History UsefulNotes / KnightFever

* Be a high-ranking military officer or just be very good at your job in the Armed Forces -- this has been going on for centuries and is how UsefulNotes/HoratioNelson and [[UsefulNotes/TheDukeOfWellington Arthur Wellesley]] (among others) ended up as peers of the realm. It continues to this day. For those who are lords or knights, the military rank goes first. Thus, when the UsefulNotes/WorldWarII general Bernard Montgomery was promoted and knighted after the battle of El Alamein, he went from being Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery to General Sir Bernard Montgomery.

* OM -- Order of Merit (Can. Fr. ''Ordre du Mérite''): For outstanding lifetime achievement. Only 24 are allowed in at any time, and entirely in the Sovereign's personal gift--i.e. he can give it to whoever he likes withhout asking the Government. Florence Nightingale was made a member at the age of 87. All citizens of Commonwealth Realms are eligible. Despite not having a knightly title, membership in the Order of Merit is considered to be an ''extremely, ridiculously'' high honour on account of the fact that there can only be 24 members and that to even be considered you basically have to be the best in your field not only in the Commonwealth but the world. Practically everyone in the Order is either someone you've probably heard of at least once in your life, at least if you’re British (e.g. Prince Philip, Prince Charles, Sir Creator/DavidAttenborough, Sir Creator/TomStoppard, Norman Foster, Lord Foster of Thames Bank[[note]]The architect who did the Gherkin in Canary Wharf, among other things[[/note]] Sir [[TheInternet Tim Berners-Lee]], Basil Cardinal Hume[[note]]The Archbishop of Westminster—the highest ranking Roman Catholic prelate in England—from 1976 through 1999, and the most prominent and popular religious leader in Britain for most of that time, even among non-Catholics and even more so than the Archbishop of Canterbury (the spiritual leader of the Church of England). This was in part compensation for not being created a Life Peer; he was offered a peerage by the Government on multiple occasions practically from the moment he was installed as archbishop, but never got one. This was because in the mid-to-late 1970s, the Vatican was coming to the decision that Catholic prelates and diocesan priests should not hold public office (triggered in large part by the successful election of two Catholic priests to the U.S. House of Representatives around that time; in 1980, all diocesan priests and bishops holding public office were ordered to resign or be defrocked, and in 1983, the rule was made general canon law). Hume therefore felt duty bound to decline a peerage, as the seat in the Lords was just enough of a public office to run afoul of the Vatican's new rules. The Government—under both Tory and Labour leadership, mind—and Her Majesty still wanted to honour him, and so he was given the OM.[[/note]] UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher,[[note]]With whom the Queen had had something of a testy relationship at times, but whom the Queen deeply respected both for her fierce personal qualities and her unquestionably transformational tenure as Prime Minister. Oh, and she won UsefulNotes/TheFalklandsWar. Good way to keep a monarch happy is to preserve the territorial integrity of her empire against foreign aggression.[[/note]] [[UsefulNotes/CanadianPrimeMinisters Jean Chrétien]], [[UsefulNotes/AustralianPolitics John Howard]])[[note]]Please note that like Thatcher, Chrétien and Howard literally preserved the territorial integrity of the Crown's realms. Chrétien was instrumental in the defeat of the 1995 Quebec secession referendum, and Howard worked tirelessly to advance the ultimately-successful monarchist side in the 1999 Australian republic referendum. That'll get you serious brownie points with Her Majesty.[[/note]] or someone who did really amazing things in an obscure but important or interesting field (e.g. two recently deceased members, Sir Michael Atiyah, a Fields Medal-winning mathematician, and Sir Aaron Klug, a Nobel-winning biophysicist).

* OM -- Order of Merit (Can. Fr. ''Ordre du Mérite''): For outstanding lifetime achievement. Only 24 are allowed in at any time, and entirely in the Sovereign's personal gift--i.e. he can give it to whoever he likes withhout asking the Government. Florence Nightingale was made a member at the age of 87. All citizens of Commonwealth Realms are eligible. Despite not having a knightly title, membership in the Order of Merit is considered to be an ''extremely, ridiculously'' high honour on account of the fact that there can only be 24 members and that to even be considered you basically have to be the best in your field not only in the Commonwealth but the world. Practically everyone in the Order is either someone you've probably heard of at least once in your life, at least if you’re British (e.g. Prince Philip, Prince Charles, Sir Creator/DavidAttenborough, Sir Creator/TomStoppard, Norman Foster, Lord Foster of Thames Bank[[note]]The architect who did the Gherkin in Canary Wharf, among other things[[/note]] Sir [[TheInternet Tim Berners-Lee]], Basil Cardinal Hume[[note]]The Archbishop of Westminster—the highest ranking Roman Catholic prelate in England—from 1976 through 1999, and the most prominent and popular religious leader in Britain for most of that time, even among non-Catholics and even more so than the Archbishop of Canterbury (the spiritual leader of the Church of England). This was in part compensation for not being created a Life Peer; he was offered a peerage by the Government on multiple occasions practically from the moment he was installed as archbishop, but this came at a time when the Vatican was coming to the decision that Catholic prelates and diocesan priests should not hold public office (the official decision coming down in 1983). Hume therefore felt duty bound to decline a peerage, as the seat in the Lords was just enough of a public office to run afoul of the Vatican's new rules. The Government—under both Tory and Labour leadership, mind—and Her Majesty still wanted to honour him, and so he was given the OM.[[/note]] UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher,[[note]]With whom the Queen had had something of a testy relationship at times, but whom the Queen deeply respected both for her fierce personal qualities and her unquestionably transformational tenure as Prime Minister. Oh, and she won UsefulNotes/TheFalklandsWar. Good way to keep a monarch happy is to preserve the territorial integrity of her empire against foreign aggression.[[/note]] [[UsefulNotes/CanadianPrimeMinisters Jean Chrétien]], [[UsefulNotes/AustralianPolitics John Howard]])[[note]]Please note that like Thatcher, Chrétien and Howard literally preserved the territorial integrity of the Crown's realms. Chrétien was instrumental in the defeat of the 1995 Quebec secession referendum, and Howard worked tirelessly to advance the ultimately-successful monarchist side in the 1999 Australian republic referendum. That'll get you serious brownie points with Her Majesty.[[/note]] or someone who did really amazing things in an obscure but important or interesting field (e.g. two recently deceased members, Sir Michael Atiyah, a Fields Medal-winning mathematician, and Sir Aaron Klug, a Nobel-winning biophysicist).

Another interesting wrinkle is that until the Peerage Act 1963 it was impossible for somebody hereditarily entitled to a peerage to turn it down (although for much of history it was probably hard to imagine why somebody would want to). The Act was passed specifically to help the Labour politician Tony Benn, who wanted to give up his hereditary peerage as Viscount Stansgate (which he had inherited on the death of his father [[note]]A Labour elder statesman who had been given a peerage in 1942 to satisfy Labour's demand for adequate representation in the Upper House M part of the wheeler-dealings needed to maintain the all-party National Government during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.[[/note]] in 1960) so that he could go back to the House of Commons. Nearly everyone in British politics--even Tories--sympathised, as (1) his left-wing political orientation made it a bit embarrassing to be a peer, and (2) (more importantly) he was fairly high-ranking in the Labour Party and considered a potential future senior Cabinet minister--perhaps even future ''Prime'' Minister[[note]]It didn't happen that way, but it was definitely considered possible throughout the 1960s and 70s, and indeed he stood for the Labour leadership after UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson's resignation in 1976. He lost (he took 4th place out of 6 candidates), but the fact that he could stand at all showed that his worry wasn't just bigheadedness; he had a real constituency both in the Labour base and among his fellow [=MPs=].[[/note]]--which by that point was an option closed to peers. Almost immediately afterwards, UsefulNotes/AlecDouglasHome disclaimed his title of Earl of Home a few days after he was appointed Prime Minister [[note]] Outgoing PM UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan had told the Queen that Douglas-Home was his preferred successor; as the Conservative Party did not at the time have a regular method for choosing a leader and were deadlocked, Macmillan's recommendation was the best they could do in the circumstances [[/note]], as it was generally considered by that point that peers could not be PM. If a title is disclaimed, it doesn't cease to exist, but remains "dormant" until the death of the person who disclaimed it, at which point their heir can assume the title. The most famous disclaimed title, the aforementioned Stansgate Viscountcy, was accepted by Benn's (much less radical) son Stephen upon Benn's death in 2014.

Another interesting wrinkle is that until the Peerage Act 1963 it was impossible for somebody hereditarily entitled to a peerage to turn it down (although for much of history it was probably hard to imagine why somebody would want to). The Act was passed specifically to help the Labour politician Tony Benn, who wanted to give up his hereditary peerage as Viscount Stansgate (which he had inherited on his father's death in 1960) so that he could go back to the House of Commons. Nearly everyone in British politics--even Tories--sympathised, as (1) his left-wing political orientation made it a bit embarrassing to be a peer, and (2) (more importantly) he was fairly high-ranking in the Labour Party and considered a potential future senior Cabinet minister--perhaps even future ''Prime'' Minister[[note]]It didn't happen that way, but it was definitely considered possible throughout the 1960s and 70s, and indeed he stood for the Labour leadership after UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson's resignation in 1976. He lost (he took 4th place out of 6 candidates), but the fact that he could stand at all showed that his worry wasn't just bigheadedness; he had a real constituency both in the Labour base and among his fellow [=MPs=].[[/note]]--which by that point was an option closed to peers. Almost immediately afterwards, UsefulNotes/AlecDouglasHome disclaimed his title of Earl of Home a few days after he was appointed Prime Minister [[note]] Outgoing PM UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan had told the Queen that Douglas-Home was his preferred successor; as the Conservative Party did not at the time have a regular method for choosing a leader and were deadlocked, Macmillan's recommendation was the best they could do in the circumstances [[/note]], as it was generally considered by that point that peers could not be PM. If a title is disclaimed, it doesn't cease to exist, but remains "dormant" until the death of the person who disclaimed it, at which point their heir can assume the title. The most famous disclaimed title, the aforementioned Stansgate Viscountcy, was accepted by Benn's (much less radical) son Stephen upon Benn's death in 2014.

Another interesting wrinkle is that until the Peerage Act 1963 it was impossible for somebody hereditarily entitled to a peerage to turn it down (although for much of history it was probably hard to imagine why somebody would want to). The Act was passed specifically to help the Labour politician Tony Benn, who wanted to give up his hereditary peerage as Viscount Stansgate so that he could continue to sit in the House of Commons. Nearly everyone in British politics--even Tories--sympathised, as (1) his left-wing political orientation would have made it embarrassing to be a peer, and (2) (more importantly) he was fairly high-ranking in the Labour Party and considered a potential future senior Cabinet minister--perhaps even future ''Prime'' Minister[[note]]It didn't happen that way, but it was definitely considered possible throughout the 1960s and 70s, and indeed he stood for the Labour leadership after UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson's resignation in 1976. He lost (he took 4th place out of 6 candidates), but the fact that he could stand at all showed that his worry wasn't just bigheadedness; he had a real constituency both in the Labour base and among his fellow [=MPs=].[[/note]]--which by that point was an option closed to peers. Almost immediately afterwards, UsefulNotes/AlecDouglasHome disclaimed his title of Earl of Home a few days after he was appointed Prime Minister [[note]] Outgoing PM UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan had told the Queen that Douglas-Home was his preferred successor; as the Conservative Party did not at the time have a regular method for choosing a leader and were deadlocked, Macmillan's recommendation was the best they could do in the circumstances [[/note]], as it was generally considered by that point that peers could not be PM. If a title is disclaimed, it doesn't cease to exist, but remains "dormant" until the death of the person who disclaimed it, at which point their heir can assume the title. The most famous disclaimed title, the aforementioned Stansgate Viscountcy, was accepted by Benn's (much less radical) son Stephen upon Benn's death in 2014.

** Despite the use of such as a trope in fiction, there have never been any created "native" titles of nobility given to British subjects in the American colonies before their independence. There have certainly been holders of various peerages with land holdings in the colonies,[[note]]Most famously Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, who actually moved to his vast Northern Virginia estate in 1748 and never left even after the Revolution despite his Loyalist politics. He was a personal friend of UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington—again, despite the political differences—and is the namesake of Fairfax County, Virginia (one of the major suburban counties in the UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC Metropolitan Area). Interestingly, he also had a connection to a major republican military leader of the UsefulNotes/EnglishCivilWar through his namesake and predecessor in the title, his grandfather's cousin Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron, who had been the first commanding general of the New Model Army and a mentor to UsefulNotes/OliverCromwell. Also, lawsuits over the disposition of that vast Northern Virginia estate after his death led to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_v._Hunter%27s_Lessee one of the most important U.S. Supreme Court rulings in its history ]] (read to this day by every American law student in their introductory Constitutional Law course). Really, Fairfax is one of the most secretly important people in early American history, for reasons very much to do with his title.[[/note]] but that is far different than an American-born person being given a title. A similar situation arose in Spanish Florida where royalty would give out royal land grants to settlers, and these grants were recognized by the U.S. when Florida became an American territory, but these did not come with a hereditary title. The closest true American peerage form to exist was a Patroon, a quasi-title given to land holders in the Netherlands colonies of modern day New York. The title came with a heridetary land grant and some jurisdictional authority but was more of a mayor-by-ownership than a true peerage. The last Patroons had their authority stripped by British governors after their takeover of the Dutch colonial holdings and later American authorities maintained that position. After law changes causing land reform strengthened the positions of tenant farmers, the last major Patroon holdings were sold or broken apart by the 1840s.

** The '''Peerage of Great Britain''' refers to the class of Peers whose titles were created by the British sovereign between 1707 and 1800.

* '''Earl (Countess)''': The title either comes from or is derived from the Old English equivalent (spelt "'''Eorl'''" in Old English) of the Norse "jarl", meaning "chieftain" or "ruler in stead of the King". The title of "eorl" as a standalone post[[note]]The Anglo-Saxons generally used "eorl" in the compound "''earldorman''", roughly meaning "great lord," which could refer to the lord of anything from a few villages to all of [[UsefulNotes/TheMidlands Mercia]]. It survives in the modern word "alderman", like what UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} calls the members of its City Council.[[/note]] was originally created by [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfWessex Canute the Great]] of England and UsefulNotes/{{Denmark}} for the four regional governors he established for the four historic major regions of England (Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia, and Wessex);[[note]]He would later break Kent off Wessex to make it five, largely because of the persistent service/meddling of Earl Godwin of Wessex[[/note]] he needed to do this to make sure someone was minding the store in England while he was off running Denmark (and Norway, which he also ruled) but didn’t want to leave all of England to one lord (who might try and make himself king). The title was thus the rough equivalent of "duke" until the Conquest of 1066.[[note]]Indeed, Old English texts like the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' generally referred to Continental dukes as "earls" even after the Conquest, including Duke William "the Conqueror" of Normandy himself.[[/note]] The Normans made it the equivalent of the Continental count,[[note]]Another ultimately Roman term; a ''comes'' ("friend" or "companion" of the Emperor) was a high-ranking official whose duties varied over the centuries; when first used as a title, they were military commanders with authority over an entire [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_diocese diocese]]--and therefore ''above'' a ''dux''. However, the title's Roman usage kept changing, fell out of use, and then was revived by the Franks, who used it for rather more local officials/nobles. The word passed through (Norman) French into English as ''comte'', from which "count".[[/note]] largely because whilst the ranking of titles was not especially fixed at the time, dukes were understood to have certain quasi-sovereign prerogatives (like, er, the Duke of Normandy, whose near-royal powers and status were how Billy the Conk could get away with building up an army big enough to conquer England), but counts were not. They probably chose the native Teutonic word over their own Romance one because of the aural similarity of "count" to a certain word for [[CountryMatters an undignified part of the body]] in the tongue of their new subjects,[[note]]The similarity of the English word for the female pudenda to innocent French vocabulary has been the subject of frequent commentary. [[JustForFun/TheZerothLawOfTropeExamples Even Shakespeare]] referenced it in ''Theatre/HenryV''.[[/note]] whence "countess" (which you have to admit is better than "earless") for the wife of an earl. There was previously one "royal earl", Elizabeth II's third son and youngest child Prince Edward, who was known as the Earl of Wessex from his marriage until early 2023. He was expected to be created Duke of Edinburgh with the queen’s death in 2022, and sure enough he was created Duke of Edinburgh for life in early 2023.[[note]]This is because, technically, Prince Charles was the Duke of Edinburgh, having inherited the title from his father when he passed in April 2021. Of course, since Charles was ''already'' a duke -- of Cornwall (outside Scotland) and of Rothesay (in Scotland) -- he didn’t really use the title, but as a legal matter the title was not available to be re-created for Prince Edward until Charles inherited the throne, at which point the title of Duke of Edinburgh was "merged in the Crown" and became available to be created anew. [[/note]])

* Sir John Falstaff, who appears in three plays by Creator/WilliamShakespeare -- he was based in part on an actual 15th-century knight, Sir John Fastolf, who was kicked out of the Order of the Garter for cowardice but later reinstated.
* Sir Creator/WalterScott created many peerages for his novels, including Viscount Beauchamp in ''Rob Roy'', Lord Castle-Cuddy in ''The Bride of Lammermoor'' and Lord Etherington in ''St Ronan's Well''.

[[AC:Ancient fictional titled people:]]

[[AC:Modern fictional titled people:]]

* Lady Catherine de Bourgh, aunt of Fitzwilliam Darcy in ''Literature/PrideAndPrejudice''.

[[AC:Modern fictional titled people:]]

It is [[ResignationsNotAccepted legally impossible to resign one's seat]] in the House of Commons. The only way one can lose it, in fact, is to be appointed to "an office of Profit under the Crown." Thus, an MP wishing to effect his or her resignation will write to the office of the Chancellor of the Exchequer asking to be appointed to such an office. There are two: '''Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead''' and '''Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham'''. Historically, the job of the Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds was to police the forested Chiltern Hills, which in those days (around the [[TheHighMiddleAges 13th century]]) were full of outlaws instead of well-to-do commuters). These offices are only nominally paid (usually their holders are given a token amount of money, which can be between 1p[[note]] 2 cents[[/note]] and £5[[note]] ~$10[[/note]]), and are sometimes held only for a few minutes (such as when a large number of [=MPs=] resign on the same day). This legal fiction is so entrenched that when Sinn Féin MP Gerry Adams resigned his seat but did not apply for an office under the British Crown (politically unacceptable for the Irish nationalists of SF), he was simply given the office (and small paycheque) anyway. (He apparently refused to cash the cheque, instead having it framed and hung on the wall in his office.)

It is [[ResignationsNotAccepted legally impossible to resign one's seat]] in the House of Commons. The only way one can lose it, in fact, is to be appointed to "an office of Profit under the Crown." Thus, an MP wishing to effect his or her resignation will write to the office of the Chancellor of the Exchequer asking to be appointed to such an office. There are two: '''Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead''' and '''Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham'''. Historically, the job of the Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds was to police the forested Chiltern Hills, which were full of outlaws. These offices are only nominally paid (usually their holders are given a token amount of money, which can be between 1p[[note]] 2 cents[[/note]] and £5[[note]] ~$10[[/note]]), and are sometimes held only for a few minutes (such as when a large number of [=MPs=] resign on the same day). This legal fiction is so entrenched that when Sinn Féin MP Gerry Adams resigned his seat but did not apply for an office under the British Crown (politically unacceptable for the Irish nationalists of SF), he was simply given the office (and small paycheque) anyway.

That's right--"entitled to arms". Not every BlueBlood in Britain actually has a legal right to use a coat of arms. In Scotland, only the heir to a title is entitled to inherit his/her ancestor's arms, and although in England the rules are different, ''generally'' allowing all sons of an armiger to inherit the right to own arms, this changed from time to time and in general people entitled to register arms under English law will not do so unless they hold a title or are in the seniormost line (i.e., essentially the Scottish rules). \\

** Despite the use of such as a trope in fiction, there have never been any created "native" titles of nobility given to British subjects in the American colonies before their independence. There have certainly been holders of various peerages with land holdings in the colonies,[[note]]Most famously Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, who actually moved to his vast Northern Virginia estate in 1748 and never left even after the Revolution despite his Loyalist politics. He was a personal friend of UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington—again, despite the political differences—and is the namesake of Fairfax County, Virginia (one of the major suburban counties in the UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC Metropolitan Area). Interestingly, he also had a connection to a major republican military leader of the UsefulNotes/EnglishCivilWar through his namesake and predecessor in the title, his grandfather's cousin Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron, who had been the first commanding general of the New Model Army and a mentor to UsefulNotes/OliverCromwell. Also, lawsuits over the disposition of that vast Northern Virginia estate after his death led to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_v._Hunter%27s_Lessee one of the most important U.S. Supreme Court rulings in its history ]] (read to this day by every American law student in their introductory Constitutional Law course). Really, Fairfax is one of the most secretly important people in American history, for reasons very much to do with his title.[[/note]] but that is far different than an American-born person being given a title. A similar situation arose in Spanish Florida where royalty would give out royal land grants to settlers, and these grants were recognized by the U.S. when Florida became an American territory, but these did not come with a hereditary title. The closest true American peerage form to exist was a Patroon, a quasi-title given to land holders in the Netherlands colonies of modern day New York. The title came with a heridetary land grant and some jurisdictional authority but was more of a mayor-by-ownership than a true peerage. The last Patroons had their authority stripped by British governors after their takeover of the Dutch colonial holdings and later American authorities maintained that position. After law changes causing land reform strengthened the positions of tenant farmers, the last major Patroon holdings were sold or broken apart by the 1840s.

If a son of a senior peer gets made a lord in his own right, the "Lord Firstname" bit gets dropped. For example, Lord Louis Mountbatten (Prince Philip's uncle) was called that because he was the younger son of the Marquess of Milford Haven, but when he was made a lord in 1946 he became Lord Mountbatten. \\

The construction "Lord/Lady Firstname" is considered a ''style'', not a ''title'', and is only given to the daughters and younger sons of senior peers -- well-known examples include Lady Diana Spencer (the daughter of an earl) and the fictional Literature/LordPeterWimsey (the son of a duke). Put simply, a person can be styled as "Lord/Lady Firstname" if he is the younger son of a duke or marquis [[note]]The oldest son will have a courtesy title[[/note]] or if she is the daughter of a duke, marquis or earl. Sons of earls, viscounts and barons style themselves "The Honourable" ("The Hon." for short), as do daughters of viscounts and barons. Sons and daughters of life peers are also entitled to style themselves as "The Honourable" (although quite a few of them seem to choose not to) but obviously they can't inherit the peerage. Until 2004, children who had been adopted by peers had no right to any courtesy title. Since then, these children are now automatically entitled to the same styles and courtesy titles as their siblings -- although unlike biological children, they cannot inherit peerages.\\

The daughter of a duke, marquis or earl who marries an untitled man keeps the "Lady Firstname" style. For example, Lady Dorothy Cavendish was a duke's daughter who married UsefulNotes/HaroldMacmillan, following which she was Lady Dorothy Macmillan (although her husband was elevated to the peerage in later life, she died before this happened). Similarly, the daughter of a viscount or baron who marries a commoner keeps "The Honourable"\\

A woman who marries a man who uses the "Lord Firstname" style is entitled to be styled "Lady" ''but'' this must be followed by ''her husband's'' first name as she is not entitled to use the style on her own right (unless, of course, she happens to be the daughter of a duke, marquis or earl). For example, Lord Randolph Churchill ([[UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill Winston]]'s dad) was the son of a duke, hence the title. He married Jennie Jerome, who was subsequently known as Lady Randolph Churchill (the same principle by which Prince Michael of Kent's wife is known as Princess Michael of Kent).\\

If a son of a senior peer gets made a lord in his own right, the "Lord Firstname" bit gets dropped. For example, Lord Louis Mountbatten (Prince Philip's uncle) was called that because he was the younger son of the Marquis of Milford Haven, but when he was made a lord in 1946 he became Lord Mountbatten. \\

** Despite the use of such as a trope in fiction, there have never been any created "native" titles of nobility given to British subjects in the American colonies before their independence. There have certainly been holders of various peerages with land holdings in the colonies,[[note]]Most famously Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, who actually moved to his vast Northern Virginia estate in 1748 and never left even after the Revolution despite his Loyalist politics. He was a personal friend of UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington—again, despite the political differences—and is the namesake of Fairfax County, Virginia (one of the major suburban counties in the UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC Metropolitan Area). Interestingly, he also had a connection to a major republican military leader of the UsefulNotes/EnglishCivilWar through his namesake and predecessor in the title, his grandfather's cousin Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron, who had been the first commanding general of the New Model Army and a mentor to UsefulNotes/OliverCromwell.[[/note]] but that is far different than an American-born person being given a title. A similar situation arose in Spanish Florida where royalty would give out royal land grants to settlers, and these grants were recognized by the U.S. when Florida became an American territory, but these did not come with a hereditary title. The closest true American peerage form to exist was a Patroon, a quasi-title given to land holders in the Netherlands colonies of modern day New York. The title came with a heridetary land grant and some jurisdictional authority but was more of a mayor-by-ownership than a true peerage. The last Patroons had their authority stripped by British governors after their takeover of the Dutch colonial holdings and later American authorities maintained that position. After law changes causing land reform strengthened the positions of tenant farmers, the last major Patroon holdings were sold or broken apart by the 1840s.

** Despite the use of such as a trope in fiction, there have never been any created "native" titles of nobility given to British subjects in the American colonies before their independence. There have certainly been holders of various peerages with land holdings in the colonies,[[note]]Most famously Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, who actually moved to his vast Northern Virginia estate in 1748 and never left even after the Revolution despite his Loyalist politics. He was a personal friend of UsefulNotes/GeorgeWashington—again, despite the political differences—and is the namesake of Fairfax County, Virginia (one of the major suburban counties in the UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC Metropolitan Area). Interestingly, he also had a connection to a major republican military leader of UsefulNotes/TheEnglishCivilWar through his namesake and predecessor in the title, his grandfather's cousin Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron, who had been the first commanding general of the New Model Army and a mentor to UsefulNotes/OliverCromwell.[[/note]] but that is far different than an American-born person being given a title. A similar situation arose in Spanish Florida where royalty would give out royal land grants to settlers, and these grants were recognized by the U.S. when Florida became an American territory, but these did not come with a hereditary title. The closest true American peerage form to exist was a Patroon, a quasi-title given to land holders in the Netherlands colonies of modern day New York. The title came with a heridetary land grant and some jurisdictional authority but was more of a mayor-by-ownership than a true peerage. The last Patroons had their authority stripped by British governors after their takeover of the Dutch colonial holdings and later American authorities maintained that position. After law changes causing land reform strengthened the positions of tenant farmers, the last major Patroon holdings were sold or broken apart by the 1840s.