This previous answer of mine to a similar question might interest you.

The basic reason for this is that, by the time of colonization, duchies and earldoms had all but disappeared in England. While dukes and earls often had extensive holdings, they were not really duchies or earldoms of the continental type (nether York nor Lancaster holdings were in those counties, anyway). Feodalism, if it ever existed in England as in e.g. France, disappeared with the Black Death. Remember, the British Empire was primarily an economic venture, not a primarily landgrabbing one. And Parliament would not accept self-governing estates....