"Duke", "Earl", "Lord", and "Baron" – what do these titles actually mean?
In part one of our mini-series on British social class, we'll be talking about the origins of the British aristocracy and the roles they have in modern Britain.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today is the start of another mini-series, this time on British social class, and in particular, the lives of those at the very top of the British social class system.
[00:00:35] In part one, this episode, we are going to talk about the origins of the British aristocracy. We’ll look at what being a “Lord” really means, how and why someone can become a Duke or Lord, and the roles these people have in modern Britain.
[00:00:51] And in part two, we’ll take a look inside the most exclusive private school in Britain, Eton College. It is a school that has educated Prime Ministers, Princes, Archbishops and Kings, a school that is as exclusive as it is expensive, but, as we’ll learn, it is now exclusive in ways that might surprise you.
[00:01:13] And finally, in part three, we are going to look at the unusual life of British servants, the people who lived and worked for British aristocrats, cooking, folding napkins, cleaning the toilets, and doing all the sorts of things that those at the top of British society considered themselves to be above doing.
[00:01:34] I’m super excited for this mini-series, and I hope you will like it.
[00:01:38] OK then, an exploration of the British aristocracy.
[00:01:45] If you ever find yourself filling out an application form in the UK, let’s say you are registering for an appointment with a doctor, you might be asked for lots of details that will be unsurprising: your first name, your surname, your phone number, email address, and so on.
[00:02:04] You might then get to the bit where it says “title”.
[00:02:09] If it’s an online form, the first few options will no doubt be familiar: Mr, Mrs, Miss, Master.
[00:02:18] Perhaps these don’t apply to you, and you’ll have to keep scrolling through: Doctor or Professor.
[00:02:26] For most people, myself and I imagine yourself included, we fit into one of these titles.
[00:02:34] But for a tiny percentage of the British population, they need to keep on scrolling to find their title.
[00:02:42] And if you keep on looking down the list, you might be surprised to see quite how many options there are: Dame, Lady, Lord, The Right Honourable, Sir, Earl, Duke, Baron, Viscount, Viscountess and Marquess, the list goes on.
[00:03:00] So, what do these titles actually mean, how does one become an Earl or a Duke, is it actually possible for someone like you or me to become one, and what does it mean when you become one?
[00:03:16] To answer all of these questions, we need to go back to the start, or at least back to the arrival of William The Conqueror to Britain in the year 1066.
[00:03:28] As a brief reminder, William was a Norman, he came from Normandy in the north of France. He arrived in England, beat the Anglo Saxons and crowned himself king of England on Christmas Day in 1066.
[00:03:45] He implemented a wide range of changes to the country, but the most important for the purposes of this episode was the introduction of something called the feudal system.
[00:03:59] Previously, England was administered by a group of Anglo-Saxon nobles.
[00:04:05] When William arrived, he took all of this land. Just under 20% he kept for himself, and the rest was distributed between a combination of the church and men who had been given noble titles by King William.
[00:04:24] In practice, the deal was this: the king would give a nobleman a chunk of land, often thousands of square kilometres. The nobleman would be in charge of everything and everyone who lived there: he could do what he wanted, collect taxes, collect rent, he was the boss, essentially.
[00:04:46] In exchange, he needed to pay a small annual fee to the crown, give advice to the king if asked, and if the king needed soldiers to fight a war, the nobleman would provide them for him.
[00:05:01] It was, for the king and the nobleman at least, a pretty efficient arrangement. The king didn’t need to worry about minor things going on hundreds of kilometres away because someone else would deal with it. And the nobleman, well, he got to live a pretty good life and was under the protection of the king.
[00:05:23] For everyone else, well, life wasn’t quite so rosy, but that isn’t what we’re talking about today.
[00:05:30] The catch-all term for these noblemen was “the baronage”, and it consisted of no more than a couple of hundred “barons”, of whom never more than 25 were bestowed with the title “Earl”.
[00:05:46] As the years went by, more titles were created: Duke, Marquess, and Viscount.
[00:05:54] Initially these titles weren’t actually hereditary: the son of an Earl didn’t automatically become an Earl after his father died.
[00:06:05] But within a couple of hundred years, and after a few changes that we aren’t going to go into today, this became the case.
[00:06:14] If a man was a baron, let’s say, after his death the title would pass to his son. If he didn’t have any children, it went to his brother. If he had a daughter, well, her husband would get it.
[00:06:28] Sorry, women couldn’t be trusted to take on the title, it would have to go to the nearest man.
[00:06:35] And, with a few minor updates, this is essentially still the situation today: there are these different noble titles which pass from father to son and give the holder of the title the same land and power that can in many cases be traced all the way back to 1066.
[00:06:59] Before we go into what this means in practice in the 21st century, let me first explain to you the hierarchy of these noble titles, their order of importance, so if you ever find yourself in a room with a Duke, a Marquess, an Earl, a Viscount and a Baron, you’ll know in which order you need to greet them.
[00:07:22] In fact, the order I just gave you is the right order, going from highest in rank to lowest.
[00:07:29] Right at the top is “Duke”, of which there are only 30. These include Dukes you have probably heard of, like the Duke of Cornwall, otherwise known as Prince William, the Duke of Sussex, which is Prince Harry, or their black sheep of an uncle, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.
[00:07:50] If you know your English geography, Cornwall, Sussex and York are all areas of the country, so being a Duke of a particular area typically meant that the title came with ownership and management of that area of the country.
[00:08:08] Now, in fact in the case of Sussex and York, these titles were created more recently specifically for that person, but the Duke of Cornwall is a title that can be traced all the way back to the year 1337.
[00:08:24] One step down from a “Duke” is a Marquess, of which there are 34.
[00:08:30] Then comes Earl, of which there are 189.
[00:08:34] There are fewer Viscounts, only 110, but they are still less important than Earls.
[00:08:41] And Barons are, comparatively, two a penny. There are 426 hereditary barons in England.
[00:08:50] If you’ve been doing the maths, that’s 789 people, it’s 0.001% of the population.
[00:09:00] Given this, and given the fact that these people don't live “normal” lives by most people’s definitions, you are unlikely to meet one.
[00:09:10] But if you did, let me tell you how to address that person.
[00:09:15] It’s actually quite simple. If you are addressing one of the 30 Dukes, you say “Your Grace”.
[00:09:22] Unless, that is, that Duke is also a prince or princess, in which you would say “Your Royal Highness”.
[00:09:30] And for everyone else, all of the other titles, it is “Lord” for a man, and “Lady” for a lady.
[00:09:38] So a “lord” is actually just the way in which you address someone, it isn’t a rank in its own right.
[00:09:47] Right, now that we have an understanding of the order of these titles, and what we should call people who hold them, it’s time to talk about the role of these nobles, and ask ourselves what their purpose is in 21st century Britain.
[00:10:03] If you remember, the original role of these people was a practical one: control the land, advise the king, bring soldiers to fight when the king asks.
[00:10:16] The UK now has a functional government, the monarch is no longer really in charge, and fortunately there is limited need for a large army.
[00:10:25] So, what is the purpose of the nobility in 2023?
[00:10:32] Well, for some people this is a very easy question to answer: there is no purpose at all, there hasn’t been any purpose for hundreds of years, and we should dissolve all of these ridiculous titles and return the land owned by the 0.001% of the population to the British people.
[00:10:52] To others, the role of the British nobility is similar to that of the monarchy: it is one of historical and cultural preservation and continuity, they are a living link to British history.
[00:11:07] We’ll engage with this question a little more in a bit, but your next question might be about what Dukes or Earls or Viscounts have to do…do they have to do anything now, or do they just sit around getting frustrated with having to scroll all the way down to the bottom when it comes to filling out the form for a doctor’s appointment?
[00:11:29] Well, there are some ceremonial and symbolic responsibilities, such as going to events, weddings, banquets, opening new buildings and so on. But other than this, there is little “official” work required, you don’t need to do anything.
[00:11:49] Other than the status that might come from having this kind of title, and the invitations to fancy parties and events, you now don’t get anything directly from being a lord or lady.
[00:12:02] In fact, it is normally a pretty expensive title to hold.
[00:12:07] This kind of title will often come with a very large house that is in varying states of disrepair, so it needs substantial money put into it every year to stop it from falling down. Your family in most cases will still have a very healthy bank balance, but there are certain standards that are expected to be maintained, and the money probably goes out as quickly as it comes in.
[00:12:35] After all, this is no longer the 14th century, and there aren’t hundreds of thousands of commoners farming your land and paying you rent every month.
[00:12:45] In some cases, however, not that much has changed since the 14th century.
[00:12:51] One of the wealthiest Dukes in the UK is the Duke of Westminster. He is only 32 years old as of the time of making this episode, and he is worth a staggering €11 billion.
[00:13:07] He does, much like his father and grandfather and their grandfathers before them, sit around and collect rent, not from farmers, but from companies and private individuals.
[00:13:21] In his case, this wealth comes from owning just over a kilometre squared of property in the fanciest areas of London, Mayfair and Belgravia.
[00:13:33] And his title, the Duke of Westminster, can be traced back hundreds of years. Indeed, his father apparently once joked to a group of entrepreneurs that his top piece of advice was “to have an ancestor who was good friends with William the Conqueror”.
[00:13:52] And in just one more example of not that much changing, this Duke of Westminster, Hugh, had two older sisters, yet the title and wealth passed to him, not his older sisters.
[00:14:08] Now, there is one type of Lord that we haven’t talked about yet.
[00:14:13] Up until now we have talked only about hereditary titles, Duke, Earl, Viscount and so on, titles that pass from one generation to the next.
[00:14:26] There is another type of Lord which doesn’t pass down, and that is called a “Life Peerage”, and if you have a “Life Peerage” you are called a “peer”.
[00:14:37] If you have read much about the British political system, you’ll know that the UK Parliament is formed of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
[00:14:48] A commoner is someone without a title, a normal person, and the House of Commons is the area of Parliament where elected officials sit and discuss political matters. If you’ve seen videos of a long room with green seats and people standing up and shouting at each other, that’s the House of Commons.
[00:15:09] But in the same building there is another room. It’s a bit smaller, and the seats are red, not green. It’s called The House of Lords, and you have to be a Lord to enter.
[00:15:24] It used to be made up of hereditary peers, Lords and Ladies who inherited their titles from their parents, but the law was changed in 1999 so that, with a small number of exceptions, you now have to be “elected” as a Lord or Lady.
[00:15:42] The election process, however, is not exactly democratic; typically the Prime Minister will propose someone because of a particular contribution that they have made to the world of politics, arts, science, business or public service.
[00:16:00] And recently, several Prime Ministers, especially Boris Johnson, have come under fire for rewarding people loyal to them with life peerages despite their somewhat dubious contribution to British society.
[00:16:16] And when you become a life peer, you are a peer for life, forever.
[00:16:22] You can put “The Right Honourable” before your name, you can come and vote on issues in the House of Lords, you get paid for your contribution, you have a political role to play in the country.
[00:16:34] Now, this wasn’t meant to be an episode on how the British political system works, but broadly the role of these peers, and the House of Lords, is to “make laws, investigate public policy, and hold the government to account.”
[00:16:52] If you are familiar with US politics, it’s somewhat similar to the Senate, while the House of Commons is more like the House of Representatives.
[00:17:02] There are fundamental differences, like the fact that members of the House of Lords are not elected by the public, but we are in the UK after all, and as you’ll have gathered by now, we have a long-standing tradition of unelected rulers.
[00:17:18] Now, the final point I want to talk to you about today is the public perception of nobility.
[00:17:26] On one level, it is clearly ridiculous to give people titles based on who their ancestors might have been in the 14th century. If you were designing a society from scratch, it seems unlikely that you would give a large proportion of the country’s land to a tiny slither of the population and allow that miniscule group of people to continue to call themselves Duke or Earl or Marquess.
[00:17:53] But on the other hand, both inside and outside of Britain, there is a strange obsession with this tiny section of society. If you think of the books, films, and TV series that have been made about Lords and Ladies, from Downton Abbey to Gosford Park, Poldark to Brideshead Revisited, people love reading about, watching and experiencing the lives that the aristocracy lead. This genre is incredibly popular.
[00:18:25] And if we were to look into a crystal ball and think, hmm, will the British aristocracy be any different in 500 or even 1,000 years to come, well this is an interesting question indeed.
[00:18:40] There have been some reforms to this system, but really there is very little public support or movement at the moment for any kind of dismantling of the system of peerage, of Dukes, Earls, Barons and so on. For most people, it is something that doesn’t touch on their life at all, and if anything, is a curiosity and interesting thing to read about or watch on TV.
[00:19:10] And at the end of the day, the title passes from parent to child, in many cases in such a clever way that no inheritance tax is ever paid on it.
[00:19:21] So, for as long as Dukes and Earls keep on having lots of children, and their money pots continue to pass from one generation to the next without the taxman getting a look inside, there will be more little Lords or Ladies for many years to come.
[00:19:39] OK then, that is it for today's episode on the British aristocracy, and what being a Lord or Lady really means.
[00:19:48] As a quick reminder, this was part one of a three-part series where we are going to explore British social class.
[00:19:56] Next up, in part two we will talk about the most exclusive school in Britain, Eton, a school that has educated a good chunk of the Dukes and Earls we’ve heard about today.
[00:20:08] And in part three we will talk about the “normal” people who dashed about fulfilling their master’s orders: the servant class.
[00:20:17] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:20:20] What do you think about these strange titles that we have in Britain?
[00:20:24] Should they be abolished, or are they an important part of British history?
[00:20:29] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:20:33] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:20:40] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:20:45] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today is the start of another mini-series, this time on British social class, and in particular, the lives of those at the very top of the British social class system.
[00:00:35] In part one, this episode, we are going to talk about the origins of the British aristocracy. We’ll look at what being a “Lord” really means, how and why someone can become a Duke or Lord, and the roles these people have in modern Britain.
[00:00:51] And in part two, we’ll take a look inside the most exclusive private school in Britain, Eton College. It is a school that has educated Prime Ministers, Princes, Archbishops and Kings, a school that is as exclusive as it is expensive, but, as we’ll learn, it is now exclusive in ways that might surprise you.
[00:01:13] And finally, in part three, we are going to look at the unusual life of British servants, the people who lived and worked for British aristocrats, cooking, folding napkins, cleaning the toilets, and doing all the sorts of things that those at the top of British society considered themselves to be above doing.
[00:01:34] I’m super excited for this mini-series, and I hope you will like it.
[00:01:38] OK then, an exploration of the British aristocracy.
[00:01:45] If you ever find yourself filling out an application form in the UK, let’s say you are registering for an appointment with a doctor, you might be asked for lots of details that will be unsurprising: your first name, your surname, your phone number, email address, and so on.
[00:02:04] You might then get to the bit where it says “title”.
[00:02:09] If it’s an online form, the first few options will no doubt be familiar: Mr, Mrs, Miss, Master.
[00:02:18] Perhaps these don’t apply to you, and you’ll have to keep scrolling through: Doctor or Professor.
[00:02:26] For most people, myself and I imagine yourself included, we fit into one of these titles.
[00:02:34] But for a tiny percentage of the British population, they need to keep on scrolling to find their title.
[00:02:42] And if you keep on looking down the list, you might be surprised to see quite how many options there are: Dame, Lady, Lord, The Right Honourable, Sir, Earl, Duke, Baron, Viscount, Viscountess and Marquess, the list goes on.
[00:03:00] So, what do these titles actually mean, how does one become an Earl or a Duke, is it actually possible for someone like you or me to become one, and what does it mean when you become one?
[00:03:16] To answer all of these questions, we need to go back to the start, or at least back to the arrival of William The Conqueror to Britain in the year 1066.
[00:03:28] As a brief reminder, William was a Norman, he came from Normandy in the north of France. He arrived in England, beat the Anglo Saxons and crowned himself king of England on Christmas Day in 1066.
[00:03:45] He implemented a wide range of changes to the country, but the most important for the purposes of this episode was the introduction of something called the feudal system.
[00:03:59] Previously, England was administered by a group of Anglo-Saxon nobles.
[00:04:05] When William arrived, he took all of this land. Just under 20% he kept for himself, and the rest was distributed between a combination of the church and men who had been given noble titles by King William.
[00:04:24] In practice, the deal was this: the king would give a nobleman a chunk of land, often thousands of square kilometres. The nobleman would be in charge of everything and everyone who lived there: he could do what he wanted, collect taxes, collect rent, he was the boss, essentially.
[00:04:46] In exchange, he needed to pay a small annual fee to the crown, give advice to the king if asked, and if the king needed soldiers to fight a war, the nobleman would provide them for him.
[00:05:01] It was, for the king and the nobleman at least, a pretty efficient arrangement. The king didn’t need to worry about minor things going on hundreds of kilometres away because someone else would deal with it. And the nobleman, well, he got to live a pretty good life and was under the protection of the king.
[00:05:23] For everyone else, well, life wasn’t quite so rosy, but that isn’t what we’re talking about today.
[00:05:30] The catch-all term for these noblemen was “the baronage”, and it consisted of no more than a couple of hundred “barons”, of whom never more than 25 were bestowed with the title “Earl”.
[00:05:46] As the years went by, more titles were created: Duke, Marquess, and Viscount.
[00:05:54] Initially these titles weren’t actually hereditary: the son of an Earl didn’t automatically become an Earl after his father died.
[00:06:05] But within a couple of hundred years, and after a few changes that we aren’t going to go into today, this became the case.
[00:06:14] If a man was a baron, let’s say, after his death the title would pass to his son. If he didn’t have any children, it went to his brother. If he had a daughter, well, her husband would get it.
[00:06:28] Sorry, women couldn’t be trusted to take on the title, it would have to go to the nearest man.
[00:06:35] And, with a few minor updates, this is essentially still the situation today: there are these different noble titles which pass from father to son and give the holder of the title the same land and power that can in many cases be traced all the way back to 1066.
[00:06:59] Before we go into what this means in practice in the 21st century, let me first explain to you the hierarchy of these noble titles, their order of importance, so if you ever find yourself in a room with a Duke, a Marquess, an Earl, a Viscount and a Baron, you’ll know in which order you need to greet them.
[00:07:22] In fact, the order I just gave you is the right order, going from highest in rank to lowest.
[00:07:29] Right at the top is “Duke”, of which there are only 30. These include Dukes you have probably heard of, like the Duke of Cornwall, otherwise known as Prince William, the Duke of Sussex, which is Prince Harry, or their black sheep of an uncle, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.
[00:07:50] If you know your English geography, Cornwall, Sussex and York are all areas of the country, so being a Duke of a particular area typically meant that the title came with ownership and management of that area of the country.
[00:08:08] Now, in fact in the case of Sussex and York, these titles were created more recently specifically for that person, but the Duke of Cornwall is a title that can be traced all the way back to the year 1337.
[00:08:24] One step down from a “Duke” is a Marquess, of which there are 34.
[00:08:30] Then comes Earl, of which there are 189.
[00:08:34] There are fewer Viscounts, only 110, but they are still less important than Earls.
[00:08:41] And Barons are, comparatively, two a penny. There are 426 hereditary barons in England.
[00:08:50] If you’ve been doing the maths, that’s 789 people, it’s 0.001% of the population.
[00:09:00] Given this, and given the fact that these people don't live “normal” lives by most people’s definitions, you are unlikely to meet one.
[00:09:10] But if you did, let me tell you how to address that person.
[00:09:15] It’s actually quite simple. If you are addressing one of the 30 Dukes, you say “Your Grace”.
[00:09:22] Unless, that is, that Duke is also a prince or princess, in which you would say “Your Royal Highness”.
[00:09:30] And for everyone else, all of the other titles, it is “Lord” for a man, and “Lady” for a lady.
[00:09:38] So a “lord” is actually just the way in which you address someone, it isn’t a rank in its own right.
[00:09:47] Right, now that we have an understanding of the order of these titles, and what we should call people who hold them, it’s time to talk about the role of these nobles, and ask ourselves what their purpose is in 21st century Britain.
[00:10:03] If you remember, the original role of these people was a practical one: control the land, advise the king, bring soldiers to fight when the king asks.
[00:10:16] The UK now has a functional government, the monarch is no longer really in charge, and fortunately there is limited need for a large army.
[00:10:25] So, what is the purpose of the nobility in 2023?
[00:10:32] Well, for some people this is a very easy question to answer: there is no purpose at all, there hasn’t been any purpose for hundreds of years, and we should dissolve all of these ridiculous titles and return the land owned by the 0.001% of the population to the British people.
[00:10:52] To others, the role of the British nobility is similar to that of the monarchy: it is one of historical and cultural preservation and continuity, they are a living link to British history.
[00:11:07] We’ll engage with this question a little more in a bit, but your next question might be about what Dukes or Earls or Viscounts have to do…do they have to do anything now, or do they just sit around getting frustrated with having to scroll all the way down to the bottom when it comes to filling out the form for a doctor’s appointment?
[00:11:29] Well, there are some ceremonial and symbolic responsibilities, such as going to events, weddings, banquets, opening new buildings and so on. But other than this, there is little “official” work required, you don’t need to do anything.
[00:11:49] Other than the status that might come from having this kind of title, and the invitations to fancy parties and events, you now don’t get anything directly from being a lord or lady.
[00:12:02] In fact, it is normally a pretty expensive title to hold.
[00:12:07] This kind of title will often come with a very large house that is in varying states of disrepair, so it needs substantial money put into it every year to stop it from falling down. Your family in most cases will still have a very healthy bank balance, but there are certain standards that are expected to be maintained, and the money probably goes out as quickly as it comes in.
[00:12:35] After all, this is no longer the 14th century, and there aren’t hundreds of thousands of commoners farming your land and paying you rent every month.
[00:12:45] In some cases, however, not that much has changed since the 14th century.
[00:12:51] One of the wealthiest Dukes in the UK is the Duke of Westminster. He is only 32 years old as of the time of making this episode, and he is worth a staggering €11 billion.
[00:13:07] He does, much like his father and grandfather and their grandfathers before them, sit around and collect rent, not from farmers, but from companies and private individuals.
[00:13:21] In his case, this wealth comes from owning just over a kilometre squared of property in the fanciest areas of London, Mayfair and Belgravia.
[00:13:33] And his title, the Duke of Westminster, can be traced back hundreds of years. Indeed, his father apparently once joked to a group of entrepreneurs that his top piece of advice was “to have an ancestor who was good friends with William the Conqueror”.
[00:13:52] And in just one more example of not that much changing, this Duke of Westminster, Hugh, had two older sisters, yet the title and wealth passed to him, not his older sisters.
[00:14:08] Now, there is one type of Lord that we haven’t talked about yet.
[00:14:13] Up until now we have talked only about hereditary titles, Duke, Earl, Viscount and so on, titles that pass from one generation to the next.
[00:14:26] There is another type of Lord which doesn’t pass down, and that is called a “Life Peerage”, and if you have a “Life Peerage” you are called a “peer”.
[00:14:37] If you have read much about the British political system, you’ll know that the UK Parliament is formed of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
[00:14:48] A commoner is someone without a title, a normal person, and the House of Commons is the area of Parliament where elected officials sit and discuss political matters. If you’ve seen videos of a long room with green seats and people standing up and shouting at each other, that’s the House of Commons.
[00:15:09] But in the same building there is another room. It’s a bit smaller, and the seats are red, not green. It’s called The House of Lords, and you have to be a Lord to enter.
[00:15:24] It used to be made up of hereditary peers, Lords and Ladies who inherited their titles from their parents, but the law was changed in 1999 so that, with a small number of exceptions, you now have to be “elected” as a Lord or Lady.
[00:15:42] The election process, however, is not exactly democratic; typically the Prime Minister will propose someone because of a particular contribution that they have made to the world of politics, arts, science, business or public service.
[00:16:00] And recently, several Prime Ministers, especially Boris Johnson, have come under fire for rewarding people loyal to them with life peerages despite their somewhat dubious contribution to British society.
[00:16:16] And when you become a life peer, you are a peer for life, forever.
[00:16:22] You can put “The Right Honourable” before your name, you can come and vote on issues in the House of Lords, you get paid for your contribution, you have a political role to play in the country.
[00:16:34] Now, this wasn’t meant to be an episode on how the British political system works, but broadly the role of these peers, and the House of Lords, is to “make laws, investigate public policy, and hold the government to account.”
[00:16:52] If you are familiar with US politics, it’s somewhat similar to the Senate, while the House of Commons is more like the House of Representatives.
[00:17:02] There are fundamental differences, like the fact that members of the House of Lords are not elected by the public, but we are in the UK after all, and as you’ll have gathered by now, we have a long-standing tradition of unelected rulers.
[00:17:18] Now, the final point I want to talk to you about today is the public perception of nobility.
[00:17:26] On one level, it is clearly ridiculous to give people titles based on who their ancestors might have been in the 14th century. If you were designing a society from scratch, it seems unlikely that you would give a large proportion of the country’s land to a tiny slither of the population and allow that miniscule group of people to continue to call themselves Duke or Earl or Marquess.
[00:17:53] But on the other hand, both inside and outside of Britain, there is a strange obsession with this tiny section of society. If you think of the books, films, and TV series that have been made about Lords and Ladies, from Downton Abbey to Gosford Park, Poldark to Brideshead Revisited, people love reading about, watching and experiencing the lives that the aristocracy lead. This genre is incredibly popular.
[00:18:25] And if we were to look into a crystal ball and think, hmm, will the British aristocracy be any different in 500 or even 1,000 years to come, well this is an interesting question indeed.
[00:18:40] There have been some reforms to this system, but really there is very little public support or movement at the moment for any kind of dismantling of the system of peerage, of Dukes, Earls, Barons and so on. For most people, it is something that doesn’t touch on their life at all, and if anything, is a curiosity and interesting thing to read about or watch on TV.
[00:19:10] And at the end of the day, the title passes from parent to child, in many cases in such a clever way that no inheritance tax is ever paid on it.
[00:19:21] So, for as long as Dukes and Earls keep on having lots of children, and their money pots continue to pass from one generation to the next without the taxman getting a look inside, there will be more little Lords or Ladies for many years to come.
[00:19:39] OK then, that is it for today's episode on the British aristocracy, and what being a Lord or Lady really means.
[00:19:48] As a quick reminder, this was part one of a three-part series where we are going to explore British social class.
[00:19:56] Next up, in part two we will talk about the most exclusive school in Britain, Eton, a school that has educated a good chunk of the Dukes and Earls we’ve heard about today.
[00:20:08] And in part three we will talk about the “normal” people who dashed about fulfilling their master’s orders: the servant class.
[00:20:17] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:20:20] What do you think about these strange titles that we have in Britain?
[00:20:24] Should they be abolished, or are they an important part of British history?
[00:20:29] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:20:33] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:20:40] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:20:45] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and today is the start of another mini-series, this time on British social class, and in particular, the lives of those at the very top of the British social class system.
[00:00:35] In part one, this episode, we are going to talk about the origins of the British aristocracy. We’ll look at what being a “Lord” really means, how and why someone can become a Duke or Lord, and the roles these people have in modern Britain.
[00:00:51] And in part two, we’ll take a look inside the most exclusive private school in Britain, Eton College. It is a school that has educated Prime Ministers, Princes, Archbishops and Kings, a school that is as exclusive as it is expensive, but, as we’ll learn, it is now exclusive in ways that might surprise you.
[00:01:13] And finally, in part three, we are going to look at the unusual life of British servants, the people who lived and worked for British aristocrats, cooking, folding napkins, cleaning the toilets, and doing all the sorts of things that those at the top of British society considered themselves to be above doing.
[00:01:34] I’m super excited for this mini-series, and I hope you will like it.
[00:01:38] OK then, an exploration of the British aristocracy.
[00:01:45] If you ever find yourself filling out an application form in the UK, let’s say you are registering for an appointment with a doctor, you might be asked for lots of details that will be unsurprising: your first name, your surname, your phone number, email address, and so on.
[00:02:04] You might then get to the bit where it says “title”.
[00:02:09] If it’s an online form, the first few options will no doubt be familiar: Mr, Mrs, Miss, Master.
[00:02:18] Perhaps these don’t apply to you, and you’ll have to keep scrolling through: Doctor or Professor.
[00:02:26] For most people, myself and I imagine yourself included, we fit into one of these titles.
[00:02:34] But for a tiny percentage of the British population, they need to keep on scrolling to find their title.
[00:02:42] And if you keep on looking down the list, you might be surprised to see quite how many options there are: Dame, Lady, Lord, The Right Honourable, Sir, Earl, Duke, Baron, Viscount, Viscountess and Marquess, the list goes on.
[00:03:00] So, what do these titles actually mean, how does one become an Earl or a Duke, is it actually possible for someone like you or me to become one, and what does it mean when you become one?
[00:03:16] To answer all of these questions, we need to go back to the start, or at least back to the arrival of William The Conqueror to Britain in the year 1066.
[00:03:28] As a brief reminder, William was a Norman, he came from Normandy in the north of France. He arrived in England, beat the Anglo Saxons and crowned himself king of England on Christmas Day in 1066.
[00:03:45] He implemented a wide range of changes to the country, but the most important for the purposes of this episode was the introduction of something called the feudal system.
[00:03:59] Previously, England was administered by a group of Anglo-Saxon nobles.
[00:04:05] When William arrived, he took all of this land. Just under 20% he kept for himself, and the rest was distributed between a combination of the church and men who had been given noble titles by King William.
[00:04:24] In practice, the deal was this: the king would give a nobleman a chunk of land, often thousands of square kilometres. The nobleman would be in charge of everything and everyone who lived there: he could do what he wanted, collect taxes, collect rent, he was the boss, essentially.
[00:04:46] In exchange, he needed to pay a small annual fee to the crown, give advice to the king if asked, and if the king needed soldiers to fight a war, the nobleman would provide them for him.
[00:05:01] It was, for the king and the nobleman at least, a pretty efficient arrangement. The king didn’t need to worry about minor things going on hundreds of kilometres away because someone else would deal with it. And the nobleman, well, he got to live a pretty good life and was under the protection of the king.
[00:05:23] For everyone else, well, life wasn’t quite so rosy, but that isn’t what we’re talking about today.
[00:05:30] The catch-all term for these noblemen was “the baronage”, and it consisted of no more than a couple of hundred “barons”, of whom never more than 25 were bestowed with the title “Earl”.
[00:05:46] As the years went by, more titles were created: Duke, Marquess, and Viscount.
[00:05:54] Initially these titles weren’t actually hereditary: the son of an Earl didn’t automatically become an Earl after his father died.
[00:06:05] But within a couple of hundred years, and after a few changes that we aren’t going to go into today, this became the case.
[00:06:14] If a man was a baron, let’s say, after his death the title would pass to his son. If he didn’t have any children, it went to his brother. If he had a daughter, well, her husband would get it.
[00:06:28] Sorry, women couldn’t be trusted to take on the title, it would have to go to the nearest man.
[00:06:35] And, with a few minor updates, this is essentially still the situation today: there are these different noble titles which pass from father to son and give the holder of the title the same land and power that can in many cases be traced all the way back to 1066.
[00:06:59] Before we go into what this means in practice in the 21st century, let me first explain to you the hierarchy of these noble titles, their order of importance, so if you ever find yourself in a room with a Duke, a Marquess, an Earl, a Viscount and a Baron, you’ll know in which order you need to greet them.
[00:07:22] In fact, the order I just gave you is the right order, going from highest in rank to lowest.
[00:07:29] Right at the top is “Duke”, of which there are only 30. These include Dukes you have probably heard of, like the Duke of Cornwall, otherwise known as Prince William, the Duke of Sussex, which is Prince Harry, or their black sheep of an uncle, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York.
[00:07:50] If you know your English geography, Cornwall, Sussex and York are all areas of the country, so being a Duke of a particular area typically meant that the title came with ownership and management of that area of the country.
[00:08:08] Now, in fact in the case of Sussex and York, these titles were created more recently specifically for that person, but the Duke of Cornwall is a title that can be traced all the way back to the year 1337.
[00:08:24] One step down from a “Duke” is a Marquess, of which there are 34.
[00:08:30] Then comes Earl, of which there are 189.
[00:08:34] There are fewer Viscounts, only 110, but they are still less important than Earls.
[00:08:41] And Barons are, comparatively, two a penny. There are 426 hereditary barons in England.
[00:08:50] If you’ve been doing the maths, that’s 789 people, it’s 0.001% of the population.
[00:09:00] Given this, and given the fact that these people don't live “normal” lives by most people’s definitions, you are unlikely to meet one.
[00:09:10] But if you did, let me tell you how to address that person.
[00:09:15] It’s actually quite simple. If you are addressing one of the 30 Dukes, you say “Your Grace”.
[00:09:22] Unless, that is, that Duke is also a prince or princess, in which you would say “Your Royal Highness”.
[00:09:30] And for everyone else, all of the other titles, it is “Lord” for a man, and “Lady” for a lady.
[00:09:38] So a “lord” is actually just the way in which you address someone, it isn’t a rank in its own right.
[00:09:47] Right, now that we have an understanding of the order of these titles, and what we should call people who hold them, it’s time to talk about the role of these nobles, and ask ourselves what their purpose is in 21st century Britain.
[00:10:03] If you remember, the original role of these people was a practical one: control the land, advise the king, bring soldiers to fight when the king asks.
[00:10:16] The UK now has a functional government, the monarch is no longer really in charge, and fortunately there is limited need for a large army.
[00:10:25] So, what is the purpose of the nobility in 2023?
[00:10:32] Well, for some people this is a very easy question to answer: there is no purpose at all, there hasn’t been any purpose for hundreds of years, and we should dissolve all of these ridiculous titles and return the land owned by the 0.001% of the population to the British people.
[00:10:52] To others, the role of the British nobility is similar to that of the monarchy: it is one of historical and cultural preservation and continuity, they are a living link to British history.
[00:11:07] We’ll engage with this question a little more in a bit, but your next question might be about what Dukes or Earls or Viscounts have to do…do they have to do anything now, or do they just sit around getting frustrated with having to scroll all the way down to the bottom when it comes to filling out the form for a doctor’s appointment?
[00:11:29] Well, there are some ceremonial and symbolic responsibilities, such as going to events, weddings, banquets, opening new buildings and so on. But other than this, there is little “official” work required, you don’t need to do anything.
[00:11:49] Other than the status that might come from having this kind of title, and the invitations to fancy parties and events, you now don’t get anything directly from being a lord or lady.
[00:12:02] In fact, it is normally a pretty expensive title to hold.
[00:12:07] This kind of title will often come with a very large house that is in varying states of disrepair, so it needs substantial money put into it every year to stop it from falling down. Your family in most cases will still have a very healthy bank balance, but there are certain standards that are expected to be maintained, and the money probably goes out as quickly as it comes in.
[00:12:35] After all, this is no longer the 14th century, and there aren’t hundreds of thousands of commoners farming your land and paying you rent every month.
[00:12:45] In some cases, however, not that much has changed since the 14th century.
[00:12:51] One of the wealthiest Dukes in the UK is the Duke of Westminster. He is only 32 years old as of the time of making this episode, and he is worth a staggering €11 billion.
[00:13:07] He does, much like his father and grandfather and their grandfathers before them, sit around and collect rent, not from farmers, but from companies and private individuals.
[00:13:21] In his case, this wealth comes from owning just over a kilometre squared of property in the fanciest areas of London, Mayfair and Belgravia.
[00:13:33] And his title, the Duke of Westminster, can be traced back hundreds of years. Indeed, his father apparently once joked to a group of entrepreneurs that his top piece of advice was “to have an ancestor who was good friends with William the Conqueror”.
[00:13:52] And in just one more example of not that much changing, this Duke of Westminster, Hugh, had two older sisters, yet the title and wealth passed to him, not his older sisters.
[00:14:08] Now, there is one type of Lord that we haven’t talked about yet.
[00:14:13] Up until now we have talked only about hereditary titles, Duke, Earl, Viscount and so on, titles that pass from one generation to the next.
[00:14:26] There is another type of Lord which doesn’t pass down, and that is called a “Life Peerage”, and if you have a “Life Peerage” you are called a “peer”.
[00:14:37] If you have read much about the British political system, you’ll know that the UK Parliament is formed of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.
[00:14:48] A commoner is someone without a title, a normal person, and the House of Commons is the area of Parliament where elected officials sit and discuss political matters. If you’ve seen videos of a long room with green seats and people standing up and shouting at each other, that’s the House of Commons.
[00:15:09] But in the same building there is another room. It’s a bit smaller, and the seats are red, not green. It’s called The House of Lords, and you have to be a Lord to enter.
[00:15:24] It used to be made up of hereditary peers, Lords and Ladies who inherited their titles from their parents, but the law was changed in 1999 so that, with a small number of exceptions, you now have to be “elected” as a Lord or Lady.
[00:15:42] The election process, however, is not exactly democratic; typically the Prime Minister will propose someone because of a particular contribution that they have made to the world of politics, arts, science, business or public service.
[00:16:00] And recently, several Prime Ministers, especially Boris Johnson, have come under fire for rewarding people loyal to them with life peerages despite their somewhat dubious contribution to British society.
[00:16:16] And when you become a life peer, you are a peer for life, forever.
[00:16:22] You can put “The Right Honourable” before your name, you can come and vote on issues in the House of Lords, you get paid for your contribution, you have a political role to play in the country.
[00:16:34] Now, this wasn’t meant to be an episode on how the British political system works, but broadly the role of these peers, and the House of Lords, is to “make laws, investigate public policy, and hold the government to account.”
[00:16:52] If you are familiar with US politics, it’s somewhat similar to the Senate, while the House of Commons is more like the House of Representatives.
[00:17:02] There are fundamental differences, like the fact that members of the House of Lords are not elected by the public, but we are in the UK after all, and as you’ll have gathered by now, we have a long-standing tradition of unelected rulers.
[00:17:18] Now, the final point I want to talk to you about today is the public perception of nobility.
[00:17:26] On one level, it is clearly ridiculous to give people titles based on who their ancestors might have been in the 14th century. If you were designing a society from scratch, it seems unlikely that you would give a large proportion of the country’s land to a tiny slither of the population and allow that miniscule group of people to continue to call themselves Duke or Earl or Marquess.
[00:17:53] But on the other hand, both inside and outside of Britain, there is a strange obsession with this tiny section of society. If you think of the books, films, and TV series that have been made about Lords and Ladies, from Downton Abbey to Gosford Park, Poldark to Brideshead Revisited, people love reading about, watching and experiencing the lives that the aristocracy lead. This genre is incredibly popular.
[00:18:25] And if we were to look into a crystal ball and think, hmm, will the British aristocracy be any different in 500 or even 1,000 years to come, well this is an interesting question indeed.
[00:18:40] There have been some reforms to this system, but really there is very little public support or movement at the moment for any kind of dismantling of the system of peerage, of Dukes, Earls, Barons and so on. For most people, it is something that doesn’t touch on their life at all, and if anything, is a curiosity and interesting thing to read about or watch on TV.
[00:19:10] And at the end of the day, the title passes from parent to child, in many cases in such a clever way that no inheritance tax is ever paid on it.
[00:19:21] So, for as long as Dukes and Earls keep on having lots of children, and their money pots continue to pass from one generation to the next without the taxman getting a look inside, there will be more little Lords or Ladies for many years to come.
[00:19:39] OK then, that is it for today's episode on the British aristocracy, and what being a Lord or Lady really means.
[00:19:48] As a quick reminder, this was part one of a three-part series where we are going to explore British social class.
[00:19:56] Next up, in part two we will talk about the most exclusive school in Britain, Eton, a school that has educated a good chunk of the Dukes and Earls we’ve heard about today.
[00:20:08] And in part three we will talk about the “normal” people who dashed about fulfilling their master’s orders: the servant class.
[00:20:17] As always, I would love to know what you thought about this episode.
[00:20:20] What do you think about these strange titles that we have in Britain?
[00:20:24] Should they be abolished, or are they an important part of British history?
[00:20:29] I would love to know, so let’s get this discussion started.
[00:20:33] You can head right into our community forum, which is at community.leonardoenglish.com and get chatting away to other curious minds.
[00:20:40] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:20:45] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
