George Lucki;56134 wrote:
This one raises questions for me.
[snip]
He is also a Grand Cross of Justice of a Portuguese confraternity that awards (you guessed it) a Grand Cross.
Why be so coy, George? Let’s let everyone share the fun!
http://www.royalconfraternity.org/
The cognoscenti will recognize some of the names scattered throughout the website. Okabe-san’s barony undoubtedly issues from the same fons honorum as the various marquessates claimed by various officials of the confraternity on the USA page of the site.
Quote:
Oh yes, he’s also apparently a registered Ukrainian Cossack. There’s probably more.
No doubt!
You can register to become an Ukranian Cossack? Cool! I wanna be a cossack!
Joseph McMillan;56165 wrote:
Why be so coy, George? Let’s let everyone share the fun! http://www.royalconfraternity.org/ The cognoscenti will recognize some of the names scattered throughout the website. Okabe-san’s barony undoubtedly issues from the same fons honorum as the various marquessates claimed by various officials of the confraternity on the USA page of the site. No doubt!
Everytime this confraternity shows up in an Internet discussion, I feel so relieved to have had the sense to turn down an invitation to join when it was formed or possibly re-formed some six or so years ago! That is not to say that many of the membership are not real nobles and real royals but that some of the membership are FAKE nobles and FAKE royals.
Joseph McMillan;56165 wrote:
Why be so coy, George? Let’s let everyone share the fun!
http://www.royalconfraternity.org/
The cognoscenti will recognize some of the names scattered throughout the website. Okabe-san’s barony undoubtedly issues from the same fons honorum as the various marquessates claimed by various officials of the confraternity on the USA page of the site.
No doubt!
But Nenad’s page with arms of this bloke claims for the fellow not some Rwandan or Ethiopian barony but an Imperial Japanese title.
OK. Let others have some fun. If you Google the confraternity you will turn up numerous colourful people and a variety silly self-claimed titles ranging from Ethiopia to Poland. There is a smattering of real nobles in the group as well - what they’re doing there I don’t know.
There is also the New Zealander Couling whose arms blessed by an Australian Orthodox bishop provoked the discussion here about the New Zealand law of arms. And Wow! I guess the US contingent boasts more Marquesses than Ruritania itself!
Just for comparison excepting marquessates held by Royal Princes and Dukes as subsidiary titles there are:
1 Marquessate in the Peerage of England
4 in the Peerage of scotland
6 in the Peerage of Great Britain
9 in the Peerage of Ireland
and 15 in the Peerage of the UK.
These were created over a period of seven centuries.
In this one confraternity and just among their US State Delegates there are no less than 6 Marquesses (more than in the old Peerage of England and Scotland combined)! Who knew there was such a number of titled aristocrats in the US? 
There is a fringe of personal heraldry and its collection of fantasists that does the heritage of real heraldry and in the US the efforts of the AHS a real disservice.
George Lucki;56174 wrote:
There is a fringe of personal heraldry and its collection of fantasists that does the heritage of real heraldry and in the US the efforts of the AHS a real disservice.
Yes, but not just in the US. That’s the reason I posted the link—I think a lot of our members haven’t encountered this heraldic demimonde before, and it’s important that they know it’s out there. Remember: some of these folks have made a habit of infiltrating other heraldic organizations and trying to turn them into instruments of their fantasies. Forewarned is forearmed.
George Lucki;56174 wrote:
But Nenad’s page with arms of this bloke claims for the fellow not some Rwandan or Ethiopian barony but an Imperial Japanese title.
If the Japanese gentleman is a Japanese citizen, then he show well know that hereditary Japanese Peerages were abolished under Article 14 of the current Japanese Constitution that went into effect on 3 May 1947.
George Lucki;56174 wrote:
There is a smattering of real nobles in the group as well - what they’re doing there I don’t know.
Which ones are real?
Oh, look, my state’s ex-governor! H.E. Don Sundquist - Governor of the State of Tennessee
George Lucki;56174 wrote:
In this one confraternity and just among their US State Delegates there are no less than 6 Marquesses (more than in the old Peerage of England and Scotland combined)! Who knew there was such a number of titled aristocrats in the US?
I would like to remind George that there are many very high ranking nobles and some royals living in the USA which probably far out number the fake ones. The real nobles and royals, of course maintaining rather low profiles in comparison to the fakes.
Michael Swanson;56177 wrote:
Which ones are real?
here are some -
<ul class=“bbcode_list”>
<li>H.R.H. Prince Davit Bagration </li>
<li>H.R.H. Dom Miguel de Braganca, The Duke of Viseu </li>
<li>Count Ulisses Rolim </li>
<li>H.M. King Kigeli V of Rwanda </li>
<li>H.I.H Prince Ermias Sahle Selassie Haile-Selassie</li>
<li>The Duke of Seville, Dom Francisco de Borbón</li>
<li>Alfonso Ceballos -Escalera y Gila, Marques de la Floresta</li>
</ul>
There may be others. This is simply a cursory glance. The Duke of Seville is involved with the Order of St. Lazarus that rose from the dead (Order - the Saint required divine intervention). The former Ethiopian and Rwandan monarchies are in exile in the US. The Marques de la Floresta (a Spanish title) is also Castille anbd Leon King of Arms in Spain. The Bagrations once ruled Georgia. Kitchener is a UK peer and Rolim is a Portuguese Count.
Michael Swanson;56177 wrote:
Which ones are real?
Oh, look, my state’s ex-governor! H.E. Don Sundquist - Governor of the State of Tennessee
Don’t be too quick to condemn the Gov—one of the favorite techniques these groups use to build an image of credibility is to bestow their honors on unsuspecting (and sometimes even unwitting) political figures. You’re a governor, some well-heeled constituent invites you to what purports to be a charity fundraiser in aid of shoeless school children in Sao Tome & Principe—how can you decline? You get there and the host introduces someone purporting to be somebody who hangs a bauble around your neck in gratitude for your support; you take it home and shove it in the box with all the rest of the meaningless memorabilia given to high-ranking public officials and forget about it; but the photo snapped at the critical moment goes on the website of the sponsoring organization as proof of its bona fides.
Not saying for sure that Sundquist wasn’t a witting participant, but he might not have been.
David Pritchard;56178 wrote:
I would like to remind George that there are many very high ranking nobles and some royals living in the USA which probably far out number the fake ones. The real nobles and royals, of course maintaining rather low profiles in comparison to the fakes.
I wouldn’t be at all confident of those proportions. What would your listing of the real and the fake be?
There were for example according to Konarski’s (an emminent Polish heraldist of the 20th century) listings (in his wonderful book On heraldry and heraldic snobbery) more ‘self-styled’ titled Polish nobles than real ones in the mid 20th century! Many of them were in the US.
George Lucki;56174 wrote:
There is a smattering of real nobles in the group as well - what they’re doing there I don’t know.
Granting titles of questionable validity to the others, if the records of King Kigeli and Prince Ermias are anything to go by.
George Lucki;56134 wrote:
He serves as an emissary (and of course a ‘Knight’) of the ‘Ancient Principality of Seborga’ - an Italian village that claims to be independent based on a loophole around a pre-unification registration of a deed no less.
I’m surprised he hasn’t discovered the Kingdom of Breckenridge in Colorado. In 1891, someone discovered that the official US government map of the Louisiana Purchase (of which the Continental Divide was the western boundary) and the official US government map of the Mexican Cession (of which the Continental Divide was the eastern boundary under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo) didn’t quite match up. A strip of territory just north of Hoosier Pass was omitted from both maps, leading the town fathers of Breckenridge to declare themselves (jokingly) an independent kingdom. A situation tailor-made for the kind of people who like to declare themselves rulers of this place and that.
Joseph McMillan;56184 wrote:
I’m surprised he hasn’t discovered the Kingdom of Breckenridge in Colorado. In 1891, someone discovered that the official US government map of the Louisiana Purchase (of which the Continental Divide was the western boundary) and the official US government map of the Mexican Cession (of which the Continental Divide was the eastern boundary under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo) didn’t quite match up. A strip of territory just north of Hoosier Pass was omitted from both maps, leading the town fathers of Breckenridge to declare themselves (jokingly) an independent kingdom. A situation tailor-made for the kind of people who like to declare themselves rulers of this place and that.
Great, next you’re going to tell me that the honors bestowed upon me by Count Chocula are illegitimate.
George Lucki;56180 wrote:
here are some -
<ul class=“bbcode_list”>
<li>H.R.H. Prince Davit Bagration </li>
<li>H.R.H. Dom Miguel de Braganca, The Duke of Viseu </li>
<li>Count Ulisses Rolim </li>
<li>H.M. King Kigeli V of Rwanda </li>
<li>H.I.H Prince Ermias Sahle Selassie Haile-Selassie</li>
<li>The Duke of Seville, Dom Francisco de Borbón</li>
<li>Alfonso Ceballos -Escalera y Gila, Marques de la Floresta</li>
</ul>
There may be others. This is simply a cursory glance. The Duke of Seville is involved with the Order of St. Lazarus that rose from the dead (Order - the Saint required divine intervention). The former Ethiopian and Rwandan monarchies are in exile in the US. The Marques de la Floresta (a Spanish title) is also Castille anbd Leon King of Arms in Spain. The Bagrations once ruled Georgia. Kitchener is a UK peer and Rolim is a Portuguese Count.
If would be useful is there was a tradition of noting in the title that they are nobles associated with an existing monarchy or nobles of a deposed dynasty. I was thinking about of how military officers append their rank with "ret" in parentheses. That way, people know if they must salute or not.
George Lucki;56182 wrote:
I wouldn’t be at all confident of those proportions. What would your listing of the real and the fake be?
There were for example according to Konarski’s (an emminent Polish heraldist of the 20th century) listings (in his wonderful book On heraldry and heraldic snobbery) more ‘self-styled’ titled Polish nobles than real ones in the mid 20th century! Many of them were in the US.
An interesting thing about the Polish nobility is that as they all where seen as equals they where all untitled. But some where granted titles from foreign monarchs.