hi! this rp looks wonderful! i'm interested in the peeress but had a question about titles. i'm reading about peerages for women and wondering how her title would have been created - it looks like either her title could have been set to be inherited by "heirs general," or created for her mother upon the death of her father (but then i'm not sure if the title would be hers or moms?) do you have any preferences/suggestions? would this be more common for a certain rank of nobility? thanks so much!
Hi! Thank you so much for your kind words! We hope you join us!
There are a few ways a title could legally fall to be held by a woman as opposed to needing to be held by a man. The title being created to be inherited by āheirs generalā is one of them, as you said. This is pretty much the standard for really, really old English Baronies and Scottish peerages, where sons were still considered before daughters for inheritance of a title, but the daughters could inherit the title before it would go to more distant relatives.
Another way is by special writ, or essentially the crown saying āDue to special circumstances, this title will pass to this femaleā, essentially a āone time exceptionā for something that might otherwise leave the immediate family and cause problems. This could take a royal decree and an act of Parliament to actually change things. (The biggest, most famous case of this is the Duke of Marlborough, which I wonāt go into here.)
If her father had been someone Very Important but who died before he could be properly recognized, itās possible that her mother was made a Peeress in honor of him instead, but the title would stay the motherās until she died, and would only pass to the daughter is specifically allowed in the creation of the titleāplausible if it was a circumstance where he obviously only had a daughter when the title was created. (If the daughter had a brother, even a younger one, the title would go to them first.)
Again, itās most common among really old English baronies and Scottish titles. I would suggest for our case the Peeress not being above a Countess, whether Scottish or English. The title being inheritable by āheir generalā is the sort of simplest option with the fewest headaches involved, but you could also always just hand wave and say āTitles are complicated, buried back in history is this weird quirk that collided with specific family circumstances so that this woman is now a Peeress.ā I will say it would be unusual for her becoming a peeress in her own right to be unexpected for her, as families would usually well keep track of where the titles were going.
Apologies if this is a bit scattered, thereās a lot to this subject! If you have more questions, reach out. Iām happy to talk about this history stuff at length.