In 2014 the
Lord Lyon King of Arms issued the "Note on the Petition of George Menking", under which he determined to accept petitions for the grant arms for baronage dignities including Earldoms, Marquisates and Dukedoms since such dignities have historically always been of the genus of a barony and as such represent a higher form of barony and fall within the jurisdiction of the King of Arms. The Menking Note is considered an important change (and return to similar status of an earlier Lord Lyon) from an interim ruling on the petition in 2010 by a Swiss national Willi Ernst Sturzenegger, who had purchased the
feudal Earldom of Arran, and wished to be titled as 'Willi Ernst Sturzenegger of Arran, Earl of Arran in the territorial
baronage of Scotland' or 'Sturzenegger of Arran, holder of the territorial Earldom of Arran", or 'Sturzenegger of Arran, holder of the feudal Earldom of Arran'. In 2006, an earlier Lord Lyon had recognised three petitioners as "Feudal Countess of Crawfurd-Lindsay", "Feudal Earl of Breadalbane" and "Feudal Earl of Rothes". In the ruling in 2010, the Lord Lyon stated that as a general rule previous decisions should be followed, but he could not agree with them as the arguments in the previous cases did not appear to have been tested and no reasoning had been given by the prior Lord Lyon for his decisions. The title "feudal Earl", "territorial Earl", or simply "Earl", being used or recognised in respect of an assemblage of lands into an earldom had never existed until recently. He stated that while the
Abolition of Feudal Tenure Act of 2000 divorced feudal baronies from land title, it preserved the title of baron. This was not the case he found with "territorial" or "feudal earldoms": "On the contrary there is a clear break between the type of territorial earldoms which existed before the evolution of a personal peerage, and the later erection of lands into what has been termed a “territorial earldom”. He therefore did not accept that it follows from the recognition of a feudal baron, or one possessed of the dignity of a former feudal barony, as “Baron of X”, that the person in possession of a “territorial earldom” stemming from the erection by the Crown of lands into a free earldom, should be recognised as an “Earl” or “Countess”, “feudal” or otherwise." Since then, in April 2015 the Lord Lyon changed his mind and he may recognise a person possessing a barony (and other titles that are but nobler titles of baron within the
Baronage of Scotland lord/earl/marquis/duke) on petition. == List of Earldoms in the Baronage of Scotland ==