FREE now SUBSCRIBE Invalid email Make the most of your money by signing up to our newsletter fornow We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.

The ninth duke – Arthur Charles Valerian Wellesley, 72, – has spearheaded a cross-party move to delete the exit date, March 29, 2019, from the EU (Withdrawal) Bill. The duke has claimed he is trying to help the Government and not “thwart the process.” But the apparent conflict of interest over the subsidies he and others receive has sparked fury. He is one of just four dukes among the 92 hereditary peers entitled to vote in the Lords and was joined in the attack on Brexit by another, the Duke of Somerset.

GETTY SHOCKING: Duke of Wellington receives EU land subsidies to maintain his COUNTRY ESTATE

The Duke of Wellington, educated at Eton and Oxford, is believed to have received over £80,000 in EU subsidies for part of his 7,000 acre Hampshire estate in 2015. He is also believed to have claimed other separate subsidies for land he owns in Spain and Belgium. He is one of 17 of the UK’s 24 non-Royal Dukes who receive large annual EU farm subsidies for the land they own. In 2015, according to official figures, the total figure was around £4.6billion, the bulk paid to aristocrats directly or to trusts, companies and entities controlled by them.

The arrogance of the House of Lords is unbelievable Jacob Rees-Mogg

The Duke of Somerset, a landowner, receives the subsidies and a number of life peers have sizeable EU pensions. Tory MP and Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg accused peers of ignoring the views of 17.4 million Leave voters expressed in the EU Referendum on June 23, 2016. Mr Rees-Mogg said: “The arrogance of the House of Lords is unbelievable. They think they know best and people like them should be listened to rather than voters. “The European Union is entirely unaccountable, which is why perhaps it is natural the House of Lords is its biggest cheerleader. Unelected, unaccountable people support each other, vested interests come together, birds of a feather flock together.”

The best pictures of sheep in Britain Fri, March 24, 2017 Play slideshow Getty Images 1 of 8

Mr Rees-Mogg added: “The vitriol against Brexit, the condescension, their sheer arrogance and therefore their willingness to burn the constitutional conventions weakens public acceptability for the House of Lords.” Tory MEP David Campbell Bannerman said: “Former EU Commissioners and MEPs in receipt of EU pensions, farm subsidies and other EU payments seem to have a major conflict of interest when voting for single market and other measures. It’s time to come clean on this.” The 14 defeats mean peers have set themselves on a collision course with the Commons by demanding MPs rethink Brexit. Among those leading the charge to derail Brexit is Viscount Hailsham, who as MP Douglas Hogg claimed upwards of £2,000 from the taxpayer for cleaning the moat at his sprawling Lincolnshire estate.

He was supported by scores of life peers including former Labour leader Lord Kinnock, a former vice president of the European Commission who is estimated to get almost £90,000 a year from his Brussels pension pot. Lord Tugendhat and Lord Patten both served in the European Commission and are believed to get close to £40,000 a year in pensions. Former EU trade commissioner Lord Mandelson, who was twice forced to resign from government, has also voted for amendments to the Bill. Other peers playing key roles in Government defeats include former pensions minister Baroness Altmann and former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine, who has a £300million personal fortune. Tory MP Henry Smith said: “By voting against the largest majority decision ever taken by a British electorate the undemocratic House of Lords are inexorably moving towards abolition.” Neither the Duke of Wellington or the Duke of Somerset responded to requests for comment last night. ------------------ Analysis by Kevin Cahill, author of Who Owns Britain Back in 1999 the House of Lords booted out most, but not quite all, of those who sat in Parliament because they inherited a title from a parent. There are still 91 of these people, including four dukes, a couple of marquises, 10 earls and 12 viscounts plus about 60 lords or barons, sitting in the current UK Parliament. Because they are landowners they are entitled to handouts from the EU. The Duke of Norfolk, Edward Howard, is the hereditary Earl Marshal of England, holding a title that dates originally from 1397. He sits in the House of Lords and is also one of England's great landowners who was estimated to own 46,000 acres in 2001. At the average EU agricultural subsidy of £100 an acre he would be entitled to over £4 million a year.

- Duke of Norfolk is the hereditary Earl Marshal of England

The Duke of Somerset is John Seymour, a quantity surveyor who holds a title dating back to 1547. The family once owned 25,000 acres. That is now reduced to just a couple of family trust farms of 2,000 acres or so. But that would attract over £200,000 in taxpayer funded subsidy each year. In 1872 you could tell from a book called The Return Of Owners Of Land, what each of these families owned. Now you cannot. There is no list of trusts in the UK. Neither is there an alphabetic list of landowners at the Land Registry. In Italy and Germany half the land subsidy goes to persons with titles. The difference is that none of them sit in the local parliament because of who their ancestors were. -------------------

Wellington goes into battle against Brexit The Duke of Wellington led the charge as some of the highest ranking members of the British aristocracy went into battle with the will of the people over Brexit, writes David Pilditch. The former Tory MEP is a direct descendent of the Iron Duke who defeated Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, leading to the collapse of his French-led European empire. Waterloo led to the creation of his dukedom and one of Britain's most famous dynasties. Born Arthur Charles Valerian Wellesley on August 19 1945, the ninth Duke of Wellington inherited the title on the death of his father in 2014. Along with it came great wealth, the family seat Stratfield Saye House in Hampshire and Apsley House, London. The Eton and Oxford-educated duke also owns land near the scenes of the Iron Duke's greatest triumphs in Wallonia, Belgium, and Granada, Spain. The duke, now 72, married his wife Antonia in 1977. She is the daughter of Prince Frederick of Prussia and a descendent of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, who plunged Europe into war in 1914. They have five children.

Craig Roberts Alamy Stratfield Saye House in Hampshire, the ancestral home of the Duke of Windsor

The duke lost his right to sit in the House of Lords in 1999 after a reform of the second chamber, but returned to a voting seat in 2015. He introduced the amendment to remove the March 29, 2019 Brexit date from the legislation, insisting he was not trying to "thwart the process" but wanted to give the Commons a chance to rethink including the date, which might have to be changed. The duke said ministers should be given "a bit more flexibility" to secure and ratify the best possible deal which will "do the least damage to the economy and the national interest". -------------------

The aristocratic landowning Old Etonian defying the will of the people The Duke of Somerset supported all four amendments in the Lords. The Eton-educated aristocratic landowner is one of just four dukes in the House and stood alongside the Duke of Wellington. His principal seat is Bradley House in the Wiltshire village of Bradley Maiden, which is part of the family estate with farms and property to rent. The family also own Berry Pomeroy Castle in Devon, a medieval ruin. The quantity surveyor's ancient title dates back to 1547. He is a descendant of Jane Seymour, Henry VIII's third wife. The first Duke of Somerset was Jane's brother, Edward. The 19th duke, father-of-four John Seymour, 65, inherited the title in 1984. He lost his place in the Lords under the 1999 reforms but was elected back in 2014. In the Lords in July 2016 he described the referendum result as "unexpected and dismaying" and "a great political failure". He has also said the "exact ramifications, were unclear" and "our strongest negotiating card is to delay invoking Article 50".