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The British nobility is made up of the peerage and the (landed) gentry.The nobility of its four constituent home nations has played a major role in shaping the history of the country, although the hereditary peerage now retain only the rights to stand for election to the House of Lords, dining rights there, position in the formal order of precedence, the right to certain titles, and the right ...
The peerage forms part of the British honours system, as the highest tier. This role dates back to the days when being ennobled by the monarch meant secure addition for someone and their heirs into the British aristocracy, and alongside it, political power and a theoretically raised status within the hierarchy of the British class system.
After English and Scottish peers, peers created in Great Britain as whole in (1707–1801) follow. Together over the Pre-Union Peerage of Ireland (pre-1801), and together they all take precedence over either the senior Peerage of the United Kingdom (post-1801), or the junior Post-Union Peerage of Ireland (1801–1922).
It is possible for a peer to hold more than one title of nobility, and these may belong to different ranks and peerages. A peer derives his precedence from his highest-ranking title; peeresses derive their precedence in the same way, whether they hold their highest-ranking title in their own right or by marriage.
The Peerage of England comprises all peerages created in the Kingdom of England before the Act of Union in 1707. From that year, the Peerages of England and Scotland were closed to new creations, and new peers were created in a single Peerage of Great Britain .
The ranks of the peerage are Duke, Marquess, Earl, Viscount, and Baron. [7]The last non-royal dukedom was created in 1874, and the last marquessate was created in 1936. . Creation of the remaining ranks, except baronies for life, mostly ceased once Harold Wilson's Labour government took office in 1964, and only thirteen (nine non-royal and four royal) people have been created hereditary peers sinc
Hugh Grosvenor is just 28 years old and has a fortune of over £10bn and is far richer than the Queen.
Earl (/ ɜːr l, ɜːr əl /) [1] is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. In modern Britain, an earl is a member of the peerage, ranking below a marquess and above a viscount. [2] A feminine form of earl never developed; [note 1] instead, countess is used. The title originates in the Old English word eorl, meaning "a man of noble birth ...