New commentary thread . ''The Last Dukes'', a 2015 documentary about the most prestigious aristocratic title in the United Kingdom. It's a rare title and we follow some non-royal dukes in the 21st century.

At Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953, the aristocracy of the United Kingdom gathered for the occasion. At the very top, there were the dukes.

Excluding the royal dukes, meaning male members of the royal family bearing the title, there were then 28 non-royal dukes.

At the moment of the Queen's crowning, they were entitled to don their coronets. The title is created by the monarch. They were usually given as rewards for service to the country or the result of kings acknowledging their illegitimate sons. The title would pass down generations.

The last time the title was given to someone outside the royal family was by Queen Victoria in 1889 and it's hard to imagine any more being created in such a way. As some dukedom went extinct, there were only 24 non-royal dukes in 2015. How are those who remain faring now?

Dukedoms today still own in excess of one million acres of land in the United Kingdom. Blenheim Palace is a classic ducal estate. It has been home to the Dukes of Marlborough for more than 300 years.

The title of the Duke of Marlborough was created in 1702 for John Churchill, a statesman & soldier who distinguished himself with victories over the French in several battles. His greatest military feat was the Battle of Blenheim. Life here remained unchanged until World War II.

This segment deals with the Dukes of Marlborough. The Grand Old Days of Dukedoms.

We meet someone who actually lived the type of life you see in the show Downton Abbey. She was born Lady Rosemary Spencer-Churchill. Her father was the 10th Duke of Marlborough.

She was 5 years old when her father inherited the title. Back then there weren't any red ropes as the palace didn't function as a museum. Her father inherited the title in 1934 mind you.

She remembers this room well. There used to be a piano where the large painting is now. She had to practice playing the piano as a child.

This painting shows her grandfather, grandmother and father. She tells us there was a dagger underneath the picture so you could cut it out in case of a fire breaking out.

The dagger is still there! It was concealed by a chair. She used to play with it as a kid and found it fascinating.

This place was her home and for her, it was just a place where she happened to live. She didn't find it extraordinary. The family had 36 servants when she was a child. Her mother liked having her servants 6 feet tall. The average height of a man then was 5 foot 3 inches. Hmm

She's not happy with the new furniture arrangement.

She browses some archives. We see her invitation to Queen Elizabeth II's coronation.

In early 1953, Lady Rosemary was selected to become a maid of honour to the Queen. Being the daughter of a duke gave her an advantage. Not many dukes had daughters at the time.

Coronation footage from Westminster Abbey. Lady Rosemary is on the right-hand side at the back.

This is her first time seeing this footage.

She's highlighted in this image, the woman on the left.

The dukes at the coronation. Her father would have been there but she can't figure out where exactly he was. They didn't discuss that after the coronation but she doesn't find it odd.

A newspaper clipping with a photograph of Lady Rosemary before the coronation. She mentions how there were grand things in those days all the time so they didn't feel a need to discuss it at all.

She remembers the balcony greeting part as being amazing. Some of the other girls had a tour in London after the coronation but Lady Rosemary had to return home because her mother was roasting an ox in the town of Woodstock for the occasion.

Here she is cutting up the meat.

The narrator mentions that this way has in a way disappeared. Lady Rosemary's brother was the duke for 42 years. His son inherited the title in 2014. We leave Blenheim Palace to check out some other dukedoms.

The next segment is called The Long-Distance Duke. We follow a duke who lives abroad.

Blair Castle is the seat of a vast ducal estate that covers over 140 000 acres of land in the Scottish highlands.

We also see the assembly of the only private army in Europe, the Atholl Highlanders. The Duke of Atholl was given a right to possess a private army by Queen Victoria in 1844.

Today, the regiment consists of around 100 local men.

The commanding officer of this regiment, the Duke of Atholl, lives some 6000 miles away. Here he is.

The duke's father had no intention of accepting the title, making inquiries at Lyon Court if he could opt out of the title. He was informed that he could commit a felony and be jailed for the rest of his life or die. You can't abdicate from being a duke.

We see the archive of the ducal estate. Mrs. Jane Anderson is the archivist. There are some 40 trunks of land charters.

We see the oldest document in the archive. It's from 1180. The next one is from 1199.

The purpose of these land charters was to prove that you own a bit of land. They were issued by the crown. These are the originals.

A photograph of the duke's family. When the 9th duke died, there was a very convoluted route to his successor.

The 10th duke was the fourth cousin twice removed with the 9th duke.

There's a simplified family tree of the dukes. It starts with a simple straight line from the 3rd duke but it ends with the 9th duke so they had to find a way back to find the next male heir, a man who was a descendant from a brother of the 4th duke.

The 10th Duke of Atholl had the perfect ducal image. He was nearly 6 feet and a half tall, talked in clipped sentences and ended each sentence with a Victorian-era aristocratic verbal tic ''What, what?''. He was a bachelor and died in 1996. They had to find a new heir.

The next heir was a descendant of a younger brother of the 10th duke's great grandfather.

The current duke is Bruce Murray. He runs a small sign-making shop in some obscure, provincial town in South Africa.

In 2012, Bruce inherited the title of duke and 12 other subsidiary titles. His second wife Charmaine is the duchess.

As the duke, he is automatically the colonel in chief of the Atholl Highlanders. o7

He finds parading for them to be a very moving experience. He's glad he doesn't have to talk during a parade because he constantly has a lump in his throat when he's on a parade.

He says he's here because of an accident of birth and hasn't done anything to deserve this huge privilege that he has.

He says that all of this is done for him basically and it's a very overwhelming sensation for him.

The duke and duchess see the family seat only once a year during a brief visit from South Africa. We see the entrance hall and the armory with a collection of weapons and firearms gathered by the previous dukes.

Just the other day he was wondering how many of the weapons here have been used, a thought he finds sinister but he finds the collection wonderful.

The narrator mentions that if grand estates like these aren't well managed, they can run out of money. In the 1930s, the elderly and childless brothers, the 8th and 9th duke were facing financial ruin.

Luckily for them, their distant cousin who was in the line of succession married a woman with a very rich grandmother.

The grandmother of the bride was Lady Cowdray. She stepped in, paid off the bank debt, and turned the whole thing into a company. She signed the contracts to take control of the estate but died in Paris soon after on a weekend trip.

We hear from her great-granddaughter, Mrs. Sarah Troughton. The deal was that Lady Cowdray's advisors would run the estate but the dukes would continue to live on the estate. The advisors took a business-oriented approach and one aspect of that was opening the castle to visitors.

By bringing in capital and a commercial approach, the old lady ensured a nice estate and title for her granddaughter.

The title stays in the male line, but the 10th duke's half-sister Sarah is the trustee and she and her mother and grandmother were the ones with the actual control of the estate.

Here's Mrs. Sarah with her half-brother, the 10th duke.

Sarah feels a huge relief that the title only goes through the male line. She doesn't want to be a duchess. She thinks it's a nice ceremonial title but prefers the business side of things.

Bruce says the prospect of running and managing an enterprise of this size appalls him. He thinks he's one of the luckiest dukes with the current financial arrangement of the estate.

The staircase has portraits of Bruce's ancestors and relatives. He thinks it's lovely how he can more or less know what they looked like. He doesn't know who any of them are though.

This is apparently a portrait of John Murray, the 1st Marquess of Atholl.

This would be a portrait of James Murray, the 2nd Duke of Atholl. Bruce doesn't see any resemblance between himself and the 2nd duke when asked. There's some shared DNA but he doesn't think he looks like him.

These are the duke's sons, the Marquess of Tullibardine (Michael) and Lord David Murray. They are officers in the Atholl Highlanders.

They are soldiers in a private army and Michael mentions that in theory they could gather the men and go to war if they wanted to.

David wonders how effective they would be. The brothers laugh.

When asked if they regret not living here, Michael says it's a difficult question. He says he's African and always will be but honestly doesn't regret not living here.

He finds it special that they have an African side and a Scottish side, the best of both worlds. Thistles are a symbol of Scotland btw.

The duke's family plays a symbolic role in all the rituals. The heir and the spare participate in a race barefoot.

The duchess is a spectator.

Paying respects to the duke mid-race o7.

Back home, she's simply Charmaine but as the duchess, she gives trophies to competition winners here.

She finds it lovely visiting Scotland for such occasions and meeting people.

Some Scottish highlands games.

Bruce says he's one of only 24 people out of seven billion people on the planet to have this ducal responsibility, something he finds onerous.

More games. Bruce resumes. He wasn't prepared for this title but dukes are usually prepared for it since birth.

This South African line of the dukes of Atholl is a result of the title being passed down the male line only. But when all male heirs run out, that is the end of the line. We say goodbye to Bruce and move on to the next segment. o7

The next segment is titled The Extinct Dukedom. We see what happens when a title dies with the last male scion of the family.

We meet Lady Camilla Osborne. Her father was the Duke of Leeds, a title that is now extinct. She shows us some family books, one has her father's title on the cover.

Lady Camilla lives in southwest London now but she still experiences some status perks as the daughter of a duke.

For example, if she goes for lunch at Christie's, the people there will be very aware of her status as they browse lists of aristocratic title holders all the time like dukes and viscounts. This means she can be seated next to the director of Christie's for lunch, to his right.

She recalls one such lunch where to the director's left you had an older, better-dressed woman who was visibly irritated at being outranked by Lady Camilla. She finds that experience funny.

These pictures of her father were taken by her paternal grandfather, the man who was the 10th Duke of Leeds. It's like a shrine to her father's boyhood in the bathroom. She comments how he looks sad. You can also see his mother, the duchess.

Producing a male heir was a struggle but after four girls, the duchess gave birth to a boy. His birth was celebrated with bonfires and fireworks. His title at birth was the Marquess of Carmarthen.

Lady Camilla recounts a story from her father's childhood. He was on a bus and the bus stopped. His mother explained to him that there was a lot of traffic on the road to which he replied ''Well, they wouldn't do this if they knew the little marquess was on the bus!''.

The family seat was Hornby Castle in Yorkshire. Her father inherited the title in 1927 and sold the castle a few years later. He spent the money from the sale of the castle on the French riviera and travelling across Europe.

He married a Serbian ballet dancer in Nice. This is a picture from the wedding. Lady Camilla comments how the bride is looking pretty satisfied, her father looking apprehensive while her grandmother in gardening clothes must have felt disbelief at her son's choice of bride.

The marriage to this Serbian ballerina ended when she left him for an American millionaire.

The duke remarried and had a daughter with his second wife, the daughter being Lady Camilla.

To avoid onerous taxes in England, the family moved to the island of Jersey, which is a dependency of the United Kingdom with some autonomy.

He felt bored, bad-tempered and miserable in Jersey. Lady Camilla's mother was much younger than her husband and left him (and Camilla) for a young and good-looking officer from the Coldstream Guards.

Her father was in the army at the time and felt sick. His commanding officer told him ''Well Lawrence, this is jolly sad, isn't it? Chorus girls are one thing but I'm afraid duchesses are quite another''.

Within minutes, another woman called dibs on the newly available duke. Lady Camilla says this woman was very tall, nearly 6 feet, which made her a frightening presence.

Lady Camilla says this woman married her father for the title.

Lady Camilla says she loves looking like her father. Her stepmother would sometimes comment that it's a shame she looked like him.

Lady Camilla was 12 when her father died and she was at a boarding school. She was summoned back but wasn't allowed to see him before he died to say goodbye.

She wasn't even taken to her father's funeral. Her stepmother knew that she couldn't inherit anything from her husband except his personal possessions under the terms of a trust.

The stepmother was obsessed with money. Lady Camilla recalls her stepmother ranting to a friend and the friend said ''Oh Caroline, I do think you could stop now because it's really not very nice for Camilla to listen to all this''.

Caroline angrily replied that Camilla would be fine as she inherited the money. Camilla was about 13 at the time of this incident.

When her father died, the ducal title went to a distant cousin living in Rome, Sir D'Arcy Osborne. He was a former British ambassador to the Vatican. He was a bachelor in his 70s. He died just six months later and with his death, the Dukedom of Leeds became extinct.

Lady Camilla thinks her father would have had a sense of purpose had he not sold the family castle in Yorkshire. It could have been managed like the ducal estates in Bedford or Devonshire. She thinks he was an unhappy man because he had absolutely no purpose in his life.

His life's purpose consisted of getting through the day, going to the cinema or a tailor, etc. That was what his life looked like.

Her father sold the coronation robes along with the castle but kept the three coronets. One is for the duke (center), one is for the duchess (left) and the third one is for the marquess as heir to the title (right).

Apparently, people used coronets to store sandwiches during the coronation because the ceremony lasts a long time.

She dons the coronet.

She appreciates enormously what she has in life but thinks that like her father if she hadn't had it she would have had a happier life or at least a more fulfilled one.

She points out how death announcements sometimes include phrases like ''after a life well-lived'' or ''after a fulfilled life'' and in her more gloomy moments says she wouldn't use those terms for herself.

It's not that she's been unhappy but she feels like she had a slightly aimless life like her father but for different reasons.

It is revealed that the title of Duke of Leeds was created for a crafty politician from Yorkshire who helped bring William and Mary to the throne in 1689 and it is contrasted with the title of the Duke of St Albans, which was created for less elevated reasons.

The title of the Duke of St Albans was created for a bastard son of King Charles II of England and the actress Nell Gwynn. We quietly move on to the next segment. No title card? What a snub!

The original seat for the Duke of St Albans was Bestwood Lodge in Nottinghamshire.

The 14th Duke of St Albans and his duchess live in a terraced house in central London.

Ah, here's the title card. This segment is titled The Landless Duke. A similarity with the Duke of Leeds is how they sold the family castle I guess.

Here's our host, the Duke of St Albans.

This child portrait depicts the 10th duke of St Albans. The caricature depicts him as an adult.

The 10th duke was a politician in the House of Lords we are told.

A depiction of his ducal coronet. The current duke has both the coronets and the coronation robes. He keeps them in the attic.

We meet the duchess. She reminds her husband that he keeps the coronets in his study.

It's kept in a red box that's fragile. It's the original box we are told.

This is the duke's coronet. It's so large, much grander than the one the Duke of Leeds had! This duke's name is Murray btw.

The duchess takes out her coronet. The pins are original too and she comments how pretty the coronets look. They were manufactured in 1680.

She dons the coronet and explains how you properly use it. She clearly enjoys her title!

However, she points out they never really have a reason to wear them. The same is true for the robes. Murray points out wearing the robes when his portrait was being made.

When asked about the proper term of address for a duke, Murray answers 'Your grace'. The duchess mentions how she's addressed like that in quite a few restaurants. In other places, you don't get that but the couple is relaxed about this. The duchess does like formality though.

The duchess doesn't like Christian names very much and doesn't like being called Gillian by people she doesn't know. The interviewer asks her what he ought to call her and she says he can call her Gillian if he wants. They all laugh.

When they book plane tickets, there's not enough room to put ''the Duke and Duchess of St Albans'' so they go under Mr. and Mrs. St Albans but she says they're not the type of people who'd put a title just to take a better seat.

Her Grace gushes once more about how pretty the coronet is.

They have a servant.

We see the coronation robes. Murray's are heavy but fragile too. It's an ordeal to put this thing on. It's an ermine robe. The robe for the duchess has lace.

They are lovely robes. There's a shawl that you can attach to it.

The interviewer asks them how they met and what she thought of his title. She met Murray at a dinner party. She finds his title charming and particularly pretty but her daughter's godfather was the Duke of Manchester so titles aren't out of the ordinary for her.

This is the portrait of Murray in his coronation robes. There's a stuffed falcon in the portrait because Murray is also the hereditary grand falconer of England. This title used to come with a salary but Tony Blair put an end to it to save money.

Murray works as a chartered accountant.

We meet the duke's son and heir, Charles Beauclerk. His courtesy title is the Earl of Burford but he doesn't use it. He is a teacher and part-time historian who has an interest in the family's history.

Charles believes they're fortunate to know the story of their family in a way that a lot of people aren't.

Charles will one day inherit the title of the Duke of St Albans but not the ducal estate.

Bestwood Lodge is now a hotel. It was built between 1862 and 1865 by the 10th duke.

The hotel has figures of Robin Hood and his Merry Men. It was described as ''acrobatic Gothic'' at the time of its construction.

Charles and his girlfriend Sarah are hoping to organize plays here and have been exploring the family history.

The 10th duke was a talented entrepreneur and had 3 sons. The future looked bright.

Within months of the 10th duke's death, the family started falling apart.

The 10th duke's eldest son, Burford as they called him after the comital title, was put into an asylum in Sussex just 3 months after inheriting the ducal title.

Charles tells us that the 11th duke spent the last 36 years of his life in that asylum.

His youngest brother, Lord William Beauclerk was also declared mad shortly after graduating from Eton College and spent 52 years in a priory, completely forgotten by everyone.

The middle brother, Osborne, became the 12th duke and he was a restless soul. He traveled around the world and became an embittered man.

Charles wonders how they all became like that. Was it societal pressure or the way they were brought up or were they perhaps born sensitive like that? He thinks it's important to study that to purge such demons from future generations.

The reason why Charles doesn't use his comital title is that people's perceptions of you change. It's like a straitjacket. It often attracts people who want to know you because they're snobs so you can fall into the wrong company very easily. It's easier to be Mr. Beauclerk.

We move on to the Dukedom of Rutland. It was created because a very pushy woman demanded from Britain's Queen Anne that her late husband's military heroism be rewarded.

As a result, her son-in-law was ennobled as the 1st Duke of Rutland.

This family has had headstrong women from the start. This segment is titled The Determined Duchess.

The family seat is Belvoir Castle. The Duchess of Rutland recalls her first time visiting it in her old Fiat and it was breathtaking. It's an extraordinary castle. The building is very imposing.

Emma Watkins was a farmer's daughter from Wales when she met the then Marquess of Granby, heir to the dukedom of Rutland.

They met at a dinner party. They married a few years later and she became the marchioness.

When her father-in-law died, she became the duchess of Rutland.

The new title changes people's perception of you because there are so few duchesses in the country. They view you as someone living in an ivory tower.

She shows us a room that's not open to the public 24/7. We also see the family's private terrace which doubles as a back garden in a sense.

By marrying her, the duke found someone to start a family with.

She's also a very capable manager of the estate. Their marriage became strained 3 years ago but with 300 rooms at their disposal, they found a simple solution.

The duke lives in one tower and reads family archives there. The duchess lives in a different tower and as chief executive runs the place.

It's 7:30 in the morning and senior servants assemble for a weekly meeting with her grace.

When a duke dies, it's like ''the king is dead, long live the king'' but with a different title. She remembers a memorable moment when her mother-in-law gave her a large black tin of keys and wished her good luck as the new duchess.

She spent a week exploring every room in the castle. She takes us to see the roof and to show us why the castle is called Belvoir, meaning beautiful view.

The Manners family were French-speaking Normans and couldn't pronounce ''beaver'' so they called the place Belvoir.

We find the architect on one of the roofs.

He gives us a talk on roof maintenance. The lead on the roof is some 200 years old and is showing signs of corrosion. We find a marker with the year 1883.

Releading the roof would consume an entire year's budget, about 100 000 pounds. And that's just for one section of the 2 acres of roof.

Looking after the future extends beyond mere buildings. After 3 daughters, the duchess gave birth to 2 sons.

The duchess points out that it's important to have a boy because boys carry the title and everything goes with the title.

Her younger son Hugo struggled a bit with that. At the age of 4 and 1/2, he asked his mother if he'll become the duke after his brother Charles dies. She told him that Charles will not die and that he'd never be the duke. He sort of gets it now she says.

There's a photo shoot for ''Country and Town House'' magazine in the castle's Elizabeth Saloon. The duchess is aware of the need to market the place.

There's a lucrative business in Asian weddings. There's a certain Bollywood quality to the decor.

The female members of the family work on the marketing of the estate. As the daughters of dukes, they are styled as ladies: Lady Violet, Lady Alice and Lady Eliza Manners.

Lady Violet Manners is the eldest sibling. She's happy her brother will inherit the title and wouldn't want to break the tradition but thinks that in the future that the eldest child will be able to inherit aristocratic titles.

The Manners ladies.

They talk of Halloween parties hosted at the castle. Must be fun. For inheritance tax reasons, the castle has to be open for a certain number of days.

The family negotiated with the government to reduce the number of days the castle is open to the public and managed to bring the number down to 30 days a year and replaced them with high-income market shooting parties.

Driving and tea-drinking simultaneously.

In 15 years, the duchess transformed the 16 000 acre estate. She got rid of a large number of employees and reordered priorities.

This guy's family has worked for the Manners family for hundreds of years. The duchess made some of their occupations redundant. Controversial as it was, she made the place run properly. We say goodbye to the castle and England's East Midlands.

The next segment is titled The Political Duke.

The old seat of power for the aristocracy was the House of Lords. Tony Blair's government abolished all but 99 seats reserved for hereditary peers. Amongst them, only 3 are dukes.

The Duke of Montrose is a former Conservative Shadow Minister for Scotland in the House of Lords. He gives us a tour of the Palace of Westminster, which houses the UK's parliament. This hallway leads to the Houe of Commons and the walls have depictions of the English Civil War.

This picture depicts his ancestor's execution. It took place in 1650.

This ancestor was the 1st Marquess of Montrose led the army for Scotland and then switched sides for the English throne. He was hung for 3 hours in Edinburgh after he was captured. After that, he was cut down and dismembered with his limbs decorating the main gates of Scotland.

The duke's family has been involved in major events in Scotland's history and their battles with England, one way or another.

The 4th Marquess of Montrose was Lord President of the Council of Scotland and supervised the signing of the Act of Union. We see his portrait. As a reward, he was elevated to a duke and became the 1st Duke of Montrose.

The 6th duke was the current duke's grandfather. He was an early member of the Scottish National Party. The party demanded a devolved assembly for Scotland, something they have now.

The duke is also a hill farmer. We see him help a sheep.

The duke rarely deals with sycophancy.

The original ducal estate was Buchanan Castle, a Victorian-era country house that is now in ruins. It was built by the duke's great great grandfather. It was a grand-style castle.

They lived a lifestyle that was about to vanish.

The new ducal estate is Auchmar House, a more modest house from the 1930s.

Family mementos include the socks and the hat worn by the 1st Marquess of Montrose to his execution as well as a cloth where his heart was wrapped in. He believes one is charged with preserving bits of history for others to appreciate and understand it.

The duke struggles to put on some robes.

These are the robes one wears for the opening ceremony of parliament. He tells us that the number of bars indicates one's title. Barons have two bars and earls have three bars for example.

They discuss royal succession and he's not sure if there will even be any dukes in the House of Lords by the next coronation or if they'll even be considered important people.

As their constitutional role fades, the question is how will they survive in the centuries to come.

The last segment is titled The Commercial Dukedom.

Bookends. We return to Blenheim Palace. In 2015, it had some 700 000 paying visitors.

James, formerly the Marquess of Blandford, is the 12th duke of Marlborough. He had a turbulent early life. This includes a publicly documented drug addiction and a passion for fast cars. He now runs this vast estate and is hosting a vintage car event.

Check out some oldtimers.

The duke's sister Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill. Their father was the last duke to live in the private quarters full-time. She shows us the butler's pantry.

This is their bar.

There's a secret alcohol cupboard that looks like a bookshelf.

A staircase for butlers. It also leads to one of the towers where she and her siblings used to play because it was fun for them to explore places they were told not to.

This is the family dining room.

This is the family sitting room. This is also where the television is. They have a cozy fireplace. Marlboro cigarettes easter egg in the documentary.

In the late 19th century, financing estates like these became a huge issue.

The 9th duke was told he had to marry an American heiress. It was an arranged marriage with Consuelo Vanderbilt that came with a large dowry. It was thanks to her and Vanderbilt money that the house is in such good shape today.

They didn't marry for love and it wasn't a particularly happy marriage but they did their duty to preserve Blenheim Palace. She gave birth to two sons.

Lady Henrietta thinks that it's ironically easier to do an arranged aristocratic marriage today because there are more ways to make money for the upkeep of the estate. In the past, you relied on farming and investments. She jokes that the next dowry could come from China.

The duke is the public face of Blenheim Palace. The palace is now owned by a trust and run by a professional team.

The chief executive reports to a board of trustees who work closely with the duke.

The duke sounds like a drunk.

A shot of the palace roof. That's gold leaf covering.

The chief executive considers the hereditary principle to be a part of their DNA, that what makes them special.

He says they (England) are the envy of the world because of places like Blenheim Palace, the heritage and historic houses. The real jewels however are the ones in private ownership because they have the love, sweat and dedication of a family over generations.

The narrator thinks that the survival of dukes will be a magnificent struggle for generations to come but splendor will remain. The End.

I hope you've enjoyed the thread. Let me know about the parts that stood out for you.