belted earl

plural belted earls

1. An earl whose title goes back to the period prior to the 18th century when a sword and belt received from the monarch were tokens of that title.

   This William was the sixth belted earl of that house of Douglas.

   1728, Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, The History of Scotland from 1436 to 1565, Glasgow, published 1749, page 14

   2 more examples

   It was pretty interesting to imagine things about them—to imagine that perhaps the girl who sat next to you was really the daughter of a belted earl, who had been stolen away from her parents in her infancy by a cruel nurse who died before she could confess.

   1908, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 2, in Anne of Green Gables

   It was Boone Havock and his immense and parrot-squawking wife Queenie who were the great people, the belted earl and terraced countess, of the occasion […]

   1945, Sinclair Lewis, Cass Timberlane: A Novel of Husbands and Wives, Chapter