AHC: Have hereditary nobility retain significant power and privileges

The challenge is to have traditional hereditary nobility (not some pseudo aristocracy based off of confederate land-owners or anything; I mean actual barons, dukes, whatever equivalent there is in non-European cultures, etc.) in as much of the world as possible until the twenty-first century. Preferably that retain some form of feudal land tenure with actual power in their lands but other forms could be control over legislature and protection from certain forms of prosecution. Otherwise the world should be fairly similar with modern human rights and technology (Its supposed to be a challenge).
 
Would it be possible for certain rights to be changed? So many of them, be it for farming, rent, taxes, lumber, hunting, fishing, and tolls had been sold or leased in mainland Europe, leaving some with little income outside that taken from peasants. Wild land be traded/confiscated so some nobility got larger chunks of contiguous land, damn what the people who rented it thought about their legal rights given their contracts? And would you count Britain where only the first son of a nobleman inherited a title, though the siblings could still be given one by the monarch, be knighted, or marry into the wealthiest merchant and industrialist families?
 
Would it be possible for certain rights to be changed? So many of them, be it for farming, rent, taxes, lumber, hunting, fishing, and tolls had been sold or leased in mainland Europe, leaving some with little income outside that taken from peasants. Wild land be traded/confiscated so some nobility got larger chunks of contiguous land, damn what the people who rented it thought about their legal rights given their contracts?

Well I said preferably some form of feudal tenure. If it has to be changed to work than it has to be changed. I do admit I see a house of lords being more stable in the modern sense but I guess over time estates owned by families could shift to where they own the land and its resources but if they decide to rent it out they gain a significant portion of the gross income. But that said the has to be a least some lip service paid to modern human rights or you can't really say that nobility has survived into the modern era.
 
my 2 cents

So to retain power such nobility would have to.

  1. Keep pace with development
  2. Have large assets not depnded on Fuedl setting
  3. Have system in place to kick out screw ups

Why? So you can not go on for ever on on feudal Tenure, simply economical productive class will kick you out... Every screw aristocrat needs to be kicked so prestige of class in not downgraded. Also limitation in numbers of Aristocracy needs to be in place (Only first male heir if their is not male heir then first female)


OK my 2 cents on England....

In time of Acts of Union, the King for some internal reasons Grants lands to English aristocracy under two conditions:
Give up your English/Scottish title (and seatn in House of Lords)
Get new title as ( Earl of New Hampshire etc..) And Get more land in New world, but under condition that you will cultivate such lands but in petition to such tile their is penalty attached if not you can keep your land but you will lose your title.(and many did not made it)

Large number of Nobles takes such offer, those who not will find that other Lords have taken under scrutiny those who did not behave properly /and often they lose titles if they do)

Letters patent are grated only for one generation.
Simply put their is only around 100 lords hereditary lord in UK.
But as dawn of industrial age has come they have not slept, they have invested in lots of thinks like Banks, Rail, Industry, Shipping. TO their advantage before setting up body corporate was more routine that expatiation the have used their power to talk access to sovereign to get Charters for their companies. (And as meter of gratitude to their majesty in each company has become costume to get 10% share to his majesty).
Is some Lord has become bankrupt he is "suggested" to give up title or Regain wealth in short period. And new Lord is created from Business class)

So how does UK look now?

Power is divided between King and Parliament and in Parliament is equally divided between lords and commons.

No reforms act 1907 has taken place. Rotten borough were eliminated much faster (due to Lords pressure).

King has it own policy (as meter of fact it HIS or HER Government to begin with) and besides Income from companies started hundred years ago he has still rents from much of land in his empire and Tax free. And small portion of taxes are paid directly to his coffin (Approved by parliament in 1720s but he refuse to grant Royal assent to any attempt to get rid off it).

Commoners can rule them self. Attitude towards commons by Lords is-
"Tax yourself" But not really they blocked any attempt to run deficits besides war times for ages. They them-self see as protection of English liberties against fool attempts to regulate them self to prosperity.

Simply UK is Still master of seas, freedom of trade is vast and it is all protected by watch full eye of HM King from any menace.


From Political System of United Kingdom, London 2011
 
I don't know why but this conjured up images of the Feudal States of America: part War of the Roses and Part Game of Thrones. Didn't Maryland want a King originally for America. Also weren't there nobles with American titles? What would have happened if they had gone over to the American side. Perhaps start earlier with a different outcome to the English Civil War?

Anyway I like the idea of feudal US with it noble houses: The Romneys with titles and lands in Michigan and Massachusetts, the junior branch of the House of Bush that grew to have lands in Texas and Florida as well as the ancestral home in Connecticut (extra points for a coat of arms with Skull and Bones), the new money Kennedys buying a title from the government like it was England in the 1700s, Clinton Earl of Arkansas, the Carters: the Peanut Earls, the Rockefellers: Marquess of Westerchester and Counts of Kykuit, the senior branch the Roosevelt Earls of Oyster Bay and the junior branch the Roosevelt Barons of Hyde Park, the People's Earl: the Huey Earl of Long etc etc.

American History might be even more awesome if rather bloody: Since the War of Independence and the death of the childless King George I of the House of Washington, the kingdoms (the four commonwealths) and the various duchies have a kingsmoot on the death of the king to choose a new king which regularly degenerates into a civil war. As a result of the abiding belief in hereditary succession the family of former kings often feature prominently in the candidacies and the fighting. The last War of the American Succession in 2000 resulted in the laying waste to swaths of Florida and the ultimate succession by the Earl of Austin and Lord Protector of Texas, George II. This was seen as revenge for the death of his father, Mad King Ronald's spymaster during the Backwater Revolt of the mid-1990s led by the Earl of Arkansas and his peasant supporters...etc etc

That ends my outburst of whimsy for the day.
 
I don't know why but this conjured up images of the Feudal States of America: part War of the Roses and Part Game of Thrones. Didn't Maryland want a King originally for America. Also weren't there nobles with American titles? What would have happened if they had gone over to the American side. Perhaps start earlier with a different outcome to the English Civil War?

Anyway I like the idea of feudal US with it noble houses: The Romneys with titles and lands in Michigan and Massachusetts, the junior branch of the House of Bush that grew to have lands in Texas and Florida as well as the ancestral home in Connecticut (extra points for a coat of arms with Skull and Bones), the new money Kennedys buying a title from the government like it was England in the 1700s, Clinton Earl of Arkansas, the Carters: the Peanut Earls, the Rockefellers: Marquess of Westerchester and Counts of Kykuit, the senior branch the Roosevelt Earls of Oyster Bay and the junior branch the Roosevelt Barons of Hyde Park, the People's Earl: the Huey Earl of Long etc etc.

American History might be even more awesome if rather bloody: Since the War of Independence and the death of the childless King George I of the House of Washington, the kingdoms (the four commonwealths) and the various duchies have a kingsmoot on the death of the king to choose a new king which regularly degenerates into a civil war. As a result of the abiding belief in hereditary succession the family of former kings often feature prominently in the candidacies and the fighting. The last War of the American Succession in 2000 resulted in the laying waste to swaths of Florida and the ultimate succession by the Earl of Austin and Lord Protector of Texas, George II. This was seen as revenge for the death of his father, Mad King Ronald's spymaster during the Backwater Revolt of the mid-1990s led by the Earl of Arkansas and his peasant supporters...etc etc

That ends my outburst of whimsy for the day.

Skull and Bones - NICE :D

Their were aristocrats in America even with titles like Duke of X (Where X was part of America)

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25080556?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104120676681
 
You need to prevent rise of burgeoise class who draw their wealth from source other than land. Once they gain significant wealth they'll demand political power to go with it. Up to a point upper class will absorb sucessful ones, making them lords, once they grow to big that will not be an option anymore.

As was said upthread nobility can "work the land" up to a point but beyond that other sources will be bigger (trade, industry, banking....). Even if nobility keeps up and adapts and ventures into these new fields unless they keep everybody else out there will be large body of people with simialr sources of income who will be shut out of power and who will want to be "let in".

Taxation is another thing. Unless nobility accepts some sort of progressive tax others will resent them. And what good is being on top if you are taxed more than others?
 
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