Peerage: Nobility, Titles, and Address

Brian G Turner

Brian G Turner

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Am currently reading Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders: A Writer's (& Editor's) Guide to Keeping Historical Fiction Free of Common Anachronisms, Errors, & Myths and other Blunders by Susanne Alleyn.

I thought it was worth the low Kindle price for the section on underwear alone.

However, there's an entire chapter on peerage, titles, and how to address the nobility, and it's made me realise I've completely cocked up in this area!

(I've been using surnames for lords, thinking I needed them - which is a massive boo-boo if keeping to the fineries of English peerage).

Anyway, a potentially interesting read in the first place:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1490424032/?tag=brite-21

However, for free online sources dealing with how to name members of the nobility in fiction or fact, how they are titled and addressed, here are a couple of potentially useful links:
Addressing People with Titles | Forms of Address - Titles and Titled People
British Titles of Nobility

An additional point - according to Alleyn, no English king was ever addressed as "Your majesty" until Henry VIII and after.

Food for thought!
 
But that second link, Brian, is not entirely useful for earlier eras, since its purpose is to tell people now how they should be addressing peers of the realm, and some forms of address have changed.

And of course in an wholly imaginary world and/or time, titles can be whatever the writer wants them to be, although common sense (will readers be able to keep track of who is who and how they rank compared to everyone else?) is always a useful guideline.

But if the writer plans to follow a particular historical model closely, then using the right forms of address can matter a lot to some readers. (And especially if the book is straight-up historical fiction, not fantasy or alternate history!) There is really no reason for getting them wrong when it is so easy to do it right.
 
I said:
An additional point - according to Alleyn, no English king was ever addressed as "Your majesty" until Henry VIII and after.
Click to expand...


Presumably they were all called "My liege" or something before that.

As with the later french monarchy they wanted to stress their own wealth and magnificence rather than just their relationship to the speaker.

The relationship's focus has changed.
The king is no longer MY liege, but HIS OWN majesty. My existence is no longer really required for him to be king.
 
farntfar said:
Presumably they were all called "My liege" or something before that.

As with the later french monarchy they wanted to stress their own wealth and magnificence rather than just their relationship to the speaker.

The relationship's focus has changed.
The king is no longer MY liege, but HIS OWN majesty. My existence is no longer really required for him to be king.
Click to expand...

I think "my liege" was a form of address to a liege-lord under the feudal system. This did not have to be the King.

Prior to "your majesty" I believe the English King was addressed as "your grace" (as George Martin uses in his Song of Ice and Fire), an address still used for bishops.
 
Teresa Edgerton said:
But that second link, Brian, is not entirely useful for earlier eras, since its purpose is to tell people now how they should be addressing peers of the realm, and some forms of address have changed.
Click to expand...

Apologies, you're right and I should have mentioned that - these days, apparently, the rules are a little softer.
 
What really gets on my moobs is when American films insist on using 'Princess' as a forename. It is a given these days that in any American movie featuring a princess she will be addressed by all and sundry as 'princess'*.
"Princess, you have to come with me..." "Princess, it is your duty... etc."

argh!

my copy of Black's Titles and Forms of Address tells me 'Princesses of the Blood Royal' should be addresses as 'Your Royal Highness' or 'Madam' depending on circumstances.

I will admit "Xena: A mighty princess forged in the heat of battle!" still makes me laugh. I hope it was a joke.






*I have daughters so have been subjected to no end of Disney tripe in our weekly Big Screen movie night. (We're very democratic; we take it in turns to choose.) I have seen The Princess Diaries (1 and 2) more often than any sane adult male in the Western World
 
Damn! I've been looking for a definitive guide to terms of address for a couple of years now. I even pinged my old Medieval History professor over this.

Thanks for posting this.
 
I noticed Anne Lyle recently brought this up on her site, when reviewing Daniel Abraham's Path of the Dragon - as he apparently made the error of calling his knights Sir [Family name] instead of Sir [First name].
 
I have a friend whose correct title is:

The Right Honorable (first name, surname)

Her cousin's parents, knowing the titles well gave their daughter the name Lady as a first name and a proper name as middle name which is what she uses on a day to day basis. So she is The Right Honorable Lady (surname). Which always gets us a table reservation at swanky restaurants but annoys some of the picky people who think that she has added "Lady" in instead of it being her name.
 
But is that a mistake? If the book is set in the real world, then yes, but if it's in a fantasy world, and it's consistent, I'd say that it wasn't. After all, George Martin spells "Sir" wrong.
 
I said:
these days, apparently, the rules are a little softer.
Click to expand...
Depends how far back you go. Medievals had less consistent standards than we do. I recall that one of the Richards insisted on Highness (can't remember where I read that), but up until James I & VI, kings were usually referred to by different titles. According to Wikipedia, Henry VIII was addressed as Grace, Majesty and Highness completely interchangeably, even in the same document. It's worth checking Shakespeare.

Many of the nobility have multiple titles, and it's usual for the head of the family to be addressed according his most important title. In the past they would be referred to in the third person just by the title's name. So Henry Wilmot, Duke of Rochester, might be called Your Grace, but would be referred to as Rochester by equals. I believe they still officially sign themselves that way.

This has an impact on their sons, who are typically given the next most important title. However the eldest son of the Marquis of Salisbury gets the third most important title, Viscount Cranborne, as calling him the Earl of Salisbury would lead to father and son having the same official signature.
There's also the twist that when addressing the peerage, the first address isn't always the same as subsequent addresses. The most famous being the Queen, who is first addressed as Your Majesty, and subsequently as Ma'am.

One exception to the most important title rule is that of prince. The official address of a prince who is also a duke is His Royal Highness the Duke of.... If he's not a Duke, he's His Royal Highness Prince [forename]. I'm not sure if this applies to the Prince of Wales.

Edited to add: There another complication with the British monarchy, which is place.
In England the address or short title of Prince William is His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge, but in Scotland it's His Royal Highness The Earl of Strathearn.
 
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HareBrain said:
I think "my liege" was a form of address to a liege-lord under the feudal system. This did not have to be the King.

Prior to "your majesty" I believe the English King was addressed as "your grace" (as George Martin uses in his Song of Ice and Fire), an address still used for bishops.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that practice lasted until the break with the Catholic Church under Henry VIII. "Your grace" referred to the monarch ruling "by the grace of God" (and by extension, the grace of God's "representative on Earth," the Pope).
 
Nerds_feather said:
Yeah, that practice lasted until the break with the Catholic Church under Henry VIII. "Your grace" referred to the monarch ruling "by the grace of God" (and by extension, the grace of God's "representative on Earth," the Pope).
Click to expand...
Can you recall where you read that and/or what authority it gave? English (not sure of Scottish etc) non-royal dukes and duchesses are also "Your Grace" and have been for some time. I can't track down when it started but Thomas More in talking to the Duke of Norfolk (according to his Life by Roper) says "Is that all, my Lord? Then in good faith is there no more difference between your grace and me, but that I shall die to-day, and you tomorrow." It's arguable that the "your grace" there isn't used in quite the same way as the "my Lord" but I'm sure I have seen other early examples where it was used as a form of address.

And anyway, whatever its origins, I don't think it's the break with Rome which ended its use, since the Sovereign is still "By the Grace of God Queen of England" etc -- much more likely that Henry liked the sound of "Your Majesty" which was being used on the continent as being more exalted than "highness" or "grace" and adopted it accordingly.


Toby -- I think Ser was in use in Middle English, though whether as a variant spelling of Sir or an alternative, I'm not sure.
 
I'm sure that "your Grace" ended with Henry VIII (at the point where England broke with Rome). However, upon further (cursory) glance, it looks as if it was a bit more complicated than I made it out to be, and the switch to "Majesty" may have had less to do with his anti-Catholicism as his desire to project a greater level of "grandness" that coincided with it--and was not consistently applied at that time anyway:

Around 1519 King Henry VIII decided Majesty should become the style of the sovereign of England. Majesty, however, was not used exclusively; it arbitrarily alternated with both Highness and Grace, even in official documents. For example, one legal judgement issued by Henry VIII uses all three indiscriminately; Article 15 begins with, "The Kinges Highness hath ordered," Article 16 with, "The Kinges Majestie" and Article 17 with, "The Kinges Grace."
Click to expand...
 
I’m not all too educated in historical etiquette and dialect, but I do enjoy the escapism of stories set in historical or faux historical times. I believe that, first and foremost, a story should be entertaining to as many people as possible. Although it’s good to research these things, I think that trying too hard to make things historically accurate can appear esoteric and pretentious. There needs to be a middle ground.

When dealing with historical facts such as titles and dialect, the thing that matters most is whether it adds or distracts from the reader’s ability to escape into the story. Calling Disney characters ‘Princess’ makes them sound, idealistically, cute and not using accurate dialect can make things easier to understand. I know this may be an extreme example, but would you wanna read a story that’s based in Japan if all the characters spoke Japanese?

On the other hand, Shakespeare’s plays wouldn’t be the same if they were translated into modern English, but saying that, there are a lot of people who don’t like Shakespeare because of the simple fact: it’s hard for some people to understand and identify with the Elizabethan dialect.

When writing, the thing to remember is that the majority of people who read your work aren’t gonna be experts, so you have to ‘decide’ whether to pander to the few or to the many. (Doctor who is one of my favourite shows and amongst the many reasons for that is because everyone uses modern, identifiable, English.)
 
Yep, what I thought.

Just as a side-point, and going off-topic, but it's a bugbear of mine, Henry was not anti-Catholic, and did not disavow the main tenets and practices of Catholic theology (for example transubstantiation) and he kept his title of "Defender of the Faith" which the Pope had given him. He broke with Rome and rejected Papal Supremacy, refusing to accept the Pope as having any jurisdiction over him and his realm. In effect he became -- and forced the country to become, if only temporarily -- Anglo-Catholic, instead of Roman Catholic.
 
The Judge said:
Yep, what I thought.

Just as a side-point, and going off-topic, but it's a bugbear of mine, Henry was not anti-Catholic, and did not disavow the main tenets and practices of Catholic theology (for example transubstantiation) and he kept his title of "Defender of the Faith" which the Pope had given him. He broke with Rome and rejected Papal Supremacy, refusing to accept the Pope as having any jurisdiction over him and his realm. In effect he became -- and forced the country to become, if only temporarily -- Anglo-Catholic, instead of Roman Catholic.
Click to expand...

He wasn't a reformer like Luther or Calvin--he just didn't like the Church being autonomous from his authority. That's anti-Catholic in the sense of being opposed to the Church of Rome, though--yes--not based on any theological points of dispute.
 
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