Nobiliary Entitlements (was Spanish/Mexican Law)

 
snelson
 
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snelson
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04 October 2015 12:38
 

Quote:

My impression from reading von Volborth (same book) was that the older nobility (the uradel) reverted to older, simpler versions of their arms to set themselves apart from the newer nobles who reveled in their newly granted quarterings, inescutcheons, helmets of rank and other nobiliary additaments. In effect the increase in the newer nobility cheapened, in the uradel mindset, the trappings of nobility. (My words, but hopefully a reasonable reading of vV.)

I think you are correct.  It would be interesting to know when this custom began.  Did it begin before or after the fall of the German monarchies at the end of the First World War?  If after, did any sense of republican values play into the equation at all?  If before, then presumably republican values had no bearing.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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04 October 2015 13:57
 

I believe it took place during the 19th century, coincident with the Gothic revival period in art and architecture.

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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Michael F. McCartney
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04 October 2015 18:38
 

My guess is that a desire of the uradel to distinguish themselves from the newly minted nobles found a useful and attractive tool in the revival of the older art forms.

 
JJB1
 
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JJB1
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05 October 2015 11:09
 

This subject makes me think of the displaced Russian princes and nobles who came to Hollywood and became silent film actors after the Bolshevik Revolution.

 
David Pope
 
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David Pope
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05 October 2015 16:11
 

I guess I’m still hung up on the fact that a person either is, or is not, a peer, chief of a clan, etc.  I have no problem with their arms reflecting that reality, whether that person is resident in /a citizen of the United States or not.

Perhaps I’m just out of step with the rest of the group.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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05 October 2015 18:18
 

David Pope;104809 wrote:

I guess I’m still hung up on the fact that a person either is, or is not, a peer, chief of a clan, etc.


But this isn’t the case.  A person holding a non-British title of nobility takes British citizenship, he or she will not be recognized as such in the UK.  British subjects cannot use foreign titles without the consent of the monarch, and since the reign of George VI this permission is no longer granted.

 

Other countries have their own procedures (e.g., admission to the Riddarhuset in Sweden) for recognizing or not recognizing foreign titles.  A British baron is not a baron in Sweden unless the Riddarhuset recognizes him as such.

 
JJB1
 
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05 October 2015 19:18
 

David,

No, I’ll support you on that and I think everybody’s saying the same thing in different ways. The Guidelines leave enough room to allow for it without overstating the point.

 

To me, someone being a US Citizen and having an inherited foreign title is really just a balancing act of good taste. No one wants to be perceived as ridiculous. I think under certain circumstances there is an appropriate way to do anything. One goal for the foreman would be to not find himself in a position where the project manager calls him and says, "Hey, Lord Wharncliffe, why didn’t your crew all have their permits on them?" I think the Napoleonic heir of the titular French Emperor worked as a stock broker on Wall Street at one time. In 1953, one of His Majesty’s Knights Grand Cross of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath became President of the United States. And President Eisenhower of course downplayed that into oblivion. One story I like is the chief warrant officer who was made a sheik in Iraq in 2004.

 

I don’t accept any notion of "American Values" as being anything other than life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. I also don’t accept that ours is a Jacobin society. People here love titles.

 
Michael F. McCartney
 
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05 October 2015 22:46
 

Not Jacobin, but certainly (small-r) republican.

From the earliest days of the Republic, an immigrant holding a foreign title of nobility has been - and AFAIK still is - required to renounce that title as part of his naturalization oath.  For that new citizen to then continue to use his foreign title in effect violates that oath and IMO condemns his oath as a fraud; and for his heirs to do so breaks faith both with their ancestor and with the republican values which that oath reflects.

 

Note that it is also a false claim, at least here, since the title was renounced.  And to continue or resume display of the heraldic trappings of that title here, while not a legal violation (since our laws don’t address personal arms) is inappropriate ,- and certainly not "best practice" - for the same reasons.

 

It is true that there is no legal requirement for someone who is already a citizen, who then is granted or inherits a title under foreign law, to renounce that title.  But to then use that title here, and/or to add the foreign nobiliary additaments to his arms for display here, in effect says that he is of higher status than his fellow citizens, including those who have faithfully complied with their (or their ancestor’s) naturalization oath renouncing a foreign title.  Certainly not "best practice" which is the nicest thing I can say about it.

 

All this is addressed, in "kinder, gentler" language, in Section 5 and elsewhere of our AHS Guidelines.  These Guidelines are of course not compulsory in any legal sense, but they do reflect the considered consensus of the members and officers of the AHS as of 2007, after often lengthy online discussion and debate, section by section and in some cases nearly word by word wink. Well, sometimes, but not usually… honest ...

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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06 October 2015 08:20
 

It is in the nature of British peerages that an American citizen only very remotely related to the present holder of the title may wake up one day to find himself the Earl of Grantham—he may be the heir male of the tenth son of the first earl, all the more senior lines having become extinct.  The new duke’s immigrant ancestor would never have been required to renounce anything.  If he came in the colonial period, renunciation wouldn’t have been required in any case; if he came after the passage of the first immigration act post-independence, the immigrant would have had neither a title nor membership in an "order of nobility" to renounce.

The question is, what does he do having woken up an earl?  Does he catch the next plane to London to petition the committee on privileges of the House of Lords (or whoever now officially recognizes claims to peerages) for confirmation?  If so, then by all means have new cards engraved, place an early order at Ede & Ravenscroft for the coronation robe, and tell your subordinates at work to address you as "my lord."  And use the supporters and coronet with your arms.

 

Alternatively:  well this is a nice surprise, but you’re still the person you were before and, since there’s no land or money to go with the title (unfortunately your 10th cousin twice removed, the 8th earl, sold off the family estates to pay death taxes and gambling debts), and hereditary peers no longer get to sit in the House of Lords, you just keep living life as you did before.  In this case, using supporters and coronet with your coat of arms is somewhat incongruous.

 
David Pope
 
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06 October 2015 09:06
 

Michael,

Thanks for your reply.

 

I guess I make a distinction between being a small-r republican and being a leveler.

 

I don’t think that the United States or individual states should create/bestow any titles of nobility.  I don’t think it appropriate that any current United States official receive a title from a foreign power.  I’m glad the Constitution prohibits such things.

 

I wouldn’t, though, require a naturalized citizen to renounce any hereditary titles.  On this the law and I disagree.  That notwithstanding, we are in agreement that if a titled person renounces their title it would be wrong for that same person to continue to display arms which indicate that previous rank by way of supporters, coronets, barred helms, etc.  In that case the individual is no longer titled (they renounced their hereditary birthright), and bearing such indicators in displays of their arms is false.

 

In the case of an American citizen who inherits a foreign title, the law seems equally clear:  there is no bar to it.  In fact, had the states desired to require such a thing, the proposed amendment on this subject would have ratified by the required number of states in 1812 or 1816.

 

This is where I find myself out of step with the AHS guidelines.  If circumstances are such that James Dunbar, US citizen, becomes through accident of birth, the 14th Bt and Chief of Clan Dunbar, his arms should reflect that.  If Richard Alan Montagu Stuart Wortley, US citizen, becomes through accident of birth the Earl of Wharcliffe, his arms should reflect that.  Joe’s reference to the Lords Fairfax of Cameron is another example.  Such circumstances are rare, so I see no practical reason to deny these few individuals their historic arms.  Note well that I am not referring to situations like that of David Howe who claims to be the King of Man.  I’m only referring to cases where a sovereign foreign nation has validated such a claim.

 

If one’s opposition to this suggestion is one of preventing divided loyalties, I think it odd that the United States would allow Alan Cumming (as one example) to take an oath that states:

 

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen…"

 

while allowing citizen Alan Cumming to retain his British citizenship, and receive a personal honor from his Sovereign.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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06 October 2015 09:35
 

JJB;104812 wrote:

David,

I think the Napoleonic heir of the titular French Emperor worked as a stock broker on Wall Street at one time.


If you’re referring to the descendants of Jerome Bonaparte (Napoleon I’s brother, King of Westphalia) and his wife Elizabeth Patterson, it’s not clear to me that they would have inherited any imperial titles whether they were Americans or not.  Big brother had the marriage annulled before the birth of their son, Jerome Napoleon, which under French law even had the effect of denying them the use of the name Bonaparte.

 

(This, by the way, gets to the diversity of jurisdiction issue I mentioned in a previous post.  Under U.S. law, where the marriage took place, and British law, where Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte was born, the French annulment had no effect whatever.  In the eyes of the State of Maryland, Elizabeth remained married to Jerome until the General Assembly passed a divorce bill 10 years later, and Jerome Napoleon’s legal name was and remained Bonaparte.  Under American law, therefore, the later decree of Napoleon III restoring Jerome Napoleon’s right to the family name was without any effect.)

 

In any case, the elder Jerome’s titles as King of Westphalia and Prince of Montfort postdated the annulment, the latter having been granted by the father of Jerome’s second wife, and so wouldn’t have passed to the son by his first marriage anyway.


Quote:

In 1953, one of His Majesty’s Knights Grand Cross of the Most Honorable Order of the Bath became President of the United States.


Yes, but.  As noted above, a knighthood does not confer nobility, even under British law, and is not the kind of hereditary status that the founders were concerned about.  Even had an honorary knighthood conferred the style of "sir" (which it doesn’t), Eisenhower’s British and other knighthoods were accepted with scrupulous adherence to the Constitutional and legal provisions governing such matters.  And even the emblazonment of Eisenhower’s arms as a knight of Denmark’s Order of the Elephant has no nobiliary accessories other than the collar and ribbon of the order surrounding the achievement—not even the barred helmet to which a Danish knight would have been entitled.


Quote:

One story I like is the chief warrant officer who was made a sheik in Iraq in 2004.


I know a fair amount about Arab culture and politics.  "Sheikh" can mean lots of things, but it’s not a title granted by the Iraqi government, and if used by members of a tribe in referring to a foreigner is almost certainly an informal respectful style of address, not a substantive honor.  I’ve been called "McMillan sahib" by Pakistani desk clerks and bellboys, but their doing so didn’t make me a "lord."


Quote:

I don’t accept any notion of "American Values" as being anything other than life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.


I think you’ll find the word "equal" in the same document—even the same sentence—as "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and the debates of the Constitutional Convention contain several discussions of what "equality" meant in the American context.


Quote:

People here love titles.


Perhaps, but except for snobs, not hereditary titles.

 
David Pope
 
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06 October 2015 10:34
 

Joe,

Thanks for your response.  I missed your post while composing my previous.  It’s discussions like this that make me wish we were all sitting around enjoying a cup of coffee or a pint of beer in nice comfy chairs, debating minute points of an esoteric subject.

 

I think your analysis of "what happens next" is helpful.  Although the specific circumstance of waking up to find oneself an earl is uncommon, the general analysis is one that some of our members may encounter.

 

"What if" I discovered in my genealogical research that I descend in my direct male line from an ancestor who bore Scottish or English arms?  Would I go through the process to matriculate those arms with LL or the COA?  I think some of the same motivations that would lead one to pursue a foreign grant or matriculation would be at issue with an unexpected hereditary title.

 

At a lesser level, that same analysis is used when one discovers descent from a Civil War or Revolutionary soldier, or a Jamestown settler- "I can now apply for membership in a hereditary society.  Do I want to?"

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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06 October 2015 12:15
 

David Pope;104817 wrote:

Joe’s reference to the Lords Fairfax of Cameron is another example. Such circumstances are rare, so I see no practical reason to deny these few individuals their historic arms.


I don’t think anyone is denying them their historic arms, merely suggesting they ought to eschew the specifically nobiliary additaments.  The Fairfaxes would have still used their shield and crest, just not the supporters or the baron’s coronet.


Quote:

If one’s opposition to this suggestion is one of preventing divided loyalties, I think it odd that the United States would allow Alan Cumming ... to retain his British citizenship, and receive a personal honor from his Sovereign.


The US can do nothing to prevent the UK from continuing to treat Mr. Cumming as a British citizen, any more than being naturalized in the UK would automatically strip an American of his US citizenship.  (This is relevant for more important reasons than heraldry and honors, of course.  In the unlikely event that the US ever revived conscription, being naturalized in a foreign country without formally renouncing citizenship in accordance with US legal procedures wouldn’t prevent someone from being ordered to report for military duty—or from being arrested at customs & immigration if he tried to enter the country having failed to report.  Same, mutatis mutandis, for income taxes.)

 

Moreover, the titles of nobility amendment having failed ratification, the US has no power under our own constitution and laws to prevent any American citizen other than an employee or officer of the United States from accepting anything a foreign sovereign chooses to give him or her.  Whether the recipient is naturalized or not is legally neither here nor there, although if the honor then involved an oath of fealty to the conferring monarch there might be some interesting consequences for DHS and the local U.S. attorney to consider.

 
David Pope
 
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06 October 2015 13:44
 

Joseph McMillan;104822 wrote:

I don’t think anyone is denying them their historic arms, merely suggesting they ought to eschew the specifically nobiliary additaments.  The Fairfaxes would have still used their shield and crest, just not the supporters or the baron’s coronet.


So the actual Lord Fairfax would be encouraged to display only his shield and crest, while the county he might live in displays the entire achievement of his arms?

http://activerain.com/image_store/uploads/6/4/4/2/0/ar127782055602446.jpg

 

I can’t get my head around that, small-r or big-R…

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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06 October 2015 17:10
 

The county (which I do live in) is flatly wrong to display the arms on its seal, with or without the nobiliary elements.  But two wrongs wouldn’t make a right.