Your remarkably well researched books have one serious blind spot. There are a number of errors concerning the British peerage, specially in Gallows Thief. It is not impossible for an earl not to have a subsidiary title by which his eldest son would be known in courtesy. In fact there is to my knowledge no earldom it has ever been conferred without one but they did create Edward the eighth Duke of Windsor without any subsidiary titles said could happen. In such a case however the son would not use the courtesy title of Lord Given-name Surname he would be the Hon. Also the heir to a dukedom uses the most senior of his father’s junior titles, probably marquessate but would not use any subsidiary titles in courtesy. I am a postgraduate research student in modern history, my thesis deals with early New South Wales (especially in the ‘gentility’ carried by a commission) and found your Sharpe books excellent, especially Sharpe’s Trafalgar which I will cite in my thesis. best wishes. Eric Strasser