Hereditary nobility

“ For a man or woman may be created noble for their own lives, and the dignity not descend to their heirs at all, or descend only to some particular heirs: as where a peerage is limited to a man, and the heirs male of his body by Elizabeth his present lady, and not to such heirs by any former or future wife.
Let us next take a view of a few of the principal incidents attending the nobility, exclusive of their capacity as members of parliament, and as hereditary counsellors of the crown ”

“ Nobility thus implies the vesting of some hereditary privilege or advantage in certain families, without deciding in what such privilege or advantage consists. Its nature may differ widely according to the causes which have led to the establishment of the distinction between family and family in each particular case. ”

“ I Can both see and feel how hereditary distinction, when it falls to the lot of a generous mind, may elevate that mind into true nobility. It is one of the effects of hereditary rank, when it falls thus happily, that it multiplies the duties, and as it were extends the existence of the possessor. ”

“ They are not elective in a form of government which recognizes born representatives, persons who are representatives either immediately through their birth, as hereditary princes in every hereditary monarchy, or who, at least, are, through their birth, the only eligible representatives, as the nobility in all monarchies, and the patricians in hereditary-aristocratic republics. ”

“ In this regard there can be no difference between hereditary and elective monarchies; for the heir cannot inherit more than his ancestor enjoyed, or had a right to enjoy, any more than a successor can succeed to it. ”

“ Nothing else could hold society together or prevent the rival fanaticisms from tearing each other to pieces. For authority there was no other basis left than the principle of hereditary succession by primogeniture. ”

“ This hereditary descent has, moreover, other advantages, which render advisable its introduction; for instance, the monarch is utterly cut off from the people; is born and dies without any private relation to the people. ”

“ The one exception is that of royalty. Persons still are born to the throne; no one, not of the reigning family, can ever occupy it, and no one even of that family can, by any means but the course of hereditary succession, attain it. ”

“ The crown being hereditary in one family, but elective in the person, and polygamy being permitted, must have multiplied these heirs very much, and produced constant disputes, so that it was found necessary to provide a remedy for the anarchy and effusion of royal blood, which was otherwise inevitably to follow. ”

“ All regal governments must be either hereditary or elective: and, as I believe there is no instance wherein the crown of England has ever been asserted to be elective, except by the regicides at the infamous and unparalleled trial of king Charles I, it must of consequence be hereditary. Yet while I assert an hereditary, I by no means intend a jure divino, title to the throne. ”

“ An hereditary succession to the crown is therefore now established, in this and most other countries, in order to prevent that periodical bloodshed and misery, which the history of antient imperial Rome, and the more modern experience of Poland and Germany, may shew us are the consequences of elective kingdoms. ”

“ The institution of an hereditary aristocracy and an hereditary monarchy is to be traced to the notion of such a transmission of special excellencies. However, it is unfortunately not only virtues, but also vices that are transmitted and accumulated by inheritance; and if, in the history of the world, we compare the different individuals of the different dynasties, we shall everywhere find a great number of proofs of the transmission of qualities by inheritance, but fewer of transmissions of virtues than of vices. ”

“ Ought the right of the elder to be regarded in a nation, where the eldest brother had no advantage in the succession to private families? Ought the Roman empire at that time to be esteemed hereditary, because of two examples ”

“ There had been a wondrous involution from centuries of great history, according to subtle, silent laws of hereditary inheritance, in very blood and life, of tone, and quality, and temper, and now there is evolved, evoked, just that of power which tells of kinship with those who have gone before. ”

“ We bear the impress, at this hour, of the great thoughts and high aspirations, the struggles, and even the crimes, of our ancestral ages; and yet they have no greater resemblance to the present, except in the unchangeable characteristics of human nature itself, than the remotest forefathers in a long line of ancestry, whose likenesses hang in the galleries of our hereditary nobles, bear to the existing owner of title and estate. ”

“ The sovereign holds his position for life, and usually acquires his throne by inheritance. Where the crown is nominally elective, as in England, kingship is practically hereditary, the regular line of descent being departed from only upon rare occasions. ”

“ The truly reasonable view of the matter is that, although the hereditary principle does not ensure that the heir to a peerage shall be a statesman, yet it gives him special facilities for becoming so. ”

“ Thus Mary I inherited to Edward VI, and Elizabeth inherited to Mary; all born of the same father, king Henry VIII, but all by different mothers. The reason of which diversity, between royal and common descents, will be better understood hereafter, when we examine the nature of inheritances in general.
[a] in vit. Agricolae.
3. The doctrine of hereditary right does by no means imply an indefeasible right to the throne. No man will, I think, assert this, that has considered our laws, constitution, and history, without prejudice, and with any degree of attention. ”

“ The English prefer an hereditary to an elective symbol of supreme power. The permitted descent in the female line prevents the inconvenient issues to which the failure of an heir male might give rise. ”

“ This natural inheritance has been protected by the legislators of every climate and age, and the father is encouraged to persevere in slow and distant improvements, by the tender hope that a long posterity will enjoy the fruits of his labour. The principle of hereditary succession is universal, but the order has been variously established by convenience or caprice, by the spirit of national institutions, or by some partial example, which was originally decided by fraud or violence. ”

“ One of the most important points which an hereditary potentate has to attend to, in completing his political arrangements, is the question of his marriage. Until he has a family and an heir, men's minds are unsettled in respect to the succession, and the various rival candidates and claimants to the throne are perpetually plotting and intriguing to put themselves into a position to spring at once into his place if sickness, or a battle, or any sudden accident should take him away. ”

“ His son, or whoso should be his heir, must succeed to an undisputed inheritance, even if it should be necessary to make away with all the nobility of the realm, and most of the people, in order to secure the so-much-desired quiet. ”

“ We are the greatest Nation on our Erth, Surely, if we are earnest in endeavour, We can accomplish this desired end? Co-operate with me and let us strive, And we shall be successful in the end. Now to the matter of our Government, Saxscober calls its ruler a Monarch. What’s in a word? A mere form of letters. Hereditary is this Monarchy, Yet we unjustly give the male first call And make the eldest male born our Monarch. This is unjust. While Primogeniture Is the acknowledged law of Saxscober, The heir shall be the eldest born, and sex 145 Should not be made a Disinherited. ”

“ The number of families from whom the king might be elected may have been large. And even if, as is possible, the electors were free to chose a king without any regard to his birth, the hereditary principle would still be maintained if, as we have seen reason to conjecture, it was essential that the chosen candidate should marry a woman of the royal house, who would generally be either the daughter or the widow of his predecessor. ”

“ In the first place, hereditary succession, when finally settled in some line of descent rigorously prescribed, involves that the possession of supreme power becomes independent of capacity for exercising it. The heir to a vacant throne may be, and often is, too young for discharging its duties; or he may be, and often is, too feeble in intellect, too deficient in energy, or too much occupied with the pleasures which his position offers in unlimited amounts; with the result that in the one case the regent, and in the other the chief minister, becomes the actual ruler. ”

“ But, most of all, these Continental revolutions teach a lesson of inestimable importance to the people of this country, and which recent events have so well illustrated, as to the incalculable value of a hereditary order of succession in the government, supported by hereditary respect, and resting on the disinterested loyalty of the people. ”

“ To consider them properly we must follow them through the long line of their descent, and see how the successive offspring have wrought with the talents of their far-off ancestry. This can not be easily done. Each heir has inherited from several warlike predecessors. There are no entailed estates of human progress, no fixed hereditary successions. ”

“ The hereditary principle has in its keeping all that makes for stability, continuity, and tradition; nothing can adequately take its place."
"Do not forget, sir," said his son, "that if we follow our heredity back far enough, ours is an elected monarchy. And if once you admit election you must admit also the right of the to-be-elected one to offer or refuse his candidature. The nation cannot play fast and loose, as it has done, with the principle of male primogeniture, and at the same time impose upon us, its candidates for election, an unavoidable obligation to accept the burden of heredity. ”

“ We may, however, be sure that the principle of hereditary succession must henceforth be limited within certain bounds. The idea of perpetuity, whether of punishment or of reward, is foreign from our age, and will not, certainly, be more acceptable to future ages. ”

“ Another evil which attends hereditary succession is, that the throne is subject to be possessed by a minor at any age; all which time the Regency acting under the cover of a King, have every opportunity and inducement to betray their trust. ”

“ Their office is also hereditary, and properly limited to the eldest son, whereas the chieftainship descends to the youngest son, or, failing sons, to the youngest surviving brother. The land also follows this law of inheritance, the younger sons in all cases inheriting, while the elder go forth and clear wild land for themselves. ”

“ Even now-a-days, many a noble family, without imperial or royal patent, that is to say, such a family as derives its nobility from the origin of the country itself, a family which always was noble, because it was noble—autochthonous—would refuse an elevation to the title of Count. ”

“ But the grandson on the death of his father, during the lifetime of the grandfather, and when the grandson succeeds as heir-apparent of the grandfather, succeeds also to the label of three points, which may therefore more properly be described as the difference mark of the heir-apparent than the difference mark of the eldest son. It is necessary, perhaps, having said this, to add the remark that heraldry knows no such thing as disinheritance, and heirship is an inalienable matter of blood descent, and not of worldly inheritance. No woman can ever be an heir-apparent. ”

“ As a matter of fact, the majority of our greater and lesser nobility are of royal descent, and if our pedigree-hunter’s ancestors were allied to such families, the descent in his case should be comparatively easy to prove. ”

“ And for the hereditary system—that system which both offends the common sense of the Radical, and wounds the Tory by its implied admission that noblemen are mortal—a seemly substitute will have been found. ”

“ The hereditary principle not unfrequently extends to other families — especially to those of the distinguished chieftains, by whose aid the monarchy was established, when it originates in conquest. When this is the case — and a powerful body of hereditary nobles surround the sovereign, they oppose a strong resistance to his authority, and he to theirs — tending to the advantage and security of the people. Even when they do not succeed in obtaining a participation in the powers of the government, they usually acquire sufficient weight to be felt and respected. ”

“ I say, then, that hereditary States, accustomed to the family of their Prince, are maintained with far less difficulty than new States, since all that is required is that the Prince shall not depart from the usages of his ancestors, trusting for the rest to deal with events as they arise. ”

“ He represents what we might call a dynasty of power based on wealth. He is like a king, and his heir represents a financial crown prince. Like all other kings, he wishes to preserve his dynasty intact, and to assure himself of its succession. Consequently he demands the right of selecting what he feels shall prove a proper consort for his heir. ”

“ To transmit the family cult and the patrimonial field to an heir is the first duty of man. We inherit unconsciously, not the physical character of our ancestors only, but also their ideas and prejudices. ”

“ For under a rule of female kinship the heir to the throne is either the late king's brother, or the son of the late king's sister, while under a rule of male kinship the heir to the throne is the late king's son. ”

“ The so-called noble family is not noble in the continental sense; privilege does not go on from generation to generation; titles and precedence are lost in the second or third generation; substantial privilege exists in only one member of the family at a time. ”