If getting a title requires social networking then Darcy's definitely not doing it

I find it hilarious that the original novel makes it very clear that Darcy has no title and neither he, nor Elizabeth, are terribly preoccupied with titles, while half of the P&P fanfics out there give Darcy three dukedoms and make Elizabeth the secret heiress of another three.

I think it is a great point that Darcy and Elizabeth are social equals. Jane Austen is not writing about women yearning for a prince to raise them up in society. She is writing about women of character whose own worth cannot be measured merely by their titles or income.

Jane Austen was noted for writing only about the kind of people she knew. Her contact with the nobility was limited, so she didn't write about them. Also, of course, unlike most modern writers of Regency stories (mostly American), she knew that Dukes and Earls were not to be found around every corner.

The first thing is, I think, if Darcy was a lord, marriage with Lizzie'd be even more inappropriate, she'd be even more below him.

There's a great irony in Mr. Darcy not having a title for the same reason that the Bennetts are in their predicament in the first place- the inability to produce a male heir.

I agree with everything you say. Whether they had a title in the past and it died out or not, Mr. Darcy has too much Proper Pride to maneuver for a title. Remember, even Sir Walter Elliot, the biggest snob in Austen, admits there are some plain Mr.'s whose names do not require explanation. Mr. Darcy considers himself one of these.

I think Jane Austen wasn't interested in writing about the nobility is one factor in my opinion. Also, If Darcy was a lord and Lizzie was simply a gentleman's daughter, it would come off as 19th century version of a "bodice ripper" and therefore scandalous, and Jane wanted to be taken seriously as a writer.

An option you didn’t mention: The Darcy and de Bourgh families could be descended from Normans who came over with William the Conqueror (hence the ancient lineages). In all those centuries the Darcys could have gotten on a king’s wrong side, especially if they took opposite sides from Charles I, Charles II or Henry VIII. They could have lost both a title and the right to build a castle.

It's interesting looking back at the Regency era, because we know how much less valuable a noble title would have been by the time Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth's kids had grown up in industrial England. We're hitting the time when wealth began mattering a lot more than bloodline and those with money and intelligence could make a LOT more money than those with merely a title. But I think, also, that Mr. Darcy is not a lord precisely because Austin wanted him to be "above" Elizabeth, but still "attainable". If he had been a peer, his marrying Elizabeth would have been as great a scandal as the youngest daughter of a nobody, country English gentleman running away with an army officer. His position as a _very_ rich gentleman with connections to the nobility makes the social distance between them an obstacle to overcome (as he explains when he first proposes to Elizabeth) but not an insurmountable one. Her audience would not have bought the possibility of their romance and marriage (nor, very likely approved of it) if he had been titled. (Literally, they wouldn't have bought the book, and Austin would be a virtual unknown today.) And, though Miss Austen seems to not mind poking at the way English's law and custom overlooked daughters, she doesn't seem to have been nearly so willing to poke at the idea of aristocracy.

There is also Attainder- where a family holds a noble title. Then they back the wrong king on the wrong side - say during / after in the War of the Roses - one could lose that title, basically the new king that replaced the previous one can say "you had a title, but instead of chopping off your head as a traitor, I am just taking it away from you and never letting you have it again."

There is a group of aristocrats in the UK who don't have titles. They are called "The Landed Gentry". That's because their wealth & status derives from all the lands they own. Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall's family & Sarah, Duchess of York's family come from this group. Some of these families have owned the same estates since they were entered in The Domesday Book in 1086 as a survey for William the Conqueror.

I like the idea that the family didn't go in for bribes as a set up for his innate nobility, and why Wickham's extortions were as tough for them to deal with as they were...

People don't talk much about the "landed gentry" anymore, but to this day there are families who fit the description. They probably no longer live off the income of their lands, but I've read that if the family's last name is the same as the village they live in, that's a dead giveaway that their ancestors have been the gentry landowners for generations. Such families still exist.

Probably Jane Austen just did not want to write about a titled man. That said, having a lost family title could be an interesting backstory.

Why would he be a Lord? There’s no need for it in the story. He’s wealthier than the Bennet’s but still the same social class as them. Elizabeth moving from poorer gentry to having the title Lady would probably have been viewed negatively in the regency era as it would have been viewed as moving above her station and social climbing. Making a good marriage where the heroine gains financial stability, a respectable place in society and hopefully a loving husband is the aim in Austen’s novels as that was a young woman’s main concern if she wasn’t independently wealthy. Having a title was no guarantee of financial stability or being respectable. It’s only in the modern era of historical romance fiction that this obsession with titles seems to come in and a lot of it from American authors. Gaelen Foley and Amanda Quick are obsessed with titles- every male protagonist must be a sir, lord, earl or duke. The majority of the main characters seem to have a title of some sort. I think it must come from the perceived mystique of aristocracy as they don’t have titles in America and wanting to give every story a cinderella look where the poorer upper middle class or upper class girl gains the heart of an aristocrat and becomes a lady/countess/duchess by the end of the book. That’s a fairytale type story whereas Jane Austen was writing a more realistic, contemporary fiction about relationships within her strata of society.

Winston's grandfather was the 7th Duke of Marlborough. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill, was a second son. Winston was a commoner, and a member of the House of Commons. He was offered a peerage, but declined.

Could it be that Mr. Darcy was a descendant from a younger son? Meaning he would have the ancient respectable name without the title?

I played an online game once called "Hundred Years War" where, along side military campaigns, the main thing was to have children to keep your family going, along with your title. In the game, it was extremely hard to do. That was the time of the Black Plague as well as the war so people died. It also was very common for a couple to be barren or to produce only daughters. At least half the time I played it, my line died out. I got to appreciate the problem that Henry VIII had. :)

I feel like Darcy not having a title is part of what defines him and the story being told. Much revolves around Elizabeth and him looking down their respective noses at each other snarkily from their respective societal niches, then abruptly feeling unworthy of eachother by turns, based on behavior and growing understanding of one another. They start off different enough social circles that it's easy enough for them to judge one another, without a title into the mix, but both turn out to be focused on themselves and their families leading secure, happy, wealthy lives, rather than in trivial attempts to increase their outside societal status or impress others. We can compare that altruistic focus on maintaining reasonable life stability to Lidia and Kitty who pursue Wickham and the officers purely for selfishness and self-importance, endangering the Bennett family reputation disastrously, or to Wickham, Lady Cathern and Mr. Collins, each of whom use others as means for social climbing and wealth accumulation. The person who cares most about the value of title in this book is either Lady Cathern or Mr. Collin's ,and both, while their shallow singular focus on wielding social correctness is mercilessly made mock of, can be dangerously manipulative and easy to manipulate. Neither Elizabeth nor Mr. Darcy enjoy this kind of social rat race, and, given how they fumble communication, first impression and such with eachother, neither would do very well at it. Indeed, My Darcy is willing to help uplift people less socially enabled than himself which is why he previously fell prey to Wickham and also why he was willing to support Elizabeth and her family when Wickham threatened to ruin their family reputation irrepairably; these choices aren't radical, but they do privilege judgement of the welfare and general human merit of others over their usefulness for one's own self-advancement.

There were/are many “lords” who didn’t have a pot to peep in. Hence the Golden Age “dollar duchesses”...wildly wealthy American heiresses who married penniless English nobles.

Does Mr Darcy have no title because Jane Austin didn't want to" jump the shark"? Would it have been to much of a stretch for readers of the time to accept that a girl with no dowry could marry the most eligible Lord in the land but could marry a kind awkward wealthy man?

The nobility is from his maternal side, and women can’t pass that down.

Thanks for your amazing content. One of the likely reasons for the lack of a title is that Mr Darcey was descended from a younger son of a title holder, while the title passed down through the senior line. Example - Winston Churchill had no title. His father, ‘Lord’ Randolph Churchill, had the ‘courtesy title’ of ‘Lord (first name) Churchill’, being a younger son of the Duke of Marlborough. He could not pass this on - hence plain Mr Winston Churchill, until he was knighted to become Sir Winston. Interestingly he was offered the title of Duke of London by King George VI after WW2, but declined as he wished to remain in the House of Commons. Meanwhile, the title of Duke of Marlborough descended to the elder brother, of Lord Randolph, and his descendants. Theoretically, if there was a big die-off of the senior line of the Churchill family, Winston’s male descendants - though not his descendants through his daughters, could become the Dukes of Marlborough. But if the seniors remain alive, they will simply be - “Mr Churchill”. Probably similar to Mr Darcey.

It would have been really interesting if Elizabeth had met the current Earl. We know Lady Anne and Catherine must have had a brother who was the father of Colonel Fitzwilliam, who may or may not be still alive. Darcy had the same first name as his maternal cousin's last name. Suggesting that he was named after his mothers maiden name. But Colonel Fitzwilliam is a second son because he has little fortune so he must have an older brother who will inherit that Earldom. In fact I really like how Pride and Prejudice has a story within a story because a lot of things happen in the story that we only hear about after they've happened.

There's another possibility: In the English peerage titles are not given to families but to individuals. If I were a lord, I could pass the lordship on to my oldest son. Any younger sons would be given courtesy titles, but they would not be considered members of the peerage. And the sons of my junior sons would be commoners and not be given courtesy titles either. If Mr Darcy's great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was a business savvy junior son of a lord, he could used his inheritance/appange to lay the groundwork for his not-counting-the-greats-son's fabulous wealth without being able to pass down a title. There was a Darcy family in real life. Members of that family held titles for six centuries. Norman D'Arcy - the first member of the family on record - would have plenty of living descendents in Jane Austen's time (and event today) that still have the Darcy name but would have been too removed from the Earldom of Holderness to inherit that title, when Robert Darcy died without a son in 1778.

Honestly, I'm just glad we don't live in the alternate timeline where everyone calls Mr. Darcy "Fitzwilliam." ^.^ I think making Mr. Darcy a lord would complicate what Miss Austen was doing with the Bingleys as a respectable old family whose wealth was acquired by trade (a fact Mr. Bingley's sisters are quite eager to forget). This story plays very heavily on the difference between material wealth and social respectability, and in some ways she relies on the proximity of mercantile and landed wealth to say what she wishes to say about the importance of personal characteristics and good breeding. If they are of equal formal standing, then any judgment against Elizabeth and her family is either grounded in their behavior or their money. If Darcy were a lord, that line would be muddled. Plus, it might have been a step too far to put him in familiar contact with the Bingleys and have anyone still think him proud.

The “ Darcy” lastname oozes of nobility that they doesn’t need the title itself.. 😇😇 Long live the Darcies😎

I am a descendant of Thomas Lefroy who is famously considered to be the blueprint for Mr Darcy. The reason why he didn't have a title is because he was descended from (relatively recent) Hugenot immigrants from France and he lived in Ireland.

I think a critical point is that Darcy is of an ancient family. From the 1660s there were a lot of families that became ennobled who might not be considered "noble" like the mistresses of Charles II whose desendents were the height of the ton in Jane's time. Also with William of Orange and then the Hanoverian kings you had other upstarts rising in the ranks. Thus being of an ancient family but untitled is a kind of reverse snobbery. I remember when Diana married Charles it was pointed out that she was more of an aristocrat than he was. He had, in effect, married up. I always thought it interesting that in Persuasion the Elliots received their baronetcy in the time of Charles II when he probably handed them out like candy to pay off those who supported him but the family hadnt risen in the 150 years since. I always felt this was a kind of dig that Austen's audience of the time would have understood. Austen seems to have little patience for status conferred solely on the basis of birth.

I'm so glad I found this channel. Your comment section is my tribe! Thank you.

Another way to get a title: join the Navy (as an officer, of course), amass a fortune by taking enemy prizes (merchant ships preferable, but a good stout warship has its monetary as well as martial value), preferably work your way up to captain or admiral, win a great battle with valor and cunning, be celebrated by the British public, and return home to be peered. Or to mary Anne Elliot. We can't all be peers, after all.

I think having Mr. Darcy be untitled sets up a more equal groundwork. The Landed Gentry being their own sub culture/category, I think it adds more nuance to the matches that they were making and how naturally they mention how much income their estates generated vs their rank in the peerage system. As we see in Downton abbey, (since you mentioned it) that the titles ended up meaning less when they were marrying newly rich American woman for money, since they had a titles and less income and again after WWI when many of the great houses ended up shutting down because of the expense and the changing world.

Great video. Sometimes the algorithm sends you very good surprises. Pretty much agree with what I've seen in the comments: Elizabeth would've been too junior to Darcy if he was a lord- and the reading public would have not believed the fiction. Also, someone like Darcy (in history) might have completely disregarded Elizabeth if the class gap was wider.

While it’s not a peerage title, a great example of a title dying out is in Pride and Prejudice. Upon Lady Catherine’s death, Anne de Bourgh will inherit her baronet father’s estate but will most likely not become Dame Anne; she will remain plain Miss De Bourgh.

Jane Austen did write about people with titles in persuasion and it showed her real thoughts of them. Lord Elliott is the most pompous creature there is, and his daughters Elizabeth and Mary are so proud and and obnoxious and even lady Russell that is Anne's friend, sins on the sin of pride, when she doesn't see mr. Elliott for who he is and wants Anne to marry him just so she could replace her "dear mother " as lady Elliott...

I love your videos. I enjoy the lightness and novelty of your channel, your deep understanding of that era, Jane Austen's motivations for writing, and you've got like an aristocratic vibe, but along the same vein, break character and mention dating apps or other modern tropes. You're cool. You should have more subscribers.

I doubt Darcy would’ve done what was necessary to become a member of the peerage. Social networking definitely does not sound like his style. The only way he could ever obtain it is if he did some important service for the crown, but in that case he probably would just be knighted.

I think Austen wrote about what she knew. This is why she doesn't write from the POV of the servants or from the nobility, or try to portray conversations among gentlemen alone among themselves.

I think all of your reasons are very valid and possible!!! But also, Darcy (or D’arcy) sounds like a pretty Norman or Anglo-Norman name which means his ancestors would have come over at the time of William the Conquerer. Hence the reference to “ancient,” and their titles and land grants may also have stemmed from service to the Norman conquest. Rather than more recent ennoblement. In fact, like you said, many more ancient lines died out. Few modern aristocrats can trace their lines back to the Middle Ages. Hell, the royal family is largely German. So from Darcy’s perspective, having an ancient Anglo Norman name and estate could have been more respectable than being “new nobility.” While Pemberley seems modeled on Chatsworth and is often depicted as a Palladian house, we don’t actually know that it’s not partly some ancient Norman keep or castle. And I think some of the distinction of rank was also inflated in later years centuries. For example, Henry VIII literally started using Majesty instead of “your Grace” because of a fragile male ego thing with Charles V visiting. Anywho, people probably thought the Marlboroughs were crass and new titles at one point. So the Darcys not having a peerage may not have been seen as less prestigious until centuries later, and then their pedigree and “ancient” credentials would have stood on their own. I think as Americans, we often get fixated on an outsiders view of straight hierarchy and rank/precedence without considerations for how Austen’s contemporaries would have honored pedigree and lineage. Darcy would have likely not felt remotely out of place at court (other than his personal dislike of the frippery).

I imagine Pride and Prejudice as a comedy of class with the tension possible because Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are and are not of the same class. A titled Mr. Darcy breaks the story structure and makes it social commentary or... Different from the gentle critique that it is.

I love seeing how your channel has progressed over the years. Always so informative and interesting, but it feels like you've become so much more relaxed in front of the camera. Thanks for the great content! Please start sharing what you're wearing ect (and be sure to make them affiliate links for yourself, so your viewers can support you!). You are often is such cute and unique outfits 😊

I just discovered your channel yesterday and I think I could listen to you talk all day! You have such a great voice and you really convey information so smoothly! (also, I liked the video and am eagerly awaiting my earldom, thank you)

I love your channel so much!! Thank you for making such beautiful videos!!

Very interesting video again! :) I also think Jane Austen chose him not to be a Lord, so that she could better convey to the audience how arrogant and dismissive he was at the beginning. Her audience was the people of her time, who also were used to the class system. If they had read about a Lord behaving that way, they might have been more forgiving, like "oh, he's a Lord, he has the right to be a bit excentric and to look down on others". But when Darcy does it, he's "only" landed gentry, like a part of her readers or their aquaintances. So the audience back then probaby shook their head at his behaviour, because it just didn't fit his role. They would have also known that Darcy and Elisabeth were in the same social class. Also, maybe the reason why Jane Austen never chose members of the nobility as her protagonists or for her love triangles, is simply that she was worried that the nobility would disapprove. As an unmarried woman, financially dependent on her brother and other family, with some connections to nobility, maybe she needed to tread carefully, if she wanted to sell books and stay in the good books of her aquaintances. Maybe she just didn't want to mess with the wrong people.

Thank you for this quality material!

YES! A list of references at the end! Thank you!

Thank you for addressing this. Its been a question of mine for some time after learning about titles from your other videos.

I'm really enjoying your videos, it's a little bit like I'm exploring classical literature in a uni lecture - you have a most excellent name for it too!

This is so interesting !!! Thanks so much for explaining it

Extremely informative! Thanks 😊

Thank you so much for this amazing video! You have just such a sweet personality, it s a great pleasure watching you!

Very interesting how this works! I know something about this having lived in England for several years now, and a few times per year my wife and I drive down to Devon from Sussex to visit her sister. On the way we pass by an estate in Dorset which is owned by Richard Drax: Charborough Park. Mr. Drax's full name is Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax! He owns over 13,000 acres, and is the largest individual landowner in Dorset -- but he's not a Lord, either, though he could be! His inherited wealth comes from the fact that he is descended from the second son of the 17th Baron of Dunsany, John Plunkett, who died in 1899. But he doesn't have the peerage because he isn't descended from John Plunkett's eldest son. However, he is "in remainder" to the title. This means that if his cousin, Oliver Plunkett, the current heir to the barony, dies without a legitimate son, then Richard Drax or one of his sons will inherit the barony and be a Lord.

Awesome video as always! I'd love to see more content about Persuasion, if you're interested in it. I'd like to learn more about the relationships and statuses of Mary's in-laws, as well as the military side of Capt. Wentworth's career.

Re your question abt Darcy having a title vs being Mr Darcy -- him being titled would have added a whole additional layer to the dance between Darcy & Lizzir

love your videos!

This is excellent, especially since I've been thinking about this subject for a couple days now.

Could you do a video about the Gardiners some time? I really love their dynamic but I'd love to learn more about their position in society, how wealthy were they compared to the others etc. There's not much info about them sadly.

Already had hit the like button, but had to double check when you mentioned the possibility of loosing my Title! Thanks for the heads up! 🧐😘

"Darcy" definitely sounds like an old family name from the Norman Conquest, since you could associate the etymology for that name to the French name "D'Arcy". Lady Catherine and Lady Anne's maiden names being "Fitzwilliam" also implies they're the legitimized descendants of an illegitimate son of a very high ranking noble - maybe not a King since the name usually used for royal bastards is "Fitzroy", but maybe a brother, cousin or nephew of a King called William.

I have no problem with Lord Pemberly. Love it:+) God bless~

Also I just loved your videos!

Great video ! Can you do Northangwr Abbey next . Like a bit more on the 'Gothic novels' and ideal and / or popular reading for regency era women and all .

You look a little extra glamorous today Ellie! Great vid!

It probably wasn't economically sound for them to pursue a peerage, 'cause you had to pay a different set of taxes, and the upkeep of the entitlement and it put more restrictions on what your daughters and second sons could inherit, and they also would have to be even more involved in the politics of it all, and couldn't just sit back and enjoy their magnificent state.

Omg just yesterday I was commenting pride and prejudice in a reading club and this topic came out !!

I don't always remember to like videos. But the way you said it made me laugh, so I paused the video to like it. 😉

That was adorable, take my like and comment 😘

Hello, just wanted to say sy i just found your channel this week and have been bingeing all your videos (i’m even pacing myself to make them last longer hahaha). Love your vids!

Thank you! Have always wondered….

I really enjoyed this analysis. Note also that the surname "Darcy" is derived from a Norman name, "D'Arcy," which itself may have denoted Norman nobility of some degree. Seems as though Miss Austen left us a clue or at least a soupcon of past nobility whose title (as suggested in the video) may have died out although the surname persisted.

Thank You for answer the buggest question that I have everything i look at this story

One of Mr. Darcy's grandfathers was a younger son. He inherited Pemberly, but not the title or the main estate.

4:34 A remainder is "a property interest that becomes effective in possession only when a prior interest (created at the same time) ends". It comes from Latin "remanere", which means "to stay behind" (after someone has departed), which naturally lends itself to talk of inheritance.

Awesome jacket btw killing it. :)

Wow I love the outfit Ellie!

As a stuffy Brit I thought you'd stuff this explanation up but you didn't. Spot on. Well done.

I really enjoyed listening to the various plausible explanations you discussed for Mr Darcy not having a title. Another reason may be due to the fact that the untitled landed gentry in the UK did not have a sort of differentiating particle in front of their surnames, unlike their counterparts on the European mainland. If Mr Darcy had been French, for example, he would probably have been Monsieur de Darcy. In a German context, he would have been Herr von Darcy ( but no actual further title in each case). Although Jane Austen doesn't mention it and Mr Darcy would not have referred to it and taken it for granted as part of owning his estate, Mr Darcy presumably had the feudal title Lord of the Manor of .....(maybe not Pemberley, but the name of the village or local district historically connected with his estate). And perhaps, if French, before the French Revolution, the title Seigneur de....

A middle class girl marrying into the aristocracy isn’t a very good plot and wouldn’t be a well received book in Miss Austen’s day. These are fictional characters, and their social equality drives the plot. This is a new idea - both the French and American Revolutions have shaken the world hard. P&P reflects a changing social order in the wake of political revolution and the beginning of industrial Revolution.

I'm subscribing to your channel because 1) I'm a major Jane Austen fan, and 2) you're pretty funny. LOL

This video is so charming and interesting!😍🎉🎉🎉

ellie: mr. darcy would have to do a lot of social networking me: pfft yeah, like that's gonna happen

Stunning outfit and hair!!

@Ellie Dashwood - would "liking" this video protect any future titles that may be forthcoming in my favor?

I'm not the Duke of Argyll despite one of my great-grandfather being a Campbell who can trace his line all the way back to the Chieftain days. Simply put, younger sons didn't inherit titles. Do that for 500 to a 1,000 years and while some of us are quite wealthy, none of us, but the Duke, have the title. I'm also descended from an Anglo-Saxon lordship (Baron) in Suffolk, England. Like with the Campbell title, younger sons just don't inherit and it's been at least 400 years since a man in my family has held the title. Ironically, unlike the Campbell title which improved over time, this title is dead and gone. You get far enough away from the main line and your particular line moves to American in the early 1600s (1633), you're not the Lord of Anything... Which is fine by me. Title doesn't mean anything but the accident of your birth. Though I did print out a copy of our Coat of Arms because why not...

It's also possible that some people consider their family name to be so great that a title would not enhance it. Also, it wasn't only very wealthy people who changed names on marriage. I had an ancestor called Mr Dodge, who married a Miss Noquet from a silkweaving family. The name had such cachet that Mr Dodge changed his name to Noquet.

It's so refreshing to read about this era from someone living at that time and in the social circles too... as much as I enjoy the Bridgerton series is very unrealistic that all those lords and ladies were marrying each other out of love. Jane didn't do that and I'm now appreciating this perspective

Why doesn't Mr. Darcy have a title? There are all kinds of reasons. The English nobility was strictly that of primogeniture, and there was a long, long tradition of untitled gentry. If the English system had been like the German or French systems, Darcy would probably have been a baron. Every child of a noble in the German and French systems had the generic title of baron while the oldest son would inherit the greater title. So Darcy could have been untitled for any number of reasons because the English system of nobility was very strict about titles. There were great families from this era who actually paid fines to the Crown NOT to be given noble titles. They didn't want the trouble, the expense or the obligation to the Crown. I really like your channel. I've been a Jane Austen fan for many years. Have you ever read the Patrick O'Brian series of novels about the British navy during the Napoleonic wars? Those books have the same entertaining language, plot and sense of humor that the Jane Austen books have.

Question-I love Elle Dashwood videos answering many questions that I’ve had when reading Austen (or watching Downton Abbey or other period movies). Is there a bio on her? Is she an academic or a layperson who researched these questions?

How can a channel like yours, so well made, have so few subscribers??????

I was looking at the peerages that were created around this time to see what a potential path to nobility would look like and found an interesting quote about Baron Delamere by one of his descendants. "[The 1st Baron Delamere] was an idiot who decided it would be impressive to have a peerage. He thought he had a bargain when he paid 5,000 for it. The only problem was that the going rate was 1,200." He had previously served 16 years in the House of Commons without doing much of note and, like Mr Darcy, was the relative of an Earl.

Hey Ellie, I heard there was a thing called ‘going into abeyance’, where a title could be ‘put on the shelf’, as it were- to later be given to a grandson, or even a great-grandson, but I don’t know if that could always happen - I would have thought that there would be more effort to preserve noble heritage- I mean, I get that the entails had a purpose of preserving an estate, but there does not seem to be the same level of consideration for titles I’m also curious about ‘co-heiresses’/ ‘co-heirs’, & what had to happen for them...?

I don't know if anyone has already typed this, but Darcy wouldn't have inherited the title unless all of his male cousins died without heirs. Some people may not know this but Colonel Fitzwilliam is Darcy's maternal cousin. The same Colonel from the book is a younger son of the brother of Lady Catherine and Lady Anne. Darcy's much more like to just continue on as a gentleman, unless he somehow gets another title.

Mr Darcy is of aristocratic descent, through his mother Lady Anne Darcy (née Fitzwilliam). But clearly hss father had no title.

I'm finally caught up. Darcy seems a bit too honest/proud to get a title by cozening up to others.

I am most likely an older subscriber and admirer of yours. I have been reading Jane Austin and re-reading, but just for pleasure. Why I never questioned the title was the simple but maybe mistaken assumption that he was the product of a second son. The younger brother's descendants were very successful.

I found it fascinating in a book by C S Lewis where he discusses the usage of the word gentleman. It meant they had land or other means. It was in effect a title, which he illustrated by saying you could call someone a gentleman and a scoundrel. The word slowly became merely a synonym for a good man, so we no longer understand the actual original meaning.

I do believe the Darcys were too secure in their own respectably and somewhat modest, so they wouldn't have aspired to get a title.

One of my ancestors received a title for raising and paying for a regiment during the Boer War. He was a wealthy merchant who had purchased a country estate and who was socially active with the wealthy and ennobled. (His father and grandfather had made the lion's share of the family's money and the son who received the title had gone to some of the better schools.)

He doesn't need a title! As you mentioned, Miss Austen just wasn't "into" having titled characters plus she wrote more about people in circumstances which readers would identify with. On another topic: Mr. Collins, so desperate for Lady de B's approval, attends Darcy & Lizzy's wedding. One can only imagine the fallout at Rosings!!