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- LONDON - Britain's nobles are more red-blooded than blue, according
to a new edition of the authoritative guide to peerage.
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- Almost half are bastards or have cuckoldry
in their genes, despite claiming untainted pedigrees stretching back up
to a thousand years.
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- The 106th edition of Burke's Peerage
and Baronetage, which has tracked the breeding of the aristocracy since
1826, will next week list illegitimate lords and ladies for the first time.
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- Editor-in-Chief Charles Moseley said
earls and barons could no longer claim the moral high ground.
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- "Such an old-fashioned view of the
aristocracy is completely out of touch with reality,'' he said. "Anyone
who has watched a costume drama is used to seeing an 18th-century lord
having his way with some young wench.''
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- Forty percent of hereditary peers were
born out of wedlock, were not sired by their legitimate father, or are
descended from bastards, Moseley said.
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- Illegitimate children cannot inherit
titles in England, but following a test case they can in Scotland now,
after a court legitimized the son of the Marquess of Queensberry who was
born before his parents married.
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- In a bizarre twist, this raised the possibility
of a playboy lord fathering multiple children by different women and then
choosing an heir by marrying the mother of his favorite.
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- That was a key factor in Burke's decision
to catalog illegitimate children alongside their counterparts. But social
changes were also important.
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- "We looked at the general loosening
of the bonds of society, such as marriage ties,'' Moseley said.
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- Most aristocrats cooperated with the
naming of their illegitimate children, though one initially asked for a
daughter by his girlfriend to be left out. Moseley said in theory, Burke's
would be prepared to name a child against the parents' will, if they were
certain of parenthood.
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- Some people fight to have their illegitimacy
recognized. Lady Cosima Somerset will still be included as daughter of
the Marquess of Londonderry, although the new edition notes her claim to
have been illegitimately fathered by Robin Douglas-Home, nephew of former
Conservative prime minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home.
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- Rival pedigree guide Debrett's Peerage
included illegitimate children in its previous edition.
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- "The parents wanted it that way
and we were quite happy to do it,'' consulting editor David Williamson
said.
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- "Marriage seems to be going out
of fashion.''
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