France may have been a Republic, but the glories of its aristocracy lived on. Granted, the upheaval of the last one hundred years resulted in a fragmented upper class, and the last vestiges of their political power died with the Boulanger scandal; nevertheless, its members remained incredibly exclusive, envied, and emulated.

To be an accepted member of le gratin, or upper crust, one was required to have “an up-to-date jacket and a fairly old title.” These qualifications were further stratified into the old aristocracy and the fast and smart Tout Paris, of which the former was then broken down into Legitimists and Orléanists, Bonapartists and Empire aristocracy descended from the twenty-four families Napoleon ennobled, the even more exclusive Catholic society, and the Good Protestant Society, known as the “BPS”. Below them were the wealthy industrialists from the provinces (silk barons from Lyons, shipping magnates, etc), well-bred members of the Bourse, and a few titled Jewish families (i.e. Rothschilds).

In Paris, the purest gratin lived in Faubourg Saint-Germain, where black-clad dowagers looked down upon frivolity and rarely opened its doors to outsiders. The smarter set, the aforementioned Tout Paris, lived in elegant mansions along the Champs-Élysées or equally elegant apartments above Baron Haussmann’s boulevards. Tout Paris encompassed the smart, the wealthy, the best-dressed, and the well-born, and filled the social pages of Paris’s newspapers. Most were ardent Anglophiles who aped the Prince of Wales’s sartorial tastes and appetite for women, food, entertainment, and gambling. As in England, society revolved around the club, sporting events, and house parties, but unlike in England, club life—the most exclusive being the Jockey, the Agricole, the Travellers’, and the Royale—was social and exciting, with exhibits, balls and concerts that women could attend.

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Marcia Pelham, Countess of Yarborough

When I first began reading and writing historical romance, the most pressing topic was the proper usage of British titles. For example, you address a duke as “Your Grace” (or, as seen in Downton Abbey, “Duke” if you are of the same rank), the second, third, and so on sons of earls are the Honourable Firstname Lastname, but the daughters are Lady Firstname Lastname, and Francis George Thynne, Marquess of Bankshead is Lord Bankshead, not Lord Thynne or Lord Francis, etc etc. Needless to say, the issue of titles still trip up even the best and most thorough of authors, particularly the issue of inheritance and primogeniture.

Titles, Addresses, Inheritance and Primogeniture are further complicated by the differing laws between the English peerage, the Irish peerage, the Scottish peerage, the British peerage, and the UK peerage (did you know that prior to the Peerage Act of 1963, a Scottish peer needed to be elected to sit in the House of Lords and other Scottish peers–even up to a Duke!–sat in the House of Commons? Irish peers sat in the Commons as well, which is why many imminent Victorian and Edwardian statesmen were given Irish titles so they could remain there).

But the one issue that looms the largest is that of women’s inheritance of titles. In America’s relatively egalitarian society, it seems unconscionable that, barring the lack of a male heir, a title either died off, fell into abeyance, or was passed to a distant relative. Granted, many titles in abeyance (usually baronies) passed to female relations, but according to Valentine Heywood, “when there is more than one daughter all are regarded as equal co-heirs. The result is that no one daughter can inherit until all the others are dead, or no issue of a daughter can inherit until the issue of other daughters is extinct. In other words, the title is in a state of suspended animation until all the co-equal claims are centered in one person.” This is the situation which befell Miss Marcia Lane-Fox, daughter of the 12th Baron Conyers.

Lord Conyers’ heir and Marcia’s elder brother, Sackville FitzRoy, predeceased him, and when Lord Conyers died in 1888, his barony fell into abeyance. Marcia petitioned the Queen for the abeyance to be terminated in her favor in 1891, which was granted the following year. Marcia later laid claim to the barony of Fauconberg, which had fallen abeyance for some four and a half centuries after the death of the sixth baron, in 1463. Also in dispute was the barony of Darcy de Knayth, and Marcia and her younger sister Violet, laid a claim for this title, which dated back to 1332 and fell into abeyance when the fourth earl died in 1778, because it was thought that the patent limited the succession to heirs male. The sisters quickly rectified this mistake in a petition found in a 1900 volume of Journals of the House of Lords (the entire petition listed the family’s entire genealogy as proof! Here is the relevant excerpt):

That by a Petition presented to Your Majesty in December 1891, the facts in relation to the Barony of Conyers, and that Barony only, were represented unto Your Majesty, and Your Majesty was graciously pleased in consequence to determine the abeyance of the said Barony of Conyers in favour of the elder of Your Petitioners, but that the said Sackville George Lord Conyers, the father of Your Petitioners, was also of right possessed of the ancient Baronies of Darcy de Knayth and Meynill now in abeyance between Your Petitioners, and was also a coheir to the ancient Barony of Fauconberg.

That it is Your Majesty’s undoubted prerogative, and right to terminate in favour of either of Your Petitioners, the abeyance of the said Baronies of Darcy de Knayth, Meynill, and Fauconberg by admitting either of the coheirs to the enjoyment of any one of the said Dignities. Your Majesty’s Petitioners, the said Marcia Amelia Mary, Countess of Yarborough, Baroness Conyers, and Violet Ida Evelyn, Countess of Powis, do therefore humbly beseech Your Majesty:

That Your Majesty will be graciously pleased to exercise Your Royal Grace, and terminate in favour of the said Violet Ida Evelyn, Countess of Powis, one of Your Majesty’s Petitioners, the abeyance now existing in some one of the three Baronies, together with the rights, privileges, eminencies, immunities, and advantages, and the place and precedence due and belonging thereto; to hold the same to her and the heirs of her body lawfully begotten, and to be begotten, for ever; and That Your Majesty will further be graciously pleased to exercise Your Royal Grace, and terminate in favour of the said Marcia Amelia Mary, Countess of Yarborough and Baroness Conyers, the other of Your Majesty’s Petitioners, the abeyances now existing in the remaining two of the three said Baronies together with the rights, privileges, pre-eminencies, immunities, and advantages and the places and precedences due and belonging thereto; to hold the same to her and the heirs of her body lawfully begotten, and to be begotten, for ever.

And Your Petitioners will ever pray.

(Signed) Marcia Yarborough Conyers.
(Signed) Violet Powis.

The barony of Fauconberg was granted to Marcia in 1903, and that same year, the House of Lords also agreed to grant the barony of Darcy de Knayth to Marcia’s sister, the Countess of Powis. As a result of these baronies, Marcia and Violet’s sons were able to “sit in the House of Lords as a peer simultaneously with [their fathers], for both these ladies died before their husbands and their baronies devolved on their sons, who thus became peers in their fathers’ lifetime.”

Other Edwardian peeresses in their own right were:

* Sibell Lilian Blunt-Mackenzie, 3rd Countess of Cromartie

* Elizabeth Adeline Mary Bligh, 17th Baroness Clifton (born in 1900, who, at the age of two, was present at the coronation of King Edward VII)

* Gwendolen, wife of the 15th Duke of Norfolk, who succeeded her father as Lady Herries of Terregles

* The Baroness Wentworth, the great granddaughter of Lord Byron

* Mona Fitzalan-Howard, 11th Baroness Beaumont

* Vera Ruby Williams, 15th Baroness Berners.

Further Reading:

British Titles by Valentine Heywood
Every Woman’s Encyclopaedia v3

Strictly to fulfill the duties of fashionable life in London during the season is more of a toil than a pleasure. There is so much it is imperative to do, there are so many places to attend that a votary has literally not a moment’s real leisure. There is the ride or drive in the Park, which gives place on Sundays to the Church Parade after morning service; there are picture-galleries to visit; interviews with dressmakers, tailors, etc, to be undergone; shopping to be effected; calls to make, callers to receive; Lord’s, Hurlingham, Ranelagh, to attend; the Meet of the Coaching Club or the Four-in-Hand to be present at, when something like twenty or thirty magnificent “turn-outs” start from the Horse Guards’ Parade or the Magazine in Hyde Park amidst a large crowd of admiring spectators who line the Ring Drive.

Church Parade, Hyde Park by John Sanderson Wells, 1899

There are innumerable luncheons, dinner-parties, at-homes, receptions, concerts, recitals, theatres, operas, etc, etc, etc, to absorb much time and attention, besides the grander functions of Drawing-Rooms, State Balls and Concerts, Royal Garden-parties, etc. This is only the so-called pleasurable side of fashionable life. There is another, and that is the philanthropic – the necessity in these days of attending all kinds of societies for charitable objects (fancy bazaars, etc), in itself enough occupation for most people. Let the following extracts from the Diary of a Society Leader speak for themselves as to the very arduous duties involved in the much-envied position.

It is called “A Day in my Life,” and appeared a few years ago in Cassell’s Magazine.

9-30. Breakfast. Newspapers to read, and piles of letters:

10.30. Ride in the Row.

11-30, Interview housekeeper, also make arrangements about leaving town for the “end of the week,” and entertaining a small party at Z__ Park. Change dress, and give maid instructions for the day.

12.30. Walk to Busvine’s to order a cooler coat for riding. See Mason about new evening frock, and choose new hat at Esme’s – a good deal to do in one hour.

1.30. Reach home to find more notes to read while bearers wait for replies, and some one waiting to ask me if I will allow my portrait to appear in journal with photograph of Y__ House and Z__ Park. Change dress again before friends drop in to luncheon.

2.30. Luncheon.

3-30. Drive to East-end to open a bazaar.

4-30. Have made a speech and spent more money than I meant to do. So few buyers, and people wretchedly poor.

5-30. Went to Lady E. L.’s garden-party. Leave cards after last night’s parties and inquiries for Lady M__ and Miss B__ (who have both been unwell) on my way home.

6.30. Find two telegrams to answer and three people waiting to see me. Will I support Irish Emigrants’ Charitable Institution by a present or subscription? Will I be a patroness of Signor H.’s concert? And have I time to discuss the arrangements for next week’s theatricals in aid of St. Ursula’s Hospital?

7.30. Dress for dinner and remind myself where I am going while I dress. Impossible to answer all my letters.

8.30 to 10.30. Entertain a party of fourteen at dinner.

11-30. Concert at F__ House, very select; but wretched singing and worse music. Wish now I had gone to Mr. A__’s, where all the “stars” were to be, regardless of expense.

12-30. Lady B.’s dance.

1.30. Mrs. C. S__’s cotillon.

2.30. The Duchess of A.’s ball.

3.30. Bed at last, and thankful for even five hours’ rest.

– in Arthur H. Beavan’s Imperial London (1901). H/t to Harriet Smart, @fictionwitch