Hoghton Tower, most of our readers will know, is the family home of the de Hoghton Baronets, of whom Sir Richard Bernard Cuthbert de Hoghton is the 14th. The natural question is, what is a baronet?
The word "baronet" literally means "little baron," but that doesn't really tell us very much, since "baron" itself has meant a number of different things at different times in its history, and even now means different things in England and Scotland. (In fact, so far as I can tell, a Scottish "feudal Barony" now ranks below a Baronetcy: what the English mean by "Baron"--the lowest rank of the peerage--the Scots call a "Lord of Parliament.")
Originally, after the Norman conquest, "baron" in England referred to the whole class of people who held their land in exchange for providing the King with some set number of soldiers and, when he asked for it, with advice. As time went by, this one class split into two, reflecting that some of the original Baronies were, or became, quite powerful, while others were more modest, owing the service of only a few knights. Unsurprisingly, the powerful barons came to overshadow the petty ones, even in the ancient right of advising the King. The key element of being a Baron came to be the right to an individual summons to Parliament. These summons naturally went to the rich and powerful, and these individuals are the beginning of the House of Lords. The lesser liege-men of the King, no longer even called "Barons," were summoned in groups, and elected some of their number to represent them, beginning the House of Commons. Some people have suggested, in this context, that "Baronet" may have referred to someone who had once been one of the great Barons but was no longer summoned to Parliament.
In any case, Baronets in the modern sense had their beginning in the reign of King James, the VI of Scotland and I of England. James had become King of England in 1603 (he had been King of Scotland since his mother's abdication in 1567, when he was just over a year old), inheriting, along with the English title, the difficult English overlordship of Ireland, particularly of Ulster. Part of the plan was to cement this overlordship by creating English and Scottish colonies in Ireland, but the Irish were, unsurprisingly, unenthusiastic about this proposal. Thus the King was in continuing need of soldiers, and soldiers cost money.
In 1611, then, King James in a sense went back to the early medieval idea of "baronage" as someone obligated to supply the king with knights, and created a new English hereditary honor, lower than the peers and higher than the knights, centered on the duty of supporting thirty soldiers for a three year period, at a cost of more than a thousand pounds (around $230,000, according to one website I checked).
There were to be 200 of these new "baronets." The first of the 200 gentlemen to sign up, on May 22, 1611, was Nicholas Bacon, a Member of Parliament (and the nephew of the famous Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Albans, philosopher and champion of the scientific method). Thus the Bacon Baronetcy, currently held by Sir Nicholas Hickman Ponsonby Bacon, is the Premier Baronetcy of England. The second person in line on that day in May was another member of Parliament, Richard Hoghton.
Later in 1611, James created Baronets of Ireland, and in 1625, King Charles I, son and successor of James, created a Scottish version, the Baronets of Nova Scotia (their contributions would be used toward the settlement of that colony). After Scotland and England formed Great Britain in 1707, all new baronets were of "Great Britain," and then, when the United Kingdom was formed in 1801 by the incorporation of Ireland, further creations were "Baronets of the United Kingdom."
So, then, a baronetcy is a hereditary honor, ranking after the younger sons of peers and before knights (other than knights of the two special orders of the Garter [England] and the Thistle [Scotland]). The baronet has the style of "Sir," which tends to lead people today to confuse baronets with knights--but in the 17th century, "Sir" was even used as a form of address for priests. The baronet also puts the abbreviation for "baronet"--formerly "Bart." but now more commonly "Bt."--after his surname: Sir Bernard de Hoghton, Bt.
A female baronet--a Baronetess, of whom there have only been four (according to Wikipedia)--uses the style "Dame" where a Baronet uses "Sir." The wife of a Baronet, on the other hand, uses "Lady" followed by her husband's surname. Thus, we might refer to Sir Bernard and Lady de Hoghton.
In recognition of the connection with colonizing Ireland, the baronet is also entitled to add to his own coat of arms a small shield with the arms of Ulster, a red hand on a white background, and baronets today can wear a gold-and-enamel badge with that same emblem. (The Scottish baronets, who didn't have the connection with Irish settlement, added a shield of the arms of Nova Scotia to their own arms, and had a matching badge.) Until 1827, the eldest sons of baronets could also claim a right to be knighted.
