The Duchy of Shadow Vale was a Manticoran peerage on the planet Sphinx. The County Duvalier, where Honor Harrington was born in 1859 PD, was part of the Duchy of Shadow Vale. (UHH) It was still thinly populated in the 20th Century PD, and had a rather "rural" attitude towards private citizens carrying weapons; they were seen as day-to-day survival tools, and most residents were trained in their responsible use from an early age. (infodump)