It is, to say the least, a tight-knit little circle, one in which intermarriage is not jut common but, at the higher levels, practically de rigueur. All 25 of the non-royal dukes, for instance, are related by blood or marriage. Five are directly descended from that frolicsome and merry monarch Charles II and his various mistresses.
In terms of prestige and grandeur, the dukes are in something of a league of their own. A duke is always accorded his full title—the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of Bedford, and so on—but marquesses, viscounts, earls, and barons can all be addressed simply as “lord.” Thus the Marquess of Bath is sometimes referred to as Lord Bath. This would never happen with a duke. At all levels, the details of protocol are scrupulously adhered to. The Queen addresses a baron, for instance, as “Our right trusty and well-beloved counselor,” but a duke as “Our right trusty and entirely beloved cousin”—a distinction that is crucially important to dukes, if no on else.
A very few titles can be passed through the female line, but most cannot. If the Duke of Devonshire, say, fails to produce a son and heir, the title will die out. On average about four or five noble titles disappear each year. At this rate, it has been calculated, the hereditary nobility will vanish altogether by 2175.
Partly because of this long-term decline, and partly to try to make the House of Lords slightly more representative, the British government in 1958 introduced a new kind of lord known as the “life peer.” A life peer is granted all the privileges of lordship for the rest of his or her life, but is not permitted to pass the title on. Long-serving politicians are often rewarded—or eased out of the way—by being given a life peerage in their twilight years. Such was the case with Margaret Thatcher, now Lady Thatcher.
The primary perk of ennoblement is admission to what has been called the best club in London: the House of Lords. Only a small number of those entitled to attend actually do so—which is perhaps just as well since there are only 250 seats in the House of Lords, or one for every 4.5 members—and many of those who attend seldom speak. The champion nonspeaker appears to have been the 12th Earl of Waldegrave, who took his seat in the Lords in 1936, but didn’t make his first speech until 1957.
Members of the Lords are excused from jury service, forbidden to vote in national elections, and given the historic right to be hanged by a rope made of silk rather than hemp—although since capital punishment was outlawed in England 40 years ago this privilege is somewhat academic. More usefully, they may not be arrested during sittings of Parliament or for 40 days before or after.
There is one group, incidentally, that is often wrongly assumed to be noble. I refer to knights—those called “sir,” as with Sir Walter Raleigh. A knighthood is a signal honor in Britain, but it doesn’t gain the holder anything beyond prestige. A knight doesn’t sit in the House of Lords and cannot pass his title on. Knighthoods are sometimes awarded to celebrities like Alec Guinness and Richard Attenborough, but more often they go to senior civil servants, long-serving politicians, and, above all, business people, particularly those who have contributed long and lavishly to the party in power. A common mistake among Americans is to refer to a knight by his title and last name—to say “Sir Guinness.” This is in fact never done. On second reference, a knight is called by his title and first name—“Sir Alec.”
Finally, we must turn to the one question we’ve left unanswered—namely, if Queen Elizabeth was born on April 21, why then is her birthday celebrated in June? The official answer is that there is better weather in June for garden parties, parades, and other ceremonial hoopla. The real answer, however, is that if they celebrated the queen’s birthday on the actual date of her birth it wouldn’t be odd at all. And how boringly un-British that would be.
