Baronetage

“ Many other baronets have at one time or another assumed supporters without any official warrant or authority in consequence of certain action taken by an earlier committee of the baronetage, but cases of this kind are slowly dropping out of the Peerage books, and this, combined with the less ostentatious taste of the present day in the depicting of armorial bearings upon carriages and elsewhere, is slowly but steadily reducing the use of supporters to those who possess official authority for their display. ”

“ In a letter of March 1723 (ib. ii. 377) he represents himself as very poor, as still expecting some provision to be made for him by the government, as not intending to publish any more of the ' Baronetage,' and as occupied with the preparation of an enlarged peerage. Of this work a one-volume instalment was issued in 1727, as ' The English Baronage ”

“ An elder line of this family, on whom the Baronetcy, created in 1611, has descended, is said to be resident in Maryland, in the United States of America.
See Leland's Itinerary, vol. iv. pl. i.; Whitaker's Richmondshire, vol. i. p. 322; and Wotton's Baronetage, vol. i. p. 232.
Arms.—Gules, three chevronels interlaced vaire, and a chief or. The arms are founded upon the coat of Fitz Hugh, and may be taken as a proof of high antiquity. ”

“ In Scotland, too, lords of parliament and bannerets were also called bannerents, banrents or baronets, and in England banneret was often corrupted to baronet. “Even in a patent passed to Sir Ralph Fane, knight under Edward VI., he is called ‘baronettus’ for ‘bannerettus.’” [33] In this manner it is not improbable that the title of baronet may have been suggested to the advisers of James I. when the order of Baronets was originally created by him, for it was a question whether the recipients of the new dignity should be designated by that or some other name. ”

“ The house is banked in with rolling clouds, which rise now and then to show the dreary curves of the moor, with thin, silver veins upon the sides of the hills, and the distant boulders gleaming where the light strikes upon their wet faces. It is melancholy outside and in. The baronet is in a black reaction after the excitements of the night. I am conscious myself of a weight at my heart and a feeling of impending danger—ever present danger, which is the more terrible because I am unable to define it. ”

“ Now, from all I heard of the baronet when I was in the country last week, I take him to be a hardfisted, penurious curmudgeon, who, to judge from his style of living, must be laying by several thousands a year—though, why he should care to do so, goodness only knows, seeing that he has nobody he cares about to leave his savings to—the next heir being a half-cousin with whom he has been at outs for the last thirty years. ”

“ Least of all have those baronets of later creation, men who have made large sacrifices and rendered inestimable services to their country. On these the rank of baronet conferred no real dignity which they did not before possess, but it served as an acknowledgment of their worth in the eyes of their fellow-men. ”

“ The baronet was master of his own fortune, and after all, was it not more natural that he should prefer the child he had brought up and reared, to a distant relation, little more than an acquaintance, simply because man succeeded to man in the mouldy pedigree of the St. Johns? And, Mary fairly lost to him, his constitutional indifference to money, a certain French levity of temper, a persuasion that his life was nearing its wasted close, had left him without regret, as without resentment, at his kinsman's decision. ”

“ A baronet's rank is exceedingly nice, But the title's uncommonly dear at the price! Ye well-to-do squires, who live in the shires, Where petty distinctions are vital, Who found Athenaeums and local museums, With a view to a baronet's title— Ye butchers and bakers and candlestick makers Who sneer at all things that are tradey— Whose middle-class lives are embarrassed by wives Who long to parade as "My Lady", Oh! ”

“ Sir Jasper Kingsland, it is a very fine thing to be a baronet with fifteen thousand pounds a year, a noble ancestral seat, a wife you love, and a son you adore. And yet Pietro, the vagabond tramp—the sunburned gypsy, with stolen hares to eat, and rags to wear, and a hut to lodge in—would not exchange places with you this bright March day. ”

“ Your husband is the baronet and he can if he likes assume the "Sir" at once. Why the devil doesn't he? Of course I advise him to go through the usual process, which will cost, in the case of a baronetcy, very few pounds. Neither he nor you may care for it, but think of the advantage it will be to your children. Don't blink the fact that the British public are such snobs that a baronet, even in the matrimonial market, is always worth £50,000, and it is one of the oldest baronetcies in the kingdom. Do take my advice and get it for your eldest son [St. George Burton] . ”

“ Mater, you really are a bit too thick. If it was a knighthood, I wouldn't care. You could have your blooming knighthood. Knighthoods do come to an end. Baronetcies go on for ever. I've told the dad, and I'll tell you, that I will not have my political career ruined by any baronetcy. And if you insist—may I respectfully inform you what I shall do? May I respectfully inform you—may I?
MRS. CULVER. John!
JOHN. I shall chuck Siege and go into the Flying Corps. And that's flat. If you really want to shorten my life, all you have to do is to stick to that bally baronetcy. ”

“ The baronets of fiction are, like their congeners in real life, a numerous and a motley band. Lord Beaconsfield described, with a brilliancy of touch which was all his own, the labours and the sacrifices of Sir Vavasour Firebrace on behalf of the Order of Baronets and the privileges wrongfully withheld from them. "They are evidently the body destined to save this country; blending all sympathies—the Crown, of which they are the peculiar champions: the nobles, of whom they are the popular branch; the people, who recognize in them their natural leaders.... ”

“ Are you in a position to judge of the wants of artizans—of hand-loom weavers—you, who never knew the want of a meal in your lives, do you presume to know when the people want bread? The right honourable baronet is the cause—yes, I say he is the cause of our present position, and, upon his shoulders will the people rest the the whole of the responsibility. ”

“ But if you would do me the favour of reading our memorial.”
“The proposition is not one adapted to our present civilisation,” said Lady Joan. “A baronetcy has become the distinction of the middle class; a physician, our physician for example, is a baronet; and I dare say some of our tradesmen; brewers, of people of that class. An attempt to elevate them into an order of nobility, however inferior, would partake in some degree of the ridiculous.”
“And has the duke escaped his gout this year?” enquired Lord Marney of Lady de Mowbray. ”

“ The oldest title borne by a member of the House of Lords under which he sits and votes is that of De Ros, this barony having been created 1264, but after that of Le Despencer.
Earls, Viscounts, Barons, and Baronesses are entitled to be styled ‘Right Honourable;’ a Marquis is ‘Most Honourable,’ or ‘Most Noble and Puissant Prince;’ a Duke is ‘Most Noble,’ or ‘Most High, Potent, and Noble Prince.’ All peers except barons are by the etiquette of heraldry regarded and styled as cousins of the sovereign. ”

“ The quiet suggestion did not reach the baronet's consciousness. He stood upright, his round, wide-open eyes fixed in front of him in blank, pitiful incredulity. His florid face had become purple and swollen with the violence of a hitherto unknown emotion. ”

“ Having had their hand on the machine they know how it works, its value, its cost, and they are not tempted to cast it aside as rubbish to try another, said to be superior, but which, as yet, exists only on paper. The baronet, or squire, a justice on his own domain, has no trouble in discerning in the clergyman of his parish an indispensable co-worker and a natural ally. The duke or marquis, sitting in the upper house by the side of bishops, requires their votes to pass bills, and their assistance to rally to his party the fifteen hundred curates who influence the rural conscience. ”

“ A low laugh issued from the cottage as the same voice replied to this appeal with the following words:—
“Oh mighty are Barons in battle array, Full swift are their steeds and full sharp are their swords; But the heart of a maiden must have its own way, And Love is far stronger than Barons and Lords. He climbs the high walls of the castle so strong, In vain your defences your treasure to shield; To words which are whispered by lover’s true tongue, The peeress and peasant will equally yield.” ”

“ Not long lived the Baron: and none since that time
To inhabit the castle presume;
For chronicles tell, that, by order sublime,
There Imogine suffers the pain of her crime,
And mourns her deplorable doom.
At midnight four times in each year does her sprite,
When mortals in slumber are bound,
Array'd in her bridal apparel of white,
Appear in the hall with the skeleton-knight,
And shriek as he whirls her around. ”

“ Tuke dryly.
“You’d not think it, eh? It’s truth, sir. Why,” said the baronet, “I don’t s’pose the fellow’s ever fired a fowling-piece in his life; but he knows more of the habits of animals, ground and winged, than any dozen sportsmen in the parish. ”

“ Richard Burton:—
"'There was a baronetcy in the family of Burton. The first was Sir Thomas Burton, Knight, of Stokestone, Leicestershire; created July 22nd, 1622, a baronet, by King James I. Sir Charles was the last baronet. He appears to have been in great distress—a prisoner for debt, 1712. He is supposed to have died without issue, when the title became extinct—at least nobody has claimed it since. If your husband can prove his descent from a younger son of any of the baronets, he would have a right to the title. ”

“ It is to be noted, however, that the account-book gives no information as to who the personages are that appear in the pictures; that there is no contemporary inscriptions on the works themselves to prove that it is the first Baronet and his wife that are portrayed and not merely two of their friends; that in the male portrait the face is delicate in its curves and contours, with a long thin nose, drooping at the point, quite unlike the countenance which appears in the pictures certified in the handwriting of the son as representing the first Baronet ”

“ In the case alluded to, a pompous old baronet comes down stairs loaded to the very muzzle to repress ‘familiarity’ on the part of a young man, who from an estate of dependence has recently mounted by inheritance to a princely fortune; but the cool, quiet young gentleman finds the old baronet guilty of ‘familiarity’ himself, and makes him bear the penalty of it, before six sentences are exchanged between them. ”

“ Nay, with a smiling sense of its absurdity, the baronet caught himself involuntarily pondering some such incalculable problem, and for a moment striving to put its organisation together, while the bridle lay slack on his horse’s neck, and his limbs kept time to the motion, as the noble black went stepping elastically on. ”

“ The pursuers speedily rejoined the pursued, and felt happy in the knowledge of his welfare. The abashment of the baronet, occasioned by this untoward adventure, soon gave way to his characteristic good-humour; and [197] having resigned all further government of the Squire's unruly quadruped, and resumed possession of his own, the triumvirate proceeded towards the place of destination.
In the meanwhile, the city horsemen arose with Phoebus, to mount their rosinantes, to be present at the enlargement of the stag, and were roused from their slumbers according to order by the watchmen. ”

“ Suddenly, however, as if from a sense of courtesy rather than inclination, the young man let his older companion have his way in the choice of subject, and in his replies showed such depth of thought, such a thorough acquaintance with history, and such precise and definite views, that once more the baronet changed his opinion, and said to himself, "This is a fine and noble intellect indeed, nearly spoiled by the infection of a corrupt and frivolous world, but which might be reclaimed, if fortune would throw him in the way of those whose principles have been fixed and tried." ”

“ Coats of arms which served to distinguish men in battle, now figure on the carriage panels of retired grocers. Once a badge of high military rank, the shoulder-knot has become, on the modern footman, a mark of servitude. The name Banneret, which once marked a partially-created Baron—a Baron who had passed his military "little go"—is now, under the modification of Baronet, applicable to any one favoured by wealth or interest or party feeling. ”

“ It may be inaccurate about details such as the title by which a baronet is addressed or the width of a mountain chasm which a baronet can conveniently leap, but it is not a bad description of the general idea and intention of aristocracy as they exist in human affairs. ”

“ He was called Sir Arthur Farrance, and he was called a Baronet. To be a Baronet was, in those days, something greatly desired by many people. A man, in the old books, was said to enjoy the title of Baronet. But I know not why one man was so raised above another. ”

“ A tuft-hunting county baronet's widow, an inane captain of dragoons, a graceless young baronet, a lady with groundless pretensions to feeble health and poesy, an obsequious nonentity her husband, and a flimsy and artificial young lady, are the personages in whom we are expected to find amusement. ”