today. Portugal and Brazil Both Portuguese and Brazilian nobility adopted the term ("grandee") from the Spanish, to designate a higher rank of noblemen. The Brazilian system automatically deemed dukes, marquises and counts (as well as archbishops and bishops) ("Grandees of the Empire", or literally translated as "Great Ones of the Empire"). Viscounts and barons could also be ennobled with or without ("grandeeship", alternatively "greatness"). Viscounts ennobled with grandeeship displayed a Count's coronet on their coat of arms, and Barons ennobled with grandeeship bore a coat of arms surmounted by a Viscount's coronet. The order of precedence in Brazilian nobility was as follows: after the members of the Imperial Family, dukes, marquises, counts, viscounts with grandeeship, viscounts without grandeeship, barons with grandeeship, barons without grandeeship. Brazilian grandeeships, like its nobility, were not hereditary titles. Grandees were allowed to keep their heads covered in the presence of the king or emperor until such time as the monarch may command otherwise; as elsewhere throughout Europe, these noble families displayed their coats of arms on their properties, carriages (or vehicles), and over their graves (see hatchment). The abolition of the monarchies in Portugal and Brazil extinguished the formal use of such titles, although their use continues among some of the Portuguese aristocracies. Grandee (New Model Army) During the English Civil War, senior military officers from the landed gentry serving in the New Model Army, opposing the Levellers, came to be informally termed Grandees. After the defeat of King Charles I in the civil war, there was a series of debates and confrontations between the radical elected representatives of the New Model Army soldiers, known as Agitators, and the Army Grandees such as Sir Thomas Fairfax, Oliver Cromwell, and Henry Ireton, who opposed the Agitators' more radical proposals. The disagreements were aired publicly at the Putney Debates, which started in late October 1647 and lasted for several weeks. See also List of current Grandees of Spain Hidalgo (nobility) References Bibliography Levellers New Model Army