Posted by Kate on June 25, 1997 at 19:38:07:
In reply to Re: Peerage posted by Barbara on June 25, 1997 at 16:18:56
] ] If Darcy were to be given a title what would be the highest rank he could be given.
] I think that the king (or queen) could create titles to a certain extent, such as Earl (others were hereditary). In the Barontage and Peerage (Sir Walter Elliot's favourite book!), it would say when the particular title was created. My great (4times) grandfather was created a baronet by George IV, after which the title became hereditary and was passed down in our family. I believe that Darcy technically could have been created an Earl, but such an honour was reserved for very special favourites of the monarcy, I believe, or those marrying into the royal family somehow. So it is more likely that baronet was about all he could hope for. In Persuasion Mary Musgrove speculates on whether Captain Wentworth might be a baronet one day.
I actually thought that the monarch could create titles right up to and including Dukedoms (which I _think_ is the highest). The Duke of Marlborough, for example, got that title because of service in the wars of the Spanish Succession. The title would _then_ be inherited, but it had to be created at _some_ point.
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