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The designation landed gentry originally referred exclusively to members of the upper class who were both landlords and commoners (in the British sense)—that is, they did not hold peerages. But by the late 19th century, the term was also applied to peers, such as the Duke of Westminster , who lived on landed estates.
Below ealdormen were king's thegns, so called because they only served the king. The lowest thegnly rank were the median thegns who owed service to other thegns. [13] Thegns were the backbone of local government and the military. Sheriffs were drawn from this class, and thegns were required to attend the shire court and give judgment.
Its members were often senior members of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, together with leading churchmen, judges, diplomats and military leaders. The Privy Council of England was a powerful institution, advising the sovereign on the exercise of the royal prerogative and on the granting of royal charters .
A noble house is an aristocratic family or kinship group, either currently or historically of national or international significance, [clarification needed] and usually associated with one or more hereditary titles, the most senior of which will be held by the "Head of the House" or patriarch.
Wood notes that "Few members of the American gentry were able to live idly off the rents of tenants as the English landed aristocracy did." [ 6 ] Some landowners, especially in the Dutch areas of Upstate New York , leased out their lands to tenants, but generally—" Plain Folk of the Old South "—ordinary farmers owned their cultivated holdings.
Diplomatic affairs were handled by the British government, as were trade policies and wars with foreign powers (wars with Native Americans were generally handled by colonial governments). [1] [page needed] The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a dispute over the British Parliament's right to enact domestic legislation for the American ...
A member of either chamber could present a bill to parliament. Bills supported by the monarch were often proposed by members of the Privy Council who sat in parliament. For a bill to become law it would have to be approved by a majority of both Houses of Parliament before it passed to the monarch for royal assent or veto.
The concept of virtual representation was that the members of the UK Parliament, including the Lords and the Crown-in-Parliament, reserved the right to speak for the interests of all British subjects, rather than for the interests of only the district that elected them or for the regions in which they held peerages and spiritual sway. [1]