[lit-ideas] Seat Pretty
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:02:24 EDT
In a message dated 4/27/2010 6:25:00 P.M. , ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Made more glorious by the removal of a village, which the Duke thought
spoiled the view.
I have never understood how it was that the Duke of Devon didn't have a
seat in Devon. Maybe he did? Maybe he collected seats? Married into them.
And so on.
---- The thing is very serious to take it lightly.
It all depends on your pedigree. Debrett has:
"Devonshire, Duke --" which he traces back to Offa, in Birmingham.
"Strictly, his seat is in the Black Country".
Devon was "thought of as too low a land for a duke. In those days, the
currents of the English channel were even worse than they are today. The family
decided to settle in Derbyshire."
----
In general, once you ask or know, it's easy enough. The Duke of Rutland for
example, has his seat in Hertfordshire. "The new boundaries to our shires
brought about in 1974 was a great blow to the Dukedom of Rutland. Rutland
ceased to exist."
---- In general, if you are a male you inherit, if you are otherwise (read:
a female) you don't. But, unlike a male, a female can MARRY gentry --
landed gentry.
In the case of male marrying landed gentry ABOVE their station, there is
always some prejudice that 'he never really belongs'.
Noel Coward was very conscious of that: "Gertie Millar married the Viscount
of Scarborough and became a Duchess, but there's no duchess I can marry
that would make me a lord". He thought that was positive discrimination.
------ Debrett's Peerage contains charts and maps as to what belongs to
what, and why.
"In principle," they write in their Foreword ("Debrett" is really a
collective name), "every bit of land you step your foot on belongs to one duke,
or other."
----
The blurb of my copy is a good one. "Buy before the Revolution".
J. L. Speranza
--- safe at Villa Speranza, Bordighera
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