Question about inheritance laws in 18th century England

I doubt that baronets can bypass descent in the right line by male descendants. I know of only one hereditary title for which an exception were ever made. The first Duke of Marlborough was John Chuchill (1650-1722). His son died long before he did, and by a special act of Parliament, his daughter Henrietta became the second Duchess of Marlborough upon her father's death. Her two sons died before she did, so the ducal line passed to the son of her sister Anne, who had married Charles Spencer, and so Charles Spencer the younger became the third Duke of Marlborough--the ducal line has been known as the Spencer-Churchills ever since. The father of John Churchill was Winston Churchill, and so the Churchill with which the modern world is familiar was Winston Spencer Churchill. His father was a younger son of the seventh Duke of Marlborough, so Winston and his son were out of the running.

You'll note that it took an act of Parliament to authorize that descent. I know of no other instance in which descent in the right line is set aside. The few examples of descent of a title through a female line of which i know are cases in which a daughter of a peer had an adult son living in the lifetime of the title holder, who could designate that grandson his heir--and usually that required the consent of the sovereign. Even that was not common--so, for example, during the Wars of the Roses, more than half of the peerages were extinguished in the direct male line--and no effort was made to pass on the titles, although they might be revived.

So i would say that the answer to your first question is no. The best biography of John Churchill (in my never humble opinion) is that of Winston Spencer Churchill, who had access to documents not available to other biographers at that time. For the Wars of the Roses there are literally hundreds of historically well-researched and reliable books.

The way estate law worked in England in the late 18th century, it might or might not have been a case that an estate would be left with no restrictions. Although i know of no source (which certainly not doesn't mean there isn't one), i suspect that most estates were entailed, or settled into trusts before the death of the testator. An entailed estate means an estate which can only be inherited if certain conditons are met. I believe i am correct in stating that entails are no longer allowed in England. They are not allowed in the United States to my knowledge. Entails usually were set up to assure the income of female descendants or relatives or wives, or to assure that an estate survived to support the descendants of the testator. Often, if a son were profligate, or the eldest survivor were a married female, the intent was to protect the estate from the profligate son, or the husband of the married daughter. Entails could be frivolous, too. Daniel Parke was born in Virginia about 1670, and he married into the Carter family, the richest family of planters in Virginia. He then decamped with all the liquid assets he could convert, and was not heard of again until 1704, when at the battle of Blenheim, the Duke of Marlborough called for a piece of paper on which to write a dispatech to Queen Anne to report his great victory. Parke pushed forward and presented the Duke his tavern bill from the night before, and the Duke wrote his dispatch on the back of the bill. He then gave Parke the dispatch to deliver, a great honor from which Parke, using his undoubted charm, managed to profit more than was usually the case by his flattery of Queen Anne. He was later made the Governor of the Leeward Islands, and was killed by a mob in Antigua.

His will left a legacy to a bastard son in London, and a bastard daughter in Antigua, and included an entail that required all of his descendants to take the name Parke. Although no one was certain the entail would stand up in court, it could taeke many years, even generations, to resolve such issues. So, Parke's daughter had married the son of a rich planter in Northhampton County, Virginia, whose estate was known as Arlington, after the estate of the rich planter's grandfather in England--that rich planter's name was Custis. His grandson took the name Daniel Parke Custis, just in case the entail stood.

His wife was Martha Dandridge. She delivered two stillborn children, and two live births. When her husband died, she met and married George Washington a few years later. Her children Pasty and Jack both had Parke as a middle name, and Jack's son was named George Washington Parke Custis. He had an estate near the Washington estate, which he named Arlington, in honor of his ancestors. Arlington is, of course, the site of the national cemetery near the city of Washington. I believe that the entail became meaningless after the revolution, when entails were eventually outlawed in all states.

Although entails were useful for securing estates against the profligacy of sons or grandsons, or the greed of sons-in-law, it was not the only method of securing an estate. A trust could be set up for daughters or grandchildren in the life time of the potential testaor, although for women or minor children, there had to be a trustee. In estates of the peerage, the Crown took a direct interest. There was long an institution of the royal government known as the Court of Wards and Liveries, which acted as trustee for estates of the peerage which had devolved upon women or minor children--and it made damned good money for the Crown, too, which usually looted those estates as much as was possible under the law. John Winthrop, the famous governor of the Massachusetts Bay Company, was a lawyer in the Court of Wards and Liveries before he got in the business of founding shining cities on the hill.

If you are asking this for the purposes of writing a work of fiction, i would advise learning as much as you can about the Court of Wards and Liveries, and about Chancery. Those were the two courts in which such matters would have been settled. I doubt if any estate of a baronet every ended up in the Court of Wards and Liveries. A baronet was not a very wealthy or powerful man. In fact, it was a money-making scheme of James I (think, King James Bible) in the early 17th century. He created the rank of baronet, and those whom he "honored" with the title were required to live up to a standard, which the King could conveniently assure by selling them an estate. If they refused to accept the title, they would have to pay a healthy fine to the King. If you've got sharp lawyers, being King can be a great racket.

By the way, we have several knowledgeable lawyers at this site, but i don't know that we have any English lawyers here. You can only hope that someone with more certain knowledge will show up.

Wow! Thank you so much, Setanta! This is very helpful, and I will go back over your reply carefully to make sure I understand all the intricacies of terminology as well as looking up the Court of Wards and Liveries, and Chancery. Your supposition is right; this is for a novel. The baronet in question was elevated to the baronetcy after making his fortune in the spice trade and becoming connected with the British East India Company. He is fabulously wealthy as a result of his trade but is not of any aristocratic descent. He had his estate built himself, so I don't know whether this alters the question of entails since it's not something he inherited from, say, his own father. Does this mean he has free rein over the terms of his will? I guess he can't pass on his baronetcy to anyone but his son...

Once again, thanks so much for your careful and helpful reply.

You're welcome. I see a couple of problems, though. One is that someone who is fabulously wealthy would not be elevated to the peerage just for being wealthy. If someone who were fabulously wealthy were elevated to the peerage for some good and sufficient reason, he would likely be elevated much further than a mere baronetcy. For example, naval officers who performed with distinction were often elevated to the peerage--but usually, if they qualified for high distinction, they were given quite a boost. John Jervis won a signal victory over the Spanish on February 14, 1797, near Capt St. Vincent at the southern end of Portugal. He was made the Earl St. Vincent as a result. An officer of lesser repute would simply have been inducted into the Order of the Garter, or receive a similar honorific. I think you should give careful thought to either how this character ends up a baronet, or to the "fabulosity" of his wealth.

I'll check into this - as far as I can tell from what I've read, there were three prerequisites to being elevated to the baronetcy:

1. Paternal grandfather bore arms
2. Annual income at least 1,000 pounds
3. Down payment of 1,095 pounds.

I'll double-check this, though!

In the early 17th century, when James created the baronetcy, a thousand pounds would have been prohibitive. I assume you are referring to something in the mid- to late 18th century.

If it will help your narrative, until 1760, George II was king. He had been born and raised in Germany (Hanover), and had campaigned with Marlborough's army in the War of the Spanish Succession. After 1760, George III was king. For a fictional narrative, it might be good to cobble together a story of how your character, while still of modest means, used his financial acumen to the benefit of a German crony of George II, or of his son Frederick, the Prince of Wales, until his death in 1751. It would avoid the risk of falling afoul of the history of mid-18th century England. The only drawback is that Frederick didn't get along with his family. Probably best of suggest that your character did an important favor for a crony of the King. George III was throroughly English, so such a ploy would not work for him. Both George II and his son Frederick were born in Hanover. Frederick did not join his parents in England until his granfather, George I, had died, and he, Frederick, was a grown man. That may account for the shabby manner in which his father and mother treated him. Your timeline will determine what is most plausible.

I don't pretend to remember most of this (I'm mainly just bumping up this fascinating topic), but female inheritance -- wasn't it mainly controlled via dower? E. g. a niece could inherit but it would all end up with her husband, anyway -- he would control it and could either build it up or gamble it away or whatever.

Yes, which is why there were entails and trust funds. I do wish someone with some genuine expertise were here. Do you know someone in the profession you could ask, Jes?

Not seeking to contribute in any way....but this contrasts with the present day, when a "life peerage" may be purchased (although not officially) by making substantial financial donations to the ruling party; then they may, if the donor wishes, put his name forward for election to the House of Lords in the annual Queens Honours List.

Thanks, this history does help a lot! The story takes place in 1789, though the character was baronetted (sorry, I know that's not a word!) some while back. I haven't put any definite date on that since it mainly matters that he is a baronet now, and that he lives with his family in a large and beautiful manor/estate. But you make a good point; having the backstory nailed down is always desirable whether it enters directly into the plot or not.

Thanks so much for the input, everyone! By the way, I found some interesting links about baronets I thought I would share:

There apparently still exists a society for them - here is the official page dealing with succession, which is not completely helpful because it looks as though they changed the rules in 1910, but it's still interesting:

http://www.baronetage.org/succession.htm

Also here's from Burke's Peerage:

http://www.burkespeerage.com/articles/peerage/page66-baronet.aspx

And here's a particular family's story:

http://www.edmonstone.com/Pages/creabt.htm

Just for general interest - actually the replies here have been more helpful than the webpages, but the pages are still quite interesting.

Yes, it is what is known in motion pictures as constinuity. If the light in a scene is early morning light coming from the left hand side of the setting, and it is necessary to "reshoot" the scene, it must either be done right away, or it must be "reshot" the next day at the same time of day.

I don't know that that term is used in literature. But i've seen flaws of continuity again and again in literature. Someone once recommended to me a novel about a young couple who went as pioneers into the back country of North Carolina when the boy was 16 and the girl was 15. That wasn't unusual, in fact, in the time in which the novel was set. However, adding up the years in the narrative, they had a 21 year old son fifteen years later. That's a serious flaw of continuity. There were many others, as well, and it ruined the novel for me. When other novels of that author were recommended to me, i had no interest in reading them.

It would not be difficult to explain how the baronetcy was obtained without going into a long narrative about the event, in order to preserve the plausibility of the narrative.

This contention continues to bother me. Even in the late 18th century, an annual income of a thousand pounds would have been a prohibitive requirement for a baronetcy. I alluded earlier to John Jervis, the Earl St. Vincent. As was the usual custom, Parliament povided him with an income commensurate with his rank of the peerage, so that he could maintain himself in style expected of an Earl (a rank equivalent to the continental rank of Count). Parliament provided St. Vincent with an annual income of three thousand pounds. A baronet was a much more modest rank, and was in fact, viewed as the equivalent of knighthood, with the difference that the title was heritable (the son of a knight does not automatically become a knight upon the death of his fathe). Do you know at what time the requiremnts you list above applied?

PS. By the way, I wouldn't actually be averse to changing the character's rank, but given that the two unchangeable things are

1. He is hugely rich, and
2. He is of common birth,

Baronet seemed most likely based on what I know.
(Another link:
http://www.debretts.com/people/essential-guide-to-the-peerage/the-baronetage.aspx

I think that those requirements were the ones James put into effect when he created the rank of baronet. I haven't seen anything that indicated whether/when they changed...I am not sure, but it seems as though because of inflation it would be only fair to increase the price later on. But I haven't been able to find anything about this. It would really be good to know. In novels of the time (e.g. Jane Austen etc), you often hear characters sneering slightly at baronets, implying that it's more or less a bought title. I wish I could remember the specific fictional conversation - maybe it will come to me...

I see nothing wrong with your choice. I just want to point out that he wouldn't be elevated to the peerage simply for being wealthy, and, being fabulously wealthy was not an attribute which one would associate with a baronet. In fact, i think that the rank of baronet is appropriate--but you'll need a brief back story to explain why your character became a baronet (some service done the Crown or the state), after which he became fabulously wealthy. You don't want him to hold any other rank of the peerage, because aristocrats engaging in commerce just wasn't done.

I'm not sure if there's a specific name in writing except for doing your homework and getting your facts/backstory straight...but yes, basically the same concept, and as you say it's important!

Exactly, yes, this guy is not an aristocrat, so I think baronet is OK for him. As to how he got it, service to the crown/state is not a tough thing to work in since he was connected to the East India Company. Thanks!

The only novel of Miss Austen fo which i know in which a Baronet appears is Persuasion. That character, Sir Walter Elliot, possessed a very small landed estate (essentially the enclosed land around a single, small village), but through his personal vanity about his elegance and his social standing, had run himself very much into debt. The novel's contemporary narrative takes place in 1814. I'll see what i can find.