Is There Really a Duke of Halstead?
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Slight spoilers ahead for The Gentleman on Netflix.
In Netflix's new show, The Gentleman, Theo James plays Eddie Horniman, the second son of the Duke of Halstead. He never expected to inherit his father's Dukedom—so he attended Sandhurst, and forged a career in the British Army (sound familiar?). However, when his father is dying, Eddie is called back from his service, and at the reading of the will, it is announced that Eddie, not his older brother Freddy (Daniel Ings) will be the new Duke of Halstead.
This sets off a whole chain of events which we won't spoil here, but viewers may be wondering: Is there really a Duke of Halstead?
In short, there isn't—and an aristocratic Halstead family does not seem to exist. Per Ancestry.com, Halstead is an English name from Yorkshire and Lancashire, described as "habitational name from any of various places bearing this name for example in Essex (Haltesteda in Domesday Book) Kent and Leicestershire all of which are probably named from Old English h(e)ald ‘refuge shelter’ + stede ‘site’ or possibly Hawstead in Suffolk which has the same origin."
In real life, there are 30 Dukes in the United Kingdom, which include six royal Dukedoms (Gloucester, Kent, Cambridge, Sussex, York, and Edinburgh). The other 24 Dukes inherit their titles by birth, and it passes to the eldest son. Though The Gentleman shows the (fictional) Duke of Halstead passing to his second son, Eddie, instead of his eldest, Freddy, this would not happen in real life.
The Gentleman filmed at Badminton Estate, home of the Duke of Beaufort, who guided James in the world of the British upper classes. (The current Duke of Beaufort is Henry Somerset, the 12th Duke of Beaufort.)
"Until we filmed The Gentlemen I’d never met a Duke or had any entry into that kind of world," James said in an interview with Netflix about the aristocracy. "I had no understanding of it at all. So it was really helpful to film on the Badminton Estate and to meet the Duke of Beaufort who, like the Duke of Halstead, is dealing with all the modern problems of the landed gentry. It’s a huge estate and, in his case, he helps to finance it by allowing film crews on his property."
James said, "Well, when you’re in these places it makes you very aware of this huge family lineage that dates back centuries. There are oil paintings of ancestors on the walls, so you can literally see how wealth and land is handed down through the generations. The idea of how deep set privilege and class is in our society is really at the very heart of The Gentlemen and you feel it viscerally in those locations."
The Badminton Estate also served as a filming location for Bridgerton and its prequel, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story.
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