Fake Scots Titles

[Mael Coluim]

Not all of Washington's contemporaries held that view. . . Jefferson also decried national holidays, since at the time most were associated with events in a royal family.....

Thomas Jefferson who founded the University of Virginia where even today both students and professors are referred to as Mr./Ms., the title of doctor for PhD or Professor is not used.

[Lallans]

Well, we all know that Mickey Mouse is the Master of Pluto...

....I've been trying to think of a funny title using "Uranus"....but they're all just too damn easy....

Best

AA

Surely one of the dirtiest things ever said on an American children's TV program was when Peewee Herman looked into his magic screen and said "Hey, it's a space ship! Hope it doesn't land on Uranus!" Of course, spoil-sport astronomers insist that it's pronounced "Yoor-unn-uss." But they're the same bunch of bastards that killed Pluto and then wrote a book bragging about it!

[Lallans]

You are partially correct. The US Constitution prohibits US citizens who are government officeholders from receiving foreign titles without the approval of Congress. Ordinary US citizens can, and do, receive all sorts of foreign honors (or honours, depending on who is handing them out.) I am not aware of Congress doing so lately, not since World War II, when legislation was passed that allowed, I believe, anyone serving in the US armed forces to receive foreign honors.

Americans and other non-UK subjects are not knighted by HM the Queen, but that is a British custom, not American. Instead, they are given honorary knighthoods, as were Rudi Giuliani, Bob Geldorf, and many others.

Quite a few Americans are given knighthoods by the Knights of Malta, a sovereign entity, and papal knighthoods and titles of nobility, the Vatican also being a sovereign state. Or they were. I don't know if the present pope or the last one ennobled anyone. Pope John Paul II broke with tradition and didn't ennoble his own family. At the time he was quoted as saying something like, "They are Polish peasants. They wouldn't know what to do with a title."

And titles can actually be dangerous. At one time it was commonplace for Canadians to be awarded and allowed to accept British titles but there was a precedent-setting series of incidents recently when Lord Conrad Black wanted his Peerage and the Canadian Prime Minister of the day refused to allow him to accept it (they were political enemies). So Black got mad and gave up his Canadian citizenship, becoming Lord Black as a Brit, but later was convicted in a US court and held for extra years in a US prison because Canada could no longer claim him to fall under treaty agreements and transfer him here, where the prisons are nicer and parole much more generous. It can't seem like the best deal Conrad ever made, especially to him.

[creagdhubh]

I dont know if this is the correct pace to post this and if not, the moderators, I am sure, will move it to the appropriate place. (Not the bin please )

I would like to bring to your attention the website Fakes Scots Titles http://www.scots-titles.com This is a NEW website and its content in many respects affects us all with an interest in Scotland its Culture and Heritage. It sets out to expose those using fake titles such as Chief, Lord, Laird & Lady etc.

In my opinion a website like this is long overdue and also goes to some lengths to bring to everyone's attention the retailers of some of these title scams. Folks visiting can also register to the site and comment on the various posts.

I love it! It's about time there was something like this available to the public. Let's expose the frauds!!!

[Sketraw]

I love it! It's about time there was something like this available to the public. Let's expose the frauds!!!

I totally agree, but not just those using the titles. Remember "some" are innocent victims of this scam but the resellers need to be taken to task.

Spreading the word to people about this scam is important and those with Scottish oriented websites should, I feel, link to it.

http://www.scots-titles.com

[creagdhubh]

Quite so John!

[Dale Seago]

To think that someone would actually PAY for a peerage title...
To think that one feels the need to add a title to their name that was not given them...
To think that in the US, one might actually expect other citizens to accept and defer to such a peerage title?

Complete self engrandisement----just my opinion.

Just want to point out that we have a Baron on this forum who purchased his title, and whom I've known for decades. We first met during the Vietnam war when we were in different branches of American military service, he being in the Army and I being a Marine. I later fell to the Dark Side and got an Army commission, and at one point we ended up serving as officers in the same unit for several years.

Anyway, I can state unequivocally that most of the above description does not apply to him. The Barony was originally associated with his clan. He's passionate about it, and uses the name and his personal funds to support sanctuaries and other conservation efforts for endangered and exploited animals. He is a person of all-too-rare integrity who gives, materially, far more than anything he gets in prestige from being a Scottish Baron.

[Sketraw]

Just want to point out that we have a Baron on this forum who purchased his title, and whom I've known for decades. We first met during the Vietnam war when we were in different branches of American military service, he being in the Army and I being a Marine. I later fell to the Dark Side and got an Army commission, and at one point we ended up serving as officers in the same unit for several years.

Anyway, I can state unequivocally that most of the above description does not apply to him. The Barony was originally associated with his clan. He's passionate about it, and uses the name and his personal funds to support sanctuaries and other conservation efforts for endangered and exploited animals. He is a person of all-too-rare integrity who gives, materially, far more than anything he gets in prestige from being a Scottish Baron.

I dont think we even mentioned the purchase of Scottish Feudal Baronies which can indeed be purchased, if you have a spare £50,000 + and is the only title that can be, although since the abolition of feudal tenure in 2004 they are no longer attached to the land and no longer listed in the Land Registry of Scotland.

[Dale Seago]

I dont think we even mentioned the purchase of Scottish Feudal Baronies which can indeed be purchased. . .

Actually I believe this WAS mentioned earlier in the thread.

. . .if you have a spare £50,000 + and is the only title that can be. . .

Yes. Though from what I gather just having the money may be a necessary, but not in itself sufficient, qualification.

. . .although since the abolition of feudal tenure in 2004 they are no longer attached to the land and no longer listed in the Land Registry of Scotland.

Quite correct, though at least the title is heritable.

(EDIT: Thought I remembered it being mentioned:

I fear the decision to allow the legal sale of feudal baronies has only made the sale of fake titles are the more easy to perpetrate on innocents.

)

[Frank McGrath]

One brand of Scotch also gives out "Land" if you register with them.

Jack Daniels does rthe same thing. I own a plot of land in the hollow where The Distillery is. Along with the land comes a title. I am a Tennessee Squire. It got me lunch at the White Rabbit restaurant in Lynchburg, Tenn.