Listen to this article

Hereditary peer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

The hereditary peers form part of the peerage in the United Kingdom. As of 2019 there are 814 hereditary peers: 31 dukes (including 7 royal dukes), 34 marquesses, 193 earls, 112 viscounts, and 444 barons (disregarding subsidiary titles).

Not all hereditary titles are titles of the peerage. For instance, baronets and baronetesses may pass on their titles, but they are not peers. Conversely, the holder of a non-hereditary title may belong to the peerage, as with life peers. Peerages may be created by means of letters patent, but the granting of new hereditary peerages has largely dwindled; only seven hereditary peers have been created after 1965, four of them members of the British royal family.

From 1963 to 1999, all (non-Irish) peers were entitled to sit in the House of Lords, but since the House of Lords Act 1999 was passed, only 92 are permitted to do so, unless they are also life peers.[1] Peers are called to the House of Lords with a writ of summons.






Under Henry VI of England, in the 15th century, just before the Wars of the Roses, attendance at Parliament became more valuable. The first claim of hereditary right to a writ comes from this reign; so does the first patent, or charter declaring a man to be a baron. The five orders began to be called peers. Holders of older peerages also began to receive greater honour than peers of the same rank just created.

If a man held a peerage, his son would succeed to it; if he had no children, his brother would succeed. If he had a single daughter, his son-in-law would inherit the family lands, and usually the same peerage; more complex cases were decided depending on circumstances. Customs changed with time; earldoms were the first to be hereditary, and three different rules can be traced for the case of an Earl who left no sons and several married daughters. In the 13th century, the husband of the eldest daughter inherited the earldom automatically; in the 15th century, the earldom reverted to the Crown, who might re-grant it (often to the eldest son-in-law); in the 17th century, it would not be inherited by anybody unless all but one of the daughters died and left no descendants, in which case the remaining daughter (or her heir) would inherit.

After Henry II became the Lord of Ireland, he and his successors began to imitate the English system as it was in their time. Irish earls were first created in the 13th century, and Irish parliaments began later in the same century; until Henry VIII declared himself King of Ireland, these parliaments were small bodies, representing only the Irish Pale. A writ does not create a peerage in Ireland; all Irish peerages are by patent or charter, although some early patents have been lost. After James II left England, he was King of Ireland alone for a time; three creations he ordered then are in the Irish Patent Roll, although the patents were never issued; but these are treated as valid.

The Irish peers were in a peculiar political position: because they were subjects of the King of England, but peers in a different kingdom, they could sit in the English House of Commons, and many did. In the 18th century, Irish peerages became rewards for English politicians, limited only by the concern that they might go to Dublin and interfere with the Irish Government.



  1. ^ Counting those listed in the article Peerage of Ireland.

Modern laws[edit]


Women are ineligible to succeed to the majority of hereditary peerages, and only inherit in the absence of a male heir in the other peerages.[2]

Ranks and titles[edit]

The House of Lords (old chamber, burned down in 1834) as drawn by Augustus Pugin and Thomas Rowlandson for Ackermann's Microcosm of London (1808–1811).

The ranks of the Peerage in most of the United Kingdom are, in descending order of rank, duke, marquess, earl, viscount and baron;[3] the female equivalents are duchess, marchioness, countess, viscountess and baroness respectively. Women typically do not hold hereditary titles in their own right, one significant change to this however was in 1532 when Henry VIII created the Marquess of Pembroke title for his soon to be wife, Anne Boleyn. Anne held this title in her own right and was therefore ennobled with the same rank as a male Viscount.[further explanation needed][clarification needed]

In the Scottish peerage, the lowest rank is lordship of Parliament, the male holder thereof being known as a lord of Parliament.[4] A Scottish barony is a feudal rank, and not of the Peerage. The barony by tenure or feudal barony in England and Wales was similar to a Scottish feudal barony, in being hereditary, but is long obsolete, the last full summons of the English feudal barons to military service having occurred in 1327.[5] The Tenures Abolition Act 1660 finally quashed any remaining doubt as to their continued status.



Inheritance of titles[edit]






Nothing prevents a British peerage from being held by a foreign citizen (although such peers cannot sit in the House of Lords, while the term foreign does not include Irish or Commonwealth citizens). Several descendants of George III were British peers and German subjects; the Lords Fairfax of Cameron were American citizens for several generations.


Merging in the Crown[edit]




Writs of summons[edit]









It is established precedent that the sovereign may not deny writs of summons to qualified peers. In 1626, King Charles I ordered that the writ of summons of John Digby, 1st Earl of Bristol not be issued. Lord Bristol had been charged with treason but was never tried. He complained to the House of Lords, which resolved that the denial of a writ to an eligible peer was without precedent and that the sovereign should immediately issue a writ of summons, which did occur.

Baronies by writ[edit]

By modern English law, if a writ of summons was issued to a person who was not a peer, that person took his seat in Parliament, and the parliament was a parliament in the modern sense (including representatives of the Commons), that single writ created a barony, a perpetual peerage inheritable by male-preference primogeniture. This was not medieval practice, and it is doubtful whether any writ was ever issued with the intent of creating such a peerage. The last instance of a man being summoned by writ without already holding a peerage was under the early Tudors; the first clear decision that a single writ (as opposed to a long succession of writs) created a peerage was in Lord Abergavenny's case of 1610. The House of Lords Act 1999 also renders it doubtful that such a writ would now create a peer if one were now issued; however, this doctrine is applied retrospectively: if it can be shown that a writ was issued, that the recipient sat and that the council in question was a parliament, the Committee of Privileges of the House of Lords determines who is now entitled to the peerage as though modern law had always applied. Several such long-lost baronies were claimed in the 19th and 20th centuries, though the committee was not consistent on what constituted proof of a writ, what constituted proof of sitting, and which 13th-century assemblages were actually parliaments.[7] Even a writ issued in error is held to create a peerage unless the writ was cancelled before the recipient took his seat; the cancellation would have been performed by the now obsolete writ of supersedeas.




Letters patent[edit]

More often, letters patent are used to create peerages. Letters patent must explicitly name the recipient of the title and specify the course of descent; the exact meaning of the term is determined by common law. For remainders in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, the most common wording is "to have and to hold unto him and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten and to be begotten". Where the letters patent specifies the peer's heirs male of the body as successors, the rules of agnatic succession apply, meaning that succession is through the male line only. Some very old titles, like the Earldom of Arlington, may pass to heirs of the body (not just heirs-male), these follow the same rules of descent as do baronies by writ and seem able to fall into abeyance as well. Many Scottish titles allow for passage to heirs general of the body, in which case the rules of male primogeniture apply; they do not fall into abeyance, as under Scots law, sisters are not treated as equal co-heirs. English and British letters patent that do not specify a course of descent are invalid, though the same is not true for the letters patent creating peers in the Peerage of Scotland. The House of Lords has ruled in certain cases that when the course of descent is not specified, or when the letters patent are lost, the title descends to heirs-male.

Limitation to heirs of the body[edit]


Special remainder[edit]


Amendment of letters patent[edit]



Number of hereditary peers[edit]


Creation of English peerage dignities by Stuart monarchs
Sovereign Reign Peers
James I 1603–1625 62
Charles I 1625–1649 59
Charles II 1660–1685 64
James II 1685–1689 8
William III & Mary II 1689–1702 30
Anne 1702–1714 30
Total 1603–1714 253

The number of peers then grew under the Stuarts and all later monarchs. By the time of Queen Anne's death in 1714, there were 168 peers. In 1712, Queen Anne was called upon to create 12 peers in one day in order to pass a government measure,[8][9] more than Queen Elizabeth I had created during a 45-year reign.

Several peers were alarmed at the rapid increase in the size of the Peerage, fearing that their individual importance and power would decrease as the number of peers increased. Therefore, in 1719, a bill was introduced in the House of Lords to place a limitation on the Crown's power. It sought to permit no more than six new creations, and thereafter one new creation for each other title that became extinct. But it did allow the Crown to bestow titles on members of the Royal Family without any such limitation. The Bill was rejected in its final stage in the Lords, but it was passed in the Lords when it was reintroduced in the next year. Nonetheless, the House of Commons rejected the bill by 269 to 177.




Current status[edit]


Since the start of the Labour government of Harold Wilson in 1964, the practice of granting hereditary peerages has largely ceased (except for members of the royal family). Only seven hereditary peers have been created since 1965: four in the Royal Family (the Duke of York, the Earl of Wessex, the Duke of Cambridge, and the Duke of Sussex) and three additional creations under Margaret Thatcher's government (the Viscount Whitelaw, the Viscount Tonypandy and the Earl of Stockton). The two Viscounts died without male heirs, extinguishing their titles. Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton received the Earldom often awarded to former Prime Ministers after they retired from the House of Commons.

There is no statute that prevents the creation of new hereditary peerages; they may technically be created at any time, and the government continues to maintain pro forma letters patent for their creation. The most recent policies outlining the creation of new peerages, the Royal Warrant of 2004, explicitly apply to both hereditary and life peers.[10] However, successive governments have largely disowned the practice, and the Royal Household website currently describes the Queen as the fount of honour for "life peerages, knighthoods and gallantry awards", with no mention of hereditary titles.[11]


Until the coming into force of the Peerage Act 1963, peers could not disclaim their peerage in order to sit in the House of Commons, and thus a peerage was sometimes seen as an impediment to a future political career. The law changed due to an agreement that the Labour MP Tony Benn having been deprived of his seat due to an inadvertent inheritance was undemocratic; and the desire of the Conservatives to put their choice of Prime Minister (ultimately Alec Douglas-Home) into the House of Commons, which by that time was deemed politically necessary.

In 1999, the House of Lords Act abolished the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords. Out of about 750 hereditary peers, only 92 may sit in the House of Lords. The Act provides that 90 of those 92 seats are to be elected by other members of the House: 15 by vote of the whole house (including life peers), 42 by the Conservative hereditary peers, two by the Labour hereditary peers, three by the Liberal Democrat hereditary peers, and 28 by the crossbench hereditary peers. Elections were held in October and November 1999 to choose those initial 90 peers, with all hereditary peers eligible to vote. Hereditary peers elected hold their seats until their death, resignation or exclusion for non-attendance (the latter two means introduced by the House of Lords Reform Act 2014), at which point by-elections are held to maintain the number at 92.

The remaining two hold their seats by right of the hereditary offices of Earl Marshal and Lord Great Chamberlain. These offices are hereditary in themselves, and in recent times have been held by the Dukes of Norfolk and the Marquesses of Cholmondeley respectively. These are the only two hereditary peers whose right to sit is automatic.

The Government reserves a number of political and ceremonial positions for hereditary peers. To encourage hereditary peers in the House of Lords to follow the party line, a number of Lords-in-Waiting (government whips) are usually hereditary peers. This practice was not adhered to by the Labour government of 1997–2010 due to the small number of Labour hereditary peers in the House of Lords.

Modern composition of the hereditary peerage[edit]

Many hereditary peers are associated with famous estates such as Hatfield House; many notable estates are open to the public.

The peerage has traditionally been associated with high gentry, the British nobility, and in recent times, the Conservative Party. Only a tiny proportion of wealthy people are peers, but the peerage includes a few of the very wealthiest, such as Hugh Grosvenor (the Duke of Westminster) and Lord Salisbury of Hatfield House. Most of the largest stately homes belong to the National Trust due to forms of estate tax. A few peers own one or more of England's largest estates passed down through inheritance, particularly those with medieval roots: until the late 19th century the dominant English and Scottish land division on death was primogeniture.

However, the proliferation of peerage creations in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century resulted in even minor political figures entering the ranks of the peerage; these included newspaper owners (e.g. Alfred Harmsworth) and trade union leaders (e.g. Walter Citrine). As a result, there are many hereditary peers who have taken up careers which do not fit traditional conceptions of aristocracy. For example, Arup Kumar Sinha, 6th Baron Sinha is a middle-class computer technician working for a travel agency; Matt Ridley, 5th Viscount Ridley, is a popular science writer; Timothy Bentinck, 12th Earl of Portland is an actor and plays David Archer in the BBC’s long-running radio soap opera, The Archers; and Peter St Clair-Erskine, 7th Earl of Rosslyn is a former Metropolitan Police Service Commander. The Earl of Longford was a socialist and prison reformer, while Tony Benn, who renounced his peerage as Viscount Stansgate (only for his son to reclaim the family title after his death) was a senior government minister (later a writer and orator) with solidly left-wing policies.

Gender distribution[edit]

As the vast majority of hereditary peerages can only be inherited by men, the number of peeresses is very small; only 18 out of 758 hereditary peers by succession, or 2.2%, were female, as of 1992.[12] From 1963 (when female hereditary peers were allowed to enter the House of Lords) to 1999, there has been a total of 25 female hereditary peers.[13]

Of those 92 currently sitting in the House of Lords, only one – Margaret of Mar, 31st Countess of Mar – is female. Originally there were five female peers elected under the House of Lords Act 1999 (all of them Crossbenchers), but four of these have since died or resigned,[14] and no female has won a by-election to a vacant Lords seat since 1999.[15]

See also[edit]


  1. ^ "Members of the House of Lords". UK Parliament. 2012. Archived from the original on 2013-01-03.
  3. ^ "Ranks of the Peerage". Debrett's. Retrieved 11 November 2006.[dead link]
  4. ^ "Forms of Address for use orally and in correspondence". Ministry of Justice (information formerly managed by the Department for Constitutional Affairs). The Crown Office. June 2003. Archived from the original on March 6, 2007. Retrieved 11 November 2006.
  5. ^ Sanders, I.J. English Baronies, Oxford, 1960, preface, vii
  7. ^ Complete Peerage, Vol IX, Appendix B; the date of the last writ issued to an uncertain since the records of the House of Lords for most of the reign of Henry VIII are lost. There is a solitary fifteenth-century writ summoning a man and his heirs male; this would now be a patent.
  10. ^ Article 9, Royal Warrant 2004
  11. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on January 16, 2013. Retrieved November 29, 2012.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  12. ^ Adonis, Andrew (1993). Parliament Today (2nd ed.). p. 194.
  13. ^
  14. ^ Myrtle Robertson, 11th Baroness Wharton, Cherry Drummond, 16th Baroness Strange, Davina Ingrams, 18th Baroness Darcy de Knayth and Flora Fraser, 21st Lady Saltoun
  15. ^


UK Legislation[edit]