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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ninthcouncil" data-source="post: 6069512" data-attributes="member: 2566">It might help to consider the early history of the English Dukes of Norfolk. The chaotic and inconsistent way in which this title was handed down should help to dispel the notion that the process of inheritance was thoroughly regularised in mediaeval times.The Norfolks started out as Earls – initially they were Saxon lords, but after the conquest, the title was forfeited and Roger Bigod, who had arrived with William the Conqueror, was appointed. His line held the title till 1207, when the 5th Earl died without issue. At this point, the title reverted to the Crown, and Edward II made his brother, Thomas of Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk in 1312. Thomas died without male issue, but the title remained passed to his daughter Margaret as Countess of Norfolk, then to her son Thomas Mowbray. The title was at this time also raised in rank, making Thomas Mowbray the Duke of Norfolk.In 1476 the 4th Duke died leaving a 3-year-old girl, Anne, as his only issue. She was then married to the 4-year-old Richard, Duke of York, son of King Edward IV, who took over the Mowbray lands and the title of duke of Norfolk. The child bride, however, died aged 8, and further complications arose when the propriety of Edward IV’s marriage was brought into question on his death. This eventually led to the duke being declared illegitimate and sent to the tower by the new king, Richard III (yes, him – this was during the Wars of the Roses), and his claims to the Dukedom of Norfolk dismissed.Richard II then gave Norfolk to his close supporter John Howard, who happened to be a descendent of the 1st Duke, Thomas Mowbray, and the title has remained in that family throughout the intervening centuries (even though they remained Catholics).To sum up – if in your game, the duke has died without male issue, don’t sweat it too much; there is no precisely right answer, as what happens is up to the king. If the family are important allies, he will probably ensure the title remains with them, even through the female line. If they are enemies, he may take the opportunity to confiscate the title and give it to someone more tractable. If the heir is missing, the king may also choose to allow some time, possibly years, to elapse before finalising the situation, during which time the lands may be administered by some proxy, probably a relative.Some other points:- Marquis, Viscount and Baronet are later elaborations and didn’t exist in mediaeval times. Count is the European equivalent of the English Earl, which term had been retained as a sop to the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy post-conquest. An Earl’s wife – or, in the case of Margaret of Norfolk, a female Earl – is a Countess. But there are no Counts in England.- "Downton Abbey" is set over half a millennium too late to be any sort of guide to mediaeval protocol, at a time when legal institutions were much better developed and inheritance rules more rigidly codified. And people were flying around in biplanes, for pity’s sake.- Ideas of aristocrats being somehow of a different breed are likely to be at least partly the inventions of later ages when, having lost their military function, the aristocracy needed an ideological justification for their dominance. It is unusual (and usually very damaging) for a noble class to be entirely closed. (The idea of “blue bloods”, incidentally, is a racist Spanish concept suggesting that the peasantry were contaminated by Moorish interbreeding, which was carried over into English only in Victorian times.)</blockquote>

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