NOBILITY 



513 



the articles on the several orders of nobility. The 

 oldest English peerage is the earldom of Arundel, 

 dating from 1153, and now held by the Dukes of 

 Norfolk ; the Irish barony of Kingsale dates from 

 1181 ; to the period 1181-1205 lielong four baronies 

 now merged in other titles ; the Scottish earldom 

 of Sutherland goes back to 1228 ; and the baronies 

 of Le Despencer, De Kos, and Hastings are all of 

 the year 1264. 



By the Act of Union between England and 

 Scotland the Scotch peers elect sixteen of their 

 numl>er to represent their body in the House of 

 Lords in each parliament. The peers of Ireland, in 

 virtue of the Irish Act of Union, elect twenty- 

 eight of their number to sit in the House of Lords 

 for life. The Act of Union with Scotland has been 

 understood to debar the sovereign from creating any 

 new Scotch peerages ; all peers created in either 

 England or Scotland between that date and the 

 union with Ireland are peers of Great Britain ; and 

 peers created in any of the three kingdoms sub- 

 sequently to the union with Ireland are peers of 

 the United Kingdom, with this exception tnat one 

 new peerage of Ireland may be created on the 

 extinction of three existing peerages. When the 

 Irish peers are reduced to one hundred, then on the 

 extinction of one peerage another ma.y be created. 

 All peers of Great Britain or of the tlnited King- 

 dom have a seat in the House of Lords. A Scotch 

 peer, though not one of the sixteen representative 

 peers, is debarred from sitting in the House of 

 Commons, a disability which does not attach to 

 Irish peers. The peerage has from time to time 

 recruited by new additions, the persons selected 

 being in general peers of Scotland or Ireland ; 



Cinger members of the families of peers ; royal 

 tards (so recently as 1831 ); persons distinguished 

 for naval, military, political, or diplomatic services ; 

 eminent lawyers promoted to high judicial appoint- 

 ment* ; persons of large property and ancient 

 family, noble in the more extended sense ; and 

 lastly, persons who have by commerce acquired 

 large fortunes and social im|>ortance. Many of the 

 Scotch and Irish peers sit in the House of Lords as 

 peers either of England, Great Britain, or of the 

 United Kingdom. The privileges belonging to 

 peers as members of parliament will be explained 

 under PARLIAMENT ; as peers, they also possess 

 the following immunities : they can only l>e tried 

 by their peers for felony, treason, or misprision of 

 treason, when the whole members of the peerage 

 are summoned. All the privileges belonging to the 

 English peers, except the right of sitting in the 

 House of Lords, were extended to the peers of 

 Scotland by the Treaty of Union. A peer who has 

 different titles in the peerage takes in ordinary 

 parlance his highest title, one of the inferior titles 

 being given by courtesy to his eldest son. Certain 

 Courtesy Titles (q.v.) belong also to the daughters 

 and younger sons of a peer, but do not extend to 

 their children. British subjects can hold foreign 

 titles of nobility only by consent of the crown. 

 The ancient Scottish barony of Fairfax has since 

 1800 been confirmed to OtilHM f the United 

 States, landholders in Virginia. The sixth baron 

 was a friend of Washington, the tenth (1829-69) 

 waa speaker of the California House of Representa- 

 tives. The barons of Longueuil, a Canadian 

 family, are recognised in Britain (see LK MOYNK). 

 In Prance a limited body of the higher nobility, 

 styled the peers, were in the enjoyment of privileges 

 not possessed by the rest. The 'title of Duke was 

 subject to strict rule, but many titles of Marquis 

 and Count, lielieved to be pure assumptions, were 

 recognised by the courtesy of society. The head of 

 a noble family often assumed at his own hand the 

 :.;V of marquis; and if an estate was purchased 

 which had Mionjred to a titled family the purchaser 

 46 



was in the habit of transferring to himself the 

 honours possessed by his predecessor a practice to 

 which Louis XV. put a stop. Immediately before 

 the Revolution 80,000 families claimed nobility, 

 many of them of obscure station, and less than 3000 

 of ancient lineage. Nobles and clergy together 

 possessed two-thirds of the land. Practically, the 

 estimation in which a member of the French nobility 

 was held depended not so much on the degree of his 

 title as on its antiquity, and the distinction of those 

 who had l>onie it. The higher titles of nobility 

 were not borne by all members of a family ; each 

 son assumed a title from one of the family estates 

 a custom productive of no small confusion. Unlike 

 ' roturier ' lands, which divided among all the 

 children equally, noble fiefs went to the eldest son. 

 The Revolution overthrew all distinction of ranks. 

 On 18th June 1790 the National Assembly decreed 

 that hereditary nobility was an institution incom- 

 patible with a "free state, and that titles, arms, and 

 liveries should be almlished. Two years later the 

 records of the nobility were burned. A new 

 nobility was created by the Emperor Napoleon I. 

 in 1808, with titles descending to the eldest son. 

 The old nobility was again revived at the Restora- 

 tion. All marquises and viscounts are of pre- 

 revolution titles, none having been created in later 

 times. 



Commercial pursuits have more or less in 

 different countries been considered incompatible 

 with nobility. In England this was less the case 

 than in France and Germany, where for Ion,' a 

 gentleman could not engage in any trade without 

 losing his rank. A sort of commercial ' Biirger- 

 Adel,' or half-gentleman class, was constituted out 

 of the patrician families of some of the great 

 German cities, particularly Augsburg, Nureml>erg, 

 and Frankfort, on whom the emperors bestowed 

 coats-of-arms. In semi-feudal Italy there was on 

 the whole less antagoni-m between nobility and 

 trade than north of the Alps. The aristocracy of 

 Venice had its origin in commerce ; and, though 

 unfilled, they were among the most distinguished 

 cliiss of nobles in Europe. On the other hand, in 

 Florence, in the 14th century, under a constitution 

 purely mercantile, nobility Iwcame a disqualifica- 

 tion from holding any office of the state. In order 

 to the enjoyment of civil right, the nobleman had 

 to lie struck off the rolls of nobility ; and an un- 

 popular plebeian was sometimes ennobled in order 

 to disfranchise him. A little later there grew up, 

 side by side with the old nobility, a race of plebeian 

 nobles as the Medici whose pretensions were 

 originally derived from wealth, and who eventually 

 came to be regarded as aristocrats by the demo- 

 cratic party. 



The nobility of Spain boasts of a special 

 antiquity and purity of blood, a descent from 

 warriors and conquerors alone. 'Hidalgo' (q.v.) is 

 a term which implies gentility or noliility ; the 

 hidalgo alone has in strictness a right to the title 

 ' Don,' which has latterly been used by persons 

 who have no proper claim to it about as extensively 

 as ' Esquire ' in England. The higher nobility are 

 styled Grandees (q.v. ) ; the class of nobility below 

 them are called 'Titulados.' Red blood is said to 

 flow in the veins of the hidalgo, blue in that of the 

 grandee. The preservation of noble blood, un- 

 tainted by plebeian intermixture, has often been 

 reckoned a matter of much moment. In Spain 

 most of all this purity of lineage has been jealously 

 guarded. In the German empire no succession was 

 allowed to feus holding immediately of the emperor, 

 unless both parents belonged to the higher nobility. 

 In France the offspring of a gentleman by a plebeian 

 mother was noble in a question of inheritance or 

 exemption from tribute, but could not be received 

 into any order of chivalry. Letters of nobility were 



