Chinese Nobility - Rules of Succession
The general rule of succession to a Chinese title was the same as in the United Kingdom; that is to say, the eldest son by the legal wife succeeded. If there was no son by the wife, then a son by a handmaid may take the title, just as the Mikado of Japan, so lauded for his civilized ways by Sir Edwin Arnold, would be succeeded by a prince whom in the West we should regard as illegitimate. The practice must tend to make titles more permanent than with the British; but as if even this were insufficient to the end, it constantly happened that in the absence of sons a title was passed on to a nephew or cousin. The reason for this proceeding appeared in a memorial published in 1874. One Chang Chih-Kung had been killed in action; whereupon the crown bestowed the title of "mounted warden" on his nephew. The nephew turned traitor, and being caught lost title and head. It was now urged that the forfeited title "should be revived in the next line, in order to soothe the ghost of Chang Chih-Kung."
It did not follow that the successor will be granted the same rank. An earldom referred to in the Gazette for 1872 was "to be hereditary for sixteen generations, after which the holder was to receive the rank of 'warden by giace' in perpetuity." In 1864 a brigadier-general who had distinguished himself at the recapture of Nanking from the Taipings, was made a viscount. He died of his wounds the following month. Nine years after his death a baby nephew was adopted as heir to his ghost, and upon him was bestowed the title not of viscount, but of yim ch'i-yii. Sometimes, but very rarely, the title is inherited by a brother. One such case had a curious issue. The inheritor, like his brother, died unmarried. Before that happened, however, he had left his record of services, his patent of nobility, and his genealogical table, in charge of a young clansman. The clansman rose to the occasion. Giving himself out to be the son of the deceased, and getting two friends to stand as the necessary sureties, he made application through the local authorities for permission to succeed. This was granted him, and he was sent as military secretary to a battalion. His captain's suspicions, however, were ptesently aroused (how, it does not appear), and the new peer was arrested and sent for trial before the district magistrate. (There is no trial of peers by peers in China.) He "proved contumacious," but as he was identified by an uncle, the magistrate felt justified in sending him before the provincial judge, who found him guilty. The legal sentence was penal servitude for life, but by virtue of a fortunate Act of Grace (consequent on the recovery of the Empress Dowager) this was commuted into banishment for three years, a beating, and repayment of any salary drawn.
A similar sentence was passed in 1883 upon another impostor, a captain in the army, who previous to detection had received 617 crowns as salary. The utmost efforts of the officials could only recover some seventy-two dollars, after selling up the whole of the captain's possessions. As for the penal servitude, the offender got off that on the plea that "a rheumatic affection of the legs brought on in military expeditions against banditti had been so aggravated by the confinement he had undergone" that he could not walk to the place of banishment. The reason why severe sentences are, at all events on paper, passed against such impostors is because their proceedings amount to a fraud on the revenue.
Courtesy titles were unknown in China. It is true that an adopted son of Li Hnngchang - who was made an earl for the victories Gordon helped him to gain - posed as "Lord Li" or " Viscount Li" in London and elsewbere; but he probably, nay certainly, owed this, not to his own vanity or the grace of his emperor, but to too flattering foreign friends. An Englishman "dearly loves a lord," and the opportunity to my-lord the Viceroy's son (now Chinese minister at Tokio) was too good to be lost. As a matter of fact he would not succeed as Earl Po-i (the Grand Secretary's title) if Li Hung-chang left a son by blood. Indeed it was not only premature but presumptuous for any man to give himself out as necessarily the successor to a Chinese title.
The ordinary procedure was for the provincial authorities to report the death of a noble, and for the Emperor thereupon to direct them to ascertain who should be appointed to succeed him. In the case of the late Tso Tsungt'ang, who was both a marquis and a baronet, the authorities of Fukien suggested that his eldest grandson might take the marquisate, and one of his younger sons the baronetcy. Tso, by the way, had at one period of his life been a baron and at another an earl, but as the memorialists said nothing about these titles it is to be assumed that they were absorbed in the marquisate, not held concurrently with it, as would have been the case with the British, and indeed was the case with Tso's baronetcy. The only recent instance in the Gazette where a successor had been recognized in his father's lifetime was found in the volume for 1880, and the reason there plainly appeared in the fact that the noble having no sons by his wife wished the succession to be confirmed on his eldest son by a handmaid.
This proceeding would prevent a claim being brought forward after his death by some other son, as was actually done in 1883. The Marquis Wenhou died leaving four sons, but none, as was supposed, by his legal wife. The eldest son under these circumstances succeeded to the title, and on his death childless it reverted to the third son, the second having passed out of the family by adoption. About this time the youngest son overheard his supposed mother say to her daughter that he was really the child of the wife, who died when he was born. She, so she said, had pretended that the baby was hers in order that her own son might not be ousted from the succession (as he would be if he had a legitimate brother, however many years his junior). Not long after this exciting disclosure the handmaid died, find the then marquis, her eldest son, called on his youngest brother to join him in mourning for her. He refused on the ground that she was but a stepmother at best, whereupon the marquis "made the servants cut off forcibly a piece of his queue and place it in the mother's hand," a ceremony which the translator, Mr. Hillier, explained, "is always performed by children at the death of their parents." It is rather disappointing to have to add that here again a very natural ambition was baulked by an uncle's interference. The brother of the late marquis, to whom the court referred as an authority, was unkind enough to declare that his brother's wife (a princess of the bloud, by the by) died two years before the claimant was born, on which the court decided that she was most probably, not the claimant's mother.
When, on the death of a Chinese peer, an imperial decree has been obtained nominating his successor, it didi not follow that the successor can at once assume the title, and draw his pay. On the contrary, he was required first of all to go into mourning for his father, grandfather, or uncle, as the case may be. If he was a Manchu he could get this over in a hundred days - for the Manchus were a practical folk, and, though they yielded something to Chinese prejudices, would not yield too much - but if he was Chinese he must mourn for twenty-seven months. This was the cause why the late Marquis Tseng did not, though his father died in 1872, take up the title until September 1874, when he was again called into a second twenty-seven months' mourning for his mother. His mourning over, the new peer should go to court and be presented to the Emperor.
There were, apparently, no succession fees, though the officials of the Boards concerned - the Home Office and the Horse Guards of China - contrived to exact fees on the first issue of a patent. These patents should be made of the best white silk, and on them should be printed a copy of the decree granting the title. It is melancholy, though not altogether surprising, to learn, however, from the confession of a censor, that the generality of patents "are inscribed on material of the most inferior description, coarse and loosely woven, and made up with a minimum of silk and a maximum of solidified dye."
China, under the empire, ennobled the ancestors of the person to be honored and usually made the title hereditary for a stated number of generations. Each of these orders of nobility was divided into classes according to the number of generations for which the title is allowed to be inherited. Dukes were divided into three classes, the titles of the first class not descending beyond the heirs male of the twenty-sixth generation. The titles of the second class cannot descend beyond the heirs male of the twenty-fifth generation; nor those of the third class beyond the heirs male of the twenty-fourth generation. Certain dukedoms, however, continue so long as there are heirs male to inherit them. Marquises were also, like dukes, divided into classes according to the number of generations. These classes, four in number, held their marquisates for twenty three, twenty-two, twenty-one, and twenty generations respectively. Some marquisates also, continue to exist so long as there are male heirs to inherit them. According to the same principle, earls are divided into four classes, the number of generations during which the several classes are permitted to retain this rank being respectively nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, and sixteen. The first class of barons only hold them for fifteen generations, the other three classes for fourteen, thirteen, and twelve generations respectively. The title of baronets is only held in the first class for eleven generations, the three remaining classes holding their titles, for ten, nine, and eight generations. Precedence among the members of each order is, of course, determined by the class to which they belong.
Besides the five orders of nobility there was a further degree of rank which was termed Kee-Too-Wye; and a still lower grade termed Wan-Kee-Wye. The former rank descended in families belonging to its first class, no further than the heirs male of the third generation; and in its second class to the heirs male of the second generation. The latter rank, Wan-Kee-Wye, descended only to the immediate male heir. It was apparently not dissimilar to knighthood in Great Britain, and carried with it a right to a title of honor. There was a degree of rank which is termed Yan-Kae-Wye, and which was inherited by the descendants of dukes, marquises, earls, barons, and baronets, when these titles by effluxion of tenure have become extinct.
In China as in Great Britain, earls were, in some instances, raised to the dignity of marquises, and marquises to the dignity of dukes. It was customary for an earl, created a marquis, to transfer his dignity of earl, by royal permission, to his younger brother. These various dignities were of very ancient origin and, in the form in which they were found in the 19th century, may be traced back to the darkest periods of Chinese history. The power and authority which once attached to them, however, had greatly diminished. At one time their possessors were princes, or powerful feudal chieftains, each wielding a sceptre over his own territory. The dukes had almost absolute power over a dominion or principality which was one hundred li, or thirty miles English in extent. The principality of a marquis was nearly equal in area, while earls and barons were allowed to possess estates which did not exceed seventy li, or twenty-three English miles in area; and baronets, estates which did not exceed a limit of fifty li, or sixteen English miles.
In addition to these honors there were other degrees of rank which bring with them the right to certain titles. These degrees are nine in number, and each degree is divided into the classes Ching, correct; and Tsung, deputy.
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