Show British Complications of Rank A dukes daughter even though the wife of a plain Mr takes precedence of a countess while a dukes younger sons wife comes below a countess then a countess takes precedence of a daughter of a marquis too but the latter precedes the dukes daughterin law It Is worse than the multiplica tion table When the people of identical Identi-cal rank are In company it is needful to know which peerage was the elder creation At a gathering at which her majesty was to be present I was once standing talking to a dowager marchioness when her daughterinlaw the reigning marchioness who had the management of things came to her mother in great anxiety Can you tell me which is the elder creation Downshire or Drogheda Lady Down shire and Lady Drogheda are loth here and which should go first The elder peeress was sure they were near together to-gether but could not remember and it was evidently a most serious difficulty diffi-culty At last though very reluctantly the hostess had to ask themselves to tell her not having her peerage at hand and the ladies were perfectly ready with the information Mrs Fen wick Miller writes that she was much Impressed with the importance of such matters when she consulted that precious pre-cious volume herself and found that the Marqufsate of Downshire was created cre-ated in 1789 and that of Drogheda Jn 1791 It seemed rather droll that three marchionesses should lay stress on such a matter among themselves From a London Letter |