Question about inheritance laws in 18th century England

Thank you for pointing out my misconception, Setanta. I was indeed ignorant of King William's 7-year reign sandwiched between George IV (alias the Prince Regent) and Victoria. I am not a historian by any long shot so I have to research every little detail. This one had quite escaped my notice (for the time being at least ... as I'm still bogged down by the history of land laws!!). Your succinct description of the monarchy in those years is the kind of thread I needed to prevent the frittering away of precious research time. Thanks.

With regards to your excellent portrayal of the Reform Act crisis, however, I got a bit of a shock. If the King turned down the Prime Minister's demand for peers and none were created out of the crisis, then that defeats my intent entirely. The early 19th century episode that did succeed in the creation of peers is not the right time for my purpose.

I quite understand that the operative factor wouldn't have been in the creation of the peers as much as in the intent to manipulate political support. Can you, therefore, suggest alternative instances where peers were actually created by either of the 3 reigning sovereigns of the time and for what purposes please? I could then research those areas more closely and see how I can fit it to my own ends.

QUOTE: In addition to Joe's comments about bastards, the name Fitzroy or FitzRoy means son of the king. It is not that uncommon. King Charles II fathered a quiver full of bastads who were known as Fitzroy. He was able to create most of them Dukes (or Duchesses). When he failed to do so for the bastard son of Nell Gwynn, she took to calling the boy "you little bastard" in the King's presence, until he became irriated and demanded that she stop. She pointed out that he "had no other name," so Charles caved in an made him an Earl. UNQUOTE

With regards to your above snippet of information, I take it to mean that this Nell Gwynn was also one of King Charles II's mistresses. Otherwise, I imagine she wouldn't have had the audacity to taunt her King in that manner, would she? :-) I did find in my research much about Charles II's sexual exploits, but none other in the Peerage that garnered an 'honorary' title to an illegitimate issue. I was wondering, therefore, if you know of such instances in history that may have occurred. Also, how would a peer go about getting such an honour from the King or Queen for a bastard son? Would he offer payment, perhaps? Or some other service?

Meanwhile, were there any FitzRoys among illegitimates in the peerage (other than the Royal bastards, that is)?

Thanks again for your very informative assistance in this matter. I'm much obliged.

Simone

Nell Gwynn was, in the euphemistic parlance of the day, an "orange girl." Young women would circulate in the stalls at the theater selling oranges and other fruit, and also selling their favors--in short, and orange girl was a euphemism for a prostitute. Mrs. Gwynn claimed to have been an actress, although there is no corroborating evidence to that effect. Charles' other mistresses were of noble blood (such as Barbara Villiers, who was created Countess of Castlemain and Duchess of Cleveland), so Nell as a commoner, and a harlot into the bargain was getting short-shrifted because of her lack of brilliant antecedants. She was well loved by the population though--during the most virulent of the anti-Catholic agitations, her carriage was stopped as it left Whitehall, and she said something to the effect of: "Gentle, good people, this is the Protestant whore." For this incident, and an excellent biography of Charles, see Royal Charles (if you're in the United States) or King Charles II (if you're in Britain or Europe), Dame Antonia Fraser. She also wrote a life of Mary Queen of Scots (deadly dull, not up to her usual standard), a life of King James I and VI, and a life of Oliver Cromwell. It pretty well covers the period from Elizabeth I to the Restoration.

Fitzroy would only be the name of a royal bastard. Based on old French, the modern French would be fils du roi, meaning son of the king. As Joe has pointed out, the bastards of the peerage would take their name from the given name of the father. So, for example, if James Butler, Marquess or Ormonde had any bastards (i don't know if he did), they would be styled Fitzjames, or FitzJames.

The reform act was long overdue. The country was politically hobbled because of rotten boroughs (such as Old Sarum, where 15 electors, all tenants of a single man, sent two members to the House of Commons), which were also often referred to as pocket boroughs, because the seats they elected were in the gift of the landlord of the borough--he had them in his pocket; and many municipalities had few seats, or no seats in the House, despite their populations. There was a property qualification to vote, and most members of the working class did not meet the qualification.

This was not radical politics, either. Most people not only did not expect the working class to get the vote, they didn't want them to. A master craftsman would employ journeymen and apprentices, and he felt that he deserved the vote, but certainly did not think his journeymen and apprentices deserved the vote. People at almost all levels of society belived in "knowing one's place" and "respecting one's betters." But even those who did not expect to get the vote thought (very reasonably) that their interests would be better represented in a reformed Parliament.

Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington, was considered the arch-conservative of his day. He was what was known as a "High Tory," and even though he was not Prime Minister until 1828, he was identified in the public mind with the Tories. In 1819, there was a "monster meeting" at St. Peter's Fields near Manchester, with working class men taking their wives and children to a meeting convened to agitate for parliamentary reform and the improvement of working conditions. The local authorities lost their nerve, and called in the Yoemanry (roughly, the militia). A regiment of dragoons charged the crowd, and 15 were killed, with 500 or more injured. As a slur to Wellington, whose most famous victory was at Waterloo, it was referred to by the working class and in newspapers as the Peterloo massacre.

Things simmered for a decade, with George IV on the throne after 1820. George was a hedonist and a traditionalist who basically considered anyone who was not a Tory to be a money-grubber and a traitor. In 1828, Wellington was the Prime Minister. But when George died in 1830, the pressure on the Tories was too great, especially with a Prime Minister (Wellington) who was not in the House of Commons, and therefore could not control it effectively. The Whigs took office under Lord Grey, and the Reform Act was their first great initiative. Grey was canny, and managed the House of Commons well through his deputies, something Wellington had never been able to do. When the Tories balked at any reform, he created a committee to study the condition of parliamentary boroughs, and packed it with Tories. Basically honest men, the Tories were therefore reluctantly obliged to publish in detail the abuses of the rotten boroughs.

The detail of the fighting back and forth is long and obscure. It was at this time that the terms conservative (for Tory) and liberal (for Whig) came into use in the newspapers (and thanks to Joe for tracking that down several years ago). Labor pinned their hopes to reform, and even with the rotten boroughs, Lord Grey survived two elections, and increased the majority of the Whigns in the Commons each time. He had most of the press behind him, and the Tories were continually embarrassed by the findings of a committe of the Commons which they had controlled. William IV was as conservative as cats himself, and to attempt to avoid a creation of peers, he called in the Duke of Wellington to form a government. Wellington could not find enough men to form a cabinet, and William was forced to call in Grey to form a government, asking him to moderate the demands for reform (the 1830 Reform bill was not terribly liberal by modern standards, or even by the demands of the day). Grey refused, and William was forced to agree to a creation of peers, if necessary. Eventually, the Tories backed down, and the Reform Act was passed in 1832, by the simple expedient of the Tories in the Lords staying home on the day the vote was taken.

I don't know parliamentary history well enough to say if there ever was a creation of peers in such a constitutional crisis. The crisis arises because the ministry calls an election, and comes back in with a majority--so if the Lords continue obdurate, the PM will ask for a creation of peers to pack the House of Lords. The Lords will cave in to that, to avoid the creation of peers. I look around to see if i can find an example of a creation of peers.

Joe has pointed out the phenomenon of the "Beer Barons" in the 19th century. Men who were wealthy enough, prominent enough, and well enough liked by the monarch could be elevated, at least modestly, to a peerage. A baronetcy was most common, which is not acually a peerage, though.

I can find no evidence that there ever actually was a creation of peers when the Lords were obdurate. In 1832 and 1911, the Lords backed down rather than suffer a creation of peers.

Thank you, Setanta. This posting was highly informative on the period and although I cannot use the Reform Act crisis, you have made some salient points that will help me in other parts of my research. Meanwhile, I'm hoping that Joe in Chicago will fill in the blanks as to the rest.

I, too, had come across the 'Whig' and 'Tory' offshoots from Lawrence James' very excellent book Aristocrats: Power, Grace and Decadence. However, your description has simplified it and the compact political background will come in handy indeed. I appreciate the time you have taken to explain in such detail.

Thanks, too, for clarifying the name appendages in cases royal versus the rest. I can now tailor my research accordingly.

If I happen to get entangled in any further historical snarls in the course of my research, I'll come back to you again, if you don't mind.

Many thanks. Simone

I'm not sure about the terminology. A fee simple absolute is freely alienable, and there would be no reversion rights to the crown. If there were some peerages created in the time of the early Plantagenets and Stephen that were vested with grants of land made in fee simple absolute, then those lands shouldn't have reverted to the crown upon the extinction of the male line. On the other hand, there were a bunch of noble houses that were wiped out during the Anarchy, as Setanta pointed out, and the monarchs of the day didn't really pay very close attention to the niceties of the law, so they may have simply seized the lands after the last heir died.


Probably earls or maybe viscounts. Baron is an ancient title in Great Britain, but it's generally a subsidiary title now -- noble families accumulate titles over the years, and the eldest son of a peer gets to use his father's subsidiary titles by courtesy. The Earl of Dinsdale's son, for instance, might be called Baron Douglas, even though the earl, technically, holds that title. Like everything else about the nobility, it all gets very complicated.

The titles of marquess and duke are now reserved for members of the royal family. Even in the nineteenth century, it was unusual for new marquesses and dukes to be created, although there were always exceptions.


If you were granted a peerage, you were entitled to sit in the House of Lords. There were plenty of non-noble titles that could be bestowed by a monarch, such as a baronetage or knighthood, and these did not entitle the recipient to sit in the House of Lords, but they were non-noble.

The only exception was the with the Irish and Scottish peerages. Instead of sitting by right in the House of Lords, the Irish and Scottish peerages sent a group of representative peers to the House -- 16 for the Scots, 28 for the Irish. Viscount Palmerston, for instance, held an Irish peerage. He was not a member of the House of Lords, but rather the House of Commons. Indeed, an English peer was not permitted to hold a seat in the Commons, but since Palmerston held only an Irish peerage, he got around that prohibition.

So if you want your character to have a peerage but not sit in the House of Lords, then, he should receive an Irish peerage. He needn't be Irish -- most Irish peers were Englishmen who had estates in Ireland.

There's a line in Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe where the fairy Celia says: "For self-contained dignity, combined with airy condescension, give me a British Representative Peer!" That's a mistake -- there was no such thing as a British representative peer.


I imagine the same legal procedure was followed as with any other child. It was baptised and registered in the local parish registry, and the child was called whatever the parents wrote down in the registry. I don't even know if there were anything like birth certificates issued during that time period. You have to remember that legal procedures were considerably more lax in the nineteenth century than they are today.

I am pretty sure you're correct about 1911. I tried to track down that information when I was writing my previous post, but I couldn't find it.

I recall that a king actually went through with the threat of creating new peers in order to break a stalemate in the House of Lords -- that was some time in the eighteenth century. I think it may have been during Walpole's ministry, but my memory is hazy on that.

Joe, first of all let me thank you for your very informative replies to my queries, some of which have truly given me better options upon which to tailor my plot. The complex restrictions of 'entail' had been limiting my scope but you've opened up new threads for me to pursue. With your help and Setanta's I have been able to piece together my missing links and this has done much to clarify the cloudy issues.

As to other matters you brought up (and for this I'm going to attempt some of the editing functions of this medium which I hope will work for me this time) :


Your above point clarifies what had previously been so confusing to me. The fact that there were peerages vested with grants of land in fee simple prior to the reign of Edward II is a certainty as I found specific references to this in legal documents. What I didn't know, however, was that successive sovereigns may have just flouted the law and siezed the property with impunity upon failure of issue. It makes no sense, though, that the heirs general of the respective peerages didn't attempt to take recourse in the courts of law to retrieve their inheritance. Which is why I assumed that a fee simple granted by the Crown did not enjoy the same privileges as that on ordinary property. What I do know is that every reference I came across in connection with grants by the Crown always emphasised that the property was inalienable. Perhaps, there was an exception to the rule due to the origin of the estate, i.e. with the Crown being grantor.

Furthermore, I found specific legal references that emphasised that in granting a peerage, the Crown was not dealing with an estate which actually existed and of which it had the reversion. The bounty of the Crown in the very act of giving called into existence the thing granted; it was a creation rather than a transference. Ergo, there would have been no estate without a peer and no peer without an estate, in fee simple or in any other form.

Indeed, as you said, everything to do with the nobility can get very complicated and, at times, very exasperating too. I believe that what was good for the goose wasn't good for the gander in those days of autocracy, which has obscured matters somewhat for future generations.


This is a very interesting suggestion and a good option for my purpose. I will find out more about it and see if I can use it. Many thanks.



Allow me to please clarify the remark I made (in red) in my earlier posting. I apologise for my error. I was referring to illegitimate issue taking on the name of the father in adulthood, not at birth. I found this reference in regards to a bastard being bequeathed an estate in his father's will. Of course, I could have completely misunderstood it, which is why I posed my question to you. Apparently, an heir to an estate was sometimes compelled to take the name of the testator if it was different and if this was a stipulated condition of the inheritance. I'm not sure if this actually applied also to bastards, considering that the law did not recognise them as persons. In fact, they were considered "of no blood" in 'entail' terms.

So let me re-phrase my question, if I may: Is it possible, in adulthood, for an illegitimate individual who became an heir via a will, to change his name at law? And if so, was there a legal procedure he would have had to go through to document the change? Alternatively, would a legal document such as a will, make the name change automatic if it was demanded as a condition of the inheritance?

Thank you very much, Joe, in anticipation of your kind advice. I am, again, very much obliged for your time.

Simone

In case they have passed you by you should check out Tristram Shandy, the hero's father Walter had made a fortune in the Turky trade, Tom Jones and Boswell's Life of Johnson.

What's the sex interest in your story? What entanglements of arms and legs do you have in mind? Most publisher's readers are interested in those matters. Plus location, manners and cookery.

I don't envy you.

If a peer was found to be a traitor, he would be attainted by act of parliament and his lands and titles would revert to the crown. After a revolt (and there were plenty of them before the eighteenth century), the losers would be attainted and the crown would get lots of land to hand out to its supporters. So even if the land was held in fee simple, attainting the owner would allow the crown to seize his lands -- with no legal recourse for the owner's heirs.


That's correct. You have to remember that noble estates were entailed because the crown needed to insure that the owner would always be a noble who was able to render services to the crown. Just giving Blackacre to Lord Nibbs wouldn't accomplish that object, because Lord Nibbs could sell Blackacre the next day. Instead, the monarch wanted to make sure that Lord Nibbs and all his future Nibblets would hold the land and be ready to serve the kingdom, so the land was given on the condition that it would always pass to the next holder of the noble title.


I'm sure it happened. Pierre, in War and Peace, is an illegitimate son who, on the death of his noble father, receives the bulk of his estate and, upon petitioning the Tsar, also receives his father's titles. Archduke Franz Ferdinand (the guy who got shot and started World War I) was more or less adopted by the last Habsburg Duke of Modena, and Franz Ferdinand took the name Habsburg-Este as a condition of inheriting his relative's estate.


No, if he wanted to change his name officially he'd have to go to court. I believe that, in England, that would be handled in the Court of Chancery, although I'm not sure. Of course, a person could always change their name informally simply by adopting that name. Hollywood actors and sports stars do that all the time.

Thanks, Joe. I think you've cleared up most of my misconceptions and given some solid foundation to others that didn't make sense.

Of course, I'd totally overlooked the "attainders." That could have been a good reason for a sovereign to seize the traitors' properties. I was aware that attainted property would have deprived the future heirs by default as well. I'm glad you pointed this out. Thanks.


Just an aside ... this was really funny! Good way to lighten an otherwise pedantic topic!


War and Peace was a story based in Russia. I don't know about the Russian peerage but I'm pretty sure, from the legal sources I've consulted so far, that illegitimate children were considered unlawful heirs in England. With regards to entails they were actually considered as persons of "no blood", and not having any blood themselves they could not henceforth produce heirs of their bodies, i.e. even their offspring had no blood under English law! The only exception to the rule was when the father married the mother, if I'm not mistaken, within 3 months of birth. For your information, here is the legal reference in question, taken from Commentaries on the Laws of England by Sir William Blackstone, who is considered an authority on English law to this day:

"Bastards are incapable of being heirs. Bastards, by our law, are such children as are not born either in lawful wedlock, or within a competent time after its determination. Such are held to be nullii filii, the sons of nobody ; for the maxim of law is, qui ex damnato coitu nascuntur, inter liberos rum computantur. Being thus the sons of nobody, they have no blood in them, at least no inheritable blood : consequently, none of the blood of the first purchaser : and therefore, if there be no other claimant than such illegitimate children, the land shall escheat to the lord. The civil law differs from ours in this point, and allows a bastard to succeed to an inheritance, if after its birth the mother was married to the father: and also, if the father had no lawful wife or child, then, even if the concubine was never married to the father, yet she and her bastard son were admitted each to one-twelfth of the inheritance; and a bastard was likewise capable of succeeding to the whole of his mother's estate, although she was never married ; the mother being sufficiently certain, though the father is not. But our law, in favour of marriage, is much less indulgent to bastards."

Thanks again, Joe, for your input. I will not trouble you any further for the time being. I hope, however, that I can get back to you should I run into another legal bind.

Kind regards, Simone

Glad to be of assistance.

I have question....too......what are the laws concerning a young male at lets say 16 inheriting property in 1650's england......and a 17 years of age female in the 1700's england.....if a will or any document is left behind stating intent on leaving said property to a specific person......is that believable....and possible of happening.......??.....are there any restrictions based upon thier age........now that I think about it.....what age do you have to be to recieve an inheritence without any state interferences.......?

You don't provide nearly enough information to give a reasonable answer. Do either of these children have male relatives alive at that time? Do you know what the state of England was in 1650? If this is some work of fiction which you project, i strongly suggest that you do a lot (many dozens, if not hundreds of hours) of research on the English civil wars of the 17th century before you start writing about events taking place in 1650. A female, minor or adult, would not inherit in her own right any estate. No lawyer worth the name and the fee is going to write a will which leaves unsettled the question of who said female child's guardian would be. Were an estate to devolve upon a minor female, the guardian would have the full use of the estate unless and until the female in question married, in which case her husband would have full use of the estate.

Any estate, sufficiently valuable, at a time other than the civil wars, which devolved upon a minor and for which no male relative was living to act as guardian would be take over by the Court of Wards and Liveries. I suggest that if you intend to write a work of fiction, and you wish it to be believable historical fiction, you need to learn a lot more history--unless, of course, you can be fairly certain that your target audience is even more ignorant than you. I could be wrong about that, though, there is Edward Rutherford . . . an author with only a nodding acquaintance with the history of his homeland who has been a richly successful writer of "historical" fiction.