The long dawn of the dukes of England

I read Mantel's trilogy last month, and was immediately struck by the intimacy of the inner circle around the king, and specifically the very presence of the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the only two adults to hold a title at the top of the peerage. Until I started looking into it, I hadn't realised quite how lonely it was to be a duke. In the 1530s, and in every other point in the history of England before 1663, there were never more than four non-royal dukes. Between the first non-royal dukedom in England (incongruously, Ireland. Created 1386) and the Restoration, only 35 people who weren't royal held a ducal title.

That feels very jarring to me. Partly that's because we're used to so many dukes - there were forty at one point in the eighteenth century. It's also because we think of the Tudors as relatively modern so we don't think about how very un-modern aspects of their peerage and court are. Our, or at least my, historiographical instincts are not friends to our understanding. But it's also because the story of the ducal numbers is counter-intuitive. It took three hundred years of using ducal titles for it it really catch on. I think we can see it in five phases.

The first dukes. Royal dukes come in under Edward III. The dukedom of Cornwall (for the Black Prince) in 1337, then Lancaster (for his male line second cousin Henry, then John of Gaunt) in 1531. I don't know why this happens. I've seen it written than it's in response to the loss of Normandy, but the chronology doesn't work. I suspect it is to do with the wars in France, but exactly how, I'm not sure. Inevitably, title inflation means that Richard II then makes more royal dukes (for his uncles: York, Gloucester) in 1385 and then non-royal dukes for his favourites. But this doesn't last. Of the five are created 1398, one becomes Henry IV, the others are all attainted by Henry IV. By 1400, only royal dukes remain.

Generals. Some of the families raised to ducal status in 1398 do make comebacks. In 1425, the son of the attainted Duke of Norfolk secures his father's title, primarily due to his military and political record; and I gather, critically, this resolves a dispute with the Earl of Warwick over precedence. For a while he is the only one, but in the 1440s, five new dukes are created. Exeter (also a 1398 restoration), Buckingham, Warwick, Suffolk and the royal dukes of Somerset. These are obviously, like under Richard II, rewards in an increasingly unstable political structure, but are also, apart from Warwick, leading figures in the Hundred Years War.

Dynastic imperatives. After the 1440s, there is a retrenchment of ducal titles, though some of the earlier creations endure for a while. Five dukedoms are created between 1450 and 1550 and all are dynastic. 

• Two are created for individuals who are intended to marry royalty: the Duke of Bedford (1470) who never got to enjoy it, and the Duke of Suffolk (1514), who did. 
• Two are for family: Jasper Tudor, Henry VII's uncle (1485) and Edward Seymour, Edward VI's uncle (1547). The purposes are different, but they are clearly aimed at burnishing the royal dynasty they are linked to. 
• One is for the illegitimate son of Henry VIII (1525). The first, but not the last, time a King's bastard is made a duke. In this case, it's a response to the lack of male Tudors.

In all of these, the factional rationale behind the 1390s and the 1440s seems to take second place to royal proximity. At this point, Norfolk is the only surviving older ducal line, and - I suspect - beginning to feel like a category all of its own.

A ducal desert. In 1551, the last ducal creation for seventy years was made. Northumberland's title is clearly factional, though he did try to get his daughter in law (Lady Jane Grey) onto the throne, that post-dates his elevation. Given how that ended, it's hardly surprising that neither Elizabeth and Mary felt no need to add any more. After the execution of the 4th Duke of Norfolk in 1572, there were no extant non-royal dukes in England for fifty years, though James I does makes his sons dukes.

Stuart profligacy. The early Stuarts do bring dukes back, but very slowly. James I makes but no non-royal dukes till the last years of his reign, in 1623, when he makes his second cousin Ludovic Stuart, the only Duke in the peerage of Scotland (of Lennox) also a duke in England (of Richmond). He does so at the same time as he makes George Villiers Duke of Buckingham. Presumably, this is to soften the blow of Buckingham's elevation. But they were both effectively unprecedented in living memory, and we would do well to remember that when we think about Buckingham's reception. Charles I makes no non-royal Dukes, only his children and his nephew. 

Then Charles II makes fourteen; more new ducal titles than have, at that point, ever been created in the entire history of England. He restores some old ducal titles (Norfolk is back!), he makes his allies dukes, he makes his bastard sons dukes, he makes his mistresses dukes. I'm sure much has been written on this, but to me, I think there are two obvious reasons. Firstly, he wanted to emphasise the Restoration. Nothing says monarchy more than titles, especially if you give them to old families as well as new ones. Secondly, I think it's the French. France has had loads of dukes for ages. It certainly wouldn't have been the only thing that Charles II imported from the French court. As a result, after three hundred years of profound ambivalence about ducal titles, Dukes properly enter the peerage and the political landscape of England. I still remain surprised it took them so long.