Sunday 21 September 2008 A Dukedom for Harry?“Once
upon a time there was a handsome prince, who was also known as the Duke
of….” It
has long been the custom of British Sovereigns to bestow a Dukedom on
their sons and on the sons of their heirs. Over the past
century this has come to be associated with the marriage of those
various princes. In the wake of last month’s column, in which
many royal dukes from generations past got mentioned, I was asked what
dukedom might eventually be bestowed on Prince Harry when he
weds. In pondering the question I realized that there is
presently something of a shortage in the traditional list of royal
dukedoms, and when the time comes Harry will probably end up with
something rather more obscure than the old somewhat familiar
list. Several
royal dukedoms automatically appertain to the Sovereign and to the heir
to the throne. Stretching back to Tudor times the Queen holds
the title of Duke of Lancaster and in some of the Channel Islands she
is also still hailed as “Duke of Normandy.” (Yes, as I
understand it, in both cases she is a female “Duke”, not a
Duchess.) The Heir Apparent automatically holds the title
Duke of Cornwall and the Scottish title Duke of Rothesy, even though he
has to be “created” Prince of Wales. Other royal dukedoms
also have to be “created” (i.e. “bestowed”) by the Sovereign’s gift,
though they then continue in the male succession of that
family. The royal dukedoms currently held by members of the
House of Windsor are Edinburgh, York, Gloucester, and Kent.
If and when any of the dukedoms become “extinct” they return to the
Crown and may be bestowed anew as the Sovereign wishes. The
current creation of the Duke of Edinburgh bestowed on Prince Philip at
the time of his marriage to Princess Elizabeth will officially fall to
Prince Charles upon the death of his father. But upon
Charles’ eventual accession to the throne it will “merge” back into the
Crown. It is widely understood that King Charles will then
create his brother, the Earl of Wessex, as the new Duke of
Edinburgh. And now that Prince Edward has a son, that royal
dukedom will be occupied for at least a couple of generations. Prince
Andrew was created Duke of York at the time of his marriage in
1986. But unless he remarries and has a son from that
marriage, the title will eventually revert to the Crown upon his
death. (Another option, last used in the early 20th
century in the instance of the daughters of the Duke of Fife, who was
married to Edward VII’s daughter Louise, would be a re-grant of the
title allowing the title to descend to and through the female line.) The
Duke of Gloucester inherited the title from his father, Prince Henry,
the third son of George V and Queen Mary. Since the current
Duke has a son, Alexander, Earl of Ulster, and now a grandson as well,
that title will also be off the books for the foreseeable future. The
Duke of Kent, another grandson of George V and Queen Mary, has two sons
and now has two grandsons as well. The Duke’s brother, Prince
Michael, also has an unmarried son, Lord Frederick Windsor.
The Kent lineage thus seems fairly secure for several generations to
come. So,
when the time comes to start looking for a title for Harry, other
options will have to be explored. From my research for last
month’s column it would seem that several other historic royal dukedoms
also remain unavailable. For instance, two of Queen
Victoria’s sons held the titles Duke of Connaught, and Duke of
Albany. But since Connaught is in Ireland, that title must
surely be regarded as defunct. Albany, meanwhile, is
currently in abeyance. The
title Duke of Albany is a traditional Scottish title going back to the
early Stewart era, circa 1400. (Ancient Scotland was known as
“Alba.”) The title was held by Charles I before he succeeded
his brother as heir to their father, James VI / I. The future
James VII / II was created Duke of York and Albany by his brother
Charles II in 1660. The York and Albany titles were also
conjoined by the Hanoverians in a couple of instances. The
“Young Pretender” Prince Charles Edward Stuart created his illegitimate
daughter, Charlotte, Duchess of Albany. Queen Victoria
eventually bestowed it as an independent title on her youngest son,
Prince Leopold, from whom it passed to his only son, Prince Charles
Edward. The
unfortunate Charles Edward of Albany was chosen as a schoolboy to
succeed to the German Duchy of Coburg, and ultimately sided with
Germany in both World Wars. In 1919 the Duke of Coburg was
legally deprived of his British peerage for having fought for his
cousin the Kaiser against Britain. But, according to the 1917
Titles Deprivation Act his lineal male heirs do have the right to
petition for the title to be restored. The current heir male
to the Dukedom is Charles Edward’s great-grandson, Prince Hubert of
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (b. 1961), who has a son born in 1994.
There are several other heirs male in the abeyant line of the Dukedom,
and it is thus unlikely to ever reappear as a British title so long as
the 1917 law remains. Given the historic provenance of the
dukedom this seems a great pity. There
is another traditional British royal dukedom that has also long since
spun off to Germany. When Queen Victoria succeeded to the
British throne in 1837 she was not eligible to also succeed to the
throne of Hanover, which was governed by the old Salic Law barring
women rulers. Victoria’s uncle Ernest Augustus, the Duke of
Cumberland, thus went over to rule Hanover. As with the
Albanys, the Cumberlands were deprived of their British peerage in 1919
but retain the right to petition for it to be restored. The
current potential Duke of Cumberland in that succession is Prince
Ernst, the husband of Caroline of Monaco, who has two sons by his first
marriage and a number of male-line kinsmen (including two nephews of
Prince Philip). There
are, currently, four historic royal dukedoms that are extinct and thus
eligible to be bestowed on Prince Harry when the occasion
arises. They are Windsor, Clarence, Sussex, and Cambridge. The
title Duke of Windsor was newly created by King George VI for his
brother, the former King Edward VIII, in 1936. The title had
never existed previously. There was some speculation before
the marriage of the Earl and Countess of Wessex that he might be given
the title. I personally think that there was no chance of it
reappearing during the lifetime of the late Queen Mother, and that it
is still quite unlikely that the Queen would consider bestowing it on
her grandson. It could reappear in a later generation, once
it is a bit further removed from living memory. It really is
quite a grand and appropriate title. The
most recent holder of the title Duke of Clarence was “Prince Eddy,” the
unfortunate elder brother of King George V who died in 1892.
Prince Albert Victor – to use his baptismal name – was a rather
underwhelming character, perhaps the least intellectually gifted member
of the royal family for all time, and he is rumored to have been either
homosexual or bisexual. (Other speculations that he was also
“Jack the Ripper” do seem to have been laid to rest.) Prior
to Albert Victor the Clarence title was held by King William IV up to
the time he succeeded his brother, George IV. There were also
several prominent holders of the title back in the days of the
Plantagenets. The lingering lore and speculation surrounding
Prince Albert Victor makes this, too, a somewhat unlikely title to
re-emerge in the near future, though I must admit that I rather like
the sound of “Henry, Duke of Clarence” better than several of the other
options. The
title Duke of Sussex was held by Prince Augustus Frederick (1773-1843),
the sixth son of King George III and favorite uncle of Queen
Victoria. Both of his marriages were invalid under the
infamous Royal Marriages Act. His son by his first marriage
was thus regarded as illegitimate and ineligible to succeed to his
father’s title. That son, known as Augustus Frederick D’Este,
was the first known person to be identified with the disease now known
as multiple sclerosis. He had no issue. The Sussex
title has been so long unused that there are no lingering strong
associations with it, one way or the other. The
last of the currently “open” royal titles is that of Duke of
Cambridge. Prince Adolphus, the seventh son of George III
held the title from 1801 until his death in 1850. He was
succeeded by his son George, who served for many years as Commander in
Chief of the British Army. The second Duke died in 1904, and
having married in contravention of the Royal Marriages Act his sons
were ineligible to succeed to his title. The Cambridge family
was Queen Mary’s family, her mother being the sister of the second
Duke. During the World War I changeover in names and titles,
Queen Mary’s brother was created Marquess of Cambridge. That
title also disappeared upon the death of the second Marquess in
1981. In 1999 there was speculation that Prince Edward might
be created Duke of Cambridge, both because of the close family tie via
Queen Mary and because of his own delight in his years as a student at
Cambridge University. The title probably ranks near the top
of the list of potential creations, though in my opinion it would be
most fitting to reserve it for a more academically inclined member of
the royal family. There
are a few extinct peerages more loosely associated with royal history
that might be worth consideration for Prince Harry or some other future
royal. These include the Dukedoms of Portsmouth, Cleveland,
Inverness, and Strathearn. The first two of those titles were
created for mistresses of Charles II, both of whom were ancestresses of
Princess Diana. The Inverness title was created by Queen
Victoria for the second non-approved wife of the Duke of Sussex so that
she would at least be of sufficient rank to sit with him at dinner
parties. (The complication with creating a Duke of Inverness
at this time is that it is the Earldom held by the current Duke of
York, and having both a Duke and an Earl of Inverness might be a bit
too confusing.) The Strathearn title was paired with
Connaught for Queen Victoria’s son, and being in Scotland it is
completely fair game for the current royals. It’s another one
that I just like the sound of… “Prince Henry, Duke of
Strathearn.” The old Duke of Connaught and Strathearn was
also a soldier like Harry, which would provide a meaningful link. Yours Aye, - Ken Cuthbertson P.S. – I do want to applaud Prince William’s brilliant move to transfer to the RAF as a search and rescue helicopter pilot. In my opinion it serves both him and the Crown well. He’ll be doing something both useful and rather dashing. It also keeps the royal spotlight appropriately on his dad as the Queen’s principal understudy. I just hope it doesn’t unduly interfere with the prospect of a royal wedding sometime in the next year or so.
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