Lord This and the Honourable That

If one is not familiar with the protocols and styles of British and other nobility and royalty, some of the rules and usages might be confusing.  For instance, one of the characters in the series is Lord Francis Campbell.  He is a younger son of the Duke of Argyll.  As the younger son of a British duke, his style is Lord Francis, using his first name.  His elder brother, John, uses one of their father’s courtesy titles, since he is the heir.  So he is known as the Marquess of Kintyre and Lorne, or more colloquially addressed as Lord Lorne.  There are actually small variations in the way a Marquess would be addressed versus the son of a duke using the courtesy title, but I don’t think that has come up yet in the series.  The point here, though is that the non-inheriting son of a duke or marquess is called Lord (First Name) in direct address, as was the case with Winston Churchill’s father, Lord Randolph Churchill.

A title holder or heir using a courtesy title will be called Lord Y or Lord X of Y where X is the family name and Y is the associated place name for the title.  So, to give a real example, there was a twentieth century British Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden who was created Earl of Avon with the subsidiary title of Viscount Eden, of Royal Leamington Spa in the County of Warwick.  So, from that time until his death, Anthony Eden was addressed as Lord Avon.  His son, during this time, was addressed as Lord Eden.

Non-inheriting sons of  an earl or less are styled, “The Honourable.”  So, another character in the series is Lord Francis Campbell’s maternal uncle and Royal Navy Captain, The Honourable Sir Sidney Kentigern Godolphin, younger son of the Earl Godolphin.  He had earned a knighthood before he was introduced in the series, thus the “Sir.”

So, that is a brief overview in case anyone was wondering why Lord Francis was Lord Francis when everyone else who was “Lord” somebody was using a title or last name.

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