in 1969. The eldest daughter is often given the title Princess Royal, which is now Princess Anne's official style. And the other sons are given various royal dukedoms: this title of Duke has a higher precedence than Dukes who aren't royal. Prince Andrew was created Duke of York just before his marriage. Prince Edward refused a dukedom, and was given a lower rank, Earl of Wessex just before his marriage. Captain Phillips refused any kind of title, which is why his children are only commoners, Mister and Miss, despite being grandchildren of The Queen. Note also that marriage doesn't convey any position in the succession. The Queen Mother, the Duke of Edinburgh, and Diana, Princess of Wales have never been in line for the throne. (Well, we all are eventually: the Duke is about 500th in line.) After Charles, William, Harry, Andrew, Beatrice, Eugenie, Edward, Anne, Peter, and Zara, we move back up a generation and go to the Queen's sister, the late Princess Margaret. She was next in line after Zara until her death; now the order goes to her children: Viscount Linley (b. 1961) then his children, then Lady Sarah Chatto (b. 1964) and her children. Elizabeth II and Margaret exhausting the children of King George VI, the line of succession goes up a generation again to the children of George V, that is George VI's brothers and sisters: they were the Duke of Gloucester, the Duke of Kent, and the old Princess Royal, now all deceased. But their descendants are in line (except as noted below): the present Duke of Gloucester and his children, then the present Duke of Kent's family, then the family of his brother Prince Michael, then that of their sister Princess Alexandra, Mrs Angus Ogilvy. Finally, the old Princess Royal (Princess Mary) married the Earl of Harewood, and their family comes next. You can go up and back as far as you like, with no cut-off, as far as the genealogy can be known for sure. One minor point of interest is that the foreign royal family closest in line to the throne is that of Norway (George V's sister Maud having married the future King Haakon VII).
MarriageThe great civil wars of religion climaxed in 1688 with the English Parliament declaring that King James II, a Roman Catholic who had acceded in 1685, had abandoned the throne. This legal fiction brought in his Protestant daughter Mary II and her Dutch husband William III as joint monarchs.This, by the way, is only one of two occasions when a queen who inherits by descent has brought the title of king to her husband: the other was Mary I, whose husband was styled King Philip. The parliamentary choice of the Protestant daughter bypassed James II's son James, also a Roman Catholic, and when first Mary died without issue, then her sister Queen Anne also looked to be about to die with no children, they brought in the 1701 Act of Succession and the 1707 Succession to the Crown Act to ensure that Protestants would succeed. Anne's distant cousin Sophia of Hanover was the next Protestant in line, and so the throne passed in 1714 to the Hanoverian, Sophia's son George I. (Sophia died just before Anne.) The laws also fixed that no Roman Catholic, nor anyone who married a Roman Catholic, could succeed to the British throne. This is outrageous now, but there were armed uprisings close to civil war in 1715 and 1745, allied to religion, and violent anti-Popery riots in London later in the century, so it was a living issue then. It still affects the order of succession. The present Duke of Kent's son, Earl of St Andrews, married a Roman Catholic, so he is excluded from the succession. His son Lord Downpatrick was being brought up as a Protestant, so was next in line after his grandfather, but recently converted, so he's out and his sister Lady Marina Windsor is next in line. Also, Prince Michael is excluded, having married a Roman Catholic. Again, their children were not affected, not being brought up RC. Really! Of course there are strong moves afoot to abolish this ridiculously anachronistic discrimination, but it's still there and could cause a crisis in case Prince William suddenly falls for some Italian contessa. One new law has amended the 1707 Act: the Abdication Act of 1936. George V was succeeded by Edward VIII, who wanted to marry Wallis Simpson, a divorcee. This being incompatible in those days with being head of the Church of England (and even today, amazingly, some object on this ground to Charles's possible marriage to Camilla Parker-Bowles!), King Edward gave up the throne, and it passed to his brother George VI. But in this case he also renounced the throne for all his descendants too: though in fact it made no difference since he and Mrs Simpson had no children. There's another twist to the marriage aspect. In 1772 a Royal Marriage Act declared that the approval of the British parliament was required for all marriages of all descendants of King George II. Obviously this can only apply to British subjects, but in 1956 it was noticed that a 1705 Act (tee hee, I love all this) made all descendants of royalty British subjects even through the female line, and wherever they lived. So technically, possibly hundreds of obscure aristocrats who married into obscure German princely families are not, in Britain, legally married. In which case their issue are not "legitimate" and so aren't in the line of succession. As of 1 January 2001 there were 4583 legitimate living descendants of Sophia, not taking into account the quirk of law just mentioned, nor religion: read them all. This is much longer than I thought it would be (biting off more than I can chew), and I have to stop here. Please /msg me if you spot any gross omissions or errors.
Charles O'Brien, the Irish GiantCharles O'Brien or Charles Byrne, he was known as both, but how he was best known was "the Irish Giant". He was the tallest man known in eighteenth-century Britain, at 8 ft 4 in, and was of course exhibited around the country. The sad part of his story is that he knew his fate after death: to be dissected and have his skeleton exhibited as a prodigious and well-paying curiosity.He paid fishermen the enormous sum of £500 to agree to take his body, weight it down with lead, and cast it into the sea. But Dr John Hunter, the famous surgeon, was equally keen to preserve him. When O'Brien did die in 1783, Hunter made a counter-bid and successfully gained the skeleton. It is still held in the Hunterian Museum, named for him, at the Royal College of Surgeons in Lincoln's Inn, London. Hunter had dogged O'Brien for years, to the extent of hiring a boy to follow him around with a pot for boiling his flesh in, to clean the bones! (Part of this story might be just legend.) Hilary Mantel's 1998 novel The Giant, O'Brien tells his story. There is a review of it. Another Irish giant of the same period, Patrick Coulter, changed his name to Patrick O'Brien to cash in on the phenomenon. The twentieth-century American giant Robert Wadlow had similar fears about misuse of his body, and had himself encased in a concrete tomb after death. Cockney rhyming slangWhile atesh's historical survey of it is probably accurate, none of the writeups here convey the contemporary status of rhyming slang. To an outsider -- to an American, say, who's merely aware that such a thing exists, perhaps from hearing snatches in films and TV -- we need to give some better idea of who uses what terms, and when.Cockney rhyming slang is both a historical curiosity, and a living tradition. Some words have passed into general slang use among the rest of the British people, and indeed in other countries; whereas most of the words in gm_food's long list (above this on E2) are incomprehensible even inside Britain. In fact, Australia uses rhyming slang too and has its own, such as billy lid for kid. There's always been slang, in both upper and lower classes: the romances of Georgette Heyer are full of glorious examples. In previous centuries low-class slang drew quite a bit from Romany and later from Yiddish. I don't know when rhyming slang arose; it doesn't strike me as common in nineteenth-century novels or Punch cartoons, so perhaps it became popular in the early twentieth century, since any cant has to keep up to date and remain obscure to outsiders. So it's dynamic. A lot of the terms found in lists are dead: invented once, in fashion for a while, and forgotten. No-one actually uses them. Second, it's still alive, mainly for the amusement of Cockneys now rather than secrecy. ("Cockney" isn't derogatory, by the way.) It's common to hear new phrases pop up. The idea is that they should be fairly clever, but easy enough to work out. When you first hear "He gives me the Brads", you quickly think about filling two slots "Brad ----" and "He gives me the ----s", and should get the answer almost immediately. Obviously this isn't a traditional Cockney phrase. The films quoted above are loaded with newly-invented terms. With the recent death of Gregory Peck I saw several letters in newspapers about what he was rhyming slang for: to write someone a Gregory for £10, for example. This use must have arisen when he was young and prominent. But no-one actually says that one these days. This is why I'm going to give a classification of which ones seem to have entered the language on a more permanent basis. Two final points before I classify them. Usually the rhyming part is dropped off, but not always. It varies phrase by phrase, and sometimes it's optional. So "that's a load of cobblers", never "a load of cobbler's awls"; but to call someone drunk you can say either "elephants" or "elephant's trunk", or indeed "Brahms" or "Brahms and Liszt". Also, they don't substitute for the word generally, but only in one grammatical form or context: so "pickle and pork" means "walk", the noun, as in "go for a ...", but not as in "... quickly". I've indicated these contexts. Here's my tentative classification of all the terms mentioned in the above writeups. So if you're an American tourist for god's sake don't tell a stranger you're going up the frog to buy some Uncle Fred. 1. So common in general slang that we might not even remember they're rhyming slang: Or in other words, if you are a tourist and you say one of these, you won't sound ridiculous.
Not to be used by foreigners unless you've gone native!
3. The rest of them. Forget it. Antique or obscure or spurious. Found only in long lists that are no real help to the contemporary visitor; or facetiously by people who like to be obscure; or coined for some new film that's trying to confuse audiences.
Salon des Réfusés Crown JewelsThe regalia of the British monarchy, housed under high security in the Jewel House at the Tower of London, and some of which are brought out for use at state occasions such as a coronation. Such a collection of regalia is very ancient; one of the crowns is known as St Edward's Crown, meaning it was that of King Edward the Confessor (1042-1066), though the Crown Jewels were broken up during the Commonwealth, on the orders of Oliver Cromwell; and the present St Edward's Crown is a new one made in 1661 by order of the restored King Charles II. Legend has it that the gold from the earlier crown was used. Also part of Charles II's restoration regalia are the Orb and Sceptre. The Sovereign holds these as a symbol of their dominion during the Coronation. The Sceptre is of gold, 92 cm long, enamelled, and contains 393 precious stones including the 530-carat Cullinan I diamond. The golden Orb contains 600 stones. There are numerous other objects such as the armils or bracelets, the ampulla from which holy oil is used to anoint the Sovereign at the Coronation, the Sword of State carried before the Sovereign, and so on. There is also the usual gaudy junk of big silver plates, robes, medals, and so on. Their eventful historyKing Edward the Confessor might have had an assemblage of regalia. King John (1199-1216) is said to have lost them in the great bay called The Wash, as part of a baggage train avoiding his enemies. There was a theft from Westminster Abbey in 1303 and they were moved to the Tower of London. King Edward III (1327-1377) pawned them to pay his troops.1649 Broken up under the Commonwealth. 1660-1 Restored. On 9 May 1671 an Irish adventurer with the splendid title of Colonel Blood broke into the Tower disguised as a clergyman, almost killed the keeper of the jewels, and made off with the crown, while his accomplices were less successful. He was captured and the crown restored. They had since the Restoration been viewable by visitors for a fee. A serious fire in 1841 led to the building of a new Jewel House with them openly on view in glass cases in 1842. This was replaced with new housing in 1868, 1967, and 1994. They really are worth seeing, breathtakingly huge and bejewelled. dukeOriginsA duke is in origin a leader, Latin dux (stem duc-). The same root appears in seduce (lead away), duct, douche (originally piped water) etc. The Germanic form appears in English tow and tug. The sense 'war leader' is made explicit in Old English here-toga, and still exists as the German for duke, Herzog. King Arthur was called dux bellorum, 'leader of wars'.Territorial titles of duke existed across Europe by the time of the Norman Conquest, for William I was Duke of Normandy when he seized the English throne, but there were no English dukes at that time. The first was Duke of Cornwall, a title conferred in 1337 on the king's eldest son. Other titles followed: Lancaster 1351, then Clarence, York, Gloucester, Bedford, and Somerset, all on members of the immediate royal family. The Duke of Buckingham created in 1444 was royal only on his mother's side, and the Duke of Norfolk 1483 was not royal. To this day titles such as York and Gloucester are conferred on royal sons. These royal dukes rank higher than other dukes. They only last for two generations, then revert back to the Crown to be newly conferred on a son in the royal family. In contrast, the Duke of Norfolk still exists from the 1483 creation and he is known as the Premier Duke of England, and duke being the highest rank, he is Premier Peer. In Scotland royal dukedoms were first conferred in 1398, the Dukes of Rothesay and Albany. Today the Prince of Wales is also the Duke of Rothesay. The (non-royal) Premier Duke of Scotland is the Duke of Hamilton, created 1643, and the Irish one is Leinster, 1766.
Style and precedenceThe title of duke is the highest of the five ranks of peerage in the British system, and this generally matches the Continental equivalents: French duc, Italian duca (also Mussolini's duce), Spanish and Portuguese duque, German Herzog, Dutch hertog etc. But on the Continent some are styled Grand Duke (as in Luxembourg) or (in Austria) Archduke. In Venice and Genoa the ruler was called doge, ultimately the same word.The wife of a duke is a duchess (until about 1800 more usually spelt dutchess). On the Continent there have been duchesses in their own right, succeeding their father or husband as ruler, but I don't know that there ever has been an actual duchess in Britain. (Ah, wait, yes there has: both the Duke of Marlborough and the Duke of Fife were succeeded by daughters.) The style of duchess is normally a courtesy title for a duke's wife. The eldest son of a duke is by courtesy styled by his father's second title. This should preferably be one of the next rank down, Marquess, but if his father doesn't hold a marquessate the son is known by whatever lesser title is available, though ranks as a marquess in precedence. Other children of a duke are styled Lord or Lady with both forename and surname, e.g. the Duke of Wellington's eldest son is called Marquess of Douro and his other children might be Lord John Wellesley or Lady Anne Wellesley. The land of a duke is called a duchy, and the title is a dukedom. The -ch- forms duchess and duchy are pronounced like "Dutch", not with the "you" sound of duke. The Italian for duchy, ducato, gives us the coin name ducat, first issued by Roger II of Naples (Duke of Apulia 1128-1154). The formal manner of address to a duke is "Your Grace", and an envelope would be addressed to "His Grace the Duke of...", and the letter headed "My Lord Duke", and this is what you would expect in a novel set in the past; but today the formal styles are less used. You would socially write "The Duke of..." and "Dear Duke", and address him as (this horrified me but it says so in Whitaker's Almanac) "Duke". I must stress do not do this if you think you're the next Georgette Heyer! Use formal styles for anything in the past.
AccoutrementsA ducal robe has four bars of ermine on each side. Peers have two kinds of robe, a Coronation robe of crimson velvet lined with miniver, and a Parliamentary robe (for those now-gone days when they all sat in the House of Lords) of scarlet lined with taffeta.A duke's coronet is a golden circlet with eight strawberry leaves around it (pointing up from it). The coronet itself is chased as if in the form of jewels (like a royal crown) but is not actually jewelled. It has a purple cap (lined ermine) in real life and a crimson one in heraldic representation. It has a gold tassel on top. The strawberry leaves are what distinguish a ducal coronet from other ranks'. In heraldry there is a convention that a coronet of only four strawberry leaves (so you see one in front and two half-on) is termed a ducal coronet (or ducal crest coronet). It was formerly granted in some cases as the support from which the crest issues, though a wreath is now always used for this. The crest is the little bit that sits over the helmet over the shield.
TodayToday in Britain there are five royal dukes. Prince Philip was created Duke of Edinburgh on his marriage to the then Princess Elizabeth in 1947. In this dukedom he will be succeeded by their third son, currently Earl of Wessex (Prince Edward). The Prince of Wales is automatically Duke of Cornwall and Duke of Rothesay. Prince Andrew is Duke of York. Two of the Queen's cousins are also royal dukes, those of Gloucester and Kent. Since they are each the second of the present creation, being sons of sons of George V, their titles will cease to exist with them.Other royal dukedoms not currently in use include Cumberland, Albany, Clarence, Sussex, and that of Windsor, created for the former king Edward VIII. The Duchy of Lancaster has a continuing legal personality but is now permanently held by the Crown. Outside royalty there are 25 dukes, of whom ten hold English titles, six Scottish, and two Irish. The rest are creations since the union of the crowns: dukes of Great Britain from 1707 and of the United Kingdom from 1801. Because they are less ancient they rank a little below those of England or Scotland. The English ones are Beaufort, Bedford (not the original creation I mentioned in the history section), Devonshire, Grafton, Marlborough, Norfolk, Richmond, Rutland, St Albans, and Somerset. The Britannica calls Marlborough a Great Britain creation but I think they're wrong, as it dates from 1702. There are several more dukedoms than that since some Scottish dukes hold two apiece, such as the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry. The Scottish duke of Argyll also holds a UK dukedom of the same name.
SOURCES INCLUDE: Duke of MarlboroughOne of the most brilliant English generals of any period, he was one of the chief commanders in the wars of the late 1600s and early 1700s that established England as one of the great powers of Europe, and following his defeat of France and Spain in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), elevated the newly-created union of Great Britain to be the chief imperial power of the world.Born in 1650 as John Churchill (it seems to be disputed whether his birthday is 26th May or 24th June), his father was a minor royalist from Devonshire called Sir Winston Churchill. The name Winston has of course echoed through the Churchill family ever since. John was talented and handsome, and his cousin Arabella Churchill was mistress to the Duke of York. With these advantages and connections he advanced rapidly, and fought honourably in the wars against Holland. He was also a page to the Duke and secured the "favour" of the "voluptuous" Duchess of Cleveland... I think this means "fuck until the bedsprings wouldn't spring any more" but I might be reading too much into... never mind. The boy done good. He was rapidly promoted; he was created Baron Churchill in 1680. He routed the rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth, a former patron, in 1685 after the death of Charles II, father of the illegitimate but ambitious duke. He was created Earl of Marlborough. He threw in his lot with the new king, the Dutchman William III, and fought bravely in his Irish wars. At the same time his position was cemented by his beautiful, powerful, and ambitious wife Sarah Jennings. She became chief confidante to Queen Anne, while Churchill was commander in chief of British forces. She also had her own political power base in St Albans. In 1701 the War of the Spanish Succession began, and he achieved spectacular victories, notably at Blenheim, joining forces with Prince Eugene of Savoy; then at Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet. He was created Duke of Marlborough, and was built a splendid new house called Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. But for all the greatness of his achievements in Europe, at home there were political conspiracies against the Duke and Duchess. She was replaced in the Queen's affections by Abigail Masham (the "Mistress Masham" of T.H. White's lovely book Mistress Masham's Repose, a kind of sequel to Gulliver's Travels - but I digress), and his opponents accused him of huge misappropriations from army allowances. He was dismissed at the end of 1711, and did not return to England until the accession of King George I in 1714. The Duke died on 16 June 1722.
Lady JerseyAmong the holders of the title of Countess of Jersey, two are historically important. Frances, wife of the fourth Earl, was a mistress of the Prince Regent (later George IV), and her daughter-in-law Sally was one of the leading society hostesses of Regency England. As such she figures prominently in Georgette Heyer romance novels, for example, but she was a very real and important person, who could make or break a lady's standing as her friend Beau Brummell could for gentlemen.This Sally was born Sarah Sophia Fane in 1785. Her mother, Sarah Anne Child of the influential banking family, disgraced herself when seventeen by an elopement to Gretna Green (on the 17 May 1782) with the tenth Earl of Westmorland (1759-1841). Eventually taken back by the Child family, her father arranged so that neither his daughter nor her eldest son (Westmorland's heir to be) would inherit their great estate, including the country house of Osterley Park outside London. It was instead to pass to a younger grandchild: Sarah Sophia. In 1793 her mother died and the eight-year-old Sarah became a rich heiress. On 23 May 1804 she married George Villiers, styled Viscount Villiers, the heir apparent to the fourth Earl of Jersey. George became the fifth earl with his father's death in 1805. Ignoring the worthless surname of Fane, the wretched Westmorland's name, they took the surname Child-Villiers by royal warrant in 1819. As Lady Jersey she became supremely influential, one of the patronesses of Almack's, the fashionable assembly rooms in London. Another was Countess Lieven (1785-1857), wife of the Russian ambassador and mistress of the Austrian minister Metternich; and others were Lady Sefton and Princess Esterhazy. The doors of Almack's closed at 11 o'clock and no-one more was admitted: no-one. Sally Jersey notoriously once refused admittance to the Duke of Wellington for being a few minutes late. Her friends called her Sally and she signed herself Sally Jersey; other nicknames she acquired were "Queen Sarah" and, in irony, "Silence". She seems from a portrait in Osterley Park to have been a great beauty, though a written account denies it. She was also a literary inspiration to Disraeli, and is cast as Zenobia in his novel Endymion. Their London address was 38 Berkeley Square and they preferred their country seat at Middleton Park in Oxfordshire to Osterley. She lived till 1867.
Almack's marquessA marquess is the second-highest rank of the peerage, after duke and above earl. The title is also written marquis. Current usage is to prefer the -ess spelling, except for old Scottish ones. It is pronounced MAR-kwis in either case. The wife of a marquess (or, rarely if ever, a woman one who inherits a marquessate in her own right) is a marchioness, MAR-sh'n-ess or mar-sh'n-ESS.The -is spelling corresponds to French marquis, the -ess to Spanish marqués, Portuguese marquês; the Italian is marchese. In Germanic countries the equivalent title is margrave, from Dutch markgraaf, German Markgraf. This combines mark with the Germanic title Graf meaning earl or count. The first element exists in English as mark and march, both meaning a border region. (The more familiar meanings of these two words are unrelated.) The Welsh Marches were ruled by Marcher Lords; Tolkien had his Riddermark; and we can say one country marches with or on another, meaning it borders it. Also related is Latin margo, from which comes margin. Medieval Latin borrowed the Germanic root and developed two words marchensis and marchio; the latter gives the feminine marchioness. A marquee tent is so called because it was of a size and opulence suitable for a marquise, a French marchioness. The -s ending of marquees was then misinterpreted as plural and dropped off. Letters of marque are so called because they authorized naval action outside the mark (boundary) of the nation.
HistoryThe title of marquess was late to appear in Britain. Robert de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, was created Marquess of Dublin in 1385 but this was rescinded the following year when he was promoted to Duke of Ireland. Next was John Beaufort, the Earl of Somerset, who between 1397 and 1399 was elevated to Marquess of Dorset and Somerset. He was disgraced, the Commons sought to have him reinstated, but he didn't like this strange title anyway. Only with his son did a marquessate become permanent in English life, when he was created Marquess of Dorset in 1443.The oldest one still existing is that of Winchester, created 1551, and the Marquess of Winchester is therefore Premier Marquess of England. The Premier Marquis of Scotland is Huntly, 1599, and that of Ireland is Kildare, which is held by the Duke of Leinster. The only other pre-Union English marquessate is Tweeddale, 1694; and the only other ones in Scotland are Queensberry 1682 and Lothian 1701. There are currently 34 marquesses altogether, of whom 6 are Irish peers, but the great majority of all these were created ten years either side of 1800. By the way, I don't know where the spelling Queensbury comes from or what validity it has, but the title is officially Queensberry. There is a dukedom and a marquessate of that name, both descending in the Douglas family, but apparently with different remainders, because sometimes they have been held by the same person and at other times the marquessate goes to someone else. Today there is a Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry and a Marquess of Queensberry. As it's a pre-Union Scottish title he ought to be Marquis, not -ess, but he's in Who's Who as an -ess, so that's his choice.
Style and precedenceThe eldest son of a marquess is by courtesy styled by his father's second title. This should preferably be one of the next rank down, Earl, but if his father doesn't hold an earldom the son is known by whatever lesser title is available, though ranks as an earl in precedence. Other children of a marquess are styled Lord or Lady with both forename and surname, e.g. the Marquess of Winchester's eldest son is called Earl of Wiltshire and his other children might be Lord John Paulet or Lady Anne Paulet.A marquess is almost always of somewhere, though there are several that omit the of. In either case they are usually referred to as Lord, not as Marquess, without the of: e.g. the Marquess of Winchester is normally called Lord Winchester. The formal manner of address to a marquess is "My Lord", and an envelope would be addressed to "The Most Honourable the Marquess of...", and the letter headed "My Lord", and this is what you would expect in a novel set in the past; but today the formal styles are less used. You would socially write "The Marquess of..." and "Dear Lord Winchester", and address him as "Lord Winchester". The younger son of a duke is normally styled with a courtesy title of his father's second title, which is likely to be a marquessate. So the Duke of Bedford's son is styled Marquess of Tavistock, but not the Marquess of Tavistock, because his father is that. The "Most Honourable" only applies to actual marquesses, not eldest sons using courtesy titles.
AccoutrementsA marquess's robe has four bars of ermine on the right and three on the left. Peers have two kinds of robe, a Coronation robe of crimson velvet lined with miniver, and a Parliamentary robe (for those now-gone days when they all sat in the House of Lords) of scarlet lined with taffeta.A marquess's coronet is a golden circlet with four strawberry leaves around it (pointing up from it), alternating with four silver balls (called pearls) on points. The coronet itself is chased as if in the form of jewels (like a royal crown) but is not actually jewelled. It has a purple cap (lined ermine) in real life and a crimson one in heraldic representation. It has a gold tassel on top. The alternation of strawberry leaves and pearls is what distinguishes a marquess's coronet from those of other ranks.
SOURCES INCLUDE: monumental brassA memorial plate made of brass, depicting a person whom it commemorated, and let into the surface of a tomb or the pavement of a church. The art began in and flourished from the 1200s and died out by the 1700s.It is mainly found in the Low Countries, England, and northern Germany. It was found in northern France as well but their brasses were largely destroyed in the Revolution. Virtually none exist in other countries of the British Isles. The material used was latten, a kind of brass in the proportion 2:1 of copper to zinc, with a bit of lead and tin. Another name sometimes used was Cullen plate, as if from Cologne, but most English brass was made in plate from in places like Flanders and shipped over. This material is virtually undamageable. It survives intact when a church is burnt to ashes, and no vandal has ever carved their initials in with a pen-knife. Even the earliest pieces are very little worn; compare to stone memorials of the same period, now often sadly reduced to faceless and characterless shapes. As brasses often have dated inscriptions, they are therefore precise records of fashions in clothing, armour, heraldry, and lettering, and can be used to date associated tombs and pictures. A few had enamel to depict the colours on a shield, but mostly they were coloured with less permanent materials such as plaster. The latten was polished bright to represent the heraldic colour or (gold), and lead was inlaid to represent argent (silver).
BeginningThe earliest known monumental brass still existing is one to Bishop Ysowilke, in the church of St Andrew at Verden, near Hanover, dating from 1231. The earliest in England is from 1277, that of Sir John Daubernoun at Stoke D'Abernon in Surrey. The earliest to a woman in England is Margaret, Lady Camoys, in 1310.But ones before that are known by repute and lost: that of Hugues de Pierrepont, Bishop of Liege till 1229; and the earliest of all was in England, in 1209, that of Sir John Beauchamp, the Earl of Bedford, in St Paul's Church in Bedford. It is unknown what this looked like since it was physically lost before antiquaries could depict it. These early ones were based on the stone effigies of Crusader knights that were also used to augment their tombs. That of Sir John Daubernoun the Elder, for example, is full size, showing him lying down. He is in full chain mail with a loose surcoat over it, and a sword belted from it. He carries a shield of the shape now called "heater"-shaped, i.e. like the base of a flat-iron, or just plain shield-shaped, with his arms: Azure, a chevron or. A spear with a pennon of his arms stands upright by his other arm, with a lion at his feat gnawing at his base. Knights often had lions, or they and their ladies had dogs, in quite playful poses. The inscription is "Sir: John: Daubernoun: Cheualier: Gist: Icy: Deu: De: Sa: Alme: Eyt: Mercy", or "Sir John Daubernoun, Knight, lies here: God on his soul have mercy". There was often a large canopy around the figures, typically in the form of an arch of a Gothic church, with the associated opportunities for depicting shields, crosses, and angels. While lords, knights, and abbots had big tombs of their own, and their brasses were on the upper surface, the lesser people, the gentry and burghers and monks, could afford smaller ones laid directly into the floor of the church, in aisles or by the altar. They can still be found here in many parish churches, under an inconspicuous piece of carpet. ChangeOver the course of the 1300s the mail coiffe gave way to the bascinet and camail, but I am not here to discuss styles in armour. The brasses gradually shrank from life size. The inscription around them in a rectangle tended to be replaced by inscribed plates at their feet.By the mid 1400s a lot of artistic power started to be lost. Figures were stylised, and reduced to mere clothes horses. We see their costume and their arms accurately, but there is no longer any sense that the engraver knew or saw or cared about the original person depicted. Children were brought in: four boys and three girls would be just so many undifferentiated tiny figures praying by the side. Instead of lying as if on a tomb the people were now depicted kneeling in prayer. This was particularly useful to show the ornate butterfly head-dress of the ladies. Two curious practices came in in the later periods: skeletal or shrouded depictions, meant as a memento mori, and engraved during their lifetime. The other innovation was the showing of babies in swaddling clothes.
EndThe troubles that came over all other aspects of England touched the brasses too. The religious fanatics under Henry VIII and Edward VI smashed church figures that looked like idols, and destroyed inscriptions or parts thereof that looked like intercession: the formula Ora pro nobis was chiselled out on many. Then in the next century the Civil War did so much more; then the modernising efforts of the 18th and 19th centuries to sweep away all the inconveniences of older styles. Whereas abut 7500 now exist in some form in England, it is estimated that there might have been as many as 100 000: though mostly poor-quality repetitive ones of the Tudor period.The last armoured figure depicted is from 1681. The last brasses of all are from the Greenwood family of St Mary Cray in Kent, poor scratched-in things: the last woman shown is Mrs Philadelphia Greenwood in 1747, and the last man Mr Benjamin Greenwood in 1773.
Brass rubbingThese days there's no way you're going to get to the original brass of Sir John Daubernoun, who is safely under perspex, but some of the important brasses have copies specifically for brass rubbing. With minor ones in the parish church you just ask the vicar for permission.The substance traditionally used to make rubbings is heelball, a mixture of wax and lampblack used by cobblers to give a gloss to the sides of soles and heels. The earliest antiquaries to start collecting rubbings, from around 1780, tried filling them with ink and printing them!
Treason Act 1351The Treason Act 1351 is one of the oldest pieces of legislation still in force, though not the oldest (Magna Carta 1215 for one). It was last used to execute someone for high treason in 1946. The threat of it was invoked for British citizens who fought for the Taleban.A lot of urban legends develop about old laws and "dumb laws", and this particular one has its fair share. One oft-repeated tale is that the death penalty still exists in Britain for a small clutch of strange offences. No, it doesn't, not now. The death penalty was totally abolished in 1998. But here is the story of treason in the United Kingdom. The Treason Act, "A Statute made at Westminster; In the Parliament holden in the Feast of Saint Hilary; In the Twenty-fifth year of the Reign of King Edward the Third" (25 Edw. III, stat.5, c.2), was passed to clarify which acts constituted treason in England. To be specific, it codifies "high treason", offences against King and Country, as opposed to "petty treason", the disobedience of a wife against her husband. The Act was, of course, written in Anglo-French. Here are the parts that still remain in force:
Auxint perceo que diverses opinions ount este einz ces heures qeu cas, quant il avient doit estre dit treson, & en quel cas noun, le Roi a la requeste des Seigneurs & de la Commene, ad fait declarissement que ensuit, Cest assavoir; quant home fait compasser ou ymaginer la mort nostre Seigneur le Roi, ma dame sa compaigne, ou de lour fitz primer & heir; ou si home violast la compaigne le Roi, ou leisnesce fille le Roi nient marie, ou la compaigne leisne fits & heir du Roi; & si home leve leve de guerre contre nostre dit Seigneur le Roi en son Roialme, ou soit aherdant as enemys nostre nostre Seigneur le Roi & le Roialme, donant a eux eid ou confort en son Roialme, ou per aillours, & ceo provablement soit atteint de overt faite per gentz de lour condicion: ... et si home tuast Chanceller, Tresorer, ou Justice nostre Seigneur le Roi del un Baunk ou del autre, Justice en Eir & del assizes & toutes autres Justices assignez a oier & terminer esteiantz en lour places en fesantz lour offices: et fait a entendre qen les cases suisnomez doit estre ajjuge treson que sestont a nostre Seigneur le Roi & a sa roial majeste:...Here's a translation - not mine: Item, whereas divers opinions have been before this time in what case reason shall be said, and in what not; the King, at the request of the lords and of the commons, hath made a declaration in the manner as hereafter followeth, that is to say; when a man doth compass or imagine the death of our lord the King, or of our lady his Queen or of their eldest son and heir; or if a man do violate the King's companion, or the King's eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife the King's eldest son and heir; or if a man do levy war against our lord the King in his realm, or be adherent to the King's enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm, or elsewhere, and thereof be probably attainted of open deed by the people of their condition:. . . and if a man slea the chancellor, treasurer, or the King's justices of the one bench or the other, justices in eyre, or justices of assise, and all other justices assigned to hear and determine, being in their places, doing their offices: and it is to be understood, that in the cases above rehearsed, that ought to be judged treason which extends to our lord the King, and his royal majesty:. .Unpacking that, we find various classes of act that are treasonable.
Now I know it says compasser ou ymaginer, but though the law is a ass, a idiot, it's not a complete one. We have judges, we have human rights acts, we have precedents, we have common sense and the reasonable citizen given due weight: you cannot, cannot be prosecuted for "imagining" the death of the King or Queen. The word ymaginer would of necessity be construed as definitely plotting. It has been amended numerous times, like any other act centuries old. Another wartime act was the Treachery Act 1940. The difference between treason and treachery is that treason requires betrayal of lawful allegiance, whereas treachery can be applied to enemy combatants doing particularly treacherous things, i.e. (presumably) those against the "laws of war". The allegiance issue was tested in Britain's last capital trial for treason, that of Lord Haw Haw (real name William Joyce). He had broadcast treacherously on behalf of the Nazis. In his defence after the War he claimed to be a Free-State Irishman with American citizenship: true enough, but he had travelled to Nazi Germany under a British passport, availing himself of the King's protection. The traitor Lord Haw Haw was hanged under the Act in 1946. Treason was only one of many capital offences in the cruel days of mass executions, peaking after 1800. There were almost three hundred capital offences in the early part of that century, including being in the company of gypsies for one month, and "strong evidence of malice" in children aged 7-14 years of age. This insanity, called "the Bloody Code", abated as juries refused to convict, and humanity gradually came to our laws, until by 1861 the number of capital offences was reduced to only four. These four are the stuff of the misinformation and urban legends of what is still supposed to be punishable with death. The four remaining capital crimes were murder, treason, arson in royal dockyards, and piracy with violence. The death penalty for murder was abolished under the Murder (Abolition of the Death Penalty) Act 1965, and made permanent in 1969 in Great Britain and 1973 in Northern Ireland. That left the remaining three; and treason could be prosecuted under both civilian and military laws. The last military execution for treason was in 1942. Military law covered five offences: Serious Misconduct in Action; Communicating with the Enemy; Aiding the Enemy or Furnishing Supplies; Obstructing Operations or Giving False Air Signals; Mutiny, Incitement to Mutiny or Failure to Suppress a Mutiny. The military death penalty for these was abolished in October 1998 in an amendment to the Human Rights Act 1998 and the civilian death penalty for such things as piracy, arson, and offences against the Royal Family was abolished by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. I don't know when the last execution for any of those last was carried out. Among other treason acts of more recent date than 1351 were the Treason Felony Act 1848, which made republicanism treasonable. I'm not aware that this was ever pursued: even in 1848 (the Chartist crisis and the Year of Revolutions) it was an immensely reasonable public position, and in 2003 a judgement in a case brought by The Guardian confirmed that prosecution for espousing a republic was absolutely contrary to the Human Rights Act 1998, and that part of the 1848 Act could not apply.
Original text and translation War of the Spanish SuccessionA great war involving most of the countries of Western Europe, lasting from 1701 to 1714. It arose because the same person, Philip of Anjou, looked set to become heir to both the Spanish and the French thrones.This would have created a superpower: not only did both have vast overseas empires, but Spain's European possessions included half of Italy (Milan and all of the south) and half of the Netherlands (the Roman Catholic part now known as Belgium). Spain was ruled by the senior branch of the highly inbred Habsburg dynasty: since 1665 the king had been Charles II (or Carlos II), mentally retarded and with no children. As his death approached, his closest heir was his sister's grandson. The Infanta Maria Theresa had married Louis XIV of France, and their grandson Philip therefore was in line for both thrones. The other European powers proposed alternative candidates: first the son of the Elector of Bavaria, then on his death in 1699 the Archduke Charles of Austria, representative of the secondary branch of the Habsburg dynasty. But in 1700 King Carlos died, leaving his throne to Philip. Voltaire records that Louis XIV said Il n'y a plus de Pyrenées, "The Pyrenees are no more", disposing of the mountains between France and Spain. A Grand Alliance was now formed to prevent Philip from enjoying his new throne. England and Scotland (united in 1707 into Great Britain), Hanover (united with Great Britain in 1714), Prussia, Holland, Austria, Savoy, Portugal, and the central authorities in the Holy Roman Empire, all made war upon the alliance of Spain, France, Bavaria, and the Palatinate (Cologne). There were several fronts: civil war erupted in Spain; in northern Italy the Austrian commander Prince Eugene of Savoy fought against the Spanish rulers of Milan; in the south of Germany Louis of Baden fought against the Bavarians; and the maritime powers blockaded France and cut off the overseas empires. The greatest victories (well, in my English-born curriculum) were those of the Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim in 1704, then against the French in and around the Spanish Netherlands: Ramillies in 1706, Oudenarde in 1708, and Malplaquet in 1709. The Rock of Gibraltar was also seized in 1704. By the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 (aided by the Treaty of Rastatt in 1714) Britain obtained territorial concessions from France in the New World (Acadia and Hudson's Bay), it was agreed that King Philip V of Spain would never become King of France (Louis XIV was succeeded in 1714 by his great-grandson), and Spain's European territories in Italy and the Netherlands were handed over to the Austrian Habsburgs. All those date softlinks were already there on the nodeshell - don't blame me. Thanks to Gritchka for gently telling me where Blenheim was. |
© JudyT 1999-2003. The author has asserted her moral rights.