Pat here, still under the editing gun. Revisions due on book #4 (untitled) of the Gravesyde Village Mysteries, proof edit due on book #3, The Tart’s Final Noel, coming out in October,( Scoundrels, Book #2, out yesterday!). And I’m just now putzing around with the beginning of book #5 and so far, the only relevant research I’ve done is on gravel. What would you like to know about gravel? McAdam said to use sharp-edged and not round river rock. Whoopee!
So, I’m bringing you an oldie but goodie from 2016 (after all, history does not change!) that is far more entertaining than rocks—the insanity of noble titles as brought to you by the lowest rung—the baronet—so low they are not considered nobles at all.
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You might say I’m a pantser—someone who writes by the seat of her pants. I like to be as surprised as the reader when I reach the end. I know, stupid, but boy has that taught me how to edit!
The point is—I had a brilliant brainstorm that would cap off my next Unexpected Magic book so very nicely, except it involved all sorts of research. All writing came to a 
screeching halt as I dug into the origins of a baronetcy, who inherits, how, can a king just hand out the title to anyone he feels like, what are the requirements, can land be attached… Argh!
So now, you are the beneficiaries of my research, because I don’t have any time left to come up with another blog, and I will even graciously spare you the really nitty gritty details.
First off, baronets are not peers, not considered noble, and can’t vote in the Lords, although they can be considered aristocrats. Their rank is higher than knight but beneath barons. Unlike a knight, the title is hereditary. A baronet is addressed as Sir and his wife as Lady, although she is not considered a baronetess (probably because no one could pronounce it, although maybe because in Scotland, women could sometimes be a baronetess in her own right).
My real concern was in the land, because baronets are created with territorial designations. So if my guy doesn’t own land, can he still be made a baronet? How can he be made Sir Whatever of Howsomever-on-the-Rye unless he owns land there? So far, I’ve not found a real answer to this except in the history of the baronetcy itself, which 
falls laughably close to my character’s opinion on politics—everything can be bought. (Times don’t change much, do they?)
The first baronets were created in the 1300s to help Edward III pay for his army—fork over enough cash, provide a league of soldiers, and you, too, can be called Sir. Those original titles eventually died out—I’m guessing a title without land attached isn’t something the family fights over.
Jolly good King James I had a similar problem, too many battles to fight—those belligerent Irish simply wouldn’t stay in their place—so he decided to bring baronetcies back. In this case, he offered titles to 200 gentlemen of good birth with an income of at least £1,000 a year. (Maybe our government should pay off their debt this way—although the price would have to be higher, a billion per title, perhaps?) These fine aristocrats were required to pay for thirty soldiers for three years in exchange for adding Sir to their names—or maybe it was their wives who wished to be Ladies. No mention is made of needing land to earn the title, although a thousand pounds a year was a 
princely sum in those times, and land would have been the main means of earning that kind of income. But if land wasn’t actually required… my guy might have an opportunity.
There were a lot of unclaimed baronetcies in the 1800s that could be tossed around. Over the years, the keepers of the registry had a hard time keeping up with all those minor titles, and they kind of lost track of what belongs to whom. So my guess is that the title does not pass down with a particular piece of land, because it’s pretty easy to track land, whereas people tend to propagate or die off with regularity. And even though I’ve still not found it stated anywhere, I’m concluding the reason baronets are not considered peers who can vote in the House of Lords is because that right is reserved for landowners.
So, yay me! My guy may win his own title, if I can beat this plot into line. When I first started writing Regencies, I thought my head would spin off my shoulders trying to figure out how titles worked. When you read about our romantic aristocrats, do you pay attention if we get the details right? Or do you just shrug and figure it doesn’t matter as long as the heroine gets her duke?
And really, shouldn’t we pay off the government debt by handing out titles like in the good old days? And send the recipients off to war!
Fun post, Pat, and an interesting question about the connection between the title and the land. Certainly in the (still) finely-graded social ranks of British society a baronet is considered an aristocrat (which a knight is not) but he is well below a peer.
My bugbear is those writers (and you see it in modern journalism as much as in novels) who think that Sir Whatever of Howsomever-on-the-Rye has a wife called Lady Sibella of Howsomever-on-the-Rye when in fact she is not Lady Sibella but Lady Howsomever. Unless she is the daughter of a Viscount or higher rank… Or a baronetess in her own right. So complicated!
Itdoesn’t help that in Pride & Prejudice, Lady Catherine’s late husband is Sir Lewis de Bourgh, but she’s Lady Catherine because of her birth (father = Earl) not her marriage. This probably confuses people.
it totally confused me when I was a young whipper snapper! But once one looks up the proper references, it gets even messier. 😉 Readers unfamiliar with the complications really should not complain about titles unless they’ve looked up the title and know the character’s genealogy! (although one sees how easy it would be for an author to say “it’s fiction…”)
ok, and now I know where the giant emoji comes from. I shall refrain from ever using a keyboard shortcut again, sorry!
Yes, I can see that would be confusing. I’d totally forgotten that Mr Darcy was the grandson of an Earl until I read something about it recently.
Pat, I suspect that the excruciatingly complex title system is a way for the well bred to identify people who are Not Our Kind!
Very true, Mary Jo. If you need to ask, you are not a part of the system!
or to keep DeBrett’s in business, since even the nobility had to consult it to drill down to the bottom layer!
Great post; thanks for sharing. I’m on Team Accurate. I personally lost a lot of respect for Julia Quin due to her inaccuracies with chocolate in the Regency, and her use of afternoon tea, which apparently didn’t become a thing until much later. Fun books, but not Accurate, so not up to Georgette Heyer standard. Yeah, l’m tough 😁
LOL, you get the giant emoji head too! Thank you for respecting accuracy! Most of us work hard to maintain it, although none of us are perfect. Refraining from emoji signal… ooo, what happens if I use …
snort, apparently my not html signal does not show up at all
That was an entertaining and informative post, Pat, so thank you for your past research… and best wishes with your editing. I’ll try to give you a gold star 🌟 and will look with interest at the outcome.
LOL! how did you do that? nice and splashy!
I copied it from another site, Pat. Here’s a snazzy heart (hopefully) for you ~ 💖
thank you! I think we can all agree that wordpress has not yet learned proper emojis or images, but they’re trying!
That is one seriously large star!
I am with Deb and “Team Accurate”. If one os going to write a novel set in the past, one should make an effort to get as much right as possible (and certain,y today there is no excuse considering how easy it is to do research) I find it difficult to read any novel if i see something that doesn,t fit or may be anachronistic(unless it is a fantasy or alternate world story). If a writer csn’t make the effort to do the research, why should i make the effort to read the book? If one doesn,t know or isn’t sure than look it up!
Ooooo, what we had to do before Google! Search library, search bibliography, interlibrary loan—or simply visit the area in question and hit the bookshops! OK, Google isn’t as much fun as a bookshop!
But please, allow us an occasional error or two. Sometimes, we don’t realize we’ve hit upon an anachronism, and our baby editors certainly won’t notice. I try to make excuses for errors–up to a point.
Of course some errors are made! I wasn’t talking about that. No one js perfect and you guys do your best! I am talking about the lazy bones who can’t be bothered to get even the easiest things correct or want to write a contemporary romance set in the past and their readers wouldn’t even notice. Using a revolver before it was invented anyone? 🙄
sigh, one of the first things I learned to research was guns and horses… Yeah, I’ve picked up some books like that. If they want to write contemporary, then they ought to write contemporaries.