BRITAIN is a most complex country, and the only way we can move into the future is by delving into the past. This week, two of the North-East's most prominent Members of Parliament have enhanced their futures by taking historic titles.

Alan Milburn, MP for Darlington, is the new Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. There are only two duchies in England - the other is the Duchy of Cornwall - and Lancaster dates back to 1359 when John of Gaunt, son of Edward III, married Blanche, the heiress of the house of Lancaster. John needed someone to oversee his wife's vast fortune and so the title was created, and John became one of the wealthiest, most influential and most corrupt men in the country.

The Duchy of Lancaster still owns large tracts of land in the north which are the personal, inherited property of the Queen. Her income, the Privy Purse, derives from this property.

Because the estates are privately administered by the Queen, the Chancellor of the Duchy has very little to do with it. Therefore, in centuries past, Prime Ministers have used the chancellorship as way of demoting awkward characters from high office. Tony Blair, though, seems to have used it to bring a friend into high office to tackle the awkward character next door.

The title by which Peter Mandelson extricated himself from being MP for Hartlepool is far more historically interesting.

On March 2, 1623, Parliament passed a resolution banning MPs from resigning their seats. Back then, to be an MP was an onerous burden - as opposed to the prestigious privilege of today - and it was felt people ducked out of their responsibilities far too lightly.

Because of the 1623 Resolution, the only way out for an elected MP is death, disqualification, elevation to the peerage, dissolution of Parliament or expulsion from the Commons. Or to take an "office of profit" from the Crown.

In those days, Parliament's prime responsibility was to rein in the extravagant spending of the monarch, and so any MP found to be in the pay of the king was immediately booted out.

The way today that an MP leaves the Commons mid-term is to seek employment from the Crown. Centuries ago, the Crown had plenty of jobs on offer: you could become the steward of the wonderfully-named manors of Old Shoreham, East Hendred, Poynings and Hempholme, or you could take one of the delightful escheatorships of Munster or Ulster.

Today, just two titles remain: the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead or the Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Three Chiltern Hundreds.

The Three Chiltern Hundreds are a hilly, wooded area of land near High Wycombe where robbers used to hide - it was the Crown Steward's job to go and root them out on behalf of the king. Understandably, then, Mr Mandelson applied for the Northstead job.

The manor of Northstead was an area of land in the parish of Scalby to the north of Scarborough. Of the manorhouse, all we know is that in 1600 "Sir Richard Cholmley's shepherd dwelt there until it fell down".

The site of the house is now said to be beneath a manmade lake, although there is still a Northstead Manor Drive in Scarborough. So if you spot Mr Mandelson wandering around a North-East coastal resort with a lost look on his face this weekend, you'll know that the poor fellow is in search of the drowned land of which he is supposed to be Crown Steward and Bailiff.