Memorandum by Burke's Peerage & Gentry
(HON 57)
We are making this submission on the basis of
our extensive knowledge of the system of honours of the United
Kingdom as well as the rest of the world; we are presently preparing
for publication a comprehensive study of the honours systems of
every state, with histories and details of all chivalric and state
merit Orders. The authors of this work include leading authorities
in this field, both from academia and official government protocol
officers. I and the assistant editor would be willing to give
oral evidence to the Committee, perhaps to expand or explain some
of the points we have outlined here.
The award of honours has it origins in classical
Greece and Rome, with the grant of special privileges; then later,
with the emergence of nation states, sovereigns saw the institution
of Orders as a useful and economical means of rewarding citizens
for military or civil service. Every European Union state (including
the members joining shortly), except Ireland, has a system of
national honours, based on the award of an Order of Knighthood,
sometimes described as an Order of Merit, in a number of different
ranks or grades. In most countries the names of these Orders are
based on historical links to the past even if the organization
and the basis for the award has changed substantially. In the
past, for example, some Orders required "proof of nobility",
others conferred nobility.
All the European Monarchies have one or more
Orders, in the case of the more ancient states dating back in
origin to the 17th century or earlier. With the exception of Sweden,
all are given both to their own citizens and to foreigners; Sweden
suspended in 1976 the award to its own citizens in the belief
that such honours were anti-egalitarian. Although the Committee
may have heard that Sweden has abolished its system of honours;
this is incorrect.
All the Republics also have one or more Orders
of Merit given to their citizens and foreigners, also in various
grades or degrees. Some are completely new foundations, some are
continuations of more ancient Orders.
In both Monarchies and Republics these usually
carry the designation of Knight Grand Cross, Knight Grand Officer,
Knight Commander, Knight Officer or Knight, if the Order has five
classes; a three class Order has the ranks of Knight Grand Cross,
Knight Commander and Knight. It is sometimes the practice, for
example, in Italy, for such ranks to be used as an individual
title, as in "Cavaliere Giovanni Fattori", for example.
When a state has multiple Orders, these are usually classed in
a particular order of precedence.
The following points should be taken into particular
consideration (we have confined most of this initial submission
to the practice in Europe, since the histories of European states
are more comparable to that of Great Britain).
(1) The ancient Orders of Knighthood provide
a direct link to the achievements of past recipients who have
contributed in a variety of ways to the nation; a recipient of
the Order of the Bath, of Saint Michael and Saint George, or of
the Order of the British Empire knows that he or she follows in
a long line of distinguished persons who have received the same
award. In those states which have retained historic systems of
national honours and awards, these are held in far higher regard
and esteem by recipients and the public alike than the awards
of those states which have abolished ancient institutions and
replaced them with recently instituted merit awards.
(2) Denmark, for example, maintains the Order
of the Elephant (the equivalent of the Garter, but with a larger
membership) and the Order of the Dannebrog, which was founded
in 1671 (a revival of a more ancient institution). These not only
provide for the recipients a direct link with the past glories
of Danish history, but confers even today special privileges of
precedence.
(3) In France the Legion of Honour is held
in the highest esteem by French citizens. It was originally founded
by Napoleon in 1802 as the system of royal Orders had been abolished
in the revolution, and has been maintained by every successive
regime, thus considerably enhancing its prestige in comparison
with lesser awards such as the 1960s foundation of the French
National Order of Merit (which combined a series of colonial and
lesser national Orders). The historic origins of the Legion of
Honour, its continuity, and the limitations on its grant contribute
to this; nonetheless there are more annual awards of the Legion
of Honour than in all British awards added together. The Legion
of Honour is awarded in the ranks of Grand Cross (limited to a
total of 75 French citizens but an unlimited number of foreigners),
Grand Officer (limited to a total of 125 French citizens but an
unlimited number of foreigners) Commander, Officer and Knight
(Chevalier, the same designation used for Lady recipients). It
has a statutory limit of 125,000 living members, presently standing
at approximately 113,000. The largest proportion of recipients
of the Legion of Honour have received the decoration for military
service, but it is considered the most prestigious of French awards
and is therefore given for the outstanding civilian service. A
lesser, but still notable service, might be considered more appropriately
rewarded by the National Order of Merit. France also has seven
further awards for civilians given for services to culture, the
arts, agriculture, the merchant marine and academia. France makes
approximately four times as many awards as Great Britain in any
one year.
(4) In complete contrast, when Italy abolished
its Monarchy in 1946, it suspended or abolished all the royal
Orders except the former Order of Military Merit which became
a republican order. In 1951 a new system was established with
the foundation of the Order of Merit of the Republic, now the
principal award, The Order of Lavoro (Work) (founded by King Victor
Emmanuel III in 1901) was retained as a single class Order with
a limited number of knights. The ability to award only one multi-class
Order, however, has proved injurious to the reputation of the
Italian honours system; there are approximately 850,000 living
members of the Order, with 7700 grand crosses given since 1951
of whom at least 4,000 are living—the number of annual awards
exceeds 20,000. In addition the Italian state authorizes the use
of the Orders given by the former reigning houses, and there is
an epidemic of completely spurious awards and many lesser quasi-private
civilian awards.
(5) States that have abolished the historic
system of awards (as did Portugal, for example, with the downfall
of the Monarchy in 1910), have in several cases reinstituted the
ancient originally royal Orders with near identical decorations
and structure, as they found they were an important and valuable
way of rewarding both their citizens and foreigners.
(6) Evidence suggests that the public has
great respect for those Orders that can demonstrate a historic
link with the national saga. Orders can become potent symbols
of a nation's independence and tradition. Newly founded Orders
consistently fail to capture the public imagination in a similar
way. For example, immediately following the collapse of communism,
a newly independent Poland reinstituted its ancient awards system
(abolished by the communists), notably the Orders of the White
Eagle and Polonia Restituta (this latter a substitution of a more
ancient Order that had been taken over by the Imperial Russian
regime), which had been given by the government in exile after
World War II, and thus provided a direct link to the historic
Polish state before Russia absorbed Poland into its Empire at
the end of the 18th century. The revival of these ancient Orders
helped to re-establish a sense of national pride; one might consider
that the abolition of ancient institutions and their replacement
with a system with no historic routes is unlikely to inspire much
respect.
(7) Although the Second Spanish republic
abolished all the royal Orders and instituted its own republican
award, these have all been re-established and their ancient histories
and links to the past as in other modern cases are much valued.
These Orders include the two highest—Charles III, founded
in the 18th century, and Isabella the Catholic, founded in the
early 19th, several specific national merit Orders (Civil, Military,
Naval and Air Force), and several Orders awarded on the recommendation
of certain ministers for services in that field (ie Agricultural
Merit, given in four classes, on the recommendation of the responsible
Minister). All such awards are made in the name of the King. The
highest Spanish Order is the Golden Fleece, given by the King
almost exclusively to members of the royal family and foreign
sovereigns—is the equivalent of the Garter.
(8) Certain states have prohibited their
own citizens from accepting the national awards, which are limited
to foreigners; Sweden has imposed such a limitation with the consequence
that Swedish citizens can be awarded Orders by foreign governments
but not by their own. The exception to this is the rather unusual
Royal Masonic Order of Charles XIV and the Swedish Order of St
John, an hospitaller service Order comparable to the British Order
of the same name. The ancient Swedish Orders have nonetheless
been maintained with the historic structures and are given to
members of the royal family and foreigners. An immediate consequence
of this restriction has been that there are a plethora of suspect
honours given by non-state or unofficial bodies, which are often
eagerly sought after, but over which the state has no control.
Indeed, it has effectively abdicated the option of rewarding its
own citizens with chivalric distinctions to others—one sees
senior officers in the Swedish armed forces wearing completely
spurious decorations.
(9) One may note the experience of Canada,
which first prohibited its citizens from accepting British awards
for services to Canada, and instituted the Order of Canada in
a single class. Already it has been found necessary to institute
a hierarchy of classes of the Order and, in addition to this national
Order, now every province has its own provincial Order; Canada
now has one of the highest number of Orders (other states with
high numbers are Russia, Brazil, and Portugal—Venezuela
also has a number of national and then many provincial Orders).
(10) The conferral of a title upon a recipient
of the higher grades of an Order is often held as a practice peculiar
to the United Kingdom, yet several foreign state Orders continue
to confer privileges and titles on their recipients; in Italy,
for example, recipients of the State Order of Merit are entitled
to the style "Cavaliere, Ufficiale, Commendatore, Grande
Ufficiale, or Gran Croce" before their names. Recipients
of the Spanish Order of Isabella the Catholic are automatically
ennobled thereby, although such nobility is not hereditary. The
Grand Cross of the Danish Order of the Dannebrog confers certain
privileges, as do the lesser ranks. In most European countries
the recipients of Orders wear a buttonhole rosette differing according
to the Order awarded and the class held; these are outward demonstrations
of having received the honour (non-academic post nominals are
the exception in Europe).
(11) The maintenance of several different
awards, given for different purposes and in different classes,
is an important feature of most successful honours systems. This
makes it possible to award different types of service in different
ways, and to promote a recipient to a higher grade after greater
services. The association of different classes of award with different
types of service is also important; furthermore, people who have
distinguished themselves in several different fields can be given
different awards rather than (as in Italy, Germany and Austria
with their single Merit Orders) be promoted to a higher rank perhaps
not commensurate with their rank.
(12) One of the reasons the Legion of Honour
enjoys such prestige is that it has an autonomous self-governing
status under the direction of its own Grand Chancellor, one of
the highest ranking officials of the French State who is appointed
by the President for a fixed term; he and the Council of the Order,
which must include a certain number of members from each rank
of the Order, examine the qualifications of every candidate proposed.
No national elected official—member of the Chamber of Deputies
or the Senate, may receive the Order, which is given in the name
of the President of the Republic. Under the statutes of the Order,
three generations of the same family who have received the Order
and been invested by Letters Patent receive the hereditary title
of "Chevalier" (although not of the Order).[2]
(13) The elimination of a hierarchy of honours
leads in practice to their substitution by a variety of other
sources. In Ireland, which has never had a national honours system
(a choice born of a desire not to replicate the Imperial system
in any way), its citizens nonetheless join the Sovereign Military
Order of Malta (an independent, sovereign entity which has diplomatic
relations with many EU states), the Equestrian Order of the Holy
Sepulchre (given by a Cardinal appointed by the Pope), the Papal
Orders, and of course may receive foreign awards. Mexico has had
at various times republican and imperial honours systems but today
has only one national award that may only be given to foreigners;
it has been reported to us by a former Mexican chief of protocol
that having only one Order even to reward foreigners has made
for considerable difficulties when granting awards to foreigners
whose services may be disparate and unequal. The lack of a national
system for Mexican systems has not prevented Mexican citizens
from seeking and receiving foreign awards or "self-styled"
awards.
(14) We believe that it is likely the European
Union will establish its own system of honours, and that this
will provide a further layer of honours in addition to national
honours systems. It would be a mistake if the British system was
so diminished, or the prestige attached to membership in the more
ancient institutions eliminated by their abolition, so that such
national awards were valued less than an award by the European
Commission or a foreign government.
(15) To summarise, a reform of the present
honours system should maintain the ancient Orders, which provide
a direct link to the past and to past recipients; lacking roots
or historical foundation, a new Order can be only a pale imitation
of that which it is intended to replace. A system of different
classes in each Order allows for promotions and different levels
of award for different types of service. There is a strong argument
for giving greater autonomy to the administration of the Orders,
perhaps establishing a state official who serves a fixed term
comparable to the Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour and
an independent council to insure that all recipients meet a certain
criteria, but separate from the administration of the civil service.
Guy Stair Sainty
2 Each must be made by letters patent, which have
to be specially requested for a fee, and are very rarely asked
for-in fact only one family has ever been able to satisfy this
requirement. Back
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