History of the Titles of the Prince of Wales: Part VI

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Baron Kilkeel, Baron of Renfrew, King Henry II of England, King William I of England, King’s Council, Parliament, Peerage, Peerage of England, Peerage of Ireland, Peerage of Scotland, Peerage of the United Kingdom, the prince of Wales

Baron. A title of Nobility.

In this section on the History of the titles of the Prince of Wale I will focus on the title of Baron.

HRH The Baron of Renfrew

In the Peerage of England, the Peerage of Great Britain, the Peerage of Ireland and the Peerage of the United Kingdom (but not in the Peerage of Scotland), barons form the lowest rank, placed immediately below viscounts. A female of baronial rank has the title baroness. The Scottish equivalent of an English baron is a Lord of Parliament.

The word baron comes from the Old French baron, which, in turn comes from a late Latin word barō which mean “man; servant, soldier, mercenary” (so used in Salic law; Alemannic law has barus in the same sense). The 7th century scholar Isidore of Seville thought the word Baron was from Greek βᾰρῠ́ς “heavy” (because of the “heavy work” done by mercenaries). However, the majority of scholars believe the word is of Old Frankish origin, cognate with Old English beorn meaning “warrior, nobleman”.

History

The rank of Baron was introduced into the English feudal system by William I (1066-1087). The introduction of the title of baron in England was to distinguish those men who had pledged their loyalty to the king. As stated in the my previous entry, during the Anglo-Saxon period in the kingdom of England, the king’s companions held the title of earl. In Scotland the equivalent title for Earl was that of thane. All who held their feudal barony by right of the king, meaning the king as his immediate overlord, were known as barones regis (“barons of the king”), bound to perform a stipulated annual military service, and obliged to attend his council.

There are different types of barons and it can get confusing. Originally, those who held land directly from the king, via their military service, from earls downwards, all held the title of baron. Under King Henry II, the Dialogus de Scaccario already distinguished between greater barons, those who held per baroniam by knight’s service, and lesser barons, those who held manors. Technically, Lords of Manors are barons, or freemen, however they are not entitled to be styled as such.

Within a century of the Norman Conquest of 1066, an example is the case of Thomas Becket in 1164, there arose the practice of sending to each greater baron a personal summons demanding his attendance at the King’s Council. The practice of sending a baron to the king’s council later evolved into the Parliament and then even later into the House of Lords. This practice was incorporated in Magna Carta of 1215 though not ever baron was chosen.

HRH The Baron Carrickfergus

The lesser barons of each county would receive a single summons from the sheriff and would meet as a group. A single representatives would be elected to attend the king’s council on behalf of the group. These representatives developed into the Knights of the Shire, and were elected by the County Court that was presided over by the sheriff.

The sheriffs of each county themselves formed the precursor of the House of Commons. This created a definite distinction between Sheriff (Commons) and Barons (Peers) which eventually had the effect of restricting the barons alone the privileges and duties of peerage.

Later, the king started to create new baronies in one of two ways: by a writ of summons directing a chosen man to attend Parliament, and in an even later development by letters patent. Writs of summons became the normal method in medieval times, displacing the method of feudal barony, but creation of baronies by letters patent is the sole method adopted in modern times.

The feudal aspect of the role of the Barons ended with the practice of summons by writ to the king’s council, thus Barons were no longer relate directly to land-holdings. With no more feudal baronies needed thenceforth this type of baron were no longer created. However, it would take the Modus Tenendi Parliamenta of 1419, the Tenures Abolition Act 1660, the Feudal Tenure Act (1662), and the Fines and Recoveries Act of 1834, until titles of feudal baronies became obsolete and without legal force.

HRH Baron Kilkeel

In the twentieth-century Britain introduced the concept of non-hereditary life peers who have a seat in the House of Lords with all appointees to this distinction have (thus far) been at the rank of baron. In accordance with the tradition applied to hereditary peers they too are formally addressed in parliament by their peers as “The Noble Lord.”

As nobles grew in both stature and power it became the tradition that baronies were, and are, often used by their holders as subsidiary titles. An example is that a baronies is frequently used as courtesy titles for the son and heir of an Earl or higher-ranked peer. The Scottish baronial title tends to be used when a landed family is not in possession of any United Kingdom peerage title of higher rank, subsequently granted, or has been created a knight of the realm.

Several members of the royal family with the style of Royal Highness are also titled Barons. For example, HRH The Prince of Wales is also The Baron of Renfrew. I will get into the history of that specific title in a later post. Similarly, his eldest son HRH The Duke of Cambridge is also The Baron Carrickfergus. HRH The Duke of Sussex was recently granted the title Baron Kilkeel in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. HRH The Duke of York is The Baron Killyleagh. Some non-royal Barons are somehow related to the royal family, for example Maurice Roche, 6th Baron Fermoy is William’s first cousin once removed, through William’s late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, who was the 4th Baron Fermoy’s granddaughter.

Coronet

A person holding a peerage in the rank of baron is entitled to a coronet bearing six silver balls (called pearls) around the rim, equally spaced and all of equal size and height. The rim itself is neither jeweled, nor “chased” (which is the case for the coronets of peers of higher degree). The actual coronet is mostly worn on certain ceremonial occasions, such as the coronation of a new monarch, but a baron can bear his coronet of rank on his coat of arms above the shield. In heraldry, the baron’s coronet is shown with four of the balls visible.

Style of address

Normally one refers to or addresses Baron [X] as Lord [X] and his wife as Lady [X]. Women who hold baronies in their own right may be styled as Baroness [X],[10] or Lady [X]. In direct address, they can also be referred to as My Lord, Your Lordship, or Your Ladyship, but never as My Lady (except in the case of a female judge). The husband of a Baroness in her own right gains no title or style from his wife. Children of Barons and Baronesses in their own right, whether hereditary or for life, have the style The Honourable [Forename] [Surname]. After the death of the father or mother, the child may continue to use the style The Honourable.

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History of the Titles of the Prince of Wales: Part V

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Coronet, Earl, Earl of Essex, Earl of Wessex, Edward III of England, Peerage, Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, Stephen of England, William the Conqueror

HRH The Earl of Chester, Earl of Carrick.

Earl is a title of the nobility. The title is of Anglo-Saxon in origin, akin to the Scandinavian form jarl, which meant “chieftain”, particularly a chieftain set to rule a territory in a king’s absence. However, for a time period in Scandinavia, jarl could also mean a sovereign prince. Prior to the unification of Norway there were rulers of several of the petty kingdoms of Norway that had the title of jarl and in many cases they had power identical to their neighbors who held the title of king. In modern Britain, an earl is a member of the peerage, ranking below a duke and marquess and above a baron and a viscount. A feminine form of earl never developed and instead the wife of an earl is called a countess.

An earl in medieval Britain was more akin to a duke and as time moved forward it devolved into equivalent of the continental count which was seen as a lesser title. Alternative names for the rank equivalent to “Earl/Count” in the nobility structure are used in other countries, such as the hakushaku of the post-restoration Japanese Imperial era.

In Anglo-Saxon England, when earls held the power equivalent to that of a duke, an earl had authority over their own regions and right of judgment in provincial courts, as delegated of the king, and originally functioned essentially as royal governors. Another role an earl had was that they collected fines and taxes and in return received one-third of the money they collected. In wartime they led the king’s armies. Some shires were grouped together into larger units known as earldoms, headed by an ealdorman or earl. Under Edward the Confessor earldoms like Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria—names that represented earlier independent kingdoms—were much larger than any shire. As stated earlier the title of Earl was nominally equal to that of a duke, specifically a continental duke. However, the main difference was that continental dukes held a measure of sovereignty and earls in were not de facto rulers in their own right, they remained vassals of the king under the feudal system.

Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, KG, PC (10 November 1565 – 25 February 1601)

After the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror tried to rule England using the traditional feudal system but eventually modified it to his own liking. Shires became the largest secular subdivision in England and earldoms al but completely vanished. The Normans did create new earls like those of Herefordshire, Shropshire, and Cheshire but they were associated with only a single shire at most. Their power and regional jurisdiction was limited to that of the Norman counts. There was no longer any administrative layer larger than the shire, and shires became “counties”. Earls no longer aided in tax collection or made decisions in country courts and their numbers dwindled.

King Stephen increased the number of earls to reward those loyal to him in his civil war with his cousin Empress Matilda. It was during the reign of King Stephen that earls once again returned to a more powerful status. He gave some earls the right to hold royal castles or control the sheriff and soon other earls assumed these rights themselves. By the end of his reign, some earls held courts of their own and even minted their own coins, against the wishes of the king.

It fell to Stephen’s successor Henry II to again curtail the power of the earls. He took back the control of royal castles and even demolished castles that earls had built for themselves. He did not create new earls or earldoms. No earl was allowed to remain independent of royal control.

The English kings had found it dangerous to give additional power to an already powerful aristocracy, so gradually sheriffs assumed the governing role. The details of this transition remain obscure, since earls in more peripheral areas, such as the Scottish Marches and Welsh Marches and Cornwall, retained some viceregal powers long after other earls had lost them. The loosening of central authority during the Anarchy also complicates any smooth description of the changeover.

Their Royal Highnesses The Earl and Countess of Wessex.

By the 13th century, earls had a social rank just below the king and princes, but were not necessarily more powerful or wealthier than other noblemen. The only way to become an earl was to inherit the title or marry into one—and the king reserved a right to prevent the transfer of the title. By the 14th century, creating an earl included a special public ceremony where the king personally tied a sword belt around the waist of the new earl, emphasizing the fact that the earl’s rights came from the King.

Earls still held influence and, as “companions of the king”, were regarded as supporters of the king’s power. They showed that power for the first time in 1327 when they deposed Edward II. They would later do the same with other kings of whom they disapproved. In 1337 Edward III declared that he intended to create six new earldoms.

Earls, land and titles

A loose connection between earls and shires remained for a long time after authority had moved over to the sheriffs. An official defining characteristic of an earl still consisted of the receipt of the “third penny”, one-third of the revenues of justice of a shire, that later became a fixed sum. Thus every earl had an association with some shire, and very often a new creation of an earldom would take place in favour of the county where the new earl already had large estates and local influence.

Also, due to the association of earls and shires, the medieval practice could remain somewhat loose regarding the precise name used: no confusion could arise by calling someone earl of a shire, earl of the county town of the shire, or earl of some other prominent place in the shire; these all implied the same. So there were the “earl of Shrewsbury” (Shropshire), “earl of Arundel”, “earl of Chichester” (Sussex), “earl of Winchester” (Hampshire), etc.

In a few cases the earl was traditionally addressed by his family name, e.g. the “earl Warenne” (in this case the practice may have arisen because these earls had little or no property in Surrey, their official county). Thus an earl did not always have an intimate association with “his” county. Another example comes from the earls of Oxford, whose property largely lay in Essex. They became earls of Oxford because earls of Essex and of the other nearby shires already existed. Eventually the connection between an earl and a shire disappeared, so that in the present day a number of earldoms take their names from towns, mountains, or simply surnames.

In England, as the centuries wore on, the term earl came to be disassociated from the office, and later kings started granting the title of earl without it, and gradually without even an associated comitatus. By the 16th century there started to be earls of towns, of villages, and even of isolated houses; it had simply become a label for marking status, rather than an office of intrinsic power. In 1746, in the aftermath of the Jacobite rising, the Heritable Jurisdictions Act brought the powers of the remaining ancient earldoms under the control of the sheriffs; earl is now simply a noble rank.

Forms of address

An earl has the title Earl of [X] when the title originates from a placename, or Earl [X] when the title comes from a surname. In either case, he is referred to as Lord [X], and his wife as Lady [X]. A countess who holds an earldom in her own right also uses Lady [X], but her husband does not have a title (unless he has one in his own right).

The eldest son of an earl, though not himself a peer, is entitled to use a courtesy title, usually the highest of his father’s lesser titles (if any), for instance the eldest son of The Earl Of Wessex is styled as James, Viscount Severn. Younger sons are styled The Honourable [Forename] [Surname], and daughters, The Lady [Forename] [Surname] (Lady Diana Spencer being a well-known example).

In the peerage of Scotland, when there are no courtesy titles involved, the heir to an earldom, and indeed any level of peerage, is styled Master of [X], and successive sons as younger of [X]

A coronet of a British earl.

A British earl is entitled to a coronet bearing eight strawberry leaves (four visible) and eight silver balls (or pearls) around the rim (five visible). The actual coronet is mostly worn on certain ceremonial occasions, but an Earl may bear his coronet of rank on his coat of arms above the shield.

Former Prime Ministers
An earldom became, with a few exceptions, the default peerage to which a former Prime Minister was elevated. However the last Prime Minister to accept an earldom was Harold Macmillan, who became Earl of Stockton in 1984. In the 1970s life peerages (baronies) became the norm for former Prime Ministers, though none has accepted any peerage since Margaret Thatcher in 1992.