So, if you like British history and classic literature like Jane
Austen or the Brontë sisters, you may notice that there's this whole
big group called the Aristocracy that pretty much rules England.
But whatever happened to them?
Do they still exist today?
And how did they topple from being the top of the top , to,
well, not top the top of Society anymore.
Well, those are the questions we're going to be answering for you here today.
My name is Ellie Dashwood and this is my channel where I talk about
classic literature and history.
If you like either of those things, please subscribe.
So this video is actually a followup to the video I made on,
"What is the British Aristocracy?"
So definitely go check that out too, if you haven't seen it.
Because in there I really break down how this group was formed and how they did
rule so many different aspects of society.
Here today, we're going to be talking about how they sort of lost their power
and their control over those things.
Just as a recap in that video, I talk about how they ruled in government,
the church, the law, the military, fashion, education, just pretty much
all these things you can think about.
Of course, the land.
Now, how did they lose their power?
So, first up, let's talk about government a little bit.
Basically what started to happen in the Victorian Era was liberal
government reform started happening.
Of course, so these liberals started to attack a lot of the privileges that
allowed the Aristocracy to stay in power..
And one of the major ones was changing of voting laws.
Because up until this time, the people who could vote in government elections were
mostly male landowners in the country.
Which of course male land owners in the country are all pretty much country
gentlemen, members of the Gentry.
They're going to more than likely elect people who had their values at heart.
But by changing these laws so that men in the city, men who weren't
landowners could start voting, they also redistributed voting boundaries.
This dramatically changed who was going to get elected into the House of Commons.
Which of course, then you had so many more people representing different
groups and interests that they were going to start taking down again
the top of society's is privileges.
Another way they really affected these elections was they put
in place, some anti-corruption laws in election processes.
Like I talk about my other video, these landed Gentry families were getting
their younger sons elected into the House of Commons and they were putting all
of this money behind these elections.
So really the common average guy couldn't stand up to the
younger sons of these families.
But when they put all these anti-corruption laws in place, it made it
harder for these families to consistently get their sons elected, which led even
more liberals into the House of Commons.
And so it became this cycle that was starting to really come in and strip
away the power of the Aristocracy.
So then this new, more liberal parliament was able to go in and start
raising taxes against the most rich and powerful people of the country,
which were of course landowners.
And they did this in a few different ways.
One was, they dramatically increased inheritance tax.
And so if you think about it, we see this in Downton Abbey.
They're very worried about inheritance tax.
Which is if the dad dies and the estate passes to anyone else, there's
going to be this huge tax on it.
And sometimes this was now starting to require families to sell off land.
They had to sell off their art to pay this tax.
And so each time somebody died instead of the wealth remaining
intact as it passed down through the generations, it now is being eaten
away by these inheritance taxes.
Another thing is they started really taxing owning land in itself.
If we were trying to force these land owners to sell off their land
to the people who've rented from them so that people could own their own
homes, they could own their own farms.
And of course, all of this was also going on in the press at the time.
They were really demonizing these landowners, really painted
them out to be horrible and evil for owning all this land.
So more or less, these large landowning families were having
to start to sell off their land.
Which if you remember from, again, the last video I made on this, the
land is really where they originally got their power and their money from.
And as 18 hundreds turned in the 19 hundreds, these reforms kept coming in
different areas like the church, like education, civil service, the military,
everything was getting reformed that undermined the way that they had
maintained power all those years.
And another major thing was that what we see during the Victorian Era was
the industrialization of society and a change in the way that money was made.
Of course, land used to be the end, all be all, of money.
Right?
It's like you own land, you are rich.
But of course money was starting to be made in different ways.
And it was also starting to be made in different countries.
The major one being America.
Americans were becoming incredibly rich way beyond what the old British
Aristocracy had ever seen before.
And we had like these railroad tycoons, these steel tycoons,
who had massive fortunes.
So right as the British Aristocracy in the late 18 hundreds and early 19
hundreds were starting to lose their old wealth of land and position and power.
And the Americans were just getting richer.
And of course this resulted in a few different things.
One was that as we see again in Downton Abbey, as I've pointed out before,
the Earl of Grantham had to marry an American heiress for her money to
try to rebolster up the old estate.
And so we definitely did see that trend towards having to marry American
heiresses, who are the daughters of these steel tycoons, so that they can,
you know, get that money that is being drained from them from other sources.
So even there, when it came to the top of the top of being rich,
they were not at the top anymore.
And then of course we have the whole big hit of World War One.
And then of course, World War Two, but World War One was a huge hit on them.
Because remember the sons of these families were more likely to be
the officers of the military who were either lifelong military guys.
Or they also felt that was part of their noble responsibility as being
part of the Aristocracy to defend the country, be in the military.
And so they were more likely to sign up, especially in the
early days of World War One.
So they were more likely to lose the sons of the Aristocracy on the battlefields
of Europe than other classes were.
And of course, the world after 1914 had this huge cultural and mental shift.
And I mean, as we go into the roaring twenties in all of these ideas
and thinking that had just hugely shifted after World War One, of
course, we're all shifts away from this old world thinking that helped
keep the Aristocracy in its place.
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So, what are some of the effects that this loss of power has caused
in the Aristocracy in England?
And so of course, some of them are kind of obvious, right?
They don't have complete control over all these different spheres of life.
It's actually surprising.
There were a lot of very negative effects caused to.
Which you might not think about it first.
But I think the absolute biggest most important one was the loss
in things that were culturally and historically important.
Especially for England, I feel like.
One, let's talk about art.
Remember, these people had huge art collections.
You know, if you walked around a member of the Aristocracy's house
that was at the top of Society, they had statues, they had paintings.
These are the people who owned so much cultural wealth.
Well, when they started being attacked by these taxes, they
had to get the money somewhere.
And one of the ways they would raise money is by selling off their
family's art collections that had taken generations to accumulate.
Now, of course, who would they sell it to?
Well, as I talked about before, suddenly Americans were very rich.
And they also really liked art and everything fancy.
So they were more than willing to take that off these British
Lords who needed extra funds.
So one example of this is the fact that the Duke of Westminster had to
sell Gainsborough's famous painting, The Blue Boy, too, well, an American.
And now it's in the Huntington Library in Southern California.
Which I did actually see on my last vacation to Los Angeles.
And it's actually a great painting.
Admittedly, it wasn't the most stellar thing I've ever seen in my life.
My breath was not taken away by The Blue Boy.
But Huntington Library also had some really weird new art, but it also
had great stuff and pretty gardens.
If you're ever in Southern California, definitely check
out the Huntington Library.
But my point is that England did lose a lot of its cultural treasures because
the British Aristocracy had to sell them off to people like Americans.
And I guess us as Americans have just reaped all the benefits.
But as sad as it is for England, that they had to lose some of their art.
The worst part, I think, is the fact that they had to lose some of their houses.
Because of course, these large landed families often owned
more than one great house.
They owned multiple giant mansions and big town houses.
And they had to start selling those off.
Now the sad part of that is often what would happen to these houses
is they would get demolished and replaced by some random new building.
Which is super sad because of course this led to a huge loss in architectural
history and just beautiful things that could still be around and enjoyed had
they not been destroyed because of this.
Now, of course some families saw what was happening to these houses
and they didn't want these homes that had been in their families for
generations to be destroyed like that.
But at the same time, they couldn't afford to keep these houses because
of course, as they grew poorer, they also could not afford the upkeep
and the taxes on these places.
And so some of them, instead of selling them, donated them to the National Trust.
And that's why the National Trust owns quite a few old grand houses in England.
Because the families couldn't afford to keep them, but they also didn't
want to see them get destroyed.
Now, of course, anyone who's seen my video, my trip to Pemberley knows
that some of these big houses are available to be toured for a price.
I did have to buy a ticket to go and tour Chatsworth House.
Which is one of the ways that some of these families that still own these big
houses today are able to maintain them by raising funds, by either having tours.
Some of them have turned them into expensive hotels or retreats.
And that's one way they try to hold on to their family heritage.
Now I'm not saying that the Duke of Devonshire is in any way hurting
for money, because I do feel like he's still one of the more
rich members of the Aristocracy.
But I am saying that a lot of these other owners of these big houses are really
hurting for money and trying to hold on to it by turning their homes into a business.
It's like they work from home, literally.
Oh.
Yeah.
Of course someone might point out to me right now.
It's like, "Yeah, Elizabeth toured Pemberley.
You know, you could go and tour these big houses."
And that's true.
But back then it was something that well brought up people could do.
They were not charged fees.
Of course you would give a tip to the house keeper for showing
you around, but they were not commercialized like they were today.
It was still very much someone's house that you had the privilege because you
were nicely dressed to be able to tour.
Versus now Chatsworth House literally has a gift shop.
Which is super awesome.
And I wish I bought more stuff there, but still, it's awesome.
So of course, this all just leads to where is the Aristocracy now?
And really what we see is that they still exist.
Clearly, there's still the House of Lords.
A lot of the land, about 50% of what they used to have is still
in the hands of the landed Gentry.
But at the same time they have lost the power.
Remember, like we learned in the video about the Aristocracy,
they were at the top of the top of every major sphere of life.
And they no longer are.
They're no longer the richest people, the most powerful people,
the most fashionable people.
Instead, all those positions have been replaced by other classes and people.
So just to sum all of this up, what happened to the British Aristocracy?
Well, in the Victorian Era liberals started getting into government and
one by one started to strip away their privileges that kept them in power in
all of these different spheres of life.
And also started to eat away at their sources of funds.
Americans got really rich, started buying their art.
They had to sell houses that got tore down and it's super sad.
And now they own 50% of the land they used to.
Still have the House of Lords.
Lots of more people can vote.
So that is what happened to the British Aristocracy.
Let me know, in the comments down below, if you lived in the 18 hundreds, would
you want to be part of the Aristocracy?
Anyway, thank you so much for watching my video.
My name is Ellie Dashwood and this is my channel where I talk about
classic literature and history and keep having awesome day.
Let me know in the comments down below, if you lived in the 18 hundreds, would
you want to be part of the Aristocracy?
Personally, I would want to because otherwise, what would I be like a servant
or something that would not be a fun life.
I'm sorry, but let's face it, non-fun life happeneding there.
Life.
Also like this video, if you like history...