The Jacobite Peerage

The Jacobite peerages are the seventh division of the peerage – if you don’t know about the other six, read yesterday’s post.

They are hereditary titles created by James II and Jacobite Pretenders between 1689 and 1760: seventeen dukes, thirteen marquesses, thirty-nine earls, thirty viscounts and then three categories of baron: fourteen barons in the peerage of England, twenty-three lords of parliament in the peerage of Scotland and twenty barons in the peerage of Ireland. That’s a lot in only 71 years.

The earliest titles were granted by James II when he was fighting to regain his throne in Ireland. The recipients earned their spurs raising regiments for him. Some of the recipients subsequently were granted hereditary titles recognised in England. The provenance of some Jacobean titles is questionable and the author of The Jacobite Peerage does not have an unsullied reputation as a genealogist. Wiki sniffs disapprovingly.

“An authoritative list of the Jacobite peerage does not exist. The standard source relied on is The Jacobite Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage and Grants of Honour published in 1904 by Melville Henry Massue, who called himself ‘Marquis de Ruvigny et Raineval’. However, as a source, it is unreliable. Peter Drummond-Murray of Mastrick noted in an article in Burke’s Peerage that:

‘Ruvigny’s own pedigree was false, as was his claim to the French titles he used. This lack of integrity, unhappily, destroys much of the authority of one who was a gifted, if eccentric, genealogist. Much work still needs to be done on the Jacobite peerages, baronetcies, knighthoods and Lettres de Noblesse.’”

And I haven’t even touched on the baronetages, knighthoods etc conferred. I assume the recipients paid for them but I don’t know. What I do know is that although some recipients have subsequently been granted titles recognised in England, many are extinct, a few are extant but there is a happy hunting ground among some that are dormant. Here are a selection:

The Duke of St Andrews and Castelblanco, the Marquess of Kenmure, the Marquess of Borland, the Earl of Tenterden, the Earl of Bath, the Earl of Fordan, Viscount of The Bath, etc.

Now even I’m getting bored writing about peerages.