Hereditary peer
The hereditary peers in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland form part of the peerage in the United Kingdom. As of October 2025, there are 799 hereditary peers: 29 dukes, 34 marquesses, 189 earls, 108 viscounts, and 439 barons.
As a result of the Peerage Act 1963, all peers except those in the peerage of Ireland were entitled to sit in the House of Lords. Since the House of Lords Act 1999 came into force only 92 hereditary peers, elected from all hereditary peers, are permitted to do so, unless they are also life peers. Peers are called to the House of Lords with a [|writ of summons].
Not all hereditary titles are titles of the peerage. For instance, baronets and baronetesses may pass on their titles, but they are not peers. Scottish barons are also titled nobles but not peers. Conversely, the holder of a non-hereditary title may belong to the peerage, as with life peers. Peerages may be created by means of letters patent, but the granting of new hereditary peerages has dwindled: seven hereditary peerages have been created since 1965, four of them for members of the British royal family.
The most recent grant of a hereditary peerage was in 2019 for the youngest child of Elizabeth II, Prince Edward, who was created Earl of Forfar. The most recent grant of a hereditary peerage to a non-royal was in 1984 for former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who was created Earl of Stockton with the subsidiary title of Viscount Macmillan.
Origins
The hereditary peerage, as it now exists, combines several different English institutions with analogues from Scotland and Ireland.English earls are an Anglo-Saxon institution. Around 1014, England was divided into shires or counties, largely to defend against the Danes. Each shire was led by a local great man, called an earl, and the same man could be earl of several shires. When the Normans invaded England, they continued to appoint earls, but not for all counties; the administrative head of the county became the sheriff. Earldoms began as offices, with a perquisite of a share of the legal fees in the county. They gradually became honours, with a stipend of £20 a year.
Like most feudal offices, earldoms were inherited, but the kings frequently asked earls to resign or exchange earldoms. Usually there were few earls in England, and they were men of great wealth in the shire from which they held title, or an adjacent one, but it depended on circumstances: during the civil war between Stephen and the Empress Matilda, nine earls were created in three years.
William the Conqueror and his great-grandson Henry II did not make dukes; they were themselves only Dukes of Normandy or Aquitaine. When Edward III of England declared himself King of France, he made his sons dukes, to distinguish them from other noblemen, much as royal dukes are now distinguished from other dukes. Later kings created marquesses and viscounts to make finer gradations of honour: a rank something more than an earl and something less than an earl, respectively.
When Henry III or Edward I wanted money or advice from his subjects, he would order great churchmen, earls, and other great men to come to his Great Council. Some of these assemblies are now considered the first parliaments. He would generally order lesser men from towns and counties to gather and pick some men to represent them. The English Order of Barons evolved from those men who were individually ordered to attend Parliament, but held no other title. The chosen representatives became the House of Commons.
This order, called a writ, was not originally hereditary, or even a privilege. The recipient had to come to the Great Council at his own expense, vote on taxes on himself and his neighbours, acknowledge that he was the king's tenant-in-chief and risk involvement in royal politics—or a request from the king for a personal loan, a benevolence. Which men were ordered to council varied from council to council. A man might be ordered once and never again, or all his life, but his son and heir might never go.
Under Henry VI, in the 15th century, just before the Wars of the Roses, attendance at Parliament became more valuable. The first claim of hereditary right to a writ comes from this reign; so does the first patent, or charter declaring a man to be a baron. The five orders began to be called peers. Holders of older peerages began to receive greater honour than peers of the same rank just created.
If a man held a peerage, his son would succeed to it; if he had no children, his brother would succeed. If he had a single daughter, his son-in-law would inherit the family lands, and usually the same peerage. More complex cases were decided depending on circumstances. Customs changed with time. Earldoms were the first to be hereditary, and three different rules can be traced for the case of an earl who left no sons and several married daughters. In the 13th century, the husband of the eldest daughter inherited the earldom automatically. In the 15th century, the earldom reverted to the Crown, who might re-grant it, often to the eldest son-in-law. In the 17th century, it would not be inherited by anybody unless all but one of the daughters died and left no descendants, in which case the remaining daughter, or her heir, would inherit.
After Henry II became the Lord of Ireland, he and his successors began to imitate the English system of the time. Irish earls were first created in the 13th century, and Irish parliaments began later in the same century; until Henry VIII declared himself King of Ireland, these parliaments were small bodies, representing only the Irish Pale. A writ does not create a peerage in Ireland: all Irish peerages are by patent or charter, although some early patents have been lost. After James II left England, he was King of Ireland alone for a time. Three creations he ordered are in the Irish Patent Roll, although the patents were never issued, but are treated as valid.
The Irish peers were in a peculiar political position: because they were subjects of the King of England, but peers in a different kingdom, they could sit in the English House of Commons, and many did. In the 18th century, Irish peerages became rewards for English politicians, limited only by the concern that they might go to Dublin and interfere with the Irish Government.
Scotland evolved a similar system, differing in points of detail. The first Scottish earldoms derive from the seven mormaers, of immemorial antiquity; they were named earls by Queen Margaret. The Parliament of Scotland is as old as the English. The Scottish equivalent of baronies are called lordships of Parliament.
The Act of Union 1707, between England and Scotland, provided that future peerages should be peers of Great Britain, and the rules covering the peers should follow the English model. Because there were proportionately many more Scottish peers, they chose a number of representatives to sit in the British House of Lords. The Acts of Union 1800 similarly superseded the peerage of Great Britain with peers of the United Kingdom, but provided that Irish peerages could still be created.
The Irish peers were concerned that their honours would be diluted as cheap prizes, and insisted that an Irish peerage could be created only when three Irish peerages had gone extinct. In the early 19th century, Irish creations were as frequent as this allowed. Only three have been created since 1863, and none since 1898. As of 2011, 66 "only-Irish" peers remain.
Modern laws
The law applicable to a British hereditary peerage depends on which Kingdom it belongs to. Peerages of England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom follow English law; the difference between them is that peerages of England were created before the Act of Union 1707, peerages of Great Britain were created between 1707 and the Union with Ireland in 1800, and peerages of the United Kingdom were created after 1800.Irish peerages follow the law of the Kingdom of Ireland, which is very much similar to English law, except in referring to the Irish Parliament and Irish officials, generally no longer appointed. No Irish peers have been created since 1898, and they have no part in the present governance of the United Kingdom. Scottish peerage law is generally similar to English law, but differs in innumerable points of detail, often being more similar to medieval practice.
Women are ineligible to succeed to the majority of English, Irish, and British hereditary peerages, but may inherit certain English baronies by writ and Scottish peerages in the absence of a male heir.
Ranks and titles
The ranks of the peerage in most of the United Kingdom are, in descending order of rank, duke, marquess, earl, viscount and baron. The female equivalents are duchess, marchioness, countess, viscountess and baroness, respectively. Women typically do not hold hereditary titles in their own right, although there are a few titles still extant where they do, for example, Baroness D'Arcy de Knayth. One significant change to the status quo in England was in 1532 when Henry VIII created the Marquess of Pembroke title for his soon-to-be wife, Anne Boleyn; she held this title in her own right and was therefore ennobled with the same rank as a male.In the Scottish peerage, the lowest rank is lordship of Parliament, the male holder thereof being known as a lord of Parliament. A Scottish barony is a feudal rank, and not of the Peerage. The barony by tenure or feudal barony in England and Wales was similar to a Scottish feudal barony, in being hereditary, but is long obsolete, the last full summons of the English feudal barons to military service having occurred in 1327. The Tenures Abolition Act 1660 quashed any remaining doubt as to their continued status.
Peerage dignities are created by the sovereign by writs of summons or letters patent. Under modern constitutional conventions, no peerage dignity, with the possible exception of those given to members of the royal family, would be created if not upon the advice of the prime minister.
Many peers hold more than one hereditary title. For example, the same individual may be a duke, a marquess, an earl, a viscount, and a baron by virtue of different peerages. If such a person is entitled to sit in the House of Lords, they still have only one vote. Until the House of Lords Act 1999, it was possible for one of the peer's subsidiary titles to be passed to his heir before death by means of a writ of acceleration, in which case the peer and his heir would have one vote each. Where this is not done, the heir may still use one of the father's subsidiary titles as a courtesy title, but he is not considered a peer.