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Pedants' corner
Original poster

Debrett's-style title question

66 replies

MrsBadger · 07/12/2009 14:43

(go with me on this)

Your father is Lord Badger, Marquis of Sleasby
You are therefore born Lady Wilhelmina Badger.

You marry George Weasel, Earl of Coddingham
and therefore become Lady Coddingham
but
then he divorces you and remarries

You are obv no longer Lady Coddingham as there is a new one
but do you
a) revert to your maiden name and style (Lady Badger)
b) retain your married surname but revert to your maiden style (Lady Weasel)

answers on a postcard before this wretched party on Saturday...

OP posts:
Georgimama · 07/12/2009 15:44

I could get the invitations from Smythson or whatever it's called - there was a thread with some of their "At Home" cards recently, only about £30 each.

HinnyPet · 07/12/2009 15:50

Ooh where would I get the lairdship from? Appeals to the snobbery in DH!!

VintageGardenia · 07/12/2009 16:05

Oh sorry I had actually misread that as "ultimate knob present".

I'd better stop taking the mickey as I do actually have Smythson correspondence cards but I've eked out the same box for years and they are beautiful.

All you snob/knob lairdhunters here's how you can become one of the mere 4,564,008 Ladies of Lochaber but if your dh's are true snobs they'll be horrified.

Sorry Mrs Badger didn't mean to overrun your thread.

Georgimama · 07/12/2009 16:05

Oh I just did some googling and this is terribly funny on the subject.

campion · 07/12/2009 16:31

If she was Lady Wilhelmina Badger in her own right before marriage then she kept her own title ie Lady Wilhelmina, upon marriage.
So she would be Lady Wilhelmina Coddingham, which wouldn't be a problem as her successor probably won't have the same name.

She'd probably be Kylie or Waynetta and at least 30 years younger owing to poor old Lord Coddingham's mid-life crisis.

And if she doesn't like it (the new one) - tough!

Well, that's how I read Debrett's, anyway

Original poster
MrsBadger · 07/12/2009 16:32

good lord, I barely expected this one to register on the MN-o-meter, what a helpful lot you are

I hasten to add these are not real nobs, merely murder mystery ones, the only actual Hons I know dropped their titles years ago

but I am playing the aforementioned daughter of marquis and divorcée of earl and I am buggered if I am going to have people calling me Billie all night if I should be Lady Wilhelmina....

OP posts:
Georgimama · 07/12/2009 16:32

LOL. I still think you should phone Debrett's and ask them.

Original poster
MrsBadger · 07/12/2009 16:33

(oh and Campion is quite right - the current Lady Coddingham was known as 'Babylon Jojo - Dynamite on Legs' before her marriage...)

OP posts:
LouIsAWeetbixKid · 07/12/2009 16:36

I bought my brother one of those land plots in Scotland for his 18th birthday. He is now Lord Nicholas and changed his license etc. As an 18 year old he loves it as he gets let into all the clubs!!

Georgimama · 07/12/2009 16:38

He is not Lord Nicholas. Unless he has changed his name by deed poll so that his first name is "Lord". Which is classy.

VintageGardenia · 07/12/2009 16:39

Babylon Jojo love it.

edam · 07/12/2009 16:39

You are Lady Coddingham, just as the Princess of Wales was still the Princess of Wales (although she was dropped sharpish by the royal family hence no HRH).

But you may choose to allow your friends to call you Willie, if you prefer.

You often have more than one Lady C, if Lord C's father predeceases his mother for instance. (Although strictly speaking the widow is the Dowager Lady C.)

Misspent youth reading Georgette Heyer meant I was fully briefed for marrying into yer aristocracy. Somehow ended up in peasant class instead!

champagnesupernova · 07/12/2009 16:41

Oh FGS

edam · 07/12/2009 16:41

(Those land plots in Scotland don't confer actual peerages btw, just lordships of the manor which don't actually count - you don't get to be called Lord. Sorry but your brother is masquerading!)

LouIsAWeetbixKid · 07/12/2009 16:46

He is 18. He somehow managed to get the licensing place to do it (small country town, local government office etc etc). You do not have to change your name by deed poll to call yourself Lord (he is not using the title for dodgy purposes). You can call yourself anything. He is not really a Lord, fgs, even I know that. It is just a fun thing that's all.

BlingLoving · 07/12/2009 16:47

Diana got to keep the title after much discussion - I remember the news reports. And it had to be, "Diana, Princess of Wales" not "Princess Diana" or "Her Royal Highness, Diana/Princess Diana".

Georgimama · 07/12/2009 16:55

You can call yourself anything if you are not doing so to deceive.

SunChaser · 07/12/2009 16:56

England is a very, very strange place.

edam · 07/12/2009 17:01

It was never Princess Diana anyway - see earlier posts about the difference between Lady Willhelmina and Lady Badger!

campion · 07/12/2009 19:08

Diana could have still called herself Lady Diana had she wished.

Having been a 'Princess of' I don't suppose she wished.

AvengingGerbil · 07/12/2009 19:35

On her marriage, Diana became Princess of Wales, or, at a pinch, Princess Charles (see Princess Michael of Kent, for example). The one thing she did not become and never could, was Princess Diana. In the British royal family (my knowledge goes no further) the only way to become Princess Forename is to be born the daughter of a king/queen/prince/princess. You can't acquire Princess Forename-dom by marriage.

(It's true of all the other aristo titles as well - the only Lady Arabellas and Lady Jocastas are daughters of dukes, marquesses and earls. All the others are Lady Surname or Lady Placename of Title, and acquire by marriage - or (still rarely) by creation in their own right.)

Oh god, I still know this stuff. (I did a doctorate that involved lots of old dead aristos. The best kind...)

WilfSell · 07/12/2009 22:42

Oh, boooooo. I was SO hoping this was a real crisis of posh etiquette. It is like looking at the pandas at the zoo.

I am unreasonably disappointed that it is a murder mystery.

We need more toffs on MN.

seeker · 07/12/2009 22:53

Wouldn't she be Wilhemina, Lady Coddingham, And the love rat's new wife would be Lady Coddingham and shunned by all.

theyoungvisiter · 07/12/2009 22:58

Wilfsell - perhaps you could come over to my threads "How much to tip my butler for his Christmas Box?" and "Footmen - matching livery or not?"

silverfrog · 07/12/2009 23:08

Right, now that that has been cleared up, does anyone have any suggestions for my passport dilemma?

The passport office has very kindly re-named her, using her title as her first name, and to add insult to injury, have added on the notes page "the reference to a title is the child's name, and not in fact a title" whereas the rest of us all have "the holder is also XXXX"

they insist nothing can be done, despite us all having valid passports with the correct info displayed.

So, how do I get them to change it, and free poor dd2 from her current name which makes her sound like a relative of Jordan's dd?