Subject: Curse on Dukes of York?
Michelle.Mu...@ccmail.team400.ie
Re: Harold Wyzansky's post
>The title of Duke of York is usually given to the second
>son of the monarch.
Only since Edward V; your post concentrates on this time, with the implication
that you are only referring to this period. Before this time, different titles
were given to a King's second son: Richard, second son of King John, was Earl of
Cornwall; Edmund, second son of Henry III, was Earl of Lancaster; Lionel, second
son of Edward III, was Duke of Clarence (it was only his fourth surviving son,
Edmund, who was created Duke of York).
>One reason for this is that it has virtually always been
>vacant to be given.
The Dukedom of York was the largest and most important "separate" title held by
the crown, which it could bestow on a second son. The Duchy of Lancaster was
absorbed into the Crown, and never again bestowed as a title on anyone but the
King/Queen, after the accession of Henry IV.
>Here is the list of Dukes of York since Edward V:
>1. Richard, son of Edward V, died childless as one of "Princes in the
>tower."
You mean Edward IV; Edward V was this Richard's older brother, who succeeded
Edward IV but whose throne was usurped by Richard III. He probably died between
the ages of 13 and 15.
>Does anyone know why George II's second son William was given the title >Duke
of Cumberland instead of the traditional title of Duke of York?
Maybe he wasn't yet aware of the tradition!
As regards the Hanoverian Dukes of York who died childless, remember that
Hanoverian younger sons showed an alarming tendency either to remain bachelors
or to contract morganatic marriages the issue of which were barred from the
succession. You'll recall the "race" between the younger sons of George III to
beget an heir when it became clear that William IV was going to die childless,
and the crown was "up for grabs". Edward Duke of Kent won, with the birth of
his daughter Victoria in 1819.
regards,
Michelle
michell...@life.friendsfirst.ie
John Steele Gordon
> As regards the Hanoverian Dukes of York who died childless, remember that
> Hanoverian younger sons showed an alarming tendency either to remain bachelors
> or to contract morganatic marriages the issue of which were barred from the
> succession.
There is no such thing as a morganatic marriage in English law.
Morganatic marriage is essentially a German notion. The Royal Marriage
Act of 1772, however, required descendants of George II to obtain the
permission of the Sovereign to marry. Any marriage contracted without
seeking that permission is no marriage in the eyes of the law, and
therefore any children of such a marriage are illegitimate. That is why
they are barred from the throne, not because of the social status of the
spouse. (If the descendant is over 25 and the sovereign refuses
permission, he or she can give 12-month's notice of intent to marry and
then, unless Parliament disapproves, can lawfully marry. As far as I
know, that has never happened.)
You'll recall the "race" between the younger sons of George III to
> beget an heir when it became clear that William IV was going to die childless,
> and the crown was "up for grabs". Edward Duke of Kent won, with the birth of
> his daughter Victoria in 1819.
You have this quite thorughly uddled, I'm afraid. When Princess
Charlotte, the only legitmate offspring of the future George IV died in
childbirth in 1817, George III, despite his vast brood of children, had
no legitimate heir in the second generation. George, the Prince Regent,
was married to Caroline of Brunswick, but couldn't stand the sight of
her and possibly couldn't have fathered a child at that point anyway.
The younger sons, including the Duke of Clarence--the future William
IV--and Edward, Duke of Kent, were more or less ordered to do their duty
and beget some legitimate heirs, despite their longtime liaisons with
women they weren't legally married to. The Duke of Clarence married
Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen. Although Victoria was the first legitimate
potential heir to the throne to be born after Princess Charlotte's
death, William and Adelaide later had two daughters, who superceded
Victoria (so much for the "race between the younger sons") as heirs to
the throne. Both these daughters died in infancy, however, so when
William IV died in 1837, Victoria was heir presumptive.
John Steele Gordon
John Carmi Parsons
On Thu, 27 May 1999, John Steele Gordon wrote:
>> Michelle.Murphy%EIH...@ccmail.team400.ie wrote:
>> As regards the Hanoverian Dukes of York who died childless, remember that
>> Hanoverian younger sons showed an alarming tendency either to remain bachelors
>> or to contract morganatic marriages the issue of which were barred from the
>> succession.
> There is no such thing as a morganatic marriage in English law.
> Morganatic marriage is essentially a German notion. The Royal Marriage
> Act of 1772, however, required descendants of George II to obtain the
> permission of the Sovereign to marry. Any marriage contracted without
> seeking that permission is no marriage in the eyes of the law, and
> therefore any children of such a marriage are illegitimate. That is why
> they are barred from the throne, not because of the social status of the
> spouse. (If the descendant is over 25 and the sovereign refuses
> permission, he or she can give 12-month's notice of intent to marry and
> then, unless Parliament disapproves, can lawfully marry. As far as I
> know, that has never happened.)
John is entirely correct in that morganatic marriages do not exist in English
law. It is, however, true that some Hanoverian princes entered into marriages
with English commoners that were never made public. The best-known case
involved George III's younger son Augustus, duke of Sussex, who married the
daughters of two Scottish earls. Under the 1772 Act, the first of these
marriages was entirely invalid and the two children the couple produced
were thus illegitimate. They used the surname "D'Este," and their mother
was eventually created Countess d'Ameland (a Hanoverian title) by George
III. Prince Augustus' second marriage presents us with some problems
because it is virtually certain and Queen Victoria knew and approved of
it, but that at the couple's wish, she never gave official consent, so the
lady (a daughter of the earl of Arran, I think) never became a Royal
Highness nor a recognized member of the royal family. Victoria created
her a duchess in her own right (Inverness), something it is virtually
certain that particular queen would never have done had the couple not
been lawfully married. This appears to be the closest thing to a true
morganatic marriage the English royal family ever produced, unless you
count the duchess of Windsor.
BTW, the Royal Marriages Act itself is virtually a dead letter today
because those who drafted it forgot to anticipate the consequences of the
inbreeding that was then a commonplace of royal life. As it stands, the
Act applies to all living descendants of George II who are NOT descended
from British princesses married into foreign families. All living royalty
descends from Queen Victoria, all of whose daughters except one married
into foreign families (and the one daughter who married a British peer was
childless). Likewise, two of Victoria's four sons married princesses who
were George II's descendants through British princesses; of the other two,
one left only female offspring, all of whom married into foreign houses.
Thus only the issue of Victoria's 3rd son the duke of Connaught (1850-1942)
was left within the purview of the Act. The issue of Connaught's only son
became extinct in 1943 (but as that son had married a granddaughter of
Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark, his issue would be exempt had it
survived). Of Connaught's two daughters, Princess Margaret married the
Crown Prince of Sweden, another foreign family. The younger daughter
Princess Patricia married a Scot, a younger son of the earl of Dalhousie,
and it is only their descendants (barely more than a dozen living today)
who must strictly speaking apply to the Sovereign for permission to marry.
Thus reports that Prince Ernest Augustus of Hanover sought the queen's
permission to marry Princess Caroline of Monaco are either erroneous or
evidence of Ernest's wish to demonstrate his own limited importance in the
scheme of things. As a descendant of Victoria's eldest daughter and the
Crown Prince of Prussia, he has no earthly need to seek such permission.
Others far closer to the royal family than he--e.g., the Mountbattens of
Milford Haven and of Burma--have not bothered to do so. It would in any
event have been a ridiculous situation to begin with since, by marrying a
Roman Catholic, Ernest automatically lost whatever extremely remote place
he had in the British line of succession.
Both Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary brought exemption to their descendants
(in fact several times over, though once in law would suffice). Indeed,
Elizabeth II arguably did so again since, when still indubitably a princess,
she married a man whose family is indisputably foreign (Philip had been
naturalized a British subject, but as the Act stands it is not the individual's
nationality that matters, but rather the family's, and there's no way von
Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderborg-Glucksberg-Beck is British.)
John Parsons