About how English aristocrats adapt to life in a democracy. The author of the article, Chris Bryant, argues that despite the myth of "noble poverty" and the loss of ancestral homes, the wealth of aristocrats and their influence remains phenomenal.

On January 11 of this year, after a short illness at the age of 77, the third Baron Lyell, Charles, died. He inherited his title and the 10,000-acre estate of Kinnordy at the age of four. After studying at Eton and at the aristocratic Oxford College of Christ Church, Charles spent almost 47 years in the House of Lords. The Baron was able to remain in Parliament even after the 1999 reform, when most hereditary peers were excluded from the House: he became one of 92 elected hereditary peers. According to the new rules, after his death, by-elections were held for the vacant seat, in which 27 hereditary peers took part.

In their statements, most of the candidates focused on career achievements and lists of regalia. But Hugh Crossley, the 45-year-old fourth Baron Somerleyton, emphasized ideology. "I believe that the hereditary peerage must be preserved: this principle fosters a deep sense of duty to the good of the nation," he said.

Crossley is easy to understand: he is the heir to Somerleyton Hall in Suffolk. His ancestor Sir Francis Crossley, a major industrialist, purchased the estate in 1863. With gardens, park labyrinths, bird aviaries, 300-foot (100-meter) colonnades and a marina, he was born and spent his whole life in this luxurious estate of 5,000 acres (2,000 hectares). Of course, hereditary principles are sacred to him.

Regular visits to Parliament seemed to their lordships too tiring.

But judging by the activity in the House of Lords, for most of the 20th century, the aristocracy showed a surprising indifference to the good of the nation. Attendance at the debates was extremely low, although the peers already have a very forgiving schedule: the working day began at 3:45 or 4:15 pm, and the working week was most often limited to three days. Even during World War II, debates rarely drew more than a couple of dozen peers at once, and the trend only worsened in the post-war years. Regular visits to Parliament seemed too tiring for their Lordships, except in situations where their personal interests were at stake or their convictions were hurt. A striking example is when, in 1956, a member of the House of Commons put forward a bill to abolish the death penalty: the Lords rejected it by a convincing majority of 238 votes to 95.

These days we are accustomed to regard the British aristocracy as a historical curiosity. Under Tony Blair, most hereditary peers were expelled from the House of Lords (there are only 92 of them left instead of 650). It may seem that this indicates a complete loss of influence. But the fact that 92 hereditary peers have remained in Parliament (more than the number of participants in almost all meetings in the last eight decades) is a victory that proves that their influence is still strong. After all, they were able not only to delay, but to prevent further reform of the House of Lords and strengthen their presence in it.

By the 1990s, many aristocrats had lost interest in politics, but for those who nevertheless decided to exercise their parliamentary rights, the House of Lords provided an easy path to power. So, under John Major, several hereditary peers were immediately appointed to important government positions: Viscount Cranborne became chairman of the House of Lords, and among the ministers there were seven earls, four viscounts and five hereditary barons. And even in the administration formed in June 2017 by Theresa May, there is one earl, one viscount and three hereditary barons.

Behind the beautiful façade of the British aristocracy, behind the romantic biographies of some of its representatives, lies a much darker side: centuries of theft, violence and insatiable greed. Historically, the defining feature of the aristocracy was not a noble desire to serve society, but a desperate lust for power. Aristocrats seized land in a variety of ways - expropriated it from monasteries, secured it for their sole use under the pretext of efficiency. They held on to their wealth and strengthened the stability of their social status. They forced to respect themselves, defiantly spending exorbitant funds on palaces and jewelry. They set a strict set of rules for all other members of society, but they themselves lived by very different standards. They believed (and forced others to believe) that a hierarchical social order led by them was the only natural order of things. The slightest doubt in this was regarded as the destruction of spiritual bonds.

Attempts to deprive the aristocrats of this status infuriated and sincerely shocked them. Clinging to their position, they came up with increasingly convincing arguments in defense of their privileges. And when in the end democracy unceremoniously pushed the aristocrats aside, they found new ways to preserve their incredible wealth - no longer pretending to be driven by concern for the public good. So the aristocracy is far from dying out - quite the contrary.

The fortune of the descendants of the royal Plantagenet dynasty in 2001 was 4 billion pounds and 700 thousand acres (300 thousand hectares) of land; 42 representatives of the dynasty until 1999 were members of the House of Lords.

... Whatever they say about noble poverty and the loss of family estates, the personal wealth of British aristocrats remains phenomenal. According to Country Life magazine, a third of British land is still owned by the aristocracy. Despite some changes, the lists of the most powerful noble landowners in 1872 and in 2001 turn out to be remarkably similar. According to some estimates, the fortune of the descendants of the royal Plantagenet dynasty in 2001 was 4 billion pounds and 700 thousand acres (300 thousand hectares) of land; 42 representatives of the dynasty until 1999 were members of the House of Lords. The data for Scotland is even more striking: almost half of the land there is concentrated in the hands of 432 individuals and companies. More than a quarter of the land plots, the area of ​​​​which is over 5 thousand acres, in Scotland is owned by aristocratic families.

And it's not just about the numbers: many of the landed estates owned by British aristocrats are considered the most valuable and expensive in the world. Thus, the Duke of Westminster, in addition to estates of 96,000, 23,500 and 11,500 acres (40,000, 10,000 and 4,500 hectares) in different parts of the country owns huge land plots in the prestigious London districts of Mayfair and Belgravia. Earl Cadogan owns plots in Cadogan Square, Sloane Street and King's Road, Marquess of Northampton - 260 acres (100 hectares) in Clerkenwell and Canonbury, Baroness Howard de Walden - most of Harley Street and Marylebone High Street. Rents in these parts of London are among the highest in the world. In 1925, the journalist W. B. Northrop published a map: the "aristocratic landownership" octopus spread its tentacles all over London, paralyzing the construction business and sucking the juice out of the inhabitants. Since then, little has changed.

One legal rule, unique to England and Wales, became especially important for noble landowners. It was she who allowed them to build houses for many centuries and sell them on a leasehold basis, and not full ownership. This means that buyers do not acquire the property itself, but only the right to own it for a certain period of time. So even the "owners" of large residential complexes are forced to pay land rent to the real owners, to whom their property returns after the contract expires (and in some areas of London it cannot be more than 35 years). In addition to real estate, the land itself also brings in huge incomes: agricultural areas are constantly growing in price. According to the 2016 ranking of the richest people in Britain, 30 lords are worth £100 million or more each.

... Many aspects of the life of English aristocrats have hardly changed over time. Even those who have ceded their palaces to the National Trust for Historic Interests or other non-profit foundations (with all the associated tax benefits) often continue to live in their ancestral homes. Only now their estates are equipped with modern amenities. Some country palaces such as Chatsworth, Woburn and Longleat live off country tourism, attracting many visitors. Others are still private estates, and noble heirs, as before, annually move from one luxurious residence to another. The Dukes of Buccleuch, for example, use the famous "Pink Palace" Drumlanrig as their main residence, but spend the winter months at the 100-room Bowhill Mansion or the Boughton Estate (the latter includes five villages and a mansion whose halls are decorated with works by Van Dyck, El Greco and Gainsborough). ). When the previous duke made this voyage, he usually took Leonardo da Vinci's Madonna with a Spindle with him - until in 2003 the painting was stolen directly from his family castle.

The habits and hobbies of aristocrats also remained the same. In the 21st century, members of the nobility most often belong to the same clubs as their ancestors. Aristocrats still use U-English instead of non-U English (terms for differences in aristocratic and middle-class vocabulary), saying napkins and vegetables instead of serviettes and greens. They play polo. They are hunting. They love guns, horses and dogs.

Hunters on the estate of the Duke of Beaufort in England. Photo: Dave Caulkin / AP Photo / East News

The secret to maintaining wealth is also that, like their ancestors, many modern aristocrats successfully evade taxes. In the 18th century, the satirist Charles Churchill wrote what could be called the unspoken motto of the aristocracy: “What do we care if taxes go up or down? Thanks to our wealth, we don’t pay them anyway!”

The second Duke of Westminster was sued for paying his gardeners under a scheme that excluded taxation. Then the judge, Lord Tomlin, in 1936 ruled: “Everyone has the right to conduct business in such a way as to minimize tax payments in accordance with the law. If he succeeds, then, despite the dissatisfaction with his resourcefulness of the employees of the Internal Revenue Commission or other taxpayers, no one has the right to force him to additional tax payments.

“What do we care if taxes go up or down? Thanks to our wealth, we don’t pay them anyway!”

The rest of the aristocrats firmly grasped this principle. For example, businessmen William and Edmund Vesti, founders of one of the world's largest meat retailers, bought themselves a peerage and a baronetcy for £20,000 in 1922, and then came up with a tax avoidance scheme that saved the family a total of £88 million. pounds. In 1980, the brothers' descendants were found to have paid £10 on a profit of £2.3 million. Asked how this could have happened, they shrugged, “Let's face it, no one pays more taxes than they owe. We all dodge in one way or another, don't we?"

The Trustees of Castle Howard in North Yorkshire sold a painting by Joshua Reynolds for £9.4 million to pay for the divorce of its aristocratic occupant. However, they stated that they were not required to pay the market value increase tax. The reason given is because the painting is part of the "cloths and upholstery of the castle" and is therefore considered a "drainable asset". Incredibly, in 2014 the Court of Appeal accepted such an excuse. True, the following year this tax loophole was closed.

Trusts became the main way to avoid taxes for aristocrats. An endless number of peers, owning lands and castles, placed all their assets in discretionary trusts, thereby evading both public scrutiny and inheritance tax. In 1995, the ninth Duke of Buccleuch complained that on the list of the richest British people he was estimated at 200 million pounds - when these figures applied to Buccleuch Estates Ltd, in which he did not have any shares. Legally he is right. In fact - he and his family are the beneficial owners. The same goes for a few dozen more noble families: family trust funds quietly provide income to any number of beneficiaries, and neither inheritance taxes nor public curiosity can be feared.

Lady Fiona Carnarvon, owner of Highclear Castle in southern England, poses in front of it. Photo: Niklas Halle "n / AFP / East News

…Perhaps aristocrats don't like to pay taxes, but receiving government payments is a completely different matter. Thus, landowners tried to extract the maximum possible benefits from the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union (a system of subsidizing agricultural programs in the EU). The numbers are staggering: at least one in five recipients of the largest single grants in the UK in 2015/2016 is an aristocrat. The richest received the most: the farms of the Duke of Westminster - 913,517 pounds, the farms of the Dukes of Northumberland - 1,010,672 pounds, the farms of the Duke of Marlborough - 823,055 pounds, and the estates of Lord Rothschild - 708,919 pounds. And that's just for one year. Something, but aristocrats have always been able to exploit the system.

Membership in the House of Lords also generates income, although the peers insist that it should not be regarded as a salary. As the Marquess of Salisbury said in 1958, the three guineas a day that members of the upper house received were "not an additional remuneration, but simply a reimbursement of expenses already incurred by the noble lords in the performance of their duties." Today, peers can claim £300 a day if they attend a meeting, or £150 if they don't show up at Westminster that day.

In March 2016, when the House of Lords sat for 15 days, 16 Earls received a total of £52,650 in tax-free payments (not including travel expenses), and 13 Viscounts received £43,050. The Duke of Somerset demanded 3,600 pounds. The Duke of Montrose was paid £2,750 plus £1,570 for travel expenses: £76 for the use of his own car, £258 for train tickets, £1,087 for plane tickets and another £149 for taxis and parking fees. During the entire parliamentary session, the duke took the floor only twice.

The Duke of Montrose was paid £2,750 plus £1,570 for travel expenses. During the entire parliamentary session, the duke took the floor only twice.

... For centuries, the main secret of the viability of the old aristocracy was carefully cultivated greatness. Everything from clothes to manners was designed to impress - so that no one dared to doubt the right of the nobility to power. But nowadays the secret of aristocrats is in invisibility, almost invisibility. Commenting on the rating of ten dukes published in Tatler magazine, the Daily Mail journalists noted: “Once the holders of these titles would have become the main celebrities of their time. Today, most people will have to work hard to remember at least one person from this list.

And this is no coincidence. British laws relating to land ownership, inheritance taxes or discretionary trusts make it possible to hide wealth from the public eye. All this imperceptibly supports the power of the aristocracy. The writer Nancy Mitford, who herself was part of the British high society, but regarded it with healthy skepticism, once said: “It is quite likely that those who for a thousand years have weathered so many religious, dynastic and political shelter to survive another one." It looks like she was right.

Cover photo: Duke of Devonshire Stoker Cavendish with his wife, Duchess Amanda. Photo: Oli Scarff / AFP / East News

French was only abolished in English jurisprudence in the 18th century. Before that, it was the norm that when you come to court, the judges speak a dialect of French, pass sentence, write down the sentence in French. They are not like you, they are the descendants of the Norman occupiers. Yes, they canceled the French dialect, and the royal court continued to speak in their native, Old Norman dialect of French. It's cultural to remember that you are the highest stratum, a special nation, and not an Englishman.

This is the fundamental difference in the use of the French language by the Russian aristocracy. If the German language was the language of the invaders who came in large numbers under Peter the Great and Anna Ioannovna with Biron, then the French language was then a compromise. The nobles rise above the people, but the Germans do not have the right to dictate their linguistic superiority to the higher Russian nobility. In the English aristocracy, everything was simple, family-like. At the everyday level, it was assumed that a) they are not English, but a special people; b) they speak their own dialect of French, and not the Parisian dialect, that is, they form a special people, called to lead and rule. It is clear that the popularity of the French language was hit hard by the French Revolution. Should we be proud of the language of the Jacobins and sans-culottes, that is, ragamuffins proud of their raggedness? This is where the English aristocracy hastily began to develop special manners that emphasize the difference between them and the common people, since the scope of the French dialect began to shrink in favor of the aristocratic version of the English language. By the way, the aristocratic, English language in the 19th century was so far from popular English that this made it possible for Bernard Shaw to compose the play Pygmalion. Another indicator - the most prominent English writers are Irish and a bunch of non-English aristocrats like Byron and Oscar Wilde.

However, during the American War of Independence, colonists with the proper level of education had no doubt that they were fighting not only for the independence of the colonies from the mother country, but also for the independence of themselves, their relatives, from foreign, alien aristocracy, which was proud of the fact that who were not English. In the same way, neither the English archers of the Hundred Years' War, nor later career fighters like the pirate Morgan, had any doubt that they were looking to profit from the foreign power that occupied their country.

But let's continue with the logic of reasoning. What is surprising in the rise of the Rothschilds in Britain in the 18th - 19th centuries, if the English people never held power in the state, but foreigners ruled the country? What is surprising in the fact that the richest people in Britain today are foreigners, people of different nationalities from Jews to Indians? This is such a British, national custom, when the English themselves are the servants of the ruling class, and the ruling class itself constitutes a special nation of foreigners, which is a kind of nation within a nation with its own traditions, called aristocracy.

It is high time for historians to raise the question of the chronic incapacity of the English people to have their own statehood and govern themselves. Because of this, the British have to take someone else's power and other people's traditions for their own property. We must even talk about the genetic inferiority of the British. The genetics of the aristocrats is one, but the people are different. Hence the famous expression - an English lady can eat an apple ... through a tennis-rocket (an English lady can eat an apple ... through a tennis racket). Pay attention - we are talking about a true lady, and not about an English commoner, whose face is sometimes so primitive that it can be confused with Russian or Dutch. This is a special type of face, which, due to its aristocracy, we usually call a horse's muzzle.

Of course, the English people themselves have a lot of shortcomings. They are lazy, drink a lot (the expression to drink like an Englishman is well known), their patriotism is loud, they are prone to violence, hooliganism and indecent behavior, remember the behavior of British fans. They are prone to total squealing. English women are prone to debauchery and prostitution. Visitors to England are struck by the abundance of degraded, drunken individuals, who are commonly called degenerates all over the world. Such a people, of course, is not worthy of having their own statehood, therefore the centuries-old foreign dominion is rightly considered by the foreigners themselves, that is, the aristocrats, as a boon for the British. However, ordinary Englishmen are perfectly trainable and are ready to carry the traditions of their own training to other peoples. They willingly march, call any boss "sir", that is, a foreign aristocrat, and love, especially after beer, to sing patriotic songs. They are proud to be subordinate to the elite.

The question of when foreign domination will end in Britain can be answered with the words of Belkovsky - never. This is exactly what Belkovsky said about the power of the Jews in Russia - there is power and it will never end, since the Russians are Christians. As we know, the British are also Christians, that is, they have the right to dispose of themselves and their country is contraindicated. But the traditional, British upbringing implies the active use of the rod and preaches love for superiors.

I'm kidding? joking? There are a few. But, gentlemen, there was no secret that even in the 19th century the royal family and aristocrats often spoke among themselves in a special, occupational dialect of French, and there was not. There was a ruling aristocracy, it fenced itself off from the people over and over again by accepting more and more new portions of newcomers. For example, the Glorious Revolution is not only a return to royal rule in place of the provisional government of Cromwell's parliament, but also another influx of newcomers from the continent. Even if the aristocrats did not advertise their foreign origin, they remembered it very well. And in terms of obstacles for mixing one socio-national stratum with another, Britain will give a hundred points ahead of old Europe. By the way, the notorious Venetian merchants, whom various conspiracy theorists and propagandists call the Illuminati, came to Britain precisely because the aristocrats gladly accepted non-English people for permanent residence.

However, let's look at other signs - the English people were deprived of land, most of the land was seized by aristocrats, the English people were deprived of business, shares of trading companies like the East India were owned by aristocrats. The English people gladly fled from their native country to America. Protestantism was a form of popular protest against the power of aristocrats. As they say, everything is under the nose and does not constitute a special secret. English power is a special subculture, which it is quite logical to call foreign, like the power of German aristocrats under Anna Ioannovna, the power of Muslims in India under the Great Mughals or the power of the Manchus during the Qing dynasty in China. All in plain sight and no conspiracy theories.

Elizabeth II

It would be logical to assume that Queen Elizabeth II is the richest representative of the British aristocracy. However, in the state of which she is the monarch, her fortune is far from the largest: among the titled nobility, she occupies only the 15th line in the ranking of the richest, and in the whole of Great Britain - 319th, along with the music magnate Simon Cowell.

The queen's fortune is estimated at 350 million euros. Elizabeth II receives 15 percent of her share from transactions with real estate owned by her, which is managed by the Crown Estate company. In addition, the Queen owns a personal collection of jewelry (including a vintage Cartier tiara worth 750 thousand euros), cars and art collections.

However, there are aristocrats whose purses are much thicker than those of the queen. All of them are incredibly rich - and incredibly closed: they do not like public life, they shun journalists and rarely go out, at least at those events that are widely covered in the media .. the site talks about them.

1. Hugh Richard Louis Grosvenor €10bn (£9.35bn)

26-year-old Hugh Grosvenor of Great Britain, who was nicknamed "heir to half of London" and "eligible bachelor". He is the son of the sixth Duke of Westminster, who died at the age of 65, who was one of the richest people in Britain. After the death of his father, Hugh became the heir to the huge fortune that his ancestors earned in real estate: Gerald Grosvenor owned the Grosvenor Group, which owns land throughout the UK, including elite areas of London.

The young man is the great-great-great-great-grandson of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin and Nicholas I and is close friends with Prince Harry. Despite his aristocratic origin, he studied at a regular school, where he showed interest in football. After leaving school, Hugh studied rural management at Newcastle University and Oxford.

2. Earl Cadogan, 7.43 billion euros (5.7billion pounds)

Charles Gerald John Cadogan is 80 years old and a classic real estate mogul. The Cadogan Group has been family owned for over 300 years and averages 200 deals per month. Cadogan Group owns 93 acres of land (and objects on it) in one of the most prestigious areas of the British capital - Chelsea. In the area of ​​the count's possessions, streets and squares are named after Kadagan. For a short time, Charles was a co-owner of the Chelsea Football Club.

3. Baroness Howard de Walden €3.96 billion (£3.63 billion)

Mary Hazel Keridwen Chernin, 10th Baroness Howard de Walden is the eldest of the four daughters of the late Lord Howard de Walden. Since 2004, she has managed the entire family's estate, including Howard de Walden Estates, which bought 15 historic buildings in London for £34m in 2010. The property she acquired in the center of the English capital has not been put up for sale for more than 470 years.

Prior to Mary Chernin, John Osmael Scott-Ellis held the title of Baron Howard de Walden, and before him, Thomas Scott-Ellis. A funny story allegedly happened to the latter in 1931: after moving from Scotland to Munich, Thomas bought a car and on the very first day, according to eyewitnesses, almost hit a pedestrian - Adolf Hitler.

4. Viscount Portman and his family, $2.46 billion (£1.89 billion)

Christopher Edward Berkeley Portman, 10th Viscount, owns, like many members of high society, more than one estate, including 110 acres of land in central London. It is these possessions that bring the viscount and his family a huge fortune.

Ex-husband - Justin Portman - son of Lord Edward Henry Berkeley, ninth Viscount Portman. However, the ex-husband of the model is not the eldest son, so he did not inherit the title. The common children of Natalia and Justin also do not have a title.

5. Robert Miller, his daughter Princess Marie-Chantal and family $2bn (£1.58bn)

The Miller family is incredibly wealthy. The head of the family, Robert Miller, made his fortune by founding a chain of Duty Free stores in 1960. His daughter, Crown Princess Marie-Chantal, is also quite famous. She did not need anything since childhood, but this did not stop her from trying to fulfill herself and take place as a person. Marie studied at the prestigious boarding school Institut Le Rosey and continued her education at the New York Academy of the Arts.

With her future husband, Prince Pavlos of Greece, Chantal met at a party of mutual friends. Two years later, the couple got married. The wedding dress was made by Valentino Garavani.

6. Viscount Rothemer €1.09 billion (£1 billion)

50-year-old Viscount Rothemer (full name - Harold Jonathan Esmond Harmsworth) is known not only in England, but throughout the world. He is a talented entrepreneur and head of the Daily Mail & General Trust Corporation (a large-scale media network). The company's revenue is many billions of dollars.

Harmsworth received a decent education: he graduated from the Gordonstown School and Duke University, one of the leading in the United States. Prior to leading the Daily Mail and General Trust, Harold held various positions at Associated Newspapers and was Managing Director of the British daily Evening Standard.

7. Duke of Devonshire, $948m (£870m)

Like most of the aristocrats on this list, the 73-year-old Duke of Devonshire's wealth comes from real estate. He also owns a rare art collection worth 981 million euros.

The title of Duke of Devonshire was created in 1694. It is worn by a senior representative of the aristocratic Cavendish family. Representatives of this family are among the most influential families in England since the 17th century. The Cavendishes were ranked only with the Earls of Derby and the Marquesses of Salisbury.

8. Earl Ivy and the Guinness family, €930m (£854m)

Edward Guinness - a descendant of a simple brewer Arthur - became fabulously rich when he sold the family mansion in Phoenix Park in Dublin. Large sums went to him after he became the fourth Earl of Ivey in 1992, when he inherited shares of Guinness in the amount of 62 million pounds.

The Guinnesses are an aristocratic Anglo-Irish Protestant family known not only for their achievements in brewing, but also in banking, politics and religion.

9. Prince Jonathan and Princess Jessin Doria-Pamphilj, €817m (£750m)

British orphans Jonathan and Jesin were adopted by Princess Orietta, a representative of one of the oldest aristocratic families in Italy, and her husband an English officer Frank Pogson in the early 60s. Together with their new parents, the kids lived in Britain and, as heirs, received the titles of prince and princess. After the death of the guardians, Jonathan and Jesin inherited the Doria Pamphilj Palace in Venice and became almost the richest British aristocrats.

10. Duke of Bedford €746m (£685m)

Andrew Ian Henry Russell, 15th Duke of Bedford, 55, is the heir to several companies, estates and land valued at £150m. Like most aristocrats, he earns large sums from real estate. In addition, he has a large collection of paintings.

The first title of the Duke of Bedford belonged to the third son of the English King Henry IV. They became John Plantagenet - a prominent figure in the Hundred Years War and regent of France since 1422. The ducal title was revoked for 200 years because Justin Tudor had no issue. The title was restored only in 1694 for the Russell family. To date, its owner is Andrew Ian Henry Russell, 15th Duke of Bedford. The heir apparent is Henry Robin Charles Russell, Marquess of Tavistock, born June 7, 2005.

11. Jacob Rothschild €708m (£650m)

81-year-old Jacob Rothschild is the founder of a large British investment trust (closed-end investment fund). He now manages a £4bn fund. In addition, he has a personal collection of wines, consisting of 15,000 bottles.

The Rothschilds are an influential family of bankers and public figures of European origin. The history of their dynasty begins in the 1760s. The baronial title of the Rothschilds was given by the Emperor of the Austrian Empire Franz II.

12. Duke of Sutherland €632m (£580m)

The current 77-year-old Duke of Sutherland (seventh in a row) is 357th in the ranking of the richest people on the planet and 12th in the list of the richest aristocrats in the UK. His fortune is growing through real estate transactions and works of art. By the way, some of them are stored in the museum (he does not earn money on them).

The hereditary title of Duke of Sutherland was bestowed by King William IV on the Leveson-Gower family. The first to be awarded the title was the second Marquess of Stafford - George Leveson-Gower.

13 Charlotte Townshed €463m (£425m)

Charlotte Townshed is the only person in the UK other than the Queen who is allowed to breed wild swans. Her income is supplemented by real estate agencies and farms. One of her most profitable properties occupies 20 acres of land in the prestigious area of ​​Holland Park in London.

14. Duke of Northumberland €397m (£365m)

Right before the queen on the list of the richest is the Duke of Northumberland - Ralph Percy. He owns Alnwick Castle, located in the north of England, which has been the residence of the Duke and his family for more than 700 years. Percy also owns other properties, including 120,000 acres of land in Northumberland.

By the way, episodes of two Harry Potter films and the television series Downton Abbey were filmed in Alnwick Castle. Ralph Percy has repeatedly complained that his family is suffering from a crowd of fans of films about the wizard. It was reported that the 12th Duke of Northumberland, his wife and their children somehow could not even leave the castle because of the crowds of tourists.

Source Thisisinsider

Photo Gettyimages.ru

I've wanted to make this post for a long time. It's not that I'm a fan of the Queen of England, or England, or Kate Middleton (Prince Harry is an exception, of course), I just heard more than once that classism is strong in England, the aristocrats are super closed, this and that, that's interesting - how is this possible in our easy, fast 21st century? And then I came across a book by Julian Fellows "Snobs".

Among his works - Downton Abbey, for example. The novel "Snobs" is written on behalf of an aristocratic actor, so it can be assumed that at least the author associates himself with the hero. Whether the story was actually described in the book or not - it doesn’t matter, in my opinion, the main thing is that the theme of class and the closeness of the English upper classes is well disclosed there.

Briefly content: there is a family of the Earls of Brotton (mother is an iron lady with nowhere blue blood, a mattress is a father, about the same mattress, but a noble and kind son, a sober-minded daughter who is married to some impudent broker, whom maman married in spite of ). There is a family of Laviere - representatives of the top of the Middle Class: Mom, dreaming to issue a daughter marrying an aristocrat and a little turned on to get into the highest scope and chase tea with noble ladies, dad-pofigist, and daughter - all in Pope. The author knows both. The main storyline is how a mattress son fell in love with a daughter who doesn't give a damn and what came of it. It turned out interesting, read at your leisure, and I'll just copy a few fragments of the book (Friday, the reports started, it's time for a post about the English aristocracy :))

So, about the Lavery family (many letters here)

“The Laveries were not rich, but they were not poor either, and since they had only one child, they never had to save much. Edith was sent to a fashionable kindergarten, and then to Benenden (“No, the princess has absolutely nothing to do with it. We just went through the options and decided that this was the most inspiring place.") Mrs. Lavery would like her daughter to continue her studies at the university, but when Edith's exam results were not good enough to secure her admission to one of the institutions where they would have liked to send her away, Mrs. Lavery was not disappointed.She had another ambitious plan - to bring her daughter into the world.

Stella Lavery herself did not have a chance to debut. And this she was ashamed to the core. She tried to hide it, often recalling with a laugh how fun she was in her youth, and if she was insistently asked for details, she could say with a sigh that her father's affairs were greatly shaken in the thirties (thus linking herself to the collapse on Wall Street). street, images of Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby). Or, misrepresenting the dates, she blamed the war for everything. But the reality, as Mrs. Lavery had to admit to herself in the back of her mind, was that in the socially less flexible world of the fifties, the boundaries between those who were members of the Society and those who were not were much clearer. Stella Lavery's family did not belong to the Society……

.... Thanks to the fact that by the nineties of the twentieth century, presentation to the court (which could have been problematic) had already become a thing of the past, Mrs. Lavery had only to convince her husband and daughter that both time and money would be well spent.

It didn't take long to convince them. Edith had no clear plans in life, and the idea of ​​postponing the moment of decision for a year - a year filled with receptions and parties - seemed to her wonderful. And Mr. Lavery liked to represent his wife and daughter among the London beau monde, and he was willing to pay for it. Mrs. Lavery's carefully nurtured connections were enough for Edith to be on the list of invitees to Peter Townend's tea parties, and the girl's appearance allowed her to become one of the models at the Berkeley fashion show. Further, the wind was already favorable. Mrs. Lavery dined with other mothers of debutantes, chose dresses for her daughter for country balls, and generally had a great time. Edith had a good time too.

But Mrs. Lavery was upset that when the Season came to an end, when the last winter charity ball ended and the cuttings from Tatler were pasted into the album along with the invitations, nothing seemed to have changed. During this year, Edith was hosted by the daughters of several peers - including one duke, which made Stella particularly breathless - and all these girls attended a cocktail party that Edith herself gave in Claridge (one of the happiest evenings in the life of Mrs. Lavery), but those friends who stayed with Edith when the music died down and the dancing ended were exactly like the girls who came to visit her from school - the daughters of successful businessmen, representatives of the upper middle class. …..

Edith saw her mother's disappointment, but although she was not, as we shall see, beyond the charms of wealth and nobility, she did not really understand how she could live up to expectations and make really close friendship with the daughters of Noble Houses. They had all known each other almost from birth, and indeed she knew that it would be very difficult to accept them according to their tastes in an apartment in Elm Park Gardens. She kept acquaintance with all the girls who debuted with her, and when they met somewhere by chance, they nodded affably to each other, but life returned to its previous track, and everything became almost the same as immediately after school ... "

About communication.

(photos are random, but all of them are representatives of the aristocracy)

“Jane, Henry, good evening,” Charles stood up and nodded towards Edith. “Do you know Edith Lavery? Henry and Jane Cumnor.

Jane casually and almost imperceptibly shook hands with Edith, then turned back to Charles and, sitting down, poured herself some wine.

- I'm dying of thirst. How are you doing? What happened to you at Ascot?

- Nothing happened. I was there.

I thought we were all having lunch together on Thursday. With Witherby and his wife. We were looking for you, looking for, but then we gave up. Camilla was terribly disappointed. She smiled conspiratorially at Edith, as if inviting her to laugh at the joke. In fact, of course, she deliberately emphasized that Edith was a stranger here and had no idea what she was talking about ... Edith smiled back. She was not new to this strong need of the upper classes to demonstrate that they knew each other and regularly did the same things with the same people.

"She had that curious confidence of the English upper classes, that whatever the situation, and however much others went out of their way for her sake, even when, as now, strangers at all offer their hospitality to her, it is still she, lady Caroline Chase, doing them a favor. It is unthinkable for such people that they do not necessarily do honor to the house they enter. And as a result, because of this belief that she benefited the hosts by her mere presence, Caroline never tried to lead pleasant with anyone except people of her circle, and although she was a smart woman, she could turn out to be a deadly boring guest. But neither she nor many other people very similar to her even suspected this.

Mrs. Frank approached Caroline and began to ask her about mutual acquaintances. She seemed to be unhappy that she was not invited to Charles's wedding, because many of her questions ended with the words "they must have been at the reception", and Caroline again and again they had to admit that yes, they were. Names circled across the deep azure expanse of the Mediterranean sky as they moved from terrace to terrace. Did they see Esterhazy and his wife? Polignacs? Devonshires? Metternicks? Frescobaldis? Names torn from historical treatises, names that Edith remembered in her history lessons about Spain, the reign of Philip II, or the Risogrimmento, or the French Revolution, or the Congress of Vienna. And yet here they are, devoid of any real meaning. The stakes were high, and Edith noticed with some amazement and pleasure that Jane Cumnor and Eric were a few paces behind and walking beside Tina, very apparently trying to avoid that feeling of being left behind, which they so loved to cause in others. Caroline and Charles were unperturbed. It was clear that, despite all the millions of Franks, the brother and sister could respond with a name to every name, and even add a couple on top. "

About the difficulties of choice.

“It was time to face the truth. Edith would not like his mother. He knew this for sure. If Edith were introduced to his mother as the wife of one of his friends, the girl might even like her - if Lady Uckfield noticed her at all, - but as Charles' girlfriend, she will not be welcomed with open arms."

"And of course, as soon as she said:" I am so glad to see our dear Edith's friends with us, "I realized that she did not like the future daughter-in-law. In general, "do not like" is not quite the right expression. She was amazed that her own son marries a girl whom she not only did not know - whom she had not even heard of. She could not believe that this girl's friends were not the children of her own friends. It is amazing that Edith even got into their house. How did this happen ?"

About property.

“These people may have a house in Chester Square and a small cottage in Derbyshire, but you can be sure that “home” is where grass grows under the windows. And if such a shelter does not exist in principle, then they will clearly give you will understand that for their well-being it is vital for them to escape from the city as often as possible to stay with their country friends, away from the smoke and dusty pavements, meaning that even though they have to wander all their lives between stone walls or sit at a table in the City, in they will forever remain villagers in their hearts. It is rare to find an aristocrat who prefers London - at least one who would honestly admit it.

"Representatives of the upper classes of English society have a deep subconscious need to read their difference from others in the things around them. For them, there is nothing more depressing (and less convincing) than trying to claim a certain social position or status, a certain origin or upbringing without the necessary props They would never dream of decorating a one-room apartment in Putney without marking it with a random watercolor portrait of their grandmother in a crinoline, a couple of decent antiques, and some relic from their privileged childhood. a sign system that indicates to the visitor what place the owner assigns to himself in the class hierarchy.But more than anything else, the real distinguishing mark, the litmus test for them, is whether the family managed to maintain their family home and estates.Or an acceptable part of them.You can hear how some nobleman explains the arrival to an American that wealth does not play an important role in modern England, that people can remain in society without a penny in their pocket, that “lands these days are more a responsibility than profit”, but deep down he does not believes. He knows that the family that has lost everything but the title, all these duchesses with their houses near Cheney Walk, viscounts with their run-down apartments on Embery Street, hang there at least three layers of portraits and images of the family estate ("There is something now something like a farmer's college"), all the same, all these people are de-classes for their tribe. Of course, this awareness of the need for a material foundation for social position remains as unspoken as the Masonic ritual.

Oh, and on topic. Excerpts from an article about studying at Oxford called "Sex, weed and class hatred at Oxford"

"Tradition teaches that pith helmets should be equipped not just with bright heads, but with bright aristocratic heads of the Anglican faith. Everything else is nothing more than concessions to the realities of the degraded outside world, which gradually imposed on Oxford Catholics, nouveau riches, offspring of colonial kings, women, atheists, colored , middle and even working classes. But in essence, the tradition is preserved: the entire system of education and pastime is still entirely adjusted to the nobility, which today makes up about 50% of students. These are graduates of elite private schools such as Eton and Westminster, which in England - from strength of 10% of all educational institutions. A hundred years ago, until England lost the imperial-aristocratic hegemony, these schools produced 100% of Oxford students. But the empire still strikes back. The externally imposed 50% is all these "talented black mathematicians from dysfunctional families "- equally spinning in the incubator for three years, finally mountains before being photographed with a diploma and happy parents, after which they return to the same environment from which they left three years earlier. They join the ranks of teachers, petty civil servants, office workers. They move back to their parents in a Welsh village with an unpronounceable name. Stay for graduate school. And their recent dorm roommates and Facebook friends are going on a long voyage through the corridors of power. They will never cross again. "

"The Mikhalkovs are not a dynasty; a dynasty is when it turns out that the medieval dining room in which we dine was built in the sixteenth century with the money of the ancestor of my classmate, that the ancestor had the same surname, which he did not fail to carve on the wall of the dining room and that on those rare occasions when my classmate dine in the canteen rather than in the restaurant, he prefers to sit under this sign. "

"The distinctive features of the upper caste are countless. First, it is a bulletproof self-confidence (rather a calm consciousness of one's own superiority than boorish self-confidence - this one comes out only during drinking parties). Secondly, it is an instantly recognizable speech: the so-called RP- pronunciation (popularly - Queen's English), intonations and words-markers, which in themselves emphasize the speaker's belonging to the elite.Thirdly, appearance.Like a Russian tourist in Europe, a graduate of a British private school in Oxford can be accurately guessed from the back. Guessed by the seemingly careless and casual, but in fact carefully tousled hair, athletic physique (rugby plus rowing) and clothes ranging from the overly obvious Abercrombie & Fitch / Jack Wills (lowest bar) to tailored pink trousers from Oxford tailor with Turl Street with a yellow jacket, blue socks and an antique cane (highest bar).

Naive students from mere mortals at first still try to make acquaintances with the top and even for a whole month "for show" they go in for rowing, but, having stumbled upon a wall out of polite indifference and realizing the futility of their efforts, they quickly stop trying to enter the circle of the elite. In the presence of the upper caste, they begin to speak out of place, stutter, feeling the fading of their speech, and shift from foot to foot in sneakers from Next for 20 pounds. "

"The white bone does not despise the middle class, it simply does not notice it. The proletariat and the declassed elements are at least as interesting as the anomalous length of the clitoris of the representatives of African tribes was interesting to English travelers of the 19th century. For this purely Victorian curiosity and its grotesque objects there is even a suitable word, reminiscent of a cabinet of curiosities - curiosity (the same one that Dickens has in The Old Curiosity Shop).Everything that cannot be concocted in alcohol and demonstrated to your refined friends on a summer evening on the veranda of the family estate, accompanied by a sparkling story, is of no value to the elite Interesting either bewitching beauty, or pathological ugliness, or wasteful wealth, or monstrous poverty. I'm not quoting Wilde, this is a literal retelling of a drunken, but very symptomatic conversation of freshmen during Baron N.'s celebration of his coming of age in a five-star hotel.

It's a bit too much, sorry :)

P.S. I don't envy Duchess Katherine.