The British Nobility thread 1: Ending 2022


If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
I will try and let's see what will happen :)

Currently the first task is to find a list with the names and the county of the currently alive earls and countesses. I know these from Wikipedia, but since most of them are not alive even if try to get a wish....it wouldn't be feasible :)
 
What you also need to remember is that often an Earl will have a more senior title e.g. The Earl of St Andrews is better known as The Duke of Kent (and his son uses the Earl of St Andrews title as a courtesy title to indicate that he is the heir).

Not all Earls as directly associates with counties either but often cities or in the case of Prince Edward a place that no longer exists.

Just the royals who are earls as well as dukes:

Earl of Merioneth (Philip)
Earl of Chester (Charles)
Earl of Strathearn (William)
Earl of Inverness (Andrew)
Earl of Ulster (Richard - The Duke of Gloucester - his son uses the title)
Earl of St Andrews (Edward - The Duke of Kent - his son uses the title)

Then there is Edward:

Earl of Wessex (Edward)

Earl of Snowdon - ex-husband of Princess Margaret is another connected to the royals with an Earldom.

Earl of Harewood is also related to the royals being descended from George V through his daughter, Princess Mary.

The Wikipedia list does say whether there is a current holder of the title - and is comprehensive in that regard.

The terms it is using have meaning:

ALL the titles with the word 'extant' in the second last column tells you whether there is a current living title holder, and the final columns tells you whether or not that title is the subsidiary title of a duke or marquis.

There are currently 323 (according to my count on Wiki and I may have missed one or two or counted one of two twice but...) extant, or existing, earldoms in Britain - some English, some Scottish and some British, some peers holding multiple earldoms along with other titles while others have the earldom and maybe one other.
 
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Hi Iluvbertie!

Thank you a lot for the detailed explanation! Something that grabbed my attention was that you have found in Wikipedia an article with around 323 currently alive earls and countesses. Or maybe you speak about the second article provided by Lee-Z, which is about the List of earldoms?

Thank you again for the info! :)
 
The wikipedia article Lee-Z linked to has five columns -- title, date of creation, name, status, notes.

Going down the status column the titles are identified as:

extinct - no longer existing
extant - still existing with a living title holder
forfeit - more from the middle ages when treason was a more common charge
dormant - currently not officially extinct or extant as there is a question about the line of succession - namely whether there are legitimate earlier lines to claim it

All I did was count the extants as they are the living title holders. With about 2 or 3 exceptions these are all earls as the normal practice is to only allow inheritance through the male line although there are exceptions at times. Countesses are more likely to be the wives of an Earl rather than the holder in her own right.
 
Hello, Javier, and welcome to the forum. You've set yourself a formidable and ambitious task for your wife's birthday; I'm sure she'll appreciate your efforts! You'll get a lot of information from many of the knowledgeable members here; enjoy yourself. You'll certainly be an expert on that level of the peerage by the time your project is complete!:lol:
 
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Well, sorry to hear this news. Condolences to the family and friends.
 
^^^^^
Lady Eloise Anson is the daughter of the late famed photographer Patrick Anson, Earl of Lichfield by his ex wife Lady Leonora Grosvenor (daughter of late Duke of Westminster), and niece of party planner to the royals Lady Elizabeth Anson. They are related to the royal family on the Bowes Lyon side.
 
The dress is beautiful, the wreath in her hair is too big however. There seems to be no relatives around considering she married an Earl.
 
Eloise is also a goddaughter of Princess Anne. Her father was the photographer who took the official photos at the wedding of Charles and Diana, as well as the official portrait of HM and the DoE for her Silver Jubilee.

Eloise's new husband is the grandson of the 9th Earl of Hardwicke.
 
The dress is beautiful, the wreath in her hair is too big however. There seems to be no relatives around considering she married an Earl.

I believe she married the Earl of Hardwickes cousin, the TV writer Louis Weymouth. The Earl is already married and has a family.
 
I believe she married the Earl of Hardwickes cousin, the TV writer Louis Weymouth. The Earl is already married and has a family.

Correct.

The 9th Earl had 1 son and 3 daughters. The current Earl, the 10th, is the only son of the 9th Earl's only son, while Louis is the elder son of the 9th Earl's second daughter.
 
I've been reading about the family of the first High Steward of Scotland, Walter Fitzallen. In those days, as now, a woman could inherit lands. Walter's wife was Eschyna de Molle, who used her mother's name, because her vast inheritance in Roxburgh came from her mother's side. Her father's name was De Londonis, but she did not use it. Her first husband was my ancestor Robert Croc, a knight who followed Walter Fitzallen, and her second husband was that same Walter. She seems also to have had a child by a presumed third husband, which daughter was called Avisa de Molle. So the question for the historian is, did she marry a cousin called de Molle when she became the mother of Avisa, or did her husband use his wife's name because she was the heiress? No records seem to show this.

Eschyna de Molle had ten or eleven children with three husbands, Robert Croc, Walter Fitzallen, and ? de Molle.

However, she did not have a "title" that I know of. Her descendants became kings and queens, but she was not "noble," just rich. The rich often become noble.
 
^^^^
Since the family do not seem too fussed about the title passing to a distant cousin I am not sure why the DM cares. The DM after all would be amongst the first to dump on any government that took the time to try and revamp the hereditary peerage instead of letting it fall naturally into extinction
 
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What about Honourable Nicholas Knatchbull and Rahel Tedros? Are they already married?
 
^^^^
Since the family do not seem too fussed about the title passing to a distant cousin I am not sure why the DM cares. The DM after all would be amongst the first to dump on any government that took the time to try and revamp the hereditary peerage instead of letting it fall naturally into extinction

I suppose it's just because it's very Downton Abbey-esque really.
 
Any talk of the van cutsems on this thread as well?
 
Yes I have found it just checking to see if they are here as well. It seems to be a common trend to have forums overlap.

Actually posters and moderators do there best for that not to happen.
 
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