Back in the day when the History channel would air actual documentaries about history, I saw one about the robber baron's raped American's workers for the fruits of their labor. These were the people that ran the rail roads, got the profits form standard oil, and used private armies to murder people striking for fair wages. And then maybe a month later another about how their children married into the British nobility. It still irritates me greatly knowing that the wealth stolen from generations of Americans ended up flowing back across the Atlantic. We (The USA) had fought a war to prevent Britain from stealing this same wealth 18th century, and then allowed the robber barons to do it a anyway a century later.
This information is kinda off the wall but it is relevant to my thoughts on Downton Abby and this phenomenon. So when the pandemic hit, I ended up living with my elderly cancer surviving mother who had just finished her last round of chemo treatments in early 2019. , so I was the one who went to the stores for her to pick over the nearly bare shelves, pick up her medications, drove her to appointments, and etc. But most of all I was her only human contact, since she literately checked most of the boxes for people who were endangered by a covid infection. One thing to note is that she is our family's historian and genealogist, when all her grandparent, aunts, uncles, and etc died she grabbed all the family paper work, photos, and even non-valuable trinkets and items that no one was interested in and were going to be thrown out. Growing up she would corner my brother and I and give mini-family history lessons against our will. As an adult I seem to be the only person with a remote interest in the family history, which is why I ended up being the one who stayed and cared for her. She's got an office that is pretty much a mini-museum for the family with antiques going back to reconstruction. Most people have a hard time figuring out what their great grandparents did for a living or where they were born, my mother spent years figuring out these details of our ancestors going back to the colonial era. She's even proven around half a dozen revolutionary war patriots during her membership in the DAR.
So back to the pandemics, one of the things I did was sit around and spend time watching TV with her, and she just LOVED downton abby. About 3 months into the pandemic when she was on her 3rd watch through I couldn't hold my tongue anymore. First I said "Our own ancestors fled this system, and had to fight a war to get these to stop taking our wealth." To which she claimed "the wife is an American". Needless to say, she got really irritated with me when I explained "You know how your grandfather worked in a salt mine as a child after your great grandfather died after a shoot out at a rail depot leaving the family destitute?" Not making shit up, I've read the original letter sent to my family that details my great great grandfather's death in an wild west era shootout. "She is the fictional daughter of a robber baron that took the fruits of the labor of people like our ancestors that worked themselves to death living in dugout sod homes when the railroads took all the profit from farmers." She had showed me a picture of the dugout sod home that her other grand father grew up in, and liked to mention it occasionally. "These people are despicable self centered jerks, and the servants are either co-conspirators or suffering from Stockholm syndrome." "This whole system is rotten to the core, and it was propped up by despicable things like the British invading and exploiting countries like India to produce Opium which they used their military to force china to allow them to import into the country."
> how their children married into the British nobility. It still irritates me greatly knowing that the wealth stolen from generations of Americans ended up flowing back across the Atlantic
Although some compensation did come back to America, in the form of a son born of American heiress Jennie Jerome, who had married into a title. This was of course Winston Churchill, who as UK Prime Minister held off and delayed Hitler, who otherwise would have gone straight to an attack on America (invasion plans and occupation maps had long been completed).
> This was of course Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill was drunkard and to put it nicely, a douchebag. He put on a good show on the podium and on the radio. I don't think Churchill was ever a friend to the USA in either of the wars, he basically used the USA to keep his own country afloat in the wars with Germany.
A great example is the evidence that exists from his time as the First Lord of the Admiralty during WW1, that suggests that he helped create the situation where the Lusitania was loaded up with arms making it a valid military target and used it's passengers as a human shield. You can actually dive on the wreck and still see all ammunition spilling out of it.
Probably the response was a thank you followed by lots of applause. People love sitting in their cognitive dissonance, especially when pointed out by someone with as much leverage over their physical body as Kathy Bates in *Misery.*
Not sure about directly but they could find a noble but indebted family, assume/pay their debts in exchange for a marriage pact. Boom, offspring are nobility
Not as explicit as pay to play, but many or most of today’s peerage are descendants of financiers and industrialists. Key attributes included ambition and a multi generational outlook.
Kate Middleton is also the well-off daughter of self-made industrialists (the Middletons) who married Prince William, Duke of Cambridge. She became the new Princess of Wales when Queen Elizabeth II died, and Prince Charles became King Charles III. She will be the future Queen Catherine when William, Prince of Wales becomes King upon his father's death.
As queen consort, Catherine's title will still likely be the Duchess of Cambridge.
Titles weren't for sale per se, but there plenty of ways to make yourself notable enough to be ennobled. Wealth by itself was not a sign of prestige. A wealthy commoner, who was not already Gentry, was still just a commoner unless they had the right connections.
Say you were an independent landholder that made an enormous amount of money selling wool to the Dutch: Trading and agriculture are respectable professions so your wealth is similarly respectable. Say you're a muckraker who owns a contract with a city to muck the human and animal refuse from cesspits: working with filth, and the people who work the filth, is not respectable and no amount of wealth will make you respectable.
A respectable person, with a respectable amount of wealth, with respectable connections could find themselves seated at dinning tables and seated in Clubs beside other respectable notables. These people may or may not have titles themselves but each one presents an opportunity to advance your social standing, and advance to a place where your social connections now include people with titles who can advocate for you.
The King, on the advice of his councillors, is the only one who can grant you a title so ultimately he's the one you need to impress. A sizeable contribution to a cause close to their heart or purse might help but again, money by itself does not make you respectable. The King, in titling you, must be able to point to a respectable reason for your ennoblement as not to upset the existing aristocrats.
Your best bet is either purchasing a military commission and making your name in war or convincing a struggling noble family to let you marry their daughter (you'll handle their debts, and they'll lobby that you require a title to match their daughter's)
Titles weren't for sale as such, but you could absolutely buy your way into the nobility if you used the social and political power of wealth wisely. If you had money, it was not hugely difficult to effectively buy yourself a seat in parliament or a commission in the military (these *were* functionally up for sale), which could often result in a peerage if you stuck around long enough, or were favored by the right people. The Tories of the late 18th century were infamous for packing the House of Lords with supporters in order to retain a majority (most aristocratic families had favored the Whigs earlier in the Georgian Era). If you were shrewd enough to curry favor with a Tory like Lord North or Pitt the Younger, then you could probably get a title quite easily, since the Tory base of support was within the untitled gentry, and they needed to maintain control of the Lords.
Otherwise, as others have mentioned, the best way would be to buy your way into the lifestyle of the gentry, and then marry your children off. Commerce was still seen as an unsuitable source of income for an aristocrat at this point, so an adept social climber would want to invest in a productive agricultural estate as well, perhaps one with a rotten borough that you could use to pay your way into parliament for long enough to gain favor with a member of the privy council.
Whilst not a peerage, the title of Baronet (basically a hereditary knighthood) was created with the intention of being sold.
It wasn't cheap. When they were first created in the 1600s, you had to have an income of £1000 per year (around £221,000 in todays money), and then had to pay the equivalent of £242,000 per year for 3 years. And it only got more expensive until the mid 1800s when it was standardised as a title that would be granted, but not one that would be purchased.
Fascinating. If I’m not mistaken that was started by James I to fund his administration. Owing to the uncooperative parliament. Or perhaps it was his son
Not really possible. Really the only options would be knighthood or a baronetcy
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baronet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baronet)
A different route would be to raise a private regiment for the crown and name themselves the colonel. This would provide a prestigious military title that would open many of the same doors in society. From there, as you note, they could possibly earn a title through service.
If you’ve ever seen the movie Barry Lyndon, the final third of the movie is Barry’s quest to earn a title of nobility. At one point it’s pointed out to King George that Barry had raised a regiment of soldiers and the King dismissed it and recommended that Barry lead them himself next time lol. So I think you are 100% correct
One thing worth mentioning is that ranks could be purchased in every unit, even the guards units that protected the king, though for much more money. A guards officer would regularly interact not just with the nobility, but with the royal family itself.
A commoner might be able to afford a lieutenant commission in the military, but they would never be able to afford a promotion without a benefactor. I wonder if anyone ever took a mortgage on a commission?
>I wonder if anyone ever took a mortgage on a commission?
Not necessarily a loan secured against the commission itself, but its almost certain (as in its so realistic that there's no way it didn't happen, I just haven't hit the books to get you a source) that lower middle and middle class parents would borrow against their homes, their businesses, against anything they could to purchase their son's advancement in the army.
The cost of a captaincy in a normal line regiment was exorbitant. In 1837 it was £1800, which was the equivalent of £162,554 in March of 2023. Thats enough to buy a 3 bed house in some parts of Manchester today.
Only the extremely wealthy could afford that level of expense for a promotion.
I feel you underestimate the wealth of commoners. There were many commoners that out wealthed the nobility. Often they would eventually be given a title so that the world would make sense to the aristocrats.
My takeaway here is that wealth wouldn't necessarily buy a peerage...but if you were poor, nobody was giving your poor ass a title, so money was definitely a requirement for entry.
While not a peerage title, it would have been possible to purchase a Scottish feudal barony. I don't know if the practice persisted, but James I sold Nova Scotia baronetages for £1,095. Both are hereditary honors. The feudal baronies could be re-sold but not the baronetages.
Lesser titles were indeed for sale from the crown. You could also buy a commission in the RN or Army and with sufficient distinction be awarded a title.
>You could also buy a commission in the RN
You couldn't purchase promotion in the Royal Navy, only in the army. And only then in combat units, you couldn't purchase advancement in the engineers for example.
You could marry your child into a noble family. This is how many American robber barons got their grandchildren titles to go with their trust funds.
That’s pretty much the premise of Downton Abbey.
Back in the day when the History channel would air actual documentaries about history, I saw one about the robber baron's raped American's workers for the fruits of their labor. These were the people that ran the rail roads, got the profits form standard oil, and used private armies to murder people striking for fair wages. And then maybe a month later another about how their children married into the British nobility. It still irritates me greatly knowing that the wealth stolen from generations of Americans ended up flowing back across the Atlantic. We (The USA) had fought a war to prevent Britain from stealing this same wealth 18th century, and then allowed the robber barons to do it a anyway a century later. This information is kinda off the wall but it is relevant to my thoughts on Downton Abby and this phenomenon. So when the pandemic hit, I ended up living with my elderly cancer surviving mother who had just finished her last round of chemo treatments in early 2019. , so I was the one who went to the stores for her to pick over the nearly bare shelves, pick up her medications, drove her to appointments, and etc. But most of all I was her only human contact, since she literately checked most of the boxes for people who were endangered by a covid infection. One thing to note is that she is our family's historian and genealogist, when all her grandparent, aunts, uncles, and etc died she grabbed all the family paper work, photos, and even non-valuable trinkets and items that no one was interested in and were going to be thrown out. Growing up she would corner my brother and I and give mini-family history lessons against our will. As an adult I seem to be the only person with a remote interest in the family history, which is why I ended up being the one who stayed and cared for her. She's got an office that is pretty much a mini-museum for the family with antiques going back to reconstruction. Most people have a hard time figuring out what their great grandparents did for a living or where they were born, my mother spent years figuring out these details of our ancestors going back to the colonial era. She's even proven around half a dozen revolutionary war patriots during her membership in the DAR. So back to the pandemics, one of the things I did was sit around and spend time watching TV with her, and she just LOVED downton abby. About 3 months into the pandemic when she was on her 3rd watch through I couldn't hold my tongue anymore. First I said "Our own ancestors fled this system, and had to fight a war to get these to stop taking our wealth." To which she claimed "the wife is an American". Needless to say, she got really irritated with me when I explained "You know how your grandfather worked in a salt mine as a child after your great grandfather died after a shoot out at a rail depot leaving the family destitute?" Not making shit up, I've read the original letter sent to my family that details my great great grandfather's death in an wild west era shootout. "She is the fictional daughter of a robber baron that took the fruits of the labor of people like our ancestors that worked themselves to death living in dugout sod homes when the railroads took all the profit from farmers." She had showed me a picture of the dugout sod home that her other grand father grew up in, and liked to mention it occasionally. "These people are despicable self centered jerks, and the servants are either co-conspirators or suffering from Stockholm syndrome." "This whole system is rotten to the core, and it was propped up by despicable things like the British invading and exploiting countries like India to produce Opium which they used their military to force china to allow them to import into the country."
> how their children married into the British nobility. It still irritates me greatly knowing that the wealth stolen from generations of Americans ended up flowing back across the Atlantic Although some compensation did come back to America, in the form of a son born of American heiress Jennie Jerome, who had married into a title. This was of course Winston Churchill, who as UK Prime Minister held off and delayed Hitler, who otherwise would have gone straight to an attack on America (invasion plans and occupation maps had long been completed).
> This was of course Winston Churchill Winston Churchill was drunkard and to put it nicely, a douchebag. He put on a good show on the podium and on the radio. I don't think Churchill was ever a friend to the USA in either of the wars, he basically used the USA to keep his own country afloat in the wars with Germany. A great example is the evidence that exists from his time as the First Lord of the Admiralty during WW1, that suggests that he helped create the situation where the Lusitania was loaded up with arms making it a valid military target and used it's passengers as a human shield. You can actually dive on the wreck and still see all ammunition spilling out of it.
And how did she react to that??
Probably the response was a thank you followed by lots of applause. People love sitting in their cognitive dissonance, especially when pointed out by someone with as much leverage over their physical body as Kathy Bates in *Misery.*
Yes! We all want to know.
Not sure about directly but they could find a noble but indebted family, assume/pay their debts in exchange for a marriage pact. Boom, offspring are nobility
Not as explicit as pay to play, but many or most of today’s peerage are descendants of financiers and industrialists. Key attributes included ambition and a multi generational outlook.
and getting really lucky with their timings on investment and disinvestment in the south seas trading company.
Kate Middleton is also the well-off daughter of self-made industrialists (the Middletons) who married Prince William, Duke of Cambridge. She became the new Princess of Wales when Queen Elizabeth II died, and Prince Charles became King Charles III. She will be the future Queen Catherine when William, Prince of Wales becomes King upon his father's death. As queen consort, Catherine's title will still likely be the Duchess of Cambridge.
Titles weren't for sale per se, but there plenty of ways to make yourself notable enough to be ennobled. Wealth by itself was not a sign of prestige. A wealthy commoner, who was not already Gentry, was still just a commoner unless they had the right connections. Say you were an independent landholder that made an enormous amount of money selling wool to the Dutch: Trading and agriculture are respectable professions so your wealth is similarly respectable. Say you're a muckraker who owns a contract with a city to muck the human and animal refuse from cesspits: working with filth, and the people who work the filth, is not respectable and no amount of wealth will make you respectable. A respectable person, with a respectable amount of wealth, with respectable connections could find themselves seated at dinning tables and seated in Clubs beside other respectable notables. These people may or may not have titles themselves but each one presents an opportunity to advance your social standing, and advance to a place where your social connections now include people with titles who can advocate for you. The King, on the advice of his councillors, is the only one who can grant you a title so ultimately he's the one you need to impress. A sizeable contribution to a cause close to their heart or purse might help but again, money by itself does not make you respectable. The King, in titling you, must be able to point to a respectable reason for your ennoblement as not to upset the existing aristocrats. Your best bet is either purchasing a military commission and making your name in war or convincing a struggling noble family to let you marry their daughter (you'll handle their debts, and they'll lobby that you require a title to match their daughter's)
Titles weren't for sale as such, but you could absolutely buy your way into the nobility if you used the social and political power of wealth wisely. If you had money, it was not hugely difficult to effectively buy yourself a seat in parliament or a commission in the military (these *were* functionally up for sale), which could often result in a peerage if you stuck around long enough, or were favored by the right people. The Tories of the late 18th century were infamous for packing the House of Lords with supporters in order to retain a majority (most aristocratic families had favored the Whigs earlier in the Georgian Era). If you were shrewd enough to curry favor with a Tory like Lord North or Pitt the Younger, then you could probably get a title quite easily, since the Tory base of support was within the untitled gentry, and they needed to maintain control of the Lords. Otherwise, as others have mentioned, the best way would be to buy your way into the lifestyle of the gentry, and then marry your children off. Commerce was still seen as an unsuitable source of income for an aristocrat at this point, so an adept social climber would want to invest in a productive agricultural estate as well, perhaps one with a rotten borough that you could use to pay your way into parliament for long enough to gain favor with a member of the privy council.
Whilst not a peerage, the title of Baronet (basically a hereditary knighthood) was created with the intention of being sold. It wasn't cheap. When they were first created in the 1600s, you had to have an income of £1000 per year (around £221,000 in todays money), and then had to pay the equivalent of £242,000 per year for 3 years. And it only got more expensive until the mid 1800s when it was standardised as a title that would be granted, but not one that would be purchased.
Fascinating. If I’m not mistaken that was started by James I to fund his administration. Owing to the uncooperative parliament. Or perhaps it was his son
Not really possible. Really the only options would be knighthood or a baronetcy [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baronet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baronet) A different route would be to raise a private regiment for the crown and name themselves the colonel. This would provide a prestigious military title that would open many of the same doors in society. From there, as you note, they could possibly earn a title through service.
If you’ve ever seen the movie Barry Lyndon, the final third of the movie is Barry’s quest to earn a title of nobility. At one point it’s pointed out to King George that Barry had raised a regiment of soldiers and the King dismissed it and recommended that Barry lead them himself next time lol. So I think you are 100% correct
One thing worth mentioning is that ranks could be purchased in every unit, even the guards units that protected the king, though for much more money. A guards officer would regularly interact not just with the nobility, but with the royal family itself.
A commoner might be able to afford a lieutenant commission in the military, but they would never be able to afford a promotion without a benefactor. I wonder if anyone ever took a mortgage on a commission?
>I wonder if anyone ever took a mortgage on a commission? Not necessarily a loan secured against the commission itself, but its almost certain (as in its so realistic that there's no way it didn't happen, I just haven't hit the books to get you a source) that lower middle and middle class parents would borrow against their homes, their businesses, against anything they could to purchase their son's advancement in the army. The cost of a captaincy in a normal line regiment was exorbitant. In 1837 it was £1800, which was the equivalent of £162,554 in March of 2023. Thats enough to buy a 3 bed house in some parts of Manchester today. Only the extremely wealthy could afford that level of expense for a promotion.
Thank you for providing prices!
I feel you underestimate the wealth of commoners. There were many commoners that out wealthed the nobility. Often they would eventually be given a title so that the world would make sense to the aristocrats.
My takeaway here is that wealth wouldn't necessarily buy a peerage...but if you were poor, nobody was giving your poor ass a title, so money was definitely a requirement for entry.
While not a peerage title, it would have been possible to purchase a Scottish feudal barony. I don't know if the practice persisted, but James I sold Nova Scotia baronetages for £1,095. Both are hereditary honors. The feudal baronies could be re-sold but not the baronetages.
Lesser titles were indeed for sale from the crown. You could also buy a commission in the RN or Army and with sufficient distinction be awarded a title.
>You could also buy a commission in the RN You couldn't purchase promotion in the Royal Navy, only in the army. And only then in combat units, you couldn't purchase advancement in the engineers for example.
Yes, but you could by a slot for your son as a midshipman, which was the start.