BURKE'S PEERAGE

in full Burke's Genealogical And Heraldic History Of The Peerage, Baronetage, And Knightage, peerage listing of Great Britain and Ireland first published at London by John Burke (1826), one of only two currently published peerage listings to supply full lineage. An editorial decision implemented for publication of the 105th edition (1970) resulted in the insertion of more human interest in the entries and more biographical details about a person's life. For instance, literary as well as military or political accomplishments are described. Contents include, in addition to new or revised coats of arms, biographies of the royal family and the royal lineage, royal warrant holders, the spiritual lords (archbishops and bishops), the knightage, tables of precedence, and extinct titles. Special articles discuss the origins of the English peerage, Irish peers and the House of Lords, abeyance, and a defense of hereditary peers.