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Originally published in 1990 and now available in paperback, a history of the decline of the British aristocracy over the last hundred years, which looks at the process by which nobles have lost their wealth, power and prestige.
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There are only twenty-six non-royal dukes in the British peerage. Their origins divide nicely into Tudor looters, Royal bastards, opportunist generals, territorial, metropolitan or Scottish magnates. Lloyd George said that a duke, fully equipped, cost more than a dreadnought to maintain and with their palaces, possessions and retinues, they are nearly all splendid. Some of them are, of course, now poor; some of them have great wealth; some of them hit every headline and othes are obscure. But within each duchy Brian Masters tells the story of quaint grandees determined to survive. This revised and updated edition includes new information which was not available for the original book, and brings up to date the account of families whose titles have passed to a subsequent generation in the intervening years.
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Dr McCahill contends that the role of the House of Lords in the 18th and 19th centuries and that of the peers in their individual capacities has hitherto been underestimated.
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• Introduction: Aristocracy and Nobility
• Part 1. Hereditary Titles and Social Dignities
• 1. The Earl and Count
• 2. Welsh Princes and the Prehistory of the Peerage
• 3. Social Dignities: Barons and Bannerets
• 4. The Knight
• 5. The Squire and Lesser Ranks
• Part 2.
• 6. The Greater Insignia
• 7. Insignia Defining Aristocracy
• 8. Castles and Halls
• 9. The Noble Household
• 10. Piety and Status.
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David Crouch offers a new approach to the fascinating study of aristocracy in England, Wales and Scotland and is the first to relate developments in the aristocracies in all three countries during the period of study. His approach is also original in examining the material manifestations of aristocracy rather than looking at institutions and charter-attestations. In the first part of the book he writes about hereditary titles including those of earl and prince and also expands on the social styles of baron, knight and squire. The second part of the book focuses on aristocratic insignia and behaviour, including chapters on heraldry, material attributes such as coronets and sceptres, the aristocratic household, residence and religious patronage. Working from these, the book constructs a fresh picture of the growth in numbers and self-consciousness of the aristocracy in England and the effect that this had on Welsh and Scottish society. There is also an extensive introduction on medieval ideas and modern perceptions of aristocracy.
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• Acknowledgements-- Preface--
• 1. Recruitment--
• 2. Education and religion--
• 3. Marriage--
• 4. The sinews of power: political--
• 5. The sinews of power: economic--
• 6. The sinews of power: ideological-- Conclusion-- Index.
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Since the work of Butterfield and Namier in the 1930s, it has commonly been said that eighteenth-century England appears atomised, left with no overall interpretation. Subsequent work on religious differences and on party strife served to reinforce the image of a divided society, and in the last ten years historians of the poor and unprivileged have suggested that beneath the surface lurked substantial popular discontent. Professor Cannon uses his 1982 Wiles Lecture to offer a different interpretation - that the widespread acceptance of aristocratic values and aristocratic leadership gave a remarkable intellectual, political and social coherence to the century. He traces the recovery made by the aristocracy from its decade in 1649 when the House of Lords was abolished as useless and dangerous. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the peerage re-established its hold on government and society. Professor Cannon is forced to challenge some of the most cherished beliefs of English historiography - that Hanoverian society, at its top level, was an open elite, continually replenished by vigorous recruits from other groups and classes. He suggests that, on the contrary, in some respects the English peerage was more exclusive than many of its continental counterparts and that the openness was a myth which itself served a potent political purpose. Of the prospering burgeoisie, he argues that the remarkable thing was not their assertiveness but their long acquiescence in patrician rule, and he poses the paradox of a country increasingly dominated by a landed aristocracy giving birth to the first industrial revolution. His final chapter discusses the ideological under-pinning which made aristocratic supremacy acceptable for so long, and the emergence of those forces and ideals which were ultimately to replace it.
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Almost two books in one, A Right Royal Scandal recounts the fascinating history of the irregular love matches contracted by two successive generations of the Cavendish-Bentinck family, ancestors of the British Royal Family. The first part of this intriguing book looks at the scandal that erupted in Regency London, just months after the Battle of Waterloo, when the widowed Lord Charles Bentinck eloped with the Duke of Wellington's married niece. A messy divorce and a swift marriage followed, complicated by an unseemly tug-of-war over Lord Charles' infant daughter from his first union. Over two decades later and while at Oxford University, Lord Charles' eldest son, known to his family as Charley, fell in love with a beautiful gypsy girl, and secretly married her. He kept this union hidden from his family, in particular his uncle, William Henry Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, 4th Duke of Portland, upon whose patronage he relied. When his alliance was discovered, Charley was cast adrift by his family, with devastating consequences.A love story as well as a brilliantly researched historical biography, this is a continuation of Joanne and Sarah's first biography, An Infamous Mistress, about the eighteenth-century courtesan Grace Dalrymple Elliott, whose daughter was the first wife of Lord Charles Bentinick. The book ends by showing how, if not for a young gypsy and her tragic life, the British monarchy would look very different today.
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• Acknowledgements Prologue: Aspects of Aristocracy
• Part 1: Processes and Problems: 1 The Making of the British Upper Classes 2 Aristocratic Indebtedness in the Nineteenth Century 3 Nobility and Mobility in Modern Britain.
• Part 2: Individuals in Context: 4 Lord Curzon as Ceremonial Impressario 5 Lord Strickland: Imperial Aristocrat and Aristocratic Imperialist 6 Winston Churchill as an Aristocratic Adventurer.
• Part 3: The Dynastic Perspective: 7 The Landowner as Millionaire: The Finances of the Dukes of Devonshire 8 Landowners, Lawyers and Litterateurs: The Cozen-Hardys of Letheringsett 9 Portrait of More Than a Marriage: Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West Revisited Epilogue: Beyond the Country House. Appendices A: Aristocratic Indebtness in the 19th Century B: The Churchills C: The Devonshires D: The Cozen-Hardys E: The Nicolsons and the Sackville-Wests A Note on Sources List of Abbreviations Notes Index.
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In this stylish and provocative book, the eminent historian David Cannadine brings his characterisitc wit and acumen to bear on the British aristocracy, probing behind the legendary escapades and indulgences of aristocrats Such as Lord Curzon, the Hon C.S. Rolls (of Rolls Royce), Winston Churchill, Harold Nicolson, and Vita Sackville -West, and changing our perceptions of them - transforming wastrels into heroes and the self-satisfied into tthe second-rate. Cannasine begins by investigating the land-owning classes as a whole during the last two hundred years, describing their origins, their habits, their increasing debts, and their involvement with the steam train, the horseless carriage, and the aeroplamne. He next focuses on patricians he finds particularly fascinating: Lord Curzon, an unrivaled ceremonial impresario and inventor of traditions; Lord Strickland, part English landowner and part Mediterranean nobleman, who has both an imperial proconsul and prime minister of Malta; and Winston Churchill, whom Cannadine sees as an aristocratic adventureer, a man who has burdened by more than he benefited fromhis family connections and patrician attitudes. Cannadiine then moves from individuals to aristocratic dynasties. He reconstructs the extraordinary financial history of the dukes of Devonshire, narrates the story of the Cozwns-Hardys, a Norfolk family who playeda remarkably varies part in the life of their country, and offers a controversial reapraisal of the forebears, lives, work, and personalities of Harols Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West- a portrait, notes Cannadine, of more than a marriage.
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• Foreword / Lord Mackay of Clashfern
• Note from the sponsor / Celia Lipton-Farris
• Preface / Robert Smith
• Introduction / John S. Moore
• From witenagemot to concilium : the antecedents of the House of Lords, 1042-1215 / H.R. Loyn
• From King John to the first English duke, 1215-1337 / D.A. Carpenter
• The nobility in the later Middle Ages, 1337-1485 / John Fines
• Off with their heads : the Tudor nobility, 1485-1603 / Steven Gunn / The English kill their kings : from divine right to parliamentary monarchy, 1603-1714, the Stuarts / John Miller
• Lairds and blood feuds : the Scottish nobility to the Act of Union, 1707 / Adam Bruce
• The nobility ascendant : the Hanoverian settlement, 1714-1832 / John Cannon
• The fall of the British nobility, 1789-1994 / David Cannadine
• Will the Lords survive? / J. Enoch Powell
• Introduction of peers into the House of Lords / Colin Cole
• A working peer / The Lord Sudeley
• Classless society? / Keith Wallis
• Addressing persons of rank / Robert Smith.