A duke's doubts

The 12th Duke, following the example of his parents, has also made strenuous efforts to ensure that his family can continue to flourish in today's Britain. Together, they have turned the family seat of Chatsworth House into a huge commercial enterprise which attracts 30,000 visitors a month in peak season.

It is, therefore, ironic that the scion of a family that has long realised it must adapt to changing times and start to pay its own way has now declared that, were the House of Lords to throw out its remaining hereditary peers, he would renounce his title as irrelevant. Another irony, of course, is that, even if the Government were to conclude its botched attempts at constitutional reform, his title is anything but irrelevant to those thousands who pour through the gates of Chatsworth every year. On the contrary, it is a great selling point.

The aristocracy may have long since moved beyond its original function as asystem of representation for the landless classes. But, thanks to the enterprise of families such as the Devonshires, it has found another, becoming big business and garnering millions in earnings from tourism. It has learned that to survive means to modernise and, in so doing, is perhaps more emblematic of 21st-century Britain than the Duke of Devonshire realises.